Woodsmoke Woodcraft - July Class

It is Southern hot and humid here on the South Coast in July. 

Afternoon thunderstorms are common. You just expect them to pop up. Everything stays damp from the frequent showers and high humidity. You can almost wring a drink of water out of standing deadwood. We are, after all, contending with a sub-tropical environment here on the lower coast.

Setting up for our monthly class didn’t involve much work. My job was mostly to facilitate … considering today was a timed skills challenge for the guys.

I did need to get a smoky fire going to hold the mosquitoes at bay. I got my fire lay in place and doubled up on the amount of fatwood considering the kindling material was all damp. I pulled some jute twine out of my kit and used it as the initial source to catch a spark from a ferro rod, ignite, and in turn ignite the fatwood shavings and pencil sized pieces placed in the bottom of the fire lay.

It was a good fire … a little slow getting the kindling and fuel burning … but the doubled up fatwood did its job.

There was a couple of important things I needed to go over with the young guys I am mentoring before we started the challenge.

The first was to reiterate the necessity of constantly safeguarding the important contents of their kits.

When you use an item always put it back where it belongs. It’s easy to lose things when we get sloppy. Losing something in a class setting is not a tragedy. It’s easy enough to run to the store or get on the computer and order a replacement. Lose something “out there” days deep in the woods and you have a situation on your hands. Lose something in a genuine survival situation and the situation on your hands become even more serious. Maybe even life threatening serious.

And here is the second thing that I needed to go over with the guys.

These challenges are not competitions where individuals are competing against other individuals to see who is faster or who is better where this skill or that skill is concerned. The only person anyone is competing against is their own self. The objective is not to outdo anyone else. The objective is for individuals to do better at their own skills than they did the time before … to improve their own efficiency and proficiency where these skills are concerned.

No one wins. No one loses. Everyone improves.

I’ve said it several times over the course of these guy’s woodcraft journey …There are no fails. 

There are only opportunities for improvement. I think that’s a pretty good way to go about life in general.

The first challenge was really a simple one … in 10 minutes or less construct your shelter. Piece of cake for the guys. Everyone had their shelters built in less than the allotted time.

The second challenge was a bit more complicated considering the wet conditions.

Build a self-sustaining fire in 20 minutes or less. No bic lighters or matches allowed. Anything else from their kits and from the landscape was fair play. I handed each of the guys a more than adequate sized piece of fatwood and a small piece of dry spruce (items that ought to be in every fire kit in the event dry kindling is not immediately available).

I let this challenge go an additional 5 minutes to insure that everyone got a fire started.

Here’s the thing to remember about using a ferro rod in damp conditions. Be sure you have some dry easily combustible material in your kit to catch a spark and ignite. Sandwich bags make good dry bags for storing dry tinder material like finely processed cedar bark, jute, or anything that will quickly and easily take a spark and ignite. Also, don’t put that dry material on a wet surface or it will act like a sponge and absorb moisture in quite a hurry essentially dowsing your fire before it has a chance to start. Damp material does not easily ignite from a spark from a ferro rod. To improve your success … lay down a layer of green twigs, leaves, or small sticks as a moisture barrier between the wet ground and your dry absorbent material.

The third challenge involved working from memory. I allowed 30 minutes for this challenge. I had already cut some random lengths of usable material and had it ready. The challenge? Construct (1) a peg style snare trigger for use as a trail set, (2) a modified Figure Four snare trigger for use in a baited set, and (3) a snare  from a piece of #36 tarred bank line with a non-loosening snare loop.

I admit that this challenge was a pretty tall order considering the actual amount of time the guys have invested in constructing these and the fact that it’s been a couple months since they worked on their Figure Four’s and several months since they worked on the peg style trigger. It was a good exercise though that made the guys dig into their memory banks. 

We’ll keep digging into those banks.

Rehearsal.

Practice.

Repetition.

Recall.

Again and again and again.

In differing circumstances.

In differing conditions.

That’s how we master any skill. 

That’s how we come to own any skill.

One of the things that I want to be careful of in this mentoring program is to insure that skills being taught are also skills that are being improved upon. Just like the fire making that went on today. The wet conditions and damp materials threw something new into the fire making learning curve that presented some challenges within the challenge. Rehearse and practice the old and add a little something new as we go.

Last month I introduced friction fire using the bow drill. I demonstrated how to use the component parts to produce an ember that went into a tinder bundle that produced fire.

I used an old blade to baton some pieces from the black willow rounds that I had cut from the woods the day before the class and showed the guys how to whittle a round spindle from a square split off piece and how to shape a hearth board. They took those pieces of green wood home with them and brought their seasoned spindles and hearth boards to class today.

Each of the guys got a present today … a wheel from a set of roller blades that I bought at the thrift store. The things make really good bearing blocks considering that free spinning bearing in the center of the wheel that lessens the amount of friction that is normally part of the friction fire process.

How did the guys do with the friction fire?

Let me answer the question this way …. . One got smoke. One got a lot of smoke and was close to getting an ember. One got an ember.

I call that good, good, and good.

Go Ahead ... Just Do It!

I am asked occasionally if I teach people how to survive.

My response is that I can’t teach anyone to survive … that I teach skills that people can use to help them survive in a bad situation … but, ultimately, it’s up to every individual to discover within themselves the will to survive.

People can have all the gear in the world, be well rehearsed in a myriad of skills to go along with their stock of tools, but survival is as much a psychological challenge as it is a physical one.

The “will to live”, or lack thereof, is going to play a huge role in making it, or not making it, especially if a bad deal turns into a long-term situation.

A lot of things can be bought and learned. The psychological thing? That’s something else altogether. Even well trained people can break down and give up under pressure. The psychological factor is a biggie.  

So I’ve been thinking over some things after doing a skills training camp this past weekend. Kind of mulling this over in my own mind and thinking about some of the basic stuff associated with the craft.

Here’s those thoughts in a nutshell.

