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).

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…

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:

Quite bad weather again today. I have mostly been scraping a moose hide and reading.
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