Icons + Artifacts: Coleman Gas Lantern

There’s a comforting ritual to lighting a Coleman gas lantern. First you thumb open the coin-sized plunger and give it a good ten quick pumps, pressurizing the fuel. Next you strike a match and slip it through a small hole exposing the mantles. The mantles (made of rayon soaked in yttrium, a rare-earth element) ignite with a soft _thwump_ and begin to glow like two tiny suns. Finally, you lower the flame to your preferred brightness, hear the familiar hiss of pressurized gas, sit back, and bask in the same warm glow fellow campers have enjoyed for over a century. Sure, you could flick on a plastic, battery-powered lamp, but where’s the romance in that?

If you’re over the age of oh, say, thirty, it’s a good bet you’ve camped at a site illuminated by a Coleman. Maybe one is still part of your camp kit. The classic Coleman lantern is a through-line connecting campers across the decades, from the early twentieth century