Tools

It is relatively easy to prescribe a basic list of proven tools to carry in a kit.

The 10-C’s outlined by Dave Canterbury [Cover, cutting tool, cordage, container, combustion, compass, cotton bandana, candling devise, cloth sewing needle, cargo tape] is a list hard to improve upon. Most of the items on the list have been around longer than any of us modern folk have. Duct tape is a modern thing that has no historical heritage but it is certainly handy to have and has multiple uses. Canterbury outlines the items in a way that they all start with the letter “C” so folks can easily remember them.

The main question, where these C’s are concerned, is whether you will procure them in high dollar fashion or in common man fashion.

I am, as a common man, a fan of the common man. Most common folk can assemble a kit simply by scrounging around home through the extras of this and that and not have to spend so much as a dollar. You can go the high dollar route and spend a lot of money. I mean A LOT of money on these items.

Out of the shed and kitchen drawers … bought from the high dollar dealers. Those are the two extreme ends. There is a lot of distance between those ends. The truth of the matter is that for a couple or three hundred dollars a person can put together a really good kit that will go a lot of miles. And that includes buying a good pack and adding some items (without overdoing it) that are not part of the 10-C thing.

The important thing is to just do it … assemble a kit and get started. Improve the kit as you go. Make some upgrades when something needs replacing.

Techniques

Here is where the rubber begins to meet the road and keeps hitting the road step after step.

You can have all the gear in the world … all the high dollar gear that’s on the market … but without knowing how to use it, without knowing how to identify natural resources, and without knowing how to utilize natural resources … all you have is a nice looking pile of weight.

It takes a generous amount of time to develop skills. Developing skills requires a lot of getting into the dirt … into the woods … into the bush … down on the creek … time after time after time after time. Even then, after all these times after times, there’s still more to explore … still more to learn … still more to develop.

There are several disclaimers that I present up front when working with people.

One of the disclaimers is that I do not know everything there is to know on this subject. 

There is a lot that I do know but I do not know everything. Another disclaimer that I present up front is that I cannot teach someone everything I know in a long weekend intensive course. I can’t teach all that I know in a week. I can’t teach it in a month. Some of what I know I have been taught by a few others. Some of it I have learned reading and studying books. Some of it … a lot of it … the woods and wilds have taught me through over five decades of getting out there kindling fires, camping, hunting, and fishing. I am still learning. There is yet a lot left for me to learn.

I can show and teach a lot in a weekend intensive course. Folks can get a good start on some important skills. But perfecting those skills until the skills are owned and operating as part of their first nature is something that comes in time and only after a lot of personal time in the dirt and in the woods on their own in the weeks, months, and years to come.

Now about this first nature thing.

I don’t want my skills to belong in my second nature. I want my skills to be so owned that they move out of the second nature realm and into the first. Things that are second nature are things that you have to think about before you do them. That’s ok. Second nature is better than having only a slight familiarity with something … one of those “Oh, I read about that.” Or “Hey, I saw so-and-so do that one time on that survival show.” 

When things go really bad it’s very unlikely that anyone will successfully duplicate something they have only read about or watched someone do.

I simply think that the crafting skills necessary to get along well in the woods, bush, or wilds of wherever are important enough to rehearse until they move into the first nature realm of who we are. Any of us, even then, can encounter challenges in the wild that will test the temper of out metal.

Temper

I’m not referring to the kind of temper that causes people to get mad and fly off the handle. 

There’s a lot of that sort of temper in the world today. I see a lot of it in public forums and social media groups on the internet that focus on this subject matter. I see way too much of what I call bushcraft bravado. Mix some bushcraft bravado and temper together in a discussion and the result is generally always the same … nothing positive or productive comes out of the collision. Somebody is going to get a bent bumper or fender and somebody is going to walk away with their ego brimming over. 

I tend to avoid arenas where this sort of thing goes on.

The temper I’m referring to is the kind of tempering that comes from regular use over time. Like what happens to a rail after all those tons of weight hauled on iron wheels rolls over it year after year. It gets denser and tougher over time.

We need physical conditioning.

Even something as simple as whittling sticks into fine tinder or into snare triggers uses muscles in our hands and arms that pecking on keyboards and pushing pencils leaves weak. Most men these days no longer work at trades that builds callouses on their hands. Most of us can easily lift and move 30 or 40 pounds from one spot to another. Shouldering that same weight and walking 5 miles with it is another story altogether. 

Physical conditioning is best done gradually and consistently. Here again is a commitment of time that just doesn’t happen without making it happen.

We also need mental-psychological conditioning.

There are some scenarios that we can never be fully prepared for.

I’ll go to my grave with the belief that it was a cougar that was soft-stepping its way toward my tent at 2:00 in the morning on that mountain in Tennessee a few years ago. I’ve heard a lot of animals walking in the deep dry leaves. But never anything like that. I had no frame of reference in my mind to liken it to. It honestly rattled me. One of the local residents told me later that the big cats had been seen.

Start small. 

First a day hike or two. Build up to doing an overnight and hike out the next morning. Do a few overnights and a few long weekends before you attempt some extended trip. In our day and age 3 nights in the woods is an extended trip for most people. It takes 3 nights to just begin settling in and acclimating to the woods life.

I say it often. Most people view the wilds as some kind of foe that has to be survived. People need to get beyond that mentality and begin seeing nature as an ally to help us get along well come what may.

We put together our kit (tools). We develop a broad range of techniques (skills).  We condition ourselves psychologically and physically (temper).

For what?

So we can survive some possible something?

Sure. Being able to survive come what may is a good thing.

I like to think there is more to it than just being prepared in the event some crisis launches us into a survival situation.

If all we are doing is waiting for a some crisis then what we are doing is missing out on a lot of opportunities right now around and in front of us to get outdoors … do some outdoor adventuring … break with the monotony of modernity … do some reconnecting with nature … and do it all without having to take anything more than what we can carry with us in our kits.

Preparedness and Survivability

I remember the big scare that was supposed to shut the world down in 2000 … Y2K. All the computers were supposed to go belly up at the stroke of midnight as the year 2000 ticked its way into reality.

I think I first learned of the proposed looming disaster in 1997 and got serious about it in 1998.

It worried me some.

Well, more than some. The computer-crash deal certainly sounded like a real possibility.

It worried me enough that I spent an active and focused year getting ready for the grand finale … TEOTWAWKI. It was something that I invested a lot of thought into as well as a fair chunk of money covering all the bases that I could think of including building a pond and putting down a well for a hand pump. Sacks of grain and a hand turned grain mill. I bought canned goods by the case and had a room stacked full of food ready to eat.

Three 5 gallon buckets of open pollinated seed for the garden. Two full. One half full.

Hand tools. I already had all the normal homestead stuff like hoes, shovels, rakes, axes, and forks. I already had a large flock of chickens. 200 hens and 40 roosters. Why so many roosters? I enjoyed listening to them crow. Goats for milk and meat. I did order in a scythe so I could cut hay for my small herd of dairy goats that I milked morning and evening. Seven milkers. By hand. Every day.

There was a half dozen new dome tents stored to house folks that I figured for sure would come wandering in and need something to shelter in. Plenty of gear for hunting and self-defense. Gear for fishing.

It wasn’t difficult discerning and covering the bases. Not with my small farm background and all those years of being a faithful reader of Mother Earth News back in the day before it turned into its modern counterpart. I did not wait up until midnight to see what would happen. It was what it was and it would be what it would be. I admit that I was quite relieved when I got up the next morning and realized that life would continue with all its conveniences.

Did I regret the investment of time, physical effort, and financial resources?

No.

Not one ounce of regret. Not one moment of it. The whole package and process was quite enlightening. It was not only enlightening. It was life changing. It was an introductory course in personal preparedness that caused me to realize just how fragile the whole food, water, and utility supply and demand system is.

There are a lot of factors that figure into this survivability topic. A lot more than can be touched on in a brief article. I doubt a single book could adequately cover the subject.

I think what we are dealing with here is two major categories. (1) Short-term survivability. (2) Long-term survivability.

The short-term (think in increments like 3 days, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, etc.) is fairly easy to prepare for. You simply have to stock up on some supplies. 3 days or a week is no big deal. It’s pretty obvious though that most people around here aren’t ready for a few days of inconvenience. Just let the weatherman start talking about a little tropical blow off the Gulf and the store shelves are emptied. Not only here in the hurricane zone. Happens likewise in the blizzard zone. 30 to 90 days of preparedness (still short-term in the big scheme of things) is a daunting challenge for most people. 

I am of the opinion that 3 to 6 weeks ought to be the minimum level of preparedness for every person in every household. It doesn’t take much of a “natural” disaster to create a 3 to 6 week hardship environment. Water for that length of time might present a problem. That’s a lot of gallons and a lot of weight to store. Here, in our Southern coastal zone, collecting water is not a problem.

Long-term (out there past 90 days and on to whenever and however long) takes some thought and planning. The deal changes considerably when you start thinking in increments of 1 year, 2 years, etc.. There is a lot more to making it long-term than having a well-stocked pantry and a hand cranked can opener. The point will come, regardless of how many cans or bags are stored, when all that will be left is the rusting cans and empty mylar bags. 

Then what?

There are tools and skills for long-term that need to be taken into consideration. These are tools and skills that most modernites are extremely short on … tools that require muscle power rather than electric or gas power. Tools that ultimately assist the living process. Tools that are extremely difficult to manufacture after the fact from raw materials.

Tools and skills … the crux of the matter when it comes to the survivability issues regarding fire, shelter, water, and food.

One of the quaint clichés going around in the woodcraft-bushcraft-survival community is … the more you know the less you need. True enough. It is possible, with the knowledge and skills necessary, to return to the Stone-Age. I do not relish the idea. I’ve got another time-period in mind that I have spent a generous amount of time equipping myself for in my own personal preparedness.

Hello 1700’s.

My mindset, for a good long time now, has been geared around preparedness to be able to live in the 18^th Century. Doing historical reenactments and seriously studying that period are what settled me on the 18^th.  

It started as a hobby. It didn’t take long for me to realize that those folks really had it going on in the realm of self-reliance. Then it became a serious hobby that quickly overhauled and adjusted my thinking about preparedness and self-reliant living. 1700’s. That’s plenty far enough to jump backwards where equipping for long-term survivability is concerned.

The two major categories are affected by an assortment of sub-category variables. Location is one of them … urban, rural, coastal, prairie, woodland, mountains, desert, climate zone. Each one has its challenges. Each one has its offerings. Each one requires attention to its particular nuances and details. Each one can be an ally. Each one can be a foe.

These sub-categories can be further subdivided to address resources and issues regarding them but, like I mentioned, this is a brief article so we’ll leave off with the division where we are.

It is an appropriate saying. I’ve heard it quite a few times over the years and used it a few times myself. I think it fits at the heart and center of any kind of preparation and preparedness. It certainly represents a major aspect of the woodcraft-bushcraft-survival arena.

To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

Short-term or long-term.

Unexpected mishap that places us in a survival situation or a planned adventure in off-grid living.

Think through the possible ramifications ahead of time. 

Acquire the tools and skills needed to encounter the effects of the ramifications before we need them.

Prime Skills and Necessary Tools

I’ve read where the word origin of primitive comes from prime … meaning first. If we use prime as an adjective it refers to the first or main importance of something.

A lot of the focus in the woodcraft-bushcraft community, when it comes to cutting tools, centers on knives and axes for survival purposes. A good fixed blade knife and an axe are the bare bones essentials in the cutting tools department and these are honesty enough to accomplish an awful lot if they are all you have and know how to use them.

Cutting tools, cordage, and fire. These three, and the knowledge-skills base to utilize them, are everything we need to build everything else we need.

