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April 3, 2007 11:33 - This week we spent time knapping flint, rock-working and making/using
This week we spent time knapping flint, rock-working and making/using rabbitsticks.
Laura, Dana and Andrew get into playing with their newly made rabbit-sticks.
Rez student Jan gets into rock-working caveman style. Aarrrgh!
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
April 10, 2007 16:23 - Fire from scratch & burning bowls
This week was a lot of challenging activities. First it was making fire from scratch, then burning out water bowls and then picking nettles.
Rez student Steven drinks some rock-boiled water from a coal-burned bowl.
Hanz and Laura work on making a friction fire kit without a knife or cordage. Fire from scratch, what a challenge!
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
April 17, 2007 14:11 - Camo, traps & snares!
This week started out with natural camo, than we worked on traps and snares and ended the week with learning about the Sacred harvest.
Hanz, Evan and Colin demonstrate varioues levels of natural camo.
Rez student Becky sets up a practice deadfall trap ment for whomping small mammals. (photo by Linda Bittle)
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
April 26, 2007 10:41 - Fire alternatives
April 6, 2007
Hi All,
This week was an adventure in learning alternate uses for fire. Much of the time was spent on the Sultan Sandbar.
First, Wednesday was spent making fire from scratch only material found on the Sandbar. This required us to construct a new bow-drill friction fire set. We could not even use our knives for making any of the parts for the friction fire kit! This was a very challenging exercise which took lots of patience and great perseverance from all of the Residential students. At the end of the day, not even the instructors could get a coal. The wet conditions made things very challenging. We did, nonetheless, all learn a great deal and had fun throughout the day.
On Thursday, we went back to the Sandbar for some more work with fire. This time, we worked on using coals from the fire to burn out bowls out of logs. This was an all day event, which took a lot of burning and scraping out the blackened wood. At the very end, we used the hollows we had created in the pieces of wood to purify water from the river. Using extremely hot stones placed into the water, we brought it quickly to a boil. We allowed it to boil for a short time, then added some hemlock and red cedar greens to flavor the water. Mmmm!
Finally, Friday was spent at Linne Doran with John Gallagher learning about a wonderful plant known as Stinging Nettle. We started our day with an insightful lecture from John, during which we all sipped some delicious nettle tea. Later, we went out in the field and learned the art of picking young nettles. They can give a sharp sting if handled roughly and without consideration. Ouch! Then, we processed the nettle and made it in to some wonderful soup. John also had us all sample some nettle infusion. With tons of iron, Vitamin C and many other things nettle is nothing short of a SUPERFOOD!
Yummy end to a good week.
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
April 26, 2007 10:48 - It was a week of wilderness survival and blindfolded exploration.
Residential student Todd maintains the fire blindfolded. The fire was started by friction by the whole class while blindfolded and monitored without the use of sight.
This basket holds just a few of the tasty edibles we found: wild asparagus, wild onions, balsamroot and lomatium.
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
April 26, 2007 10:50 - Getting ready for Scout Camp!
This week in class we spent some time preparing for “Scout Camp” coming up next month. The woman who will be facilitating scout camp at her property, Chris, came to help us learn about camouflage and the role of scouts in traditional societies. In some cultures there were always scouts posted on the high places around the village to watch for game and other tribes, make sure children didn’t wander off and fall into rivers, and just generally oversee everything. Scouts also wandered the landscape observing all there was to observe and bringing back an intimate story of the environment that the village could then use to find food or a new camp or materials necessary for life.
Scouts, because of their many jobs, often had to blend in with the landscape and not alert other animals or people to their whereabouts. Thus the connection between the art of camouflage and the role of the scout.
After a discussion of the main principles of camouflaging, we all went outside and found mud and dirt and charcoal and decorated ourselves thoroughly to match the landscape around us. This involved breaking up our outline, dulling the shine of our skin, lightening dark places (like the hollow of your eyes) and darkening the light places (cheekbones), and disrupting our forms by drawing diagonal lines with mud and charcoal and sprinkling ourselves with leaves.
After we were fully “got-up” we spread out along the path and waited for Jason, Marcus and Chris to come walking down the path and when we could see them, sank off the trail and faded into the woods right next to it. It was hard to move slowly when you knew they could see you if they knew were to look, but moving fast would attract their attention for sure, and many of us weren’t seen as we moved off the trail within plain view of them! It was a fun day, and I came home to find a news article sent from a friend about a study that discovered a link between contact with dirt and the production of serotonin in the brain! Go figure!
–Dana
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
April 26, 2007 10:52 - Blindfold adventure
Hello All,
This week began with a 2 day adventure in eastern Washington’s sagebrush country and it ended with an extended blindfolded adventure back in Duvall.
After arriving at our location near the Columbia River at a spot known as Crab Creek, we set up camp and prepared for the days activities. Our class separated out into several parties focused on practicing different activities. One group was focused on learning about hunting, another about fishing and the third was about gathering. We joined the groups we felt most called to and headed out to explore for the day. The plant gathering group found a wonderful assortment of plants to eat, including a species of Lomatium (also known as biscuit-root), nodding onion, cattail tubers, sagebrush mariposa bulbs and even wild asparagus! Needless to say, we ate very well around the camp fire that night…
We explored and enjoyed the warmth and sun of the sagebrush country until about 1 pm on Thursday, than headed back to the wetter and more familiar West side of the Cascade mountains to Duvall. The semi-arid land had treated us well, and we left with a great deal of gratitude in our hearts.
Friday was a unique day because we stayed blinded folded for almost the entire day of class back at Linne Doran. That morning we put on our blindfolds and proceed to do everything without the use of our eyes, which included: drinking, eating lunch, playing games and evening starting and maintaining a friction fire! We also did a great scent tracking exercise in which we followed a trail of scent strictly with our noses.
Most of us had never gone blindfolded for that long, and we were all totally overwhelmed by the brightness and color of the world when we removed them in the afternoon. So many new shades of green popped out of the forested landscape at us and colors seemed to make up everything. Even the soot-stained skylight windows of Malalo appeared to be made of stained glass.
No doubt, this has been an eye-opening week to all of us in many ways.
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
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