Self-Reliance

Life in our modern times definitely has its perks. It has its conveniences. It has its own brand of skills sets that acclimate and accommodate us to the trends and technology that give this age its character.

This is, like it or not, the computer age.

Even the phone that I carry. Smart. Checks my email. Calls up the weather. GPS and road maps. Internet. Applications of all sorts that can be downloaded and accessed at the touch of the screen. Camera and video recorder. A portable phone that is a whole lot more than a phone. I have grown accustomed to it. I use it a lot. I hate to say it but I have, in some ways, become dependent upon the smart technology it provides.

Modernity and all its smart technology? I like it and I do not like it … all in the same breath.

I admit it. I am inclined toward being a dinosaur when it comes to all this modern technology but I am forced by the times to keep up the pace though I am, more often than not, out of breath and trotting behind trying to stay in sight of the tail end of the pack that is running wildly ahead.

My preference is for simpler … a lot simpler … a lot less fraught … where life can be enjoyed at a slower pace … where simple self-reliant woodcraft skills trump all the smarts offered in the gadgets and gizmos that govern modern life.

I think this personal preference is one of the things that draws me to folk like Nessmuk, Kephart, and that vast host of woodsy pilgrims and pioneers. Some of them left behind written legacies. Most, though, are unsung heroes whose lives were never chronicled in pictures and on written pages … the forgotten ones … like many of my ancestors being discovered through Shirli’s genealogical research. Those were some courageous souls. Knowing the recorded history of those early Colonial times it is quite easy to surmise the physical challenges they faced and the will they lived with to overcome those challenges.

It is not difficult to show folk basic woodcraft skills … those four areas that cover fire, water, shelter, and food … areas that may indeed utilize some modern materials in our kits … areas though that do not depend upon the technology designed into smart phones and other computerized gadgetry. It takes only a little time, a few days, to walk a group into a wilderness setting where putting these skills to work is a short-term necessity. That experience is a step in the right direction. It is, however, merely a step, especially where the food item is concerned. Staying fed in a long-term situation is a full-time job.

Self-reliance is developed.

I think we are born with it in our nature. I also think our self-reliant nature is something that is discouraged by this modern culture that promotes pack sameness and something that is discouraged and dumbed down early in life. That element in our nature has to be individually rediscovered and positively developed.

Sure the skills can be taught to those willing to invest the time and effort in learning them. But becoming self-reliant is something that is developed over time. Self-reliance involves a skills set. It is, however, more than a set of skills. It is a concrete mindset. It is a developed lifestyle that folk rediscover and grow into. It is something that sets us apart from the rest of the pack.

Skills? I can teach them.

Mindset and lifestyle? No. I cannot teach these.

I can only show them.

Record Keeping and Upcoming Trapping Camp

Record keeping.

I have for a lot of years kept a small notebook and writing instrument in my shirt pocket. It is handy to have for jotting notes and numbers from time to time. I prefer one with a sewn binding. The little spiral wire bound ones do not hold up and tend to lose pages. Waterproof versions are available though they cost a good bit more.

Sure. That little notebook in my pocket is old school. Smart technology has fairly well replaced it. Smart technology is great but it has a way of letting you down deep in the woods when the battery runs out of juice.

A small notebook and something to scribble with, in my mind anyway, should be part of our kit … whether it is carried in a shirt pocket or in a pack. Mental notes have a tendency, even on a good day, to get lost in the barrage of mental notes that pile up. On a bad day … in unfamiliar territory … when health and safety depend on remembering a particular rock or tree or bush … it is wise to have some things mapped on paper.

One of the things that I mentioned to the guys on our early winter adventure on the Conecuh trail was the importance of journaling … keeping a written record of their experiences that they can look back on as a means to chart their progress and personal growth. Having a designated woodcraft journal also provides a place to jot down questions that arise and answers to those questions that are discovered by either asking someone or taking the time to research a discovery.

I also mentioned to the guys that I would be providing them with some questions to answer as a starting point in their journals. Write the question. Think about the question. Answer the question.

These are questions that I will be asking again around our evening fire at our trapping camp that is coming up.

1.    What was the most enjoyable thing you experienced in your wilderness experience on the Conecuh Trail?

2.    Why was it the most enjoyable?

3.    What was the most difficult thing about your wilderness experience?

4.    Why was it the most difficult?

5.    What can you do between now and the Late Winter Camp to be more prepared?

Our trapping camp is scheduled for January 3-4 provided winter rains do not flood the bottoms making it impossible to hike in.

Kits are definitely required. Dress appropriately for the weather conditions.

Individual students will be responsible for building their own cook fires and preparing their own supper and breakfast.

We will hike in from Jude’s.

Schedule:

Saturday

Hike in promptly at 12:00

Establish an overnight camp

Set traps

Cook fires and supper prep

Evening campfire and group discussion

Sunday

Breakfast fires and breakfast

Run the traps

Deal with the catch

Pack and hike out

Boots On The Trail - Early Winter Camp

There is a world of difference between hearing about something, reading something, watching something, rehearsing something and physically getting out there doing something where everything you have heard, read, watched and rehearsed must be reliably put into practice.

Advance preparation is always a critical ingredient for any endeavor worth adventuring into. This is especially true when it comes to walking off into wild natural places where the conveniences, comforts, and controls of home are left behind.

