Nov 102009
Guy can learn a lot from a beaver.
Well it’s about time I updated my blog and this is going to be a rather quick and very incomplete update at that. I thought by now I would have had all kinds of survival skills to talk about and all kinds of time to develop this site but the fact of the matter is most of the last few weeks (err…months) have been consumed just building a shelter with an occasional break to practice fire making with a bow drill and cold invigorating dips in the creek.
Home Sweet Home
My original plan was to construct a traditional wigwam using cattail mats. I thought it would take – oh, maybe a week or two. However I vastly underestimated the amount of cattails and time needed to gather and construct the mats. What I’ve settled on is a wigwam like shelter with debris walls and a cattail roof. I’ve included a photo of my current dwelling; it looks more done than it actually is but I’m hopeful – god willing – that I’ll have the shelter pretty much done by the end of the week. Turning what was supposed to be a weekend at the Tracker School into a three week hiatus which included volunteering for two weeks at Tom Browns tracker school, a trip to Boston, and a hike in the White Mountains did set me back a bit but was well worth it.
Really can’t complain about the weather in Indiana though, here it is early November and highs all last week were in the 60 to 70 degree range with lows around 40 degrees. Really I feel like I’ve been blessed for the weather I’ve experienced while constructing this shelter. I mean it’s been perfect. There have been a few cold nights and more than a few rainy days but no cold and rainy weather yet. This has allowed me to test out my shelter in a verity of conditions without putting myself at too much risk, I’ve been really lucky. For the most part the shelter works amazingly well but many improvements were needed from when I first thought it was almost done. If this had been a normal early winter season I certainly would have learned a few hard lessons.
With the shelter mostly done I’m looking forward to having more time to work on other skills and updating my blog. Unfortunately there were a lot of adventures and experiences, mostly involving the gathering of cattails, which will probably never get told here.
In any case within the next few weeks I’ll be adding categories to this blog to cover various survival skills I’m working on. Upcoming posts include a couple of different approaches on how to make cattail mats, some thoughts on shelter including how my understanding of what a wilderness shelter is and how that understanding has changed since I moved out of my apartment, a few thoughts on thoughts including the psychology of wilderness living, a word or two about Tom Brown and the Tracker School, and of course the all important techniques on fire making. And that is just the beginning of what you can expect to see posted here. Keep in mind I’m not exactly a survival guru – not yet anyway – so expect plenty of storied on how I screwed up. So if anyone out there has been wondering where are all the survival skills promised stand by, it’s coming.