Living Primitively

Winter update

Thomas — Sat, 05 May 2012 04:12:55 +0000

Haven’t really posted much since last fall since I was busy with other things, so I thought I’ d catch up a little bit. Last winter I’ve done a number of trips in the woods ranging from a few days to a few weeks, exploring, tracking, and trapping. Following are some pictures from that time.

This is how the soles of my mukluks looked like at the beginning of the winter, so some repairs were in order. Much of the wear and tear was from crusty snow conditions during the previous spring.

To avoid having to take the mukluks apart in the future in order to exchange the soles I decided to add an extra sole on the outside which could be replaced easily if necessary, leaving the main boot intact. Detail view on the left, finished boots on the right. Thanks to a generous gift I had some commercial mukluks with rubber soles in the meantime, and I can certainly understand why in some cases Natives were quick to adopt some modern materials…

A story waiting to be told: The tracks of four wolves fanning out on a lake.

Some winter landscape impressions. I find that