I do not know what or which prime skill was the first to be developed. I was not there to observe that life changing event. What I do know is that primitive man adapted to the environment, developed prime skills, migrated and adapted to harsher less familiar environments, and got along quite well enough to leave behind progeny that continued to develop the skills passed on to them by those that left them behind.

What developed as the foundation of those prime skills are cutting tools, cordage, and fire … three things we are so familiar with that we take them for granted in this modern age because of their ready availability in this industrialized technological computerized age. We are though, when it comes right down to it and despite all the technology and computerization, still as dependent upon those prime skills as primitive man was … we are still learning … we are still adjusting and adapting.

The significant difference is that all these centuries of learning and development have made our tools a lot more advanced. That, and the fact that modern technology and the efforts of a few craftsmen employed in the building trades, makes it unnecessary for the average modernite Joe and Jane to know how to build or repair anything. While we are at it we may as well throw in a third tidbit. We live in the age of instant gratification. We want things big and we want things now. Anything we can do to make big and now happen quicker is the route modernites are most apt to take. There is a fourth thing that comes to mind while we are rocking this rickety little boat. We are a “throw-away” culture. When something becomes outdated, worn out or not, we throw it to the curb for the garbage collectors to haul to the dump. A lot of products we purchase today are designed to be thrown away rather than repaired and made usable again. Throw away products keep us running to the store to buy up to date replacements.

Self-reliance, and the ability to be self-reliant, are far from the minds of most modern folks in a culture that has been groomed to be reliant upon the labor of others to produce everything they eat and manufacture everything they use. Self-reliance has itself become a primitive ideal. The skills necessary to live self-reliantly have become relics of the past.

I think this is one of the great modern day tragedies affecting us in the 21^st Century. I made up my mind long ago that I would not stay between the hammer and the anvil where this self-reliance tragedy is concerned.

Recognize a problem.

Educate yourself regarding a problem.

Develop a mindset.

Acquire the tools and develop the skills necessary to address the problem.

Do something about the problem.

That’s the way the self-reliance deal works. The onus is on the individual to work the deal. Self-reliance doesn’t happen on its own or overnight.

Total self-reliance is pretty much a myth. I’ll not say that it is impossible but it is definitely improbable for the vast majority of us. Becoming as self-reliant as individually possible, however, should be an ongoing personal working goal. Especially in the woodcraft-bushcraft community. There is so much more to the many-faceted craft than knowing how to get along if the bridge washes out or some other event happens that suddenly launches us into some sort of a get along as best we can to save our fanny with just what’s on our backs or in our pockets kind of situation.

This is not to diminish survival skills that we pull out and use in a dire unplanned situation. These are non-negotiable skills that everyone should possess and sadly most people do not. It is to suggest that woodcraft-bushcraft includes skills that we can use every day as part of a self-reliant lifestyle … skills that will serve us well and make our lives a lot more comfortable in the event we discover ourselves in an unplanned long-term situation or voluntarily opt for an off-grid human powered lifestyle. 

There is another side to this … a deeper intimate side that is better experienced than explained. It is hard to put into words the feelings of satisfaction and personal reward that come when a person takes a bit of raw materials and turns them into needed items with the help of a few human powered tools that do not create hearing damaging decibels.

You can buy new human powered tools and shell out quite a lot of hard earned cash in the process. Good quality ones are expensive. Low quality ones are affordable but cheap in quality. Scouting garage sales, estate sales, and flea markets for good quality used human powered tools can be an adventure. It takes time to find them … and they may need a little TLC to clean them up and sharpen them … but the time and effort invested in the process is well spent.

I’ve been collecting these few old tools for a good while now as part of our self-reliant homestead mentality. A few of the tools are antique family heirlooms that I discovered in the nick of time and managed to salvage before they totally wasted away laying either on the ground or on a damp concrete floor … both total disasters for metal tools.

As electric power tools give up the ghost I simply switch over to non-electric as their replacements. Using old school muscle powered tools as my preferred go-to tools is an interesting and pleasant transition away from the power tools I’ve used all these years. The old school tools accomplish the same job as their electrical counterparts. You just have to go about it with a different and more relaxed mindset.

Human powered tools are a refreshing break. I prefer the old used stuff if it’s still usable. It has a history to it. I enjoy bringing that past history into the present history that I am making and can’t help but to wonder about who used those tools before me, where they used them, and what was crafted with them.

The financial investment in my “old school” tool kit has been minimal. There are a few items that I need to complete the kit. A couple of them I will need to purchase. Some of them, like a shave horse and a spring pole lathe, I can build from harvested green wood and I will be working on these projects over the course of the next several weeks. The shave horse will be the first of the two builds. It’s a pain using a draw knife without one. Some of the items, metal tools including a couple of froes and small adzes, I can turn out on the forge I built a few years ago from a discarded brake drum that I found.

The combination makes for an interesting learning curve … knowing good quality tools from cheap, working with muscle powered tools as opposed to plugging some noisy hard on the ears contraption into a power supply, and the process of harvesting wood, processing, and crafting useful items from raw materials.

Crafting … wood-crafting … bush-crafting … wild-crafting … . Whatever folks are comfortable calling it. Wood … bush … wild. You know. Out “there” somewhere. Folks get that part easily enough. It’s the rest of it that needs filling in.

The crafting part is about being able to craft what we need for daily life whether it is something as simple as a log bench to sit on, a table to hold our plate while we eat, or something more complicated like a comfortable dwelling that far surpasses a tarp, thatched lean-to, or brush shelter. These are skills that have to be learned and developed. The learning and development requires a lot more time and effort than is involved in a weekend course that focuses on extremely basic fire, shelter, water, and food.

Making mistakes is a valuable part of any learning curve. There is no exception to this rule when it comes to the woodcraft learning curve. Especially if we allow the mistakes to become teachers and the bulk of the expense is primarily time invested.