Our trip this past weekend, one involving a slightly challenging hike in, was an opportunity for the guys to put into practice the hearing, reading, watching and rehearsing they have been doing over the course of these past months of classes and exercises. It was much more than that though. It was an immersion … a baptism of sorts … into an environment that was completely different from any they were familiar with … one that moved not according to our dictates but rather according to its own design where our abilities to manipulate conditions are totally ineffective.

I did not measure the distance on the map. It was, I am guessing, between two and three miles from where we parked to where we set camp. I had no set schedule. No set teaching program in my pocket. The lack thereof was not neglect or oversight on my part. It was intentional.

I was not interested in putting together a highly regimented weekend for the group that kept them jumping through hoops to satisfy my own leadership expectations and stroke my ego. I was more interested in this long weekend being a major disruption of their normal regimented life-routine, something that would be replete with its own lessons.

We were not in a hurry. Well, we did kind of hurry to get under our shelters when that rain came through Saturday afternoon. The rain did not last long. Just long enough to get things nice and wet to add a touch of challenge to things. But that is one aspect of being out there where we do not have a control panel. The only real time factor that I paid any mind to was making sure the supper cooking was done and water containers were full of processed water before dark.

Despite the lack of a syllabus or regimentation there were numerous opportunities for impromptu sessions and critiques. There was time for the guys to hike the mile to the pond and fish. There was time for me to slip off to squirrel hunt and explore. It is a good thing we carried rations with us.

Sure. There is a need for guidance and structured teaching. The established basics are fairly well set in stone. I think though that Montessori was onto something important and that, where learning these skills and developing proficiency and confidence in wilderness settings is concerned, more of the Montessori System that develops personal initiative is appropriate not only for children but also for adults. Not only where woodcraft skills are concerned but for all of life.

There is a lot that can be taught. There is a lot though that has to be caught through personal experience and those aha moments that arise on their own through personal experience where personal experience becomes the greatest and most gifted teacher. It is not what is taught and parroted back that is the best measure of growth and development. No. It is what is caught that truly grows and matures a person … whether they are ten or fifty years old.

It was, and is, my hope that some catching took place over the course of the long weekend. I did a little catching myself. I also had the opportunity to do a lot of observation and make some mental notes where this group is concerned … mental notes about some things that I am familiar with and take in stride as givens in wilderness settings that the unbaptized are not familiar with.

One of these has to do with the way our senses, especially our sense of hearing, seem to suddenly come alive when we bed down out there on the ground deep in the woods far away from our familiar security blankets. We hear every sound and the sounds we hear are not the sounds we tune out at home because of our familiarity with them.

Those physical senses … sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing … are ours for significant reasons. We are not, at least on this continent, far from the top of the food chain. Our hunter/gatherer ancestors in a more primitive world depended on their senses much more keenly than we do in the modern world we live in. When we take ourselves out of the modern world picture and place ourselves in a more primitive environment those senses instinctively begin kicking in.

The guys did good. They did really good and I am proud of them. I have to admit though that they had a worn and weary look when they crawled out of their shelters Monday morning. It had been an adventure but they were about adventured out and ready to pack it in.

There was a side of me that did not want to roll up. I took my time, swallowed a 600 calorie breakfast of cereal/fruit bars for a blast of energy, finished that second canteen cup of instant coffee, loaded my pack, and hiked out with them. Had I stayed behind it would have been a long walk home. 

Packing For The Early Winter Trek

We are a few short weeks away from our Early Winter Trek that will take place December 5 – 8 on the Conecuh Trail in the Conecuh National Forest.

One of the objectives of this trek is for our students to have a multiple day-night experience in a wilderness setting where putting their learned skills to work will be a necessity. Part of putting these skills to work involves the mental gear shifting that occurs over a lengthened period of time in a wilderness setting … something that does not happen in a series of three hour classes or an overnight camp in a park setting.

Other than procuring and processing water … we will not be relying on the wilderness to provide all of our necessary food items. That would be an exercise this class is not ready for. We may indeed supplement our packable food items with small game and fish as part of the experience but we will not be relying on them as our sole sustenance.

So here are some easy to prepare suggestions for packable food items for the trek.

Morning

Packets of instant grits

Breakfast bars

Powdered breakfast beverage

Mid-Day

Trail mix

Jerky

Dried fruit

Cup-of-Soup

Evening

Ramen

Dehydrated mix for soup

Bannock mix

Packets of hot-chocolate mix 

The pre-packaged Mountain House meals we have tried are quick and easy to prepare. Simply boil water, add the measured amount of water to the package, seal the package, and wait ten minutes.

I suggest that each day of measured rations be packaged separately in zip lock bags. The zip locks make the rations waterproof. Separate daily packaging also makes daily supplies of rations easy to dispense and account for to avoid borrowing from tomorrow to eat more today.

There is definitely a practical lesson in personal dietary discipline involved in this multiple day-night exercise.

One of the easiest ways to up your daily calorie intake is to pack along a few candy bars. One regular size Snickers contains 250 calories and occupies very little room in a food packet.

Hygiene and First-Aid

Be sure your kit contains hygiene and first aid items. Keep it simple … toilet paper, toothbrush, a few Band-Aids, a few Tylenol.

Clothing

Be prepared for come what may.

