Living Primitively

Not much to write about, but I am in the city making some money this summer. Working these months will keep me going for the rest of the year. This is the last year I expect to work at all, so I’m saving up for a few new nets, some ammo, silencers to my guns, more books etc. I know that guns aren’t exactly primitive, but since bows aren’t legal for hunting here, I keep and mostly use guns.

I don’t think I’ll write much more until August, when caribou season starts and I am back in the mountains.

Been a long time since last post. I’ve been doing a lot of different stuff. I’m not going to write it all, just sum it up.

A german primitive called Thomas, a British guy called Scott and me were for 2 weeks up in some mountains. Not much success in trapping, but we caught 3 kilo trout in nets under the ice. Weather was absolutely stunning (After we were stuck in a snowstorm for 4 days) as you can see from the pictures below. Read the image names for description.

After that I went on a trip with some students from the school which I work at. Yet another nice trip on which we did some ice fishing. I think we caught about 10 small trout.

After that I got my dog. The dog is a mix between East and West Siberian Laika. Very pretty and easily trained dog with loads of energy and interest in all sorts of game. On the day of writing this he barked at something for the first time. Only small birds, but he’ll build up guts for other things later I think. That is how these dogs work. They bark at animals in trees and on ground so the hunter can move in and shoot them. The barking distracts the game so you can come pretty close.

It’s a bit to early to tell on my own part, so most of this is taken from other people’s discription of them. But this dog seems ideal for serious primitive who wants to live off the land. They stay close to camp, warn you about anything that comes close, are very kind to people and don’t venture far from the hunter. They can sleep outside any time of the year. These dogs are direct descendants from the dogs of hunter gatherers in Siberia.

Well, enough about that. For the first time ever I have set up my lavvo with only stone tools. Took about 5 hours, not bad with a scapula for digging and a stone axe for chopping the 12 poles.

I’ll try to make it shorter until next time I update.

I must admit that I haven’t been spending much time out since last post. I’ve been on various missions in the city and spent the Christmas in with my family. I have managed to do quite a few crafts projects though.

What I have done:

• Tanned 5 caribou skins and made a sleeping bag out of them. All of the skins didn’t turn out very soft, but progressively better.
• Made a stone skin scraper for doing the above task.
• Fleshed a few moose skins and a number of caribou skins.
• Made a fur cap of self tanned fox fur.
• Made a number of new bone needles.
• Braided several ptarmigan snares from sinew.
• Hafted my stone knife with cherry pitch, a success you can read about here.

Work is tying my life up and taking too much time, but I’ll have more time off some time in February or March, when I’ll head deeper out into the wilds for a while.

Some pictures:

Cherry pitch, an excellent glue.

Cutting one of the stiffer caribou skins with a flake.

A part of the sleeping bag, before finishing and wringing it. I later discovered that I hadn’t used the optimal stitch, if I had known, wringing wouldn’t have been necessary.

Some of my skins, in a piles and stretched out on the ground. You also see the moose skin coracle we made on a course this autumn to the left.

One of my brothers is making his first buckskin. We freeze dried them and worked them once with a wedge shaped stick. They still need some softening.

Hi folks

I find it hard to find time to do any writing whatsoever when back home. Right now I’m in the city for 2 weeks, so I might as well spend some time summing up what’s happened since the last post.

After the course, I went straight to the city for a week to visit the kids, like I am now. Since then I’ve spent a lot of time hunting moose, though unsuccessfully. I’ve been hunting sometimes alone, but most of the time with a very experienced guy, who has shot in excess of 150 moose.

All I have shot during this time is a duck and a couple of thrushes, so needless to say I’m not on a wild diet at all. The school I work at, preserving skins that I have either gotten from hunters or ordered from somewhere else and making my stuff from scratch takes so much time that I don’t get around procuring much food. I know though, that it’s something I have to start focusing on.

Thomas and some other primitives have been visiting me, they are setting up a wilderness living course in the area of the school I’m working this January. A link you have here.

I have also set up 2 courses next spring and it is very likely that I set up a tanning course in not so long. If you wonder what the difference between my courses and Thomas’ ones are, I’m more focused on the skills alone, while he is focused on the wholistic, society thing.

Btw. Finally my reindeer sleeping bag is finally coming along, skins are being tanned. I’m not going for a super soft, ultra sexy tan, so I think I’ll be done quite quickly when I’m back.

Not been taking a lot of photos lately, the batteries don’t last long in the cold, so some of these photos are rather old. The left one is from a misty morning. Look at all those spiderwebs. The ones to the right are of drying berries on a hide and drying trout in the lodge.

First of all, thank you all of you who has donated! I feel like I have neglected my responsibility towards you. My only excuse is that I’ve been very busy. Like here, picking sour cherries for my mother… hehe

In fact it’s been so long since last time I updated that I can’t remember everything that has happened. So I’ll just spend a little time summing things up.

Boring stuff first: I’ve been one short trip to the city and am back now for almost a week. I have other things I rather should have done, but nice to see the kids.

In August I arranged a 5 day trip with the students of the school I work part time at. We went 3 of the days eating nothing but berries and fish we caught. Not everybody was equally happy with that arrangement, but I think all went out of it with a new appreciation of food.

After that I put a lot of work into hunting caribou. This was my first season and I shot only one, but it gave me a lot of experience that I’ll need next year. The gun is required btw. No bowhunting is allowed in Norway unfortunately. The skin was simply unfolded on the poles in the lavvo to dry. The meat that wasn’t eaten fresh, was hung on strings to dry.

Lately the spawning trout is hitting the rivers with full force. Not coincidentally, Patrick McGlinchey from Backwoods Survival School and I ran the Veidemann course last week. I’ll make an in depth post about that soon.

Some scenery pictures: