Living Primitively

This is part of a series that will be published every Wednesday. Again, until I run out of something to write about. The first parts will be quite theoretic.

Wild Food Economics

Economics is a part of every person’s life, regardless if you live in the wild or in the modern money economy. For a private economy to be healthy, you have to be spending less resources than you are generating. The main difference between the modern system and when you are living in the wild is that the modern system is based on money, while for a person craving to be self-sufficient, it is all about energy. If you through a long period of time have a lower intake of energy than you are spending, you will die.

Energy Efficiency

How long time you need to go before dying of starvation is dependant on your level of activity. If you are in a lot of activity you need proportionally more food to be able to survive. In extreme cases, it may in fact be impossible to consume enough food to recuperate that same day. You may have to rest for a day or two and, through that time, consume more food than you really need to rebuild the reserves. Expending as little as possible on any activity can be vital in a pressed food situation. The Art of Nothing as proposed by Elpel (1995) is a mindset quite unfamiliar to the modern industrious worker. When there is nothing else to do, the moral is to rest and consequently spend as little energy as possible on activities that doesn’t bring food.

While harvesting food the main goal (away from nutritional demands) should also be to expend as little energy as you can. What gives highest output of gathering, fishing and hunting/trapping will vary from environment to environment. The economic concept of alternative investment is valid here too. Although you can subsist on foods with lower input to output ration energy wise there are two reasons why you should always choose the easiest food source:

• Tomorrow is never certain. If you can build up a stockpile of food or put on some body fat, that will make tomorrow a day of food security.

• Food gathering is rarely the most exciting activity imaginable, leisure time will always be more desirable.

This way of thinking does not serve to bring any species to extinction. Because, as the specie become more scarce, there will always be easier food sources available. Though, this is only true as long as a technological innovation, that make harvesting easier, doesn’t happen.

Investments

What is the easiest food will also change on the base of what tools you have available and your level of skill in procuring specific types of food. In a short term survival situation, the most desirable food may be unattainable due to lack of tools to accomplish this. As an example is a fishing net. Making a fishing net require a lot of investment in time and energy. But when it is finished you have a reliable way of getting lots of desirable food: fish. As your situation progresses into long term survival, the food requiring little tools and skill to gather, like vegetables and clams will become less and less important. That is because they generally offer less energy than trapping and fishing versus time and energy expended. Because of this, it is also important to be aware of what you are putting your effort into. If there is something that is meant to be expendable, like throwing or digging sticks often are, there is no reason to make them anything more than serviceable. If a tool require lots of effort to make, but is meant to last only a short time, it may not be worth making.

This brings us over on traps. A trap (nets are really traps too) often require little effort to make and leave you free to attend other business, such a setting more traps. Hunting is normally not a worthwhile activity and hunting tools will most of the time either be for protection or exploiting opportunities that may present themselves.

Protein Poisoning

Although protein poisoning mostly a nutritional problem, it carries some relevance to the economics of food. Rodents often provide easy meat for a primitivist. The problem is that rodents’ flesh is normally very lean, containing virtually no fat. Without consuming quite substantial amounts of fat or carbohydrates with the meat, that will result in a type of poisoning that can kill as quickly as any starvation. (Goring 2006, Kochanski 1988)

Next Wednesday: Nutrition

Litterature:
Kochanski, M. (1988), Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival. Edmonton, Lone Pine Publishing.
Elpel, T. J. (1995) The Art of Nothing. Bulletin of Primitive Technology. Issue #10, Fall 1995.
Goring, S (2006) The Reality of Food in the Bush (Part 2). Bushcraft. Issue 2, Summer 2006, pp. 18-21.

Yesterday and today I have mostly been engaged elsewhere, but I am nearly finished with the ice pick head. I have drilled a hole through the piece, but due to blisters (haven’t been using the handdrill much lately) I can’t drill the last hole in a couple of days.

So, instead I ground the blank to it’s finished state. When the last hole is drilled, the antler working part of this project is finished.

Moving about

This is a series in my new blog. It will be published every Monday until I don’t have more to write about. The series is meant to show Norwegians themselves (if someone is reading) that there is an excellent opportunity for this type of living in their own land. Also it is meant to be a guide for primtivists that want to go to Norway to practise their craft.

