Living Primitively

I am sure you have all had an eventful year! The last year has been one of many difficult lessons for me. There has been times with no motivation and going back to civilized life for some time. Mostly due to loneliness. However these experiences have all strengthened me in my belief that there is no way back. The endless boredom and rutine of a modern job would push me into drug abuse or depression for sure.

A few goals have been modified. I use metal tools for the majority of tasks now, although I value my knowledge of the stone tools and sometimes utilize them if I forget my steel tools. Other things are at a more personal level, which I may tell you if I meet you in person.

There has been plenty of hunting, both successful and unsuccessful. New fishing techniques have been tested with success. Food has generally not been a problem.

Crafts have been made, but the cold weather (was below minus 30 at the camp at times) and the lack of motivation has limited it. A really comfortable winter accommodation is necessary in order to get these things done. Earth lodge was started during the course this autumn, but was not finished. However it became a good double lean-t, that will be made totally enclosed next year.

This brings me to American bushman’s request about a heads up for this year’s Veidemann course. Well, here it is. The dates are 13th to 19th October. Anyone interested can have a further look here.

The plans for the future are as they usually are for me; fluid and evolving. One thing is for sure: I am going to spend more time with likeminded people. Any primitives that want to come for a visit or have me visiting them at your camp locations, don’t hesitate to contact me. I can’t have visitors for months at the time, but a week or so is ok.

Recently I have made clothing of reindeer skin. Although some of my tailoring has left a bit to be desired these clothes are very warm and functional. For the mittens I used instructions from “Secrets of Eskimo Skin Sewing” by Edna Wilder. Made patterns from birch bark. The shoes are a mix between traditional Norwegian ski shoes and Saami shoes. The parka was adapted (made some minor changes) from Tamarack Song’s article in Wilderness Way Magazine (vol. 15, issue 1). There is still some work left to make it 100%, but it works more than satisfactorily now. Both the shoes and the parka were made without patterns, freeform.

Here are the softening tools I have experimented with: Artillery cartridge in brass (not very good), shell (very good, but dulls quickly), cannon bone end scraper (very good, energy efficient, but dulls quickly)  hafted stone scraper (quite good, energy efficient, but requires a beam).

Last year Patrick McGlinchey (Backwoods Survival School) and I ran a survival course in my home valley in Telemark, Norway. We arrange one this year too in the end of September.

A list of some of what was covered last year:

• Bowdrill fire with natural cordage
• Trout fishing with bare hands
• Skinning and butchering, small game and moose
• Fish spears and spearing
• Making nets
• Moose ear pouches
• Basic flintknapping
• Shelter
• Skin boat (coracle)
• Seine netting

I can not guarantee that the exact same subjects will be taught this year. BUT I would go as far as saying that I guarantee that we catch trout and if it turns out like last year, we’ll catch loads of them! I think we caught about 500 brown trout then.

Photos by a participant last year can be found here.

If you think this sounds exciting, feel free to contact Patrick through this link.

This summer has been hard for me. After a year of almost total freedom, I have been back doing a job in construction to get sufficient cash for some investments that will last me a long time. This WAS my last full time job I’ll ever do. It is just not worth wasting your life on.

It has been great at times too though, but rather dispite of the work than because of it. For the first time I have had the opportunity to really get into sea fishing and foraging. Thomas (German friend and primitivist) and I were on a location close to Hitra. I will not tell exactly where it is, because it is such an unspoiled location, with old pine forest going all the way down to the coast. There are no houses to be seen there and the whole bay is an excellent fishing area we found.

Small portion of the bay (view from the camp):

Thomas was out scouting the location upfront and stayed there for something like two weeks in total. I was only in for 3 days, but it was still an experience like few others I have had. The bay is big and consists out of several parts of various depth. Limpets, 2 kinds of snails, clams, mussels and seaweed abound in the shoreline. Some of the shells are of very big size, showing that there hasn’t really been many people around (people tend to pick the nice shells). The inlet leading into the bay is a violent salt water stream and during some times of the ebb and flow cycle it was an excellent fishing ground.

We caught about 22 (approx. 1 kg each) mackarel and some 30 small cod and polluck. Thomas had also caught a few small flatfish and salmon before I arrived. Mackarel is very oily and spoils easily, so we had to eat as many of them as possible and dry the lean cod and polluck for later consumption. In order to make the mackarel keep better we built a smoker and smoked about ten of them. There is no way one can consume more than 2 kg mackarel per day. In addition we caught a huge number of crabs. The whole thing was really a big eating feast. Most of the mackarel was caught with a modern rod and everything was caught with modern equipment. Using traditional equipment for fishing was largely left for another occation.

Above: A tired me with freshly caught mackarel.

Above: Thomas cleaning fish and preparing for drying. Btw, Thomas is not drunk on the last photo, it is just his way of saying hello to the internet in his beaver fur cap.

On a personal level this trip was very challenging for me. There was a lot of walking on road back and forth (about 25 km). This kind of walking I am not used to. Additionally I didn’t have any proper shoes (sandals) and no sleeping bag. The first night I slept underneath a pine, not waterproof at all. Rain and moskitoes tormented me alternately so I wasn’t able to sleep more than maybe an hour.

Next day I was determined to build a good lean-to to stay dry. With a very simple stone axe I chopped the poles and used some dead pine bark for the lower shingling. For the upper shingling I used a dense layer of heather. The construction was made steep and stayed completely waterproof in the rain the next nights. Thomas taught me a trick with putting something over my face (something breathable) to breathe through in order to keep the mossies out. It worked pretty well and it helped me sleep for at least 5 hours the two last nights.

Because of the extremely high red deer population in the area, there are ticks all over the place. I picked off two, but they don’t seem to like me as much as they like Thomas…

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.