Wild Child Survival Skills at Mt. Pisgah:
Every Sunday this month we had a different class about ways your child can prevent getting lost and surviving if it happened.
The first class was on Navigation and Lost Proofing. If you know your surroundings, understand about traveling in a straight line, and can find your way back through mental imaging - then getting lost can be harder than you might think.
We opened the class with a thanksgiving and introduction then immediately proceeded to a game called Predator vs. Prey. Here we learned about the art of sneaking, how animals hunt, see, and feel in their habitat. We had great fun learning how to stalk as quietly as possible and (as the prey) how to listen to every sound. From here we moved on to our first navigation technique - sight-lining. It is hard to move in a straight line because of how our bodies and mind are designed - instead pick two objects ahead of you that are in a straight line (features such as trees) and walk to the first one. Then pick two more in a straight line - and on and on. Pretty easy concept once you get in there and try it.
Our next lost proofing strategy is about intuition. Have you ever seen an animal look up and bound away even though you know they couldn't see or smell you? Or how about the time when you felt someone looking at you and when you looked up - there was? Body Radar is a game about finding that intuition - listening to your heart instead of your brain. Everyone stands in a circle and there is one person in the middle. The middle person is blindfolded and their task is to point at the person who is pointing at them. It is uncanny how people can get it so easily!
We then led people through a maze of trails, stopped, and asked them to point in the direction of where their car is parked. You can only imagine how many fingers were pointed in separate ways! Can you point to where North is from where you are sitting?
We played a quick game about blazing a trail and talked about remembering your surroundings. The final exercise was inside with hot chocolate and we drew the map of where we went that day. Mental maps or songlining can be very helpful to remember certain features about where you walked so when you give directions or have to find your way back - just tell the story of what you saw!
Wild Child Survival Skills: Shelter and Water
The Sacred Order:
Shelter
Water
Fire
Food
You can survive ~3 weeks without food, ~3 days without water, and ~3 hours without a proper shelter in bad weather - thus the Sacred Order.
One of the most basic shelters is the debris hut. It is constructed with a ridge pole with one end propped up just taller than you, sticks placed on the sides, lattice work on top of sticks, and tons of debris. The three basic elements for shelter building is location, structure, and insulation.
The kids had so much fun building a fort! But man is it a lot of work.
Water is so vital to our life, but so difficult to teach. So many of our natural water sources have been polluted and are unsafe to drink without purification. We showed the kids how to collect water by digging seeps, using "transpiration bags" on the branch of a tree, and how to collect dew. All of these methods could save your life in an emergency. For water treatment we talked about some modern methods like chemicals and we showed how you can clarify dirty water using a grass and sand filter. In a primitive situation the only way to make biologically polluted water safe to drink is by boiling. Hopefully the most important think that the kids learned is a respect for water as the lifeblood of our earth mother and all living things.
Fire is probably all at once the most challenging, most rewarding and most critical survival skill that we all rely on. How many people in this country or even in this world could confidently create a fire with only collected natural materials if his or her life depended on it. We dedicated most of one Sunday class to teaching this skill. We taught the kids bowdrill firemaking because it is the easiest and most reliable of the various fire-by-friction methods. For a tutorial on bowdrill go here
It is so inspiring to see the passion that is ignited in people of all ages when studying friction fire. We had a few people successfully create a coal and everyone seemed eager to go home and practice more.
Food is at the bottom of the sacred order but it is still important. We decided to try out a new way of teaching people edible plants that would hopefully create a more powerful image of that plant in their minds than just pointing it out and naming it. Before class we collected from a small area 5 common edible and/or medicinal plants that are safe and don't really have any poisonous look-alikes.
During class we placed a leaf of each plant in a folded bandana and asked everyone to pay close attention. We displayed the leaves for about 30-45 seconds encouraging people to not only look at the plants but also to touch and smell them. We then took away the plants and challenged the group to go out in that same small area and find all 5 plants. After they came back together we shared what they had found and talked about the uses of each plant only revealing the plant's name after we were done talking about the plant's spirit. This approach got dramatic results and we had several participants report that they were suddenly seeing plants that they knew where before they had seen nothing. It is constantly inspiring to see people break through the "wall of green" that had previously been their perception of wild plants.
Trackers TEAMS Taster Day
Hanging out and working on wilderness skills can be extremely fun. Tony Deis of TrackersNW helped us host a free taster day on Feb 21st down in Eugene. It was a full day of team-building and playing which we enjoyed immensely.
We started out the day by deflowering Tony by taking him on his first visit to Dutch Bros. The staff flirted appropriately and Tony was hooked. Coffee in hand we headed up to Morse Ranch Park to get ready.
We began the day with some good old-fashioned sword throwing. It is really much safer than it sounds. Participants stand in a circle and call each other's name as a bamboo "sword" is gently tossed in that person's direction. Everyone takes turns tossing the sword back and forth until people begin to get comfortable then a new layer of complexity is added in. First a second sword is added, then they are asked to do the activity while rotating their circle, then they have to do it opposite-handed and then perhaps a third sword is added to the mix. All of this is helpful for a lot of reasons. It helps to learn names, it heightens awareness, it builds trust, it gets bodies moving and it puts people in an open state of mind for learning.
The middle of the day was spent working with bowdrill and slinging tennis balls with simple slings. With a rock in place of a rennis ball those slings can be highly deadly. Last we talked about natural camo and once a few people had their faces covered in mud we grabbed some cheap bows and foam-tipped arrows and played stealth 'capture the homebrew" in teams. Each team was given a homemade bottle of ginger beer to defend while also being tasked with stealing the opposing team's brew. Matt is so stoked on the foam tipped arrows that he is working on making a set tonight.
If you missed out on this month's taster day there is already another one planned at Lost Valley Educational Center in March. Details to follow.
As if that wasn't enough we also had our monthly skill share on Feb 22nd. Karen Rainsong of Alvord Museum hosted us this month and Elyse Peterson shared with us how to make things out of wool and other animal fibers. Some people learned carding, some worked on spinning and many were content to sit around and knit. These are all skills that experienced folks make look easy but are really a challenge to learn. Matt's yarn was pretty crazy looking and Anna is still refining her stitches. Thank you to Karen and Elyse for making it happen this month!
Man, it has been a busy month...
2 comments:
The taster day was a blast, if you thought about it and didn't go you missed out so try to go to the one in Lost Valley. There were two of us up from Medford, if anyone wants to get together in Jackson County feel free to contact me. Adam
What time does the spring plant walk start and end on the 29th??
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