Layer your clothing and wear clothing designed to retain body heat.

A good winter weight coat may not be necessary during the day when the sun is out but once the sun goes down, or if the skies cloud up and it is rainy, a winter weight coat is a good thing to have. It can easily be rolled and tied to the outside of a pack to save room within.

Adequate headgear is important. Include a stocking cap to wear as part of your sleeping gear.

Be sure to pack a complete change of clothes in a dry bag in your kit.

Although not as critical in warm weather, in cooler weather a poncho of some type is important to keep dry and to protect your core temperature if it rains.

Wear some blaze orange … at least a hat.

This is not a legal requirement but one suggested by the Wildlife Authorities that oversee the area of the forest we will be in. It is a solid safety practice. I do not anticipate anyone getting lost. However, if the need arises, the extra visibility is a real plus in locating someone.

NOTE –

Now is the time to inventory and inspect your kits.

You have been using your kits in class settings over this while. Check them over. Make sure all of your essential kit items are in good working order. Now is the time to make repairs or upgrade kit items.

Staying Fed

There are quite a number of variables to take into consideration in a wilderness setting. A good many of these can be somewhat duplicated in a backyard, developed site setting, or patch of woods close to home.

Somewhat. But not totally.

We find ourselves in a very different world when we leave development behind and wander off into the wilderness with a few modern material-goods on our backs. Even if it is only a half-day or a good-day hike back to some means of getting back to the settlements.

Wilderness is wild.

Wild is completely foreign to the vast majority of folks these days.

That wildness is something that once called to a lot of people. A good many answered its calling and off they went exploring, pioneering, hunting and running trap lines, hewing out little clearings, using the natural material to construct shelters, making clothing and other usable materials from animal hides, and living out their days and years respecting and cooperating with the wild. Those earlier than our times folks had developed skills-sets that made it possible for them to leave settlements behind and live well in the wilderness for extended periods of time.

Times have changed a lot with the progress of modernity. Are we better off or worse off? I say we are both. Our gain contributes to our loss. One of our challenges in these modern times is to rediscover and recover what we have lost in all this progress. We are, at least we can be, as much explorers and pioneers in our times as they were in those earlier times. If we want to be and if we will only accept the challenge.

Going bare bones … going primitive … at least going primitive in a modern-primitive sort of way … involves a major psychological adjustment for folks accustomed to their cravings for electronic entertainments and the comforts and conveniences that comprise life in these modern times. Not many are willing to trade their gizmos and gadgets for the scree of a hawk, the chatter of a squirrel, the breeze blowing through the trees, falling leaves, the sound of a chiseling woodpecker beak, and the myriad of other sights, sounds, and smells that fill natural environments.

Whether out for a day hike, off on an overnight camp, doing a long extended woods trek, or discovering yourself in a dire long-term survival situation … there are some rules that always apply.

Rules of Three

Three minutes without air.

Three hours without shelter.

Three days without water.

Three weeks without food.

Beware of small air-tight spaces.

Making fire, if you have the tools needed to generate the combustion of some fine tinder material, is not all that difficult. It can be, given marginal or adverse conditions, a bit of a challenge. But it is still doable.

Shelter shades us from the sun, breaks the chilling effects of the wind, turns water from the sky, and offers protection from the dew that forms at night.

Without adequate hydration we are toast.

Fire, Shelter, Water, Food

We come now to this business of staying adequately fed and there is a lot more to this item on our list of actual needs than can be dealt with in a brief article on the subject. So what follows is not an exhaustive summary and does not take into consideration the plethora of packables that we can purchase ready made or manufacture in our kitchens.

A planned outing always takes food into consideration. It is easy to accommodate this need when you have the space to pack a cooler and room for a few shopping bags of goods picked up on the way. It gets a little sticky when your means of conveyance becomes your feet and legs and that pack on your back. Weight and space become a major issue … not nearly as big a one for a weekend as it is for longer treks or long-term survival in wilderness settings.

Wild Edibles

I mention wild edibles because they are a resource that surrounds us.

No. I do not consider myself an “authority” on the subject of wild edibles. What I have done though is educate myself regarding what is local to our area. Some of it grows in other areas. Some of it does not. Other climates have offerings that are not available in ours. The fact of the matter is that there is nutritious wild food growing around us wherever we are … food that could be essential in sustaining our lives … food that can, at the least, be foraged as a supplement to what we are carrying.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are plants that will make you violently ILL if ingested. There are plants that will KILL you if ingested. Some plants require particular types of processing to render them edible. Do your homework before you eat a wild plant. You are the one that is liable for your health when you swallow it.

Eating a “weed” is a little scary at first. Even with a good field guide with color pictures. It is just not something we are accustomed to doing. Once you have positively identified a wild edible and tasted it a few times you find yourself doing quite a bit of grazing even when grazing is not necessary.

Part of the challenge is learning to identify and utilize wild edibles. Another part of the challenge is to adjust to the seasonal nature of things, just like that garden of raised beds that we tend. Things in the wild are seasonal also. As seasons change so do the available resources.

Regardless of the climate region one lives in, a mental page of a selection of wild edibles ought to be embedded in a memory bank.

