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.