I’ve posted on Read Over my Shoulder. First day did not go as planned, but that’s okay.
I’ve been meaning to post this article from Utne Reader Way Off the Grid: A Photographer Documents the lives of “Rewilders.“ They seem radical now, but how many years until the rest of us are relying on these dissenters to teach us how to live without oil or manufactured goods? I have a cousin who has lived like this off and on in Eugene, Oregon. She and her husband lived in a teepee, then upgraded to yurt for at least seven years. The property that they were squatting on 9yep, a typical Thoreau-Emerson arrangement) was sold and at that time they moved in with his family in LA, of all places. Amazingly, she managed to keep her core beliefs alive, even in the city, and continued to run a volunteer bird sanctuary. Now they live in a converted school bus. They installed a woodstove, insulated and paneled the inside, it looks like a dream!
I envy admire their way of life. They aren’t debating whether A&F or Urban Outfitters is more genuine, and they are not settling for Wal-Mart just because it’s cheap. I try to make decisions that reduce my carbon footprint, support small businesses, and make this planet more pleasant and inhabitable, but I suppose I am too lazy, comfortable, and accustomed to my lifestyle to make major changes.
Meanwhile, Utne Reader published another article of more interest and relevance to our class: “MP3 Scavengers Know No Borders.” My husband tracked down some of these podcasts and I think they are my favorite use of the technology yet! The article focuses on some MP3 bloggers who have made digital recording of obscure, forgotten, or unknown LP and 45s from around the world. The article highlights a number of African Music collections.
I think it’s a fairly natural desire for people to want to go off and live independent of the monster that is “civilized” America. I can ask nearly any one of my friends what their house in the wilderness would look like, and how they would survive–and they would have excited answers. For the moment, I want to take a look at one aspect of wilderness survival: clean water. This guide is based on the assumption that you are stranded with little gear.
The problem with water found in the wilderness is that it contains lots of potentially life threatening parasites, bacteria, and other nasty bugs. Nothing like a little typhoid to foil your survival plans. Making that water fresh requires boiling, or purification with tablets. If you don’t have tablets, boiling water in the wilderness can be a challenge. First, how will you make a fire if you don’t have matches or a lighter?
The stick-rubbing thing, amazingly, works, it just takes patience. Find a dry, medium sized split branch with a knot in it. You want it to be split lengthwise so you can set it in the dirt and get a good grip on it. Next you need to gouge a nickel-quarter sized pit in the medium stick. Another alternative is to find a large, fallen, dry log and gouge a pit in it so you don’t have to concentrate on holding it in place. Now you need to find another smaller straight stick. The end of the second stick must fit with some room to spare in the knot. Then shred pieces of dry bark and milkweed or thistle cotton into the pit (don’t use leaves, and try to avoid dry grass for the starting material–they make smoke but don’t “burn” as well). Then prepare to push the limits of how long you can make that twig spin in the knot as fast as you can. After about a half hour, I can usually get something going. Once the wad of shredded bark and cotton lights, knock the cherry into your already constructed fire structure. This structure should be very carefully crafted. The more effort you put into building your fire, the better it will burn.
Next you have the problem of a container to boil the water. One of the neatest solutions I have ever seen is to use a very hot rock from a fire and place it in a hat, or any other article of clothing that can be made to hold water. The rock boils the water without requiring you to put a fire to it, killing all of the parasites. Mmm, leather tea never tasted so good!
If you have nothing that can hold water, your alternatives are slim. But there is one more. Find a fresh stump or section of large log, and build a small fire in one spot on it. As the fire burns in the center, begin to hollow the stump or log by carving away the carbon towards the center with a sharp rock or whatever you can find. Once you have created a bowl large enough to hold a decent amount of water, you must polish the inside of the bowl with a smooth rock to get as much of the free carbon off, leaving only about a quarter of an inch of char. Carbon, btw, is not poisonous - so a little in your water won’t kill you. Fire makes wood dry, and drying wood expands, making the grain more dense (it’s called tempered wood, a similar process to tempering metal, but they work for different reasons). The effect of this is a hardened surface that will actually hold water (not forever, but long enough for you to use the hot-rock method to sterilize the water).
So that’s just water. Arguably, you would have a week, once you got your water thing squared away, to figure out how to procure food–though I bet after a day or two of no food, your hunger would make it difficult for you to forage. But that’s a whole other chapter.