Hunting

Hunting has always been a way of life for me. Not so much in the way it has been commercialized and marketed in the magazines and mega sporting goods stores where it has become big business. Mine is more along the lines of subsistence hunting … procuring meat for the table whether it is small game or deer.

By the time I was ten years old I was already a skilled small game hunter going solo into the woods and fields armed with an old single shot .22 and some “shorts” or a .410 shotgun. I had access to those guns 24/7. They were never locked away in a safe or rendered useless by trigger locks. I had been taught to use them for their designed purpose, used them regularly to that end, and often casually wandered miles from home with gun in hand … exploring … just to see what I could see.

Hunting small game is still my favorite type of hunting. Maybe because it hearkens me back to my childhood days when life was a lot simpler, back when a mile or two away from home seemed like a long way.

Ten? That was over fifty years ago. Times have changed a lot in five decades. A ten year old kid wandering miles from home these days with a gun in his/her hand is apt to be picked up by the police and their parents charged as criminals.

Small game is the most practical game to procure on a trek where hunting is allowed. Small game is also the easiest and most practical game to pursue in what is termed a “survival” situation. There are several reasons that I consider practical requirements here.

It is abundant.

It is easy to kill.

It is easy to process.

It provides a compact serving size.

A large game sized animal such as a deer … though it provides a generous amount of meat and a good hide that can be utilized … does not readily meet these practical requirements. There is a lot more meat to a deer, even to a smaller deer that bones out 20 pounds of good meat. Keeping that extra meat “good” in a wilderness setting and turning that hide into something useful involves more sets of important skills.

Fishing

A few assorted small hooks. Some line. Maybe a few split shot weights and a bobber. These take up very little space and add very little weight to a pack.

Our woodland environment is full of bait. A little digging around deadfalls and under dead bark will yield grubs and earthworms. During warm weather there are plenty of crickets and grasshoppers to be caught.

Walking into our outdoor class site yesterday I noticed a bird feather on the ground. Blue Jay. Something as simple as a bit of bird feather tied to a hook turns the hook into a fly that will catch fish.

A hook baited with some innards from a squirrel or rabbit and tossed out overnight may very well have a catfish or freshwater eel on it before morning.

Trapping

We had a few old rusty single spring traps on the farm when I was kid. I played around with them a little but was never successful as a child-trapper and lost interested in them.

I must have been in my late 30’s or early 40’s when an old man in the shipyard where I was working offered me a piece of coon that he had cooked. One bite and I knew that some traps would soon be on their way to my house.

Traps involve a small investment. The nice thing about them is that once you have them you have them and you can use them over and over. A little care and maintenance and traps will last long enough to pass on to the next generation coming along on our heels … if some of them will only take an interest. Otherwise the little pile of steel is apt be hauled off as scrap iron and that would be a real pity.

There are basically two types of steel traps … foot hold traps and kill traps. Both types come in various sizes depending upon the target animal being trapped. One smart invention to come along in the evolution of traps is the dog proof coon trap. DP’s are good news for free ranging domestic dogs that their owners ought to be keeping home.

I recently added a half dozen DP’s to my trap collection and look forward to setting a few just as soon as it is legal season.

The weight and bulk of steel traps, with the exception of the small single-spring 110 Conibear style kill-trap, make them impractical to include in a kit.

Every kit should already contain the items necessary to construct snares … CORDAGE. Along with cordage in my kit I also carry a dozen or so 18” fishing leaders that make excellent small snares when attached to a length of #36 tarred bank line. The leaders roll and pack easily in a snuff can.

Two things about snares … . 

They are effective and, in most cases and places, they are not a legal means to harvest game. 

If you discover yourself in a survival situation you do what you have to do in order to stay fed! Legal or not. In one of those situations I would rather come through it fed and healthy and maybe find myself paying a little dividend to the State for my legal transgression than for my loved ones to discover themselves making arrangements with the Undertaker.

Practice is the rule.

Every skill requires practice.

Practice requires a commitment of time.

This rule applies to trapping as well as it does to fire-making and every other skill.

Every skill category involves learning and understanding its component aspects. Learning and understanding these aspects demands paying attention to details if success is to be an expected outcome. Neglecting what may appear as a small detail is a sure way to failure. Failure to succeed in a dire situation is not something anyone can afford.

Shelter

I do not know how many tents I have owned and used over the years. Quite a few of them. Even now there are four tents in our pile of gear that we employ in our assorted outdoor doings. A couple of modern tents, a canvas wall tent, and a small canvas A-frame.

Tents have some good things going for them, especially the modern ones with the sewn in floors and screened windows. Warm weather insects and crawling creatures have a difficult time getting inside to bother you. They do also afford you some indoor privacy when camping in developed sites where other people are around.

They also have some not so good things about them that make them impractical to carry on our backs when our two feet and legs become our mode of transportation … their size and weight being two primary issues … and that pack on our back is our home away from home.

The Big Four

Fire, Water, Shelter, Food

When it comes to shelter it just does not get any simpler than a tarp. One of the beautiful things about a tarp is that their simplicity lends itself to a lot of set-up versatility.

A sewn tent, regardless of its style, is designed to be set up one way. If any of the parts are broken or lost there is a serious problem when it comes time to set up camp. A very close at hand example of this came last weekend on our overnight outing.

We took along our large dome tent for Shirli and our little pooch. I felt no need to check it out before we loaded it. We had used it in the spring and everything was intact and in good usable condition when it was taken down and packed.