Mistakes are always opportunities for improvement rather than signs of failure.

Personal experience, practice, and patience have always been, and I am of the opinion that they ever will be, our greatest teachers. The important thing is to simply begin and keep adding experience to that initial beginning.

Whittling Sticks

I remember my first pocket knife.

It was an old Barlow hand-me-down. I have no idea where it came from or how my dad came to be in possession of it. He wasn’t much on carrying knives of any kind. I never saw him whittling anything other than sharpening a toothpick and he usually did that with whatever kitchen knife was handiest.

I was seven or eight when the old hand-me-down two blade was given to me to tote around in my pocket. It was about as dull as a butter knife. I’m not sure if it was dull to begin with or if my dad dulled it on purpose before he gave it to me. Knowing my dad he probably applied a brick to the edges before he put it in my hand.

One thing for sure … I was plenty proud of that old folding tool.

Wasn’t long before I found the whetstone … the one in the kitchen drawer that kept the kitchen knives sharp … and worked a bit of an edge on the blades of the old Barlow. It wasn’t as good a sharpening job as I do now but it was enough of an edge that I drew my own blood a few times. 

That’s part of the learning curve with knives. Both the sharpening and the cutting yourself.  It’s one of those paying your dues things.

Once you slice yourself  … feel the sting, see the red flowing, and have to deal with sore fingers a few times  … you learn to be careful.

That was a good long time ago.

That was back when a lot of kids carried their pocket knives everywhere they went. Even to school. Imagine. Kids sitting in the shade during recess peeling sticks and whittling with their pocket knives. No one got alarmed. No one raised a fuss about it. The police weren’t called. Kid’s weren’t expelled or carted off to the juvenile detention center for bringing a weapon to school. Parents weren’t labelled as negligent or derelict because their child brought a pocket knife to school.

It was normal back then for boys to carry pocket knives. At least around here.

And here is the kicker.

I do not recall a single knife fight at any point in my progress through the public school system. Not even during that tumultuous period known as De-Segregation. A few good fist fights. Very few of them racially motivated. Most of the fist fights had to do with hormonal bravado. Guys fighting over girls. But not a single knife fight.

Cutting tools are extremely important items in the world of woodcraft. Their edges provide us with some needed advantages when it comes to crafting other items that are necessary for self-reliance. Their edges give us an edge. Possessing appropriate cutting tools, caring for our cutting tool possessions to insure their efficiency and longevity, and knowing how to effectively and safely use cutting tools for their intended purposes are necessarily integral elements of our woodcraft school program.

In the forward to his book … The Book of Camping and Woodcraft … Horace Kephart wrote that “Real woodcraft consists in knowing how to get along without the appliances of civilization rather than adapting them to wildwood life.  ..… Woodcraft may be defined as the art of getting along well in the wilderness by utilizing nature’s storehouse.”

Whittling sticks to turn them into something other than sticks is at the very heart of woodcraft … the ability to manipulate a few simple hand tools and utilize available natural resources to secure our well-being in a self-reliant manner … whether it’s building a shelter that will protect against the wiles of winter, handles for tools, furnishings for home and camp, or improvising devises that assist in procuring meat to sustain physical life … and do it all in an efficient manner that limits the possibility of embedding an axe in our shin or laying ourselves open with our own knife.

Times were, and those times were not so long ago in the big scheme of time, that these (and quite a few other skills) were common skills developed at a young age and practiced throughout life.  Unless you were a city person accustomed to city ways.

It may raise some hackles to say it but it is something that needs to be said.

Accept it or not. Like it or not.

But the truth of the matter is that, with few rare exceptions, we have all, in varying degrees, become city people. Some lesser so than others. Some more so than others. Some are simply outright city people whether they live in the city or out on the farm. The progress of life in these modern times is the culprit that has thrown a harness on us and made us city people … made us all even more dependent upon the outfitter and the mercantile.

City people … dependent upon our appliances and conveniences … regardless of whether we are urban, suburban, or rural … is what we will remain without personal concerted efforts to reclaim, relearn, and put into practice the craft that the old timers called woodcraft.

I’m passionate about this … about woodcraft and self-reliant living … about practicing what I know … about continuing to learn new things in the school of the woods where there is no graduation day …  about achieving greater degrees of self-reliance through knowledge, skills, and resources … about teaching woodcraft skills and hopefully seeing others transition from hobby woodcrafters to woodcraftsmen as a lifestyle.

Ma Nature and all that she is, when that transition is made, begins to take on a lot of significance that is otherwise missed by city people and by woodcraft hobbyists. Somewhere in making that transition we begin to see ourselves as one small part of nature dependent up it as the greater part. We begin to see nature as an ally to be cared for and safeguarded. Our lives, and the way we go about life, go through a serious adjustment.

People are getting into the craft for a number of reasons. One of the reasons definitely has to do with the survival aspect. There is not a thing wrong with that aspect. I admit that it is one of my reasons.

But there is a something else. There is a lot more to it. At least for me.

That something else for me is that a time came in my consciousness where I realized that the process of citification had overtaken me. Me? One that grew up in the woods and fields? One that hunted cottonmouth moccasins in these swamps and bottoms as a summer sport when I was in grade school? One that knew more about life in the woods and fields before I was 12 than the majority of 50 year old men in today’s society?

I fell victim to citification.

It’s hard to imagine it looking at me today but there was a long length of time … back there a ways … when my normal daily attire was suit, tie, and wing tips. Those years of citification robbed me and instilled a lot of fear in me. Back when I first started reclaiming myself I had become, despite my formative years in the woods and fields, afraid to venture off the beaten path. Dirt roads and out of the way places no longer called to me. The woods had become a foreign stranger to me.

I simply had to return to myself and get back what I had lost.

Now?

I’ve crossed a line in my own mind and heart. A line that I cannot cross back over. A line that I will not cross back over no matter the pressures brought to bear against me to return to the city ways that holds modern society captive in its strangling grasp.