The first part will deal with the right to move about.

The Norwegian concept of “Allemannsretten” is also to be found in Sweden and Finland. To some degree also in Scotland. (Wikipedia).

The law gives you right to:
- Move about in private and public land at your will. Without requiring permission from the owner. Exceptions as mentioned below.
- The same accounts for using horses, although there may be restrictions some places.
- Use a watercraft wherever you like.
- Walk on lakes or rivers covered with ice.
- Bathe whereever you like, in a reasonable distance from occupied houses.
- Camp everywhere, exceptions as mentioned below.

The law doesn not give you right to:
- Walk through fields and other production areas. With fields there is an exception. When there is snow and the ground is frozen. But eitherway, not between 30. April until 14. October.
- Take a nude bath where there are other people close by that seem offended.
- Camp or rest in a field. Regardless if the ground is covered in snow or frozen.
- Camp closer than 150m from occupied houses. But if you are going to make noise, go longer.
- Camp for longer than 2 days in a spot. That only applies to areas close to settlements.
- Leave garbage and cause unneccesary damage.

Fences are normally not legal to put up for the landowner. You supposed to be able to move around freely.

Most of these rules can be bypassed if you have permission from the owner. It is commonly accepted that it you can gather dry firewood and break fresh branches for sitting on. Small birches are also generally accepted that are cut. They are often considered a weed and the land owner will be happy for you to clear them out a little.

Campfires are not to be lit between 15. May and 15. September. Personally I refuse to follow this rule as it complicates primitive living too much, but if the ground is dry I am particulary carful of where I build my fire.

Next Monday: Gathering plants, materials (stone, antler etc…) and fungi.

I have now compiled a list of the equipment I will bring on my expedition to Hitra next summer. Objects may be added or removed as my planning develops.

Ready:

• Flint knife.

• A core for flakes.

• Knapping equipment.

• Antler axe.

• Throwing sticks (not that I will be using them).

• Fishing line.

• Fishing hooks.

• Some string.

• Beaver tooth knives.

• Some sinew.

• Buckskin scraps.

• Hide scraper.

• Needles.

• Pike skin tinder pouch.

Need to be made:

• Barbs for a fishing spear.

• Bow and arrows (not that I will use those either).

• A loincloth of grass or fibres as I don’t have any hides (to not scare the German tourists).

• More fishing lines and hooks.

• Bone knife.

• Pouch of elk (moose) ear for storing fibres and string.

• Packframe.

• Big container of either grass or bark.

• Maybe a few smaller containers.

• Maybe a birch bark kettle.

• Maybe a small net.

Non primitive stuff:

• To make the learning experience better I will bring relevant identification books.

• Mobile phone. To call my girlfriend every once in a while.

• Camera and batteries. I need to take some pictures for the blog.

My plan is to follow every step in the process of making most of the things I do in detail. I will however only follow one similar project at the time. This project is already started, because of that pictures from other similar projects have been included to describe the processes needed to get there.

Scoring antler. Seems tedious, but if you have a rectangular edge on your piece of flint it is surprisingly fast. To speed things up soak the piece every few strokes in hot/warm water. I often resort to saliva and that works fine too. A tip on getting a straight line, start the groove by guiding it with your opposite thumb-nail.

Score right through to the pith. That will make splitting or breaking easier, but it is possible to get a fairly dependable break with out having scored perfectly.

Breaking is self explainatory so I will jump straight to splitting. First, make a some indentions with an antler wedge where you want the split to start. To not ruin your antler wedge or blank (hard against hard is bad) use strong wooden wedges instead. They can be easily made from any hard wood, with little effort. While good antler wedges can take hours of scoring and grinding. continue until you are through. If the blank is hard to split, you may have to hammer in wedges from the sides as well or if the starting wedge wasn’t thick enough; hammer in one more from the starting point. Also, make sure your blank is well soaked in before you start and soaking it every now and then throughout the process will help a lot.

The current antler project in display is the Ice Pick. Photo of the stage I am at here. The piece is a little curved to one side. So to make sure that the force of the blow (when chopping the ice) will go straight into the shaft, I decided to make the edge go over at one side. It was scored through, mostly from one side, but a little from the other too and broken off easily against a hard object.

Next step will be to drill holes for the hafting.