So we get to our destination and begin setting up. I unrolled the tent and got it into position. All was well. I pulled out the flex-corded poles and discovered that the shock cords on both sets had decided between spring and fall to literally fall apart.

That roll of gorilla tape in my kit had to be employed to hold the pole sections together and save the day. It took a little time to tape all those sections together. It took longer to tape the two sets of poles together than it did to construct my tarp shelter and lay out my bedroll. Had time been an urgent matter it would not have been a good situation.

About the worst thing that can go wrong with a tarp is to have a grommet tear out. But that is a simple problem to remedy.

Unpacking, setting up, taking down, and repacking a tent, even a small one, can be something of a chore that takes a generous amount of time. Even on a good day. A wet tent is just short of a nightmare.

There are times when available time is a crucial matter. Maybe daylight is growing short and you need to get a camp set. Maybe a fast moving weather front is approaching and you need to get yourself and your gear under shelter before the bottom falls out.

With a tarp you can be set up, hunkered down under shelter, and ready for a storm in five minutes. Or, in better weather, that few minutes of constructing shelter allows more time to gather firewood for the night, prepare your evening meal, boil water for drinking, and enjoy that mystical transitional time when the day critters go silent and the night critters begin their chorus.

Poly vs. Canvas

There is an awful lot of commotion and debate going on in the woodcraft-bushcraft-survival circle about this and what I offer here is simply my two copper cents worth on the issue.

I think the debate is a bunch of guff unless what you are attempting to achieve is a good authentic looking replica of a kit carried by a frontiersman prior to or during the Longhunter Era. If that is the case then there is no room in a kit for paracord, ferro rods, Bic Lighters, Pardner 12 Gauge shotguns fitted for using Black Powder, titanium or stainless bush pots, modern material clothing, and quite a lot of other modern imaginations.

What I see too often in this debate is what I call bushcraft bravado … that my kit is better than your kit because I have this, that or the other ego stroking thing.

Personally, I do not have any interest in adding the extra pounds of an oilcloth tarp to my kit.

Besides, for the cost of a good oilcloth, the average person can put together a good usable kit that will get them started and serve them well for quite a long time. A rain fly from a defunct tent makes a good usable shelter. That is what I am using in the picture at the top of the page. I picked up this one and a blue one at the Coleman Store for $3.00 each.

A good quality poly-tarp serves me well and I do have a preference for woodland camouflage. It blends well in a woodland environment. We paid a little more for the ones we ordered and have in our personal kits. You will not find them at Walmart or any of the discount stores.

Debris Huts

I place debris huts in the same category as friction fire. Knowing how to build one is something good to know and something that does not require a degree in drafting or building construction.

If we have a means to construct shelter in our kit then there is no need to invest the energy and time to build a debris hut unless we discover ourselves in an unexpected long-term situation with winter coming on and need the extra insulation against the cold.

Another thing to consider is that, unless you own the property or have the owners permission where you will be cutting living saplings to use in constructing a debris hut, you had better not do it. National Forests, State Forests, and State Parks have usage stipulations that need to be adhered to. Step outside those stipulations and you might very well find yourself paying a hefty fine and discover yourself banned from future access.

Introduction to Traps and Trapping Class Information

Our trip to Little River State Park was truly a great experience. I really enjoyed being there and having the company of such a great bunch of folks for the weekend.

Here is a little heads-up regarding our Introduction to Traps and Trapping class coming up Saturday, November 1^st.

Be at Jude’s ready to begin the hike in at promptly 0900. We will endeavor to wrap up at 1200 but due to the content of this class we may go a little past.

As this exercise will take place in a woodland environment PROPER DRESS is important. Wear appropriate clothing: long pants and long sleeves, sturdy shoes and socks, headgear. No sandals, flops, or open toes permitted.

Bug Dope – You may want to wear a little something. Thanks to the drier and cooler weather the mosquitoes are not real bad but there are still enough around to be aggravating.

Kits – Bring them. You will be utilizing your kit items. Also bring a full canteen of water. I will have some additional potable water at the class site.

Part of this exercise involves conditioning to pack weight. THIS IS IMPORTANT. I strongly recommend that everyone begin working on a regular program of conditioning NOW in preparation for our upcoming Early Winter Trek the first weekend in December. What you do in the way of conditioning between now and then will pay a huge reward.

I will have an assortment of traps with me. I will also demonstrate how to construct and utilize snares for survival trapping from items that are normally carried in our kits.

Fire and Food Prep – As part of this exercise we will also be working on constructing our fire lays, using either ferro rod or primitive flint and steel to generate fire, and cooking lunch in our bush pots.

I will NOT have a heavy cast iron Dutch oven in my kit. This is a YOU BRING IT YOU COOK IT on YOUR FIRE meal as a practice run for our early winter trek. Ramen is light to pack and easy to cook. So are items like instant grits and oatmeal. 

Hydration

Water.

H2O.

We do not think much about it though we depend on it and use it every day.

We have grown accustomed to the convenience provided by wells, reservoirs, pipes, and faucets. About the only time we give it much thought and realize our dependence on it is when a municipal water main breaks or the well goes down disrupting its flow out our faucets. We discover ourselves then suddenly plunged into a little momentary crisis with our familiar routines blasted all to heck. Those momentary crises are fortunately short lived and rarely become more than minor inconveniences.