So we whittled some sticks Saturday morning and turned them into Figure 4 snare triggers … 3 sticks … 4 notches as the contact points … 3 pointed ends … touchy things that appear to the novice as complicated contraptions but are really simple devices that do an effective job where a baited snare-set is concerned.

The finished products were a little rough for first attempts. I took time with each one to do a little touching up on the notches and points, explaining the necessity to make clean joints that will hold when pressure is applied to the trigger stick part of the sensitive device, then field tested the finished products with each student. 5 out of 6, after a little tuning, performed effectively.

Whittling, like all the other skills in woodcraft, is something that takes practice.

No skill is developed without practice. The more we practice the more efficient we become. I think whittling is a terribly underrated and neglected skill. There is a lot more to blade proficiency than carving feather sticks, billeting kindling, and cutting lengths of cordage.

Whittling involves developing dexterity. It involves developing muscles in our hands and fingers. It involves eye-hand coordination. It involves learning to manipulate and control a sharp blade without slicing a finger open and bleeding all over our work. It involves imagination and creativity. It involves being able to visualize and see a finished product in some sticks and bring the finished product to life. Whittling doles out patience and perseverance in small doses.

And another thing.

Whittling introduces us to and helps us understand the different qualities and characteristics of different woods … from the soft woods to the hard woods … something that can assist us in a big way when we are harvesting sticks to be used for varying woodcraft purposes.

We have a lot more whittling to do.

Little sticks. Larger sticks. Logs.

With tools appropriate for the jobs at hand.

Little River Wilderness Survival Skills Weekend 4/9-12/2015

It was back in the 30’s when the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived on the scene in the piney woods of Monroe County. Their project? Build a 2,000 acre park. The result of their work became the Claude D. Kelly State Park. The park … as it is now … if memory serves me correctly … occupies 900 acres.

The Corps built the dam and spillway that backed up the headwaters of Little River, not more than a creek sized flow, to form the lake. They hewed out the campgrounds and built the bridges. They constructed three cabins, the original lean-to toilet facility, and the original ranger station beside the lake. The gazebo, built in 1935, still sits on a scenic piney knoll in the woods to the north. You can get there by hiking either the dirt road or the trail.

Only one of the original cabins is still standing and used as a rental. The other two, over the years, fell victim to fires. Their stone chimneys and foundation piers remain as sentinels keeping watch over their stories and honoring their lives. Look closely and you can see where CCC workers from around the country etched their names, dates, and home States in the wet concrete they were working with.

The Alabama Trail Hiking Society maintains the Gazebo Trail and the Bell Trail. Both are pleasant short hikes and are incorporated into the plans being worked on by the Society. The product will be The Alabama Trail … a non-motorized unpaved foot pathway … a long walk from the Fort Morgan Peninsula to the Walls of Jericho on the Alabama-Tennessee State Line … 550 miles.

The place is one of the gems of Southwest Alabama. As nice as the place is now for someone looking for a quiet spot to spike a camp … it must have really been something back in the day before camping morphed into what most people utilize as its modern counterpart where camping is little more than an extension of all the other modern conveniences of home.

I arrived at the gatehouse at 10:30, checked in, and made my way to our favorite primitive site at the back left in the primitive area. Setting up for our weekend school would be no major chore. Get the fly up, roll out my bed-roll in the back of the truck, scrounge a few sticks, and we’d be good to go for the weekend. The first drops of rain were falling. I got a pretty good soaking before the fly was up and was sitting there watching and listening to the rain.

Not a bad start at all for a weekend camp of wilderness survival skills instruction. It was, in fact, rather appropriate.

Our friends and fellow participants in the weekend school arrived and had their camps set up before the weather took a turn and let loose on us. Rain … and a pretty fair amount of lightning that was close enough to increase the sense of climatological ambiance in the camp. The fortunate side of the deal was that there were no high winds or cyclonic activity to add their touch to the ambiance.

Rain?

Something akin to a mini-deluge that lasted an hour or so. Then come and go showers that lasted a while. It took only a few minutes to saturate the woodland setting and for the fire pit that I had dug to fill with water.

That was the worst of the weather. The rest of the weekend remained mainly overcast with occasional brief periods of light drizzle.

I whittled on kindling while we sat under the fly and conversed on topics related to our weekend school. Once the rain had let up enough to go about it, I dug around in my kit for the essential fire making components that I needed, sparked a piece of charred cloth with a rock and my fire steel, and blew a tinder bundle into a flame that got our evening fire going. More conversing at length into the night on related topics until a candle had burned short.

First up on the learning curve Saturday morning was a simple peg-type snare trigger to use as an unbaited trail set.

The cordage for the snare is made from #36 tarred line that utilizes a self-tightening slip knot. The self-tightening aspect serves two purposes. (1) It doesn’t loosen and securely holds the animal. (2) Struggling against the snare, or the weight of the animal once it is lifted by the sapling spring into the air, is a quick and humane death.

One of our weekend participants had participated in a class that we did earlier in the month and demonstrated how to whittle this trigger and employ it as a food catching tool. That’s the sort of thing that I like about what I do in these classes and schools. I show people how to do things. They reproduce what I’ve shown them. And they show it to others. Thank you, Karen, for volunteering your demonstration over the weekend.

Our other participants then collected their whittling materials, followed the example they had been shown, and demonstrated their trigger-snare reproductions.

I gave a demonstration on constructing and employing a baited figure-four trigger that utilizes a spring mechanism (sapling or overhanging limb). The folks rounded up their whittling stock, reproduced the three component parts, and demonstrated their function.

There are a lot of different triggers that can be constructed and employed. Some of them get a little complicated. I like the K.I.S.S. principle. Keep it simple. These two triggers … one trail set and one baited set … can be creatively modified in size to accommodate any land animal of any size in our geographic area. Both of them, after whittling a couple, take hardly any time to manufacture. They can be made on the spot or a few can be manufactured while sitting in camp whittling away time.

