|
This article was published in Vigilance and
Backwoodsman Magazine last year. I definitely want to
expand it someday soon...
Thirteen feet of rain fall yearly on the coast of western
Washington, of which seven inches have hit the ground since
yesterday noon. For a week I’ve been living on berries,
mushrooms, foliage, roots and invertebrates within the
temperate rainforests and beaches of the Olympic Peninsula.
 |
I am hunkered within
the burned-out, yet living shell of an ancient
western red cedar, trying to start a campfire. Angry
rivulets of aqua pura cascade confusingly over the
fire-scarred, exposed sapwood of this
millennium--old forest sentinel, rivulets that seem
intent on thwarting my efforts at coaxing the
fire-spirit from this hand drill set. |
I’ve been carrying these firesticks--a long, straight
branch from an elderberry shrub (the spindle) and a short
length of root (the hearthboard) that I collected from a
blown-over western hemlock—underneath my clothing in an
effort to dry them out. Strong gusts from the west shower
the area with sitka spruce cones. It’s getting dark. I need
a fire.
If you’ve seen the movie Castaway, you may remember that
Tom Hanks attempted to make fire by two methods. The first
involved rotating a slim spindle of wood onto (and into) a
wider, flatter piece of wood. As friction increases at the
contact point between the two sticks, the woods disintegrate
into a fine powder that will spontaneously combust when the
combination of downward pressure and speed (applied wholly
by your own two hands!) raises the temperature of your
efforts to approximately 800-degrees F. The resulting
fire-egg (a.k.a. coal, ember) would subsequently hatch into
flames when applied to a tinder nest of cattail seed head
fluff, moss, slivers of wood and shredded bark.
 |
Humans and their kin
have been using fire for at least 1.5 million years,
but for only one one-hundredth of that period of
time have we been able to actually create fire, on
demand, by rubbing sticks together or banging stones
for their sparks. |
It’s not my intent to fully teach specific stone age
skills in this article. I do wish to share the benefits of a
more primitive and harmonious lifestyle, one that is allowed
to be shaped by the rhythms, patterns and cycles inherent
around us. One way of accomplishing this is through the
adoption and practice of innate (but mostly forgotten)
pre-historic crafts: creating fire, foraging for wild
edibles, and creating simple and effective stone, bone and
wood tools. These skills can be an important asset to those
of us who spend a lot of time in the field, no matter what
missions were on.
 |
Salmonberry
Flower |
The next time you find yourself on the shore of a creek,
river or ocean, pick up a smooth, oval-shaped cobblestone.
Place this rock (end-wise) upon a larger, stable stone. Take
a third rock—your hammerstone—and strike your cobble
forcefully on its upper end. A thin flake should detach from
the parent rock—you’ve just created a discoidal stone blade,
one of humanity’s most ancient cutting tools (2.6 million
year-old stone flakes have been found in Ethiopia). Your new
stone knife will cut grasses, roots, inner barks and leaves
for cordage-making, and meat quite effectively.
 |
|
I have discovered some of the rewards afforded by a more
direct relationship with nature. Here’s the cause and
effects:
Mechanism: Living more lightly within the landscape. If just
1 in 100 people yearned to incorporate primitive skills into
her lifestyle, those in power would feel our positive
impact--not only from our reduced energy consumption, but
from our rejection of throw-away consumerism. Less demand is
less production is less pollution.
Internal Benefit: Self Sufficiency. Imagine being able to
provide for your every need—all year ‘round. Needing
supplies occasionally, you travel a short distance to barter
with another culture. Hand gestures and well-timed glances
guide the proceedings...you provide these people with elk
antler...they offer obsidian cobbles...everyone leaves
content. No industrial, interstate travel, no fossil fuel
expenditure; decrease in the insect and viral pest migration
vectors (namely the export of poultry and grain around the
world). No migration of labor, money, natural resources,
etc. Everything you ever make or do will return to the earth
as it was taken.
Internal Benefit: Freedom. Freedom to go anywhere, anytime,
and feel comfortable that your level of skill will propel
you through any circumstances that arise. Free from worry
about food, water, shelter and warmth. With some knowledge,
honed by experience, you know you will be able to provide
yourself with the necessities of life.
External Benefit: Reintegration. Earth is the very matrix of
which we are composed. Can you recall the time when you
could understand the language of nature? We all walk amongst
a living calendar, one in which we participate, if not
hesitantly. The raucous territorial cries of the barred owls
usher in the new year. The emergence of salmonberry flowers
informs me that salmon fry are plentiful in the shallow
edges of local creeks. I know it’s time to collect the inner
bark of western red cedar when silver-spotted tiger moth
caterpillars are seen grazing upon hemlock and Douglas fir
needles in preparation for their upcoming transformations.
Salt is made in the spring from dried coltsfoot herb.
 |
Medicinal Licorice Fern on
Moss-Encrusted Big-Leaf Maple Tree |
There are thousands of primitive skills practitioners
here in North America. You can find these folks through
word-of-mouth--we tend to be known by local boy and girl
scout troops, museum curators, classroom teachers,
anthropology professors, and so on. There are very
informative and insightful websites that have comprehensive
lists of primitive skills schools found in Europe, Canada
and the U.S. (www.hollowtop.com
is among the best). You can also search for Gatherings (like
Winter Count, Rabbit Stick, Falling Leaves) around the
country, which provide opportunities for you to learn from
the masters of the crafts. Solid ethnographic information on
the edible and medicinal uses of plants can be had by
visiting the Plants for a Future database (www.pfaf.org--catalog
of over 7000 species!) and the Native American Ethnobotany
Database (herb.umd.umich.edu).
 |
With my back to the opening of
this living shelter, I exert increased downward
pressure upon the rotating elderberry shaft. A
whisper of smoke arises from the union of the
firesticks, but as any practitioners of hand drill
can attest to, whomever coined the old adage, "where
there's smoke, there's fire" certainly never tried
doing this. My daily attempts to achieve fire with
these particular sticks have been fruitless so far.
Nickel-sized blisters on each of my palms challenge
me further: In this case, pain must be accepted in
order for me to cook tonight's meal of Stropharia
mushrooms (one of my favorite fungi for the pot). |
 |
With a few more near-desperate
turns of the spindle I see a brief flash of
orange-red as the wood powder begins to combust and
coalesce into a coal. Flames will feed and warm me
tonight. Such is the provenance of our symbiotic
relationship with elemental fire. |
|