Most of our body weight is water. On a normal day a normal adult should drink a gallon of water to replenish their normal water loss through perspiration and to carry on healthy body functions. We perspire less in the winter, depending on what we are doing, but our other bodily functions do not take a break when the mercury drops out of the hot zone. Hydration is as important in cold weather as it is in hot weather.

Where the issue of water and hydration is concerned, John “Lofty” Wiseman, in his SAS Survival Handbook, says this …

Without water you will last about 2.5 days at 48 degrees C (120 degrees F) if you spend the whole time resting in the shade, though you could last as long as 12 days if the temperature stays below 21 decrees C (70 degrees F).

That quote is a serious dose of perspective. At least it should be. Whether we are planning a trek on a trail or preparing for some sort of potential disaster that disrupts or destroys the normal services we are accustomed to.

Water.

It is one of the Big Four.

Fire, Water, Shelter, Food.

We cannot live without it. The effects of dehydration, before we are depleted to the point that physical life is no longer sustainable, set in making it extremely difficult to reason and do what functionally needs to be done to tend to ourselves and our physical needs.

Water weighs in at 8.3 pounds per gallon. That weight makes it impractical to transport all we need with us for a weekend (or longer) trek.  

Securing water in this geographic region, where sixty to seventy inches of rain annually is normal, is not a difficult proposition. We are surrounded by water.

Some care needs to be taken with it though. Especially in our immediate area where crops and golf courses are regularly and abundantly sprayed with chemicals that find their way into the watersheds when it rains. People need to know the lay of the land, how water flows, and where it goes. Some pesticides and herbicides are also known to leech into the shallow ground water that can be accessed. Removing those contaminants from collected water involves a lot more than we can carry in our kits.

Chemical contaminants are not a worry once you move into the more genuine woodland environments a short drive away. The concerns with collected water in a woodland environment are easily taken care of by either boiling or filtering.

I am not a fan of the little tablets that you drop into your canteen to kill the little boogers that will turn your world on its head.

A number of reasons.

The first is they have a definite shelf life and after they have reached it they are no longer effective. The second is that in a long-term situation that little bottle of tablets is going to soon run out. Either of these, expiration or empty, puts us right back to boiling or filtering as a means to make water potable.

A third reason is that there are some water borne concerns that the tablets, at least those that are readily available to most folks at the grab-it-and-fly stores, do not take care of.

FILTERING

There are a number of filtering options available on the market ranging from a few bucks to quite a few bucks.

Sawyer makes what they call the Life Straw.

This is the filtering option that I carry in my kit. It sells for around $20.00 and is a smart option to add to a kit. There are no mechanical parts to break and the water filtering tool is supposed to be good for something like 1,000 liters of water if properly used. That is a lot of water stops while on the move along a trail. Using a filtering option for sipping on the move allows us to conserve the contents of our canteen.

You simply stick it into a stream, creek, puddle, or collected container of water and use it like a straw to suck up a drink of filtered water.  Once you have quenched your thirst you blow back through the straw to clean the filter end of any debris that may have collected on it.

Keep in mind though, if you collect water in a container and use the straw to drink from the container, the container needs to be treated with care and not used for any other purpose until it has been sterilized to avoid contracting a bad bug. Metal containers can be easily heat treated over a fire to destroy any water borne illness causing boogers.

BOILING

One of the things we have to wrap our minds around when we walk away from our conveniences and into a woodland-wilderness environment is that every item associated with our life and health is our sole responsibility.

Our minds may indeed entertain a myriad of thoughts on a vast range of subjects. Getting away from all that we are familiar with as the “norm” and deep into a woodland environment for an extended period where our real life-needs become focused has a way of causing us to mentally consider, weigh, and sort things.

One of the things that I try to instill in people is to always be thinking ahead to that next fire and to that next drink of water. Have on you and with you the necessary items to accomplish these tasks.

Boiling water and filling containers with safe drinking water becomes part of our daily woodland-wilderness routine … morning and evening on the breakfast and supper fires. It is also something that necessity may fling upon us during other parts of the day.

So how long do you boil water to make it safe?

I have read several time recommendations from several sources. The two extreme ends of the discussion are … as soon as it begins to boil the heat has destroyed any living hazard … the other end says 15 minutes to make it safe. What I am personally comfortable with is closer to the left side of the discussion.

Both the Washington State Department of Health and the United States Environmental Protection Agency recommend bringing water to a rolling boil and hold it there for 1 minute.

I am personally comfortable with 1 to 5 minutes.

Do you strain out debris from collected water before or after it is boiled?

Think about it.

Anything that comes into contact with questionable water before it is sterilized should also be considered suspect. Why contaminate an otherwise usable bandana or sleeve from your T-Shirt using it to strain grit or vegetative debris from water before you boil it?

The collected water, along with the metal container it was collected in, having sat over a fire long enough to bring it to a rolling boil for 1 to 5 minutes, is sterilized. Wait until after the sterilizing process to bring anything into contact with it.

Making Fire

We depend on it, or its similar generated effects, on a daily basis. So much so that our familiarity with it has dumbed us down to its importance … until the power goes out and our modern heat generators fail to work at the twist of a knob or flip of a switch.