These two, for coon sized and smaller animals, can be easily manufactured with nothing more than the items that are prescribed as component items in our kits. Pigs and deer are going to require some stronger cordage or cable … items not normally in a kit but could be possibly scrounged … and bigger stock for the triggers and engines that power them.

I recommend that novices leave the pigs and deer alone.

Feral swine can make a mess of you in a hurry with their tusks. Deer antlers and hooves can do likewise. Unless you have a good catch around the neck your prey is apt to be alive and plenty ticked off when you come for it.

There is also a lot more work in processing a large animal. Unless you need the hide and are capable of processing and preserving the meat in a wilderness setting it is best, novice or not, to focus on small game that is abundant in these woods. There is another safety factor to take into consideration. A sapling that is strong enough to lift a coon, possum, or rabbit off the ground may sting the heck out of you if your trigger slips. One that will lift a pig or deer off the ground can deal you a blow that could be possibly lethal.

In our classes I’ve used whatever sapling was handy to demonstrate how the spring/engine works. In a real setting the sapling ideally should be strong enough to lift the animal off the ground. (1) It makes it more difficult for scavengers to pilfer your meat. (2) The weight of the animal assists in the constriction of the snare insuring a quick death to lessen the possibility of the animal chewing through the snare cordage.

Though not reflected in the photographs is the necessity of constructing a cubby for the figure-four that blocks access to the bait on the bait stick from the sides, back and top. We discussed this. Also not reflected in the pictures is using sticks or debris to assist in channeling animals where the unbaited set is used. This was also discussed.

I also recommend that latex or rubber glove be included in kits.

Rabbits are known carriers of Tularemia (Rabbit Fever). Coons, and a number of other aggressive fighting animals, are known carriers of rabies. Armadillos, though the chance is extremely slim, are suspected carriers of Leprosy. Feral swine (if you do handle them) are known carriers of brucellosis. There is also a host of possible parasites.

Naturally avoid any animal that is obviously sick. Healthy looking animals may be infected but not advanced to the point that it is obvious.  Any of these possible health catastrophes are avoided though thorough cooking which destroys these possible problems. It makes common sense, in getting these animals to the cooking stage, to wear a little protection that eliminates the possibility of any of these predicaments entering our bodies through scratches, cuts, or breaks in our skin.

One of our participants gave an informative and thorough block of medical instruction on keeping things sterile, irrigating a wound to flush out any foreign matter that may cause infection, and suturing. Following the block of instruction we worked learning to tie the suturing knot. First with a piece of cord. Then with smaller suturing material. Then we sewed up a wounded mouse pad with a fine suture. Fine? The needle was tiny and I could hardly see the string. Thank you, Brien, for this important block of education that you brought to our weekend.

One of the things that I constantly emphasize is the issue of safety.

Most injuries are avoidable. There a times though when things happen. As long as we are around the corner from the E.R. or a doctor’s office we are not in peril. Out there though … or in other situations where medical personnel are not available? We become our own source of medical attention. Having at least a nominal first aid kit with us is important. Having a few simple tools normally employed by a doctor, along with knowing how to use them to cleanse a wound and close it with stitches, is valuable knowledge.

We have already looked. These suturing supplies are available in kits and in individual component parts online and will soon become part of our own personal kits. These tools, should the need arise, will make for a lot finer job than the needle and braided fishing line that I carry with me.

While I am on the topic of first-aid. In the SAS Survival Handbook by John Wiseman … one of the books that I highly recommend … there is a section on first-aid in the field. Wiseman covers quite a few areas regarding the subject. Staying read up on this subject, occasionally going over it refreshing our memories, is a good practice for those of us that are not in the medical profession practicing the medical craft on a regular basis.

The remainder of Saturday afternoon focused on fire making.

I went over the contents of the fire making kit that resides in my main kit. There are a number of goodies in that bag.

We looked at numerous types of good tinder bundle material that are abundant around us. We built our tinder bundles from these materials and I demonstrated the rock and fire steel method using charred cloth. We charred the end of a lamp wick and demonstrated how to ignite it with flint and steel. We manufactured charred cloth and charred punk wood. With charred cloth that we had freshly made each participant took their turn with a rock and a simple steel made from a broken file. Loved seeing those smiles when first the smoke appeared and then the flames broke loose.

There are numerous ways in my kit to get a fire going. Yes. There are a couple of bic lighters and matches in waterproof containers in my bag. Funny thing though. They rarely get used. I would much rather use either primitive flint and steel or its modern counterpart … the ferro rod … to get a fire going. Or a magnifying lens on a sunny day.  Even in my own yard on a good day when it’s not absolutely necessary. It’s a personal thing. It’s a practice thing. Though I know how to do it I continue to practice.

A canvas fly hung from the back of a truck on the edge of the woods? I think it makes a heck of a one room school house where learning takes place. Not only that. I think it makes one heck of a living room with a fire just outside where good friends sit around, converse on various themes, share thoughts and feelings, and create good and lasting memories.

We covered a lot of good ground over the course of the weekend school. A lot more than can be covered in an after action report such as this.

It was raining on me when I was setting up. It started to rain on me when it was time to start packing up and packing it home. I did not consider it a nuisance. Not at all. I sat there under the fly while it rained … processing in my own mind and being all that had transpired over the course of the weekend. Savoring it. And thinking about the rabbit that slowly hopped its way past us just a few minutes earlier before casually turning into the woods and going on its undisturbed happy rabbit way.

Keep your cutting tools sharp, your fire kits dry, and keep whittling those sticks.

April Class Recap

It is a different world out there.

In the woods.

Under the trees.

Any woods, any trees, any time of the year.

We have gone through a transition here in this part of the world. Winter is gone. Spring is full-blown.

The creatures that slither on their bellies are now out. So are the mosquitoes … not nearly as bad as they will be in another month … but down in the bottoms and around the swamps the mosquitoes are already pretty aggravating. It is easy enough to avoid the fangs of these slithering vipers that the south is famous for. Mostly moccasins here where we are. And a few copperheads. You don’t have to go far though to begin encountering Eastern Diamondbacks.

Situational awareness is the key to avoiding their venom. Always know what is overhead, around, under your feet and where you are reaching. Snake boots, for any warm weather woods goer, are a smart investment. Their cost greatly outweighs the health consequences and expenses associated with anti-venom treatments.

The mosquitoes are another story. You either wear something to repel them or keep a smoky fire going to keep them driven away. I am not a fan of DEET. I would rather use something natural to avoid the strong chemicals. REPEL has a DEET-free product on the market that is supposed to be all-natural. It does repel mosquitoes but I think it stinks to high heaven. Get it on your lips and you’ll taste it for a couple of days.

Crushed Wax Myrtle leaves rubbed on exposed skin repels mosquitoes. So do the crushed leaves of American Beauty Berry. The Wax Myrtle is an evergreen shrub that grows into small trees. Beauty Berry is a bush that is just now beginning to put on their annual leaves.

Shirli and I made our way back to the classroom an hour early. We got a smoky fire going to chase the mosquitoes off the knoll and down into the bottoms that surround it. The live oaks have shed their leaves since we were back there a month ago for the compass reading and land navigation class. All the other oaks shed their leaves in the fall and early winter. These Southern live oaks wait until spring to do their shedding. That dense layer of dry brown leaves made for a nice floor in the woods classroom. Nature’s short-shag carpet.

I walked out to meet the group and escort them on their hike in to the class. On our way in a mature green garter snake was making its way across our path. It’s always pleasant to see a “friendly” under your feet. That is the first green garter that I have seen on the property and I consider it one of the indications of how nature rebounds when areas of land are left to follow their natural design.

The primary focus of our class was using common items normally in our kits to construct a simple unbaited trail snare for small game.

I always preface any discussion of snares by reiterating that the devices are not a legal means to harvest fur bearing animals in Alabama. There are other legal ways to trap during trapping season and those, during prescribed seasons, are the way to go about the task of trapping. A lot of folks get real squirrelly when you talk about trapping animals. I personally have no problem with it. Especially no problem with it when it is done as a means of subsistence. People need food to live. Animals are, among other things, food.

Trapping is a skill that is fast going by the wayside. It is also a skill that will feed you. In certain types of situations possessing this skill and the tools to utilize it can mean food on your table or in your camp. Snaring, in a genuine survival situation, can mean the difference between starving and staying alive.

Accomplishing the primary focus … constructing a snare and triggering mechanism … involves working with tools. Cutting tools. It can be accomplished solely with a knife but a folding saw makes some of the cutting tasks simpler. So there’s two tools that serve useful purposes in the process.

I collected a length from a small sapling and sat down to saw and whittle the finished product. It started to rain. Nothing like a deluge but it was one of those steady lingering things that gets you soaked anyway. We were there. We were committed. Sometimes you get rained on in the woods. It’s just one of those matter of fact things that you can’t get around.

I explained that the trigger mechanism was going to have some exaggerated dimensions so it would be easier to see exactly what I was doing and how I was doing it.

The sawing and whittling opened up the opportunity to talk about safety as I worked with an extremely sharp knife and a folding saw that will take chunks of meat from a finger. One of the things that I emphasized was the necessity to wear a leather glove on the hand that is apt to get cut if you slip. That’s bad enough of a thing to happen at home when you are close to a medicine cabinet or a doctor handy with a stitching needle. Deep in the woods is the wrong place to get a cut of any kind. Another door of teaching opportunity gets opened ...  about the natural antiseptic known as pine sap.

There is honestly no end to the woodcraft and woodlore topics that naturally begin to flow when demonstrating skills. The natural flow is one of the things that I enjoy about the relaxed style of teaching that we are doing with this group that we are mentoring. It’s hard to put together an exact outline of instruction. Quite often I just get into the primary focus and let the rest naturally unfold.

I finished my trigger mechanism and snare, found a suitable small sapling for the spring, marked out an imaginary rabbit run, made the set, and set it off with the rabbit at the end of my arm.

Something of a side note. It is not necessary to peel the bark from the component parts. I think it makes for less friction at the contact points. The peeled sticks are easier to see when checking a line that has been set. Set aside and given a day to dry and those bark peelings will be great kindling to assist in getting your fire going. Peeling sticks is also good basic training in knife handling.

Now their turn to collect their materials and whittle.

I left my finished product where they could look at it as an example but, for the most part, I wanted the class to reproduce the product on their own then demonstrate the workable function of their finished product.

There’s a lot of learning in that process. Listen to instructions and observe what’s being done … closely duplicate what you have observed … test what you have attempted to duplicate. If it works the first time … you’ve done a good job. If it doesn’t work … you haven’t necessarily done a bad job. You just need to focus and keep working at it until you do get it. It’s all about developing skills and practicing skills.

And all the while a steady gentle rain was falling to add a nice sense of wilderness survival ambiance to a class that was focusing on a wilderness survival skill. I thought it was a really nice added touch to the class.

Today marks a year and a month from the Saturday morning when this group met for their orientation class. They have come quite a long way in these 13 months of mentoring. The group has garnered a good bit of experience through these classes and camps.

They are not the only ones benefitting from the experience. They inspire me to keep digging deeper, learning new things, dusting off and rehearsing old skills. Kephart nailed it when he said, “In the school of the woods there is no graduation day.” We are all, in the school of the woods, perpetual students. There is always something new to learn. Older familiar things will always catch light to reveal another facet that we’ve not seen before.

So, as a little closing ceremony to our rain soaked class, we presented Basic Woodcraft Skills Certificates of Achievement to Jude, Gage, and Caleb to recognize, acknowledge and affirm their personal growth and achievements in their woodcraft adventures.