Living Primitively

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.

Sorry, no money on the phone card. Can’t update every day without it.

PS! I’ll try to do a proper update in a few days.

It’s been a struggle, I’ve had to make some trade-offs, but from now and on I am living out in the woods. Actually I’ve already been doing it for some days. It is going to be a transition, making everthing for my daily life, food will be gathered, caught, stored and cooked. I’ll be juggeling two lives to some extent, though with clear emphasis on the primitive living. Legalities and real life situations will dictate that I continue to ask local hunters for skins and do some work to make a little money.

About once a week I’ll try to post an update on how things are and my progress.

Things I’ll do:

• Get food through: Hunting, fishing, gathering, gardening, forest gardening (a hybrid approach between gathering and gardening) and scavenging stuff from hunters.
• Make everything I need in my daily life. No exceptions, I’ll continue to use some of the stuff I already have, like fishing nets and clothes, but it will all be phased out as I manage to replace it with primitive gear.
• Live in primitive accomodations for most of the year (when I’m not visiting somone).
• Take photos and update the blog occasionally.

Things I’ll not do:

• Raise livestock. They need regular tending and I value freedom of movement and action.
• Try to make things as hardcore as possible. I’m not interested in a life of perpetual suffering, so I’ll try as hard as I can to find the solutions that makes a primitive life enjoyable (without resorting to modern tools).

PS! If you like what you are reading, please donate as I really need it.

Down “on location” now and have been so for a few weeks. Just a simple update on what I’ve done:

• Finished planting all the corn in the garden. A lot of the corn, sunflower and the peas are now coming up. Planted some beans and squash.
• Unsuccessfully fired some pottery I made. The pottery was ok I think, but I was probably too impatient with the firing, raising the temperature too soon.
• Chopped down (sorry, metal axe for the sake of speed) a few more aspens, some are to serve as main beams for the earth lodge, the rest for firewood. A second reason I have for chopping down these trees is to give the garden more sun and to give light to a few bushes of hazel that aren’t producing anymore.
• Cut a fairly large number of spruce poles for the lodge and collected the bark for thatching.
• Thinned out a suitable patch of forest by cutting most of the birch there. The logs I’ll use for various projects and firewood.
• Planted 2 seeds of American Chestnut, most graciously given to me by Scott on Paleoplanet.
• Have done some fishing, mostly with a rod, caught a number of fish.
• Managed to overbuck a skin (first one, not fun). May still be usable for a few things I hope.
• Made a pair of rawhide moose skin shoes (pampooties).

Pics:

Corn and sunflower coming up (quite a while ago).

View from the garden.

The garden.

Skinning the spruce poles for the earth lodge.

The spruce bark laid in pressure.

The crude shoes I made (please ignore the ripped pants…).

Various scenery pics.