Fire is far more than a convenience or comfort item. It is, in a very real way, a matter of life or death for us.

Fire ...

      Warms us when we are cold.

      Cooks our food.

      Boils water to make it safe to drink.

      Provides light so we can see.

      Deters wildlife from prowling our camp.

      Lends us a sense of comfort and well-being.

      Smoke from a fire deters insects.

      Can be used as a rescue signal.

This is not a complete list of what fire does for us. It is, however, a pretty good start to the list of its performances. At least where woodcraft is concerned.

Otzi lived over 5,000 years ago. His body was found in 1991 in the Italian Alps. His cause of death was an arrow in his back that severed an artery. He carried a few tools with him. These were also discovered with his remains. Among his earthly trail possessions were found ...

      Some tinder fungus.

      A flint flake.

      Some iron pyrite.

Iron pyrite, when struck with a piece of flint, showers sparks on the tinder fungus which begins to smolder. Added to a tinder bundle the smoldering ember is blown into a flame. FIRE is produced.

That is about as primitive as it gets. And produced with natural materials found in his immediate surroundings. Pretty ingenious if you ask me. It makes me wonder who taught Otzi and who taught that teacher.

I have yet to discover a fungus in our area that makes good tinder fungus. What we have here simply does not work for me. Not only have I not been able to get it to catch a spark and smolder, it is also infested with fungus beetles that reduce the fungus to a fine powder by the time it dries enough to consider applying a spark to. Adding to its lack of workability is the fact that iron pyrite and flint are not native to our coastal area.

So my own fire-making has to take on a less primitive nature if I am going to produce fire and do it effectively and efficiently in all conditions with the least amount of calorie burn.

Calorie burn. I think this issue insists upon our attention, especially in situations where replenishing those burned calories is critical. Burning some extra calories over the course of a weekend is not going to hurt any of us. Burning extra calories day after day over an extended period of time can be the literal death of us.

It may have been Dave Canterbury that coined the phrase. I am not sure. The phrase has grown into popularity in the survival-bushcraft-woodcraft arena.

“Three is one and one is none.”

It is a good phrase, whoever is responsible for coining it, especially where this business of fire making is concerned. The more ways you know and are practiced in … the better prepared you are and the better off you are when you need to produce a fire.

PRIMITIVE FLINT AND STEEL

This is my favorite means of producing a fire.

Doing historical reenactments is what really got me going on this one. In fact, it was doing historical reenactments that set me on a course of discovering a lot of other things related to times gone by.

History.

It contains a lot of how’s and why’s that have been left behind by most folks in these modern times. That is a real shame.

There we were. Canvas wall tents set up and all decked out in clothes and equipment associated with military life 150 years ago. Cast iron cookware, fire irons, grates. Mostly (but not entirely) period correct stuff. Some folks used “Lucifer’s” to light their fires. Most that I saw though pulled a Bic out of their pocket, squirted lighter fluid on their stack of wood, and touched it off.

It started the wheels turning in my head. What would folks have used 150, 200, or 400 years ago to get their fire going? It dang sure would not have been a Bic lighter and quart of lighter fluid.

So I did a little research. Studied up on the subject. And ordered a fire steel that came with a chunk of flint.

I beat the edges off that piece of flint before I figured out the rhythm required to “strike” that flint and steel. I used a musket cap tin to make a container to cook char cloth, built a fire, and went to work charring some cotton cloth. It was a bit of a trial and error process to get the cloth cooked to good usable perfection.

A few strikes with the flint and steel and a spot on the char began to glow with a pretty red glow.

Cotton material is not the only natural material that can be used as char. That is a good thing because in a long-term situation cloth is a commodity that you do not want to waste.

The woods are full of natural material that can be charred and used to catch a spark. Punk wood is abundant once you learn to recognize and process it. A nice piece of charred punk glows really hot and is not as apt to burn up as fast as a piece of charred cloth. 

I do not know how long it takes to wear out a fire steel. The one in my kit has made quite a few fires and given a lot of demonstrations. Judging by its wear I would say it has only just begun to live its life. As long as I do not lose it I can easily imagine it outliving me.

You do not have to have a “period correct” fire steel. A piece of file with a smooth side makes a fine fire steel.

MODERN FLINT AND STEEL

I like these a lot. Especially like the small ones that you can carry in your pocket. Shirli has a super nice ferro rod that fits in the sheath of her Mora. 

A good ferro rod with an attached striker will produce a lot of fires. Some come without an attached striker. This is not a problem. You can make a striker from a broken hacksaw blade or use the 90 degree spine of a knife.

The hot sparks from a ferro rod will easily ignite finely processed dry material to get a fire going.

The magnesium bar variety has a tiny ferro rod that wears out pretty fast. The nice thing about it is the magnesium bar. That dime or nickel sized pile of magnesium shavings burns really hot when hit with a spark. The bar and those shavings gives you a good edge when it comes to getting a fire going.

BURNING GLASS

Using a magnifying lens to magnify and focus sunlight onto a piece of charred material is an effective way to begin producing a fire. It is, however, not at all feasible on an overcast day or once the sun goes down.

MATCHES

I rate matches pretty low on my list of fire-making means. About the only time I use a match is to light the charcoal in our grill.

That is just me though.

I do have a few waterproof containers of matches just in case. A match will definitely get a fire going and it is better to get a fire going than to not.

The two major down sides of matches are that when they get wet they do not work and when the matches are used up they are gone for good.

BIC LIGHTER

Every kit ought to have at least one Bic lighter in it.

They work as long as they have fuel and a flint. They are not fool proof. They run out of fuel and their little flints wear out. In cold weather they get contrary and often fail to work.

The plus side is that they work when they work.

FRICTION

Creating a fire by rubbing two sticks together is something that is so simple that a caveman can do it while at the same time is a heck of a lot more complicated than it looks.

I have been working on this one. Though I have been several times successful at it, the lack of success far exceeds the number of successes.

It is a good skill to learn and know.

Friction fire, from my own experience and perspective, is at the bottom of my list of priorities.

Why?

Three reasons.

The first is that there are so many variables involved. If one of them is out of whack the whole process is out of whack and doomed to fail. The second is that you will burn a lot of calories in a short minute or two that you may not be able to replace. The third is that not everyone is physically fit enough to make it work.

Where friction fire is concerned … have a nice repertoire of fire making means in your kit that allows you to produce fire without having to resort to rubbing sticks together.

What I Cannot Teach

We take an awful lot for granted in this world of ease that we live our day to day lives in.

Flip the switch on the wall and the lights go on and off. Heck. Some smart somebody even invented the “Clapper” so a couple claps of the hands turns on a light.

Turn the knob on the stove and the elements heat up to make cooking a lot easier than firing up and standing over a wood burning cook stove. Some stoves use gas, either natural or propane, to serve the same purpose. The most modern gas models do not even require striking a match or pushing a button to generate the lighting spark. Technology has replaced the box of “strike anywhere’s” that hung on the wall by the stove. That is pretty smart as long as the power is up and flowing through the wires.

Microwave ovens. I do not personally know a home without one. Ours went on the fritz a few years ago. Since all it was used for was to heat things up we decided to do without that convenience. And we did … for about three months … until I broke down and invested again (a small one) in that convenience.

The same goes for heating the house. The thermostat on the wall that controls the thing in the closet does the work of chopping, hauling, and stacking firewood for the winter. It also operates the business end of that mechanical contraption that cools the house in the summer.

Water comes through pipes. All we have to do is open a faucet. Gas or electricity keeps a tank constantly full of hot water. There is plenty of hot and cold water for all the daily needs. Hit the handle on the porcelain chamber pot in the bathroom and things are flushed out of sight and down the pipe into the system, whether it is one built in the yard or a municipal sewer system.

Every bite of food, for the greater majority of people in this modernized country, is purchased at the grocery store and at restaurants replacing the necessity to engage personally in the business of growing, harvesting, hunting, fishing, foraging, processing, and preserving food to eat.

Even our homes and closets full of clothes figure in. The vast majority of us live in structures built by someone else. The idea that we need to know how to construct a dwelling … and invest the time to do it … does not enter into the mind of most people. We pay dearly for it with decades of mortgage payments but, for the sake of convenience, we sell ourselves to the bank. The “home” issue is also complicated by all the various building codes and restrictions that constrict and limit the freedom of individuals to take care of themselves as best they can within their means.

What about the clothes in the closet? Bought or made from material that was bought from a store of one sort or another.

I have used all the above verbiage to lead into a very basic and simple point.

Though our means of satisfying our essential needs has changed a lot with the progression of time and technology … our essential needs to sustain life have not changed one iota. They are as basic now as they were 200, 2,000, or 20,000 years ago …

FIRE, WATER, SHELTER, and FOOD ...

regardless of climate, circumstances, or conditions.

It is easy to take these for granted. Modern life, with all its technology and convenience, is a comfortable life. I enjoy living as comfortably as possible. I must also admit that comfortable living, with all its conveniences, bothers me. The more I recognize its bothersome effects the more it bothers me.

Why?

It has a way of slipping up on us. It has a way of taking us over. It has a way of robbing us of our desire of independence. It stifles thought and creativity. Its intrusive nature depletes our ability to fend for ourselves. It has a way of depriving us of a lot of personal enjoyment, adventure, learning, and experience that can never occur as long as we are surrounded by insulated and painted walls where our several senses are entertained and overwhelmed by our own preferred and selected noises, entertainments, and conveniences.

One of the things that deeply impresses me about folks like Nessmuk and Kephart is their personal philosophy regarding being “out there” in the wild. Sure. Their personal woodcraft skills are impressive. They knew how to go deep and long and come out on the other end of it still smiling and looking forward to the next trip. It is their philosophy though … their appreciation and understanding … their love for it all … that impresses me most.

Skills can be taught. They can be learned by those willing to learn. I think though that the love of wild places … the love of the sounds and smells and changing faces of Ma Nature … the preference to be “out there” in and with her … is something that is more caught than taught. I can lead folks to the edge of it but the catching is outside my control.

Deeply inherent in all that we are doing in these classes and outings is our desire for folks, young and not as young, to discover for themselves something of this philosophy … to find themselves caught by it … equipped with a good, practical, and usable set of woodcraft skills … anxious to grab their kits, go for a long walk, set up a camp in the woods to stay a chosen while, and walk out after that while with smiles of accomplishment on their faces anxious to go and do it again.