Written by Run From Bugs

Firemaking is a metaphor for life out here. Are we engaged with it? Are we prepared to make a fire at any moment? Are we pushing our skill level with it? Can we give birth to fire when we really need it when the weather is challenging, when hungry, when emotional? These are some of the questions I ask myself, as I see more and more how firemaking is central to life.

We started our wilderness experience with several boxes of matches, then about one moon cycle in we were introduced to the bowdrill technique to make fire. To oversimplify the process, one must harvest the handhold, spindle, fireboard, and bow. Fireboard lays on the ground, one foot on top to hold it in place. The spindle twists into the bowstring, the bottom of the spindle goes on the board and the top goes into the handhold. One hand on the handhold to hold it in place and the other on the bow and one begins to bow forward and back, causing the spindle to drill into the fireboard. This creates a hot powder. One then can carve a notch in the hole created by the spindle, giving the powder a place to collect. The spindle gets hot enough to ignite the powder into a smoking, red hot ember. Drop the ember into a tinder bundle, blow on it, and now we have created a flame, all from natural materials, gifted to us by the Earth.

Our second moon into being here, we gave back our remaining matches, so all our fires are now started by bow drill. The pack has, so far, always managed to create a fire every sun. Fire is vital to life out here; we have food that must be cooked to be digestible, and food is a precious resource here, especially during the height of the green season, also called the “hunger moons”, a topic that I will share more about next time.

We have been having a bit of a drought out here, but we still need fire to occasionally dry our clothes. It is warm to hot out here now, but we are in the North Woods, the cold IS coming so we need to master the basics of firemaking now.

We are shortly after our third moon here, and our firemaking challenges are beginning to evolve. Currently, we are all responsible for making a fire, and we do not use the fire until the last pack member makes a fire. Sometimes we get to hear curses and see firekits thrown into the brush, other times we hear begging to borrow a kit that works. Overall, the challenge is keeping us motivated and at our edge, but the sky is the limit after this. Do we learn notchless fires, use wet materials, cruder materials? Do we avoid using our steel knives to carve our materials, use root or bark instead of rawhide cordage for the bow? Do it blindfolded or use our opposite hand or both? There is a long way to go on this firemaking journey, luckily we have several more moons to master this skill, which may very well translate into a mastery of our lives.

Gathering and Processing

We are at the center of the Green Season, the sunlight is long and star time is minimal. We just got introduced to a couple of new edible plants, as well as Wigwam construction and repair. We are roughly 2 Moons into the experience, so this is the time for us to connect to the means and ends of our existence, to the land, to the Earth Mother,

A significant amount of the pack’s energy is devoted to gathering and processing. We gather all of our protein by fishing sunfish and bass from the lake and all our leafy green vegetables (fiber + nutrients) from a variety of over 10 wild plans. The berries are almost ready, so soon we will gather all the fruit we eat as well. We gather firewood for, well, fire. Roots for cordage, process deer hide, for more cordage, as well as an assortment of wood for crafting bow drill kits, bowls, and pack frames.

There is plenty to do out here, as you can see. We have no weekends, holidays or vacations, but our entertainment, relaxation, and satisfaction are weaved into our lives as these days come and go. We see the fruits of our labor in a far more real and natural way than receiving a paycheck from a job and going to the market to buy food that we are accustomed to. We are beginning to tap into something far greater than ourselves, and it is truly a beautiful thing to be a part of.

Dismisses Concerns

What a powerful quarter moon it has been! We have been facing the thresholds of Nishnasda full force. First we have a new guest who has been testing our limits. I am of course talking about the ever feared protector of the Northwoods, the Mosquito. Once the late spring cold let up they decided to make up for lost time! Swarms have come flying onto our skin from the ponds and bogs. At times we are held up in our tents under a proverbial siege of buzzing. Other times we walk through clouds of them and do our work as if they weren’t even there. Between the buggers and feeling a bit thrown off after our first dead moon visit: we have been hit hard with emotional turmoil. (and quite a bit of itching too.)

But though it is hard for us to see at times, this is all important for our emotional process here. Rather than let this law defeat us, we came together as a pack and explored why we feel that way and how it is we can step across this chasm and live in balance with the world around us.

This does not mean there will not be faced with new challenges every sun. We are currently in the hunger moons; which simply put means we are hungry!

We are now gathering 100 % of our own protein and greens. No more deer meat and store bought cabbage for us. Now it’s all fish we catch ourselves and gathered bass tree leaves and ferns and raspberry leaves. Pretty soon when the berries come up, we won’t be getting domestic fruit any longer either.

Poor us! All we will have is an inexhaustible supply of fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, not to mention the cherries! What we are learning from this is building a connection with what we are eating. It is humbling and enlightening for us seekers.

Beyond that we have been enjoying the warmth of the green season. Swimming and canoeing, cooking fresh cracklings by our hearth. For all the intensity of the hardships we will fare here, it will be those moments of simple joy and understanding that we will keep in our hearts.

We also have a wonderful testimonial below written by one of us seekers. It will show you how even something as simple as trimming your nails is a complex and multifaceted project. (for the record, the incredibly handsome writer of the mail blog just bites them off. Gross)

Till next time. See you on the Path.

Wilderness Manicure by Confronts Passionately

My nails were looking a bit unkept after digging spruce roots and cracking wet walnuts. During a village discussion I grabbed my knife and began trimming off the black crusty excess growth. The blade seemed dull for this work so I leaned over and grabbed a stone a seeker had been using to crack walnuts. The stone sharpened the blade nicely, and after the nails were neatly trimmed it served excellently as an emery board, creating buttery smooth edges on those dirt engrained finger nail tips. After the discussion I paddled into the wind and harvested fiddlenecks and firewood on the west side of the lake. After slurping down 21 gulps of pristine lake water, I headed back to the village with my gifts. I was feeling exhausted, but the water was warm and the wind just right. I quickly fashioned a reclining back rest of firewood and lifejacket, then kicked back with my hands dangling over the sides. I rested a wool mitten over my eyes to dampen the sun; somehow the mitten felt like two cucumber slices. I woke to the slapping of little waves on the village shore. My fingers were a little pruny, and rarely looked so fine.

Leather

Today I want to talk a little bit about one of my favorite things out here. Working with leather.

If you want something that is made out of leather here, you can’t just go into a store and buy everything you need.

First of all, you need a dead animal from which you can get the skin off. Then comes the most important part (after eating the meat of the animal ;-)). Tanning the hide: the process itself already needs a lot of preparation and work: Do you want to keep the fur on or not? Removing the grain and membrane – stretching it – egging or braining it – and then stretching it again until it is soft and pliable – drying it. Now, after a lot of work, the hide is still not resistant to water (that means it will turn to stiff rawhide if it gets wet), so you have to smoke it, which can take quite its time.

Then finally you have one hide that you can use for clothing, bags or something else.

Now, most importantly, you have to know what you want to create out of the leather and how to make it. Every inch that you waste or lose on that hide, feels like a kick in your butt J.

Once you have finished your project, you have a “masterpiece” that exists only once in the world and can’t be replaced by anything else. I personally just finished a bag (that hopefully looks good enough to carry in public ;-)), which took me about two weeks of work. I immediately fell in love with that project and enjoyed every single second of that work. I’m not quite sure what my next project will be, but I’m pretty convinced that it will be as much fun as the bag.

I really hope that whoever reads this finds his interest in leatherwork, because for me it isn’t just crafting. It’s a fun hobby, which has an amazing end-project and it will teach you a lot about your own patience and (from time to time) mistakes. Especially if you only have a needle, string, and one knife as tools :-).