I know this topic has come up before.  Many of us Quetico trippers have a desire for a lightweight but cheap firegrate that will actually hold up for cooking steaks, fish, etc.  I wouldn't try to put a heavy pot on this setup, but it certainly works well for grilling or small pots.

All you need is a disposable aluminum fish-cooking grate which you can purchase from many grocery stores in the late spring/summer and some solid aluminum dowel rod, available at any decent Menards/Home Depot/Lowes/etc.

Buy the cooking grate first so you can make sure what size the holes on it are.  Mine were 1/4".  Then go buy the appropriate size of aluminum rod.  A 3' length is plenty.  Using a hacksaw, cut your rod into sections the same length as your grate.

Assemble in camp as shown below.

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That's all there is to it.  Costs less than $5 and easily lasts a full trip.  The aluminum rods last forever, or close to it, I'd guess.  The grates run about $1 each, so once you make your "major" investment in the rods, you are good to go on each trip for the price of a new disposable grate.  This year I'm going to buy several grates just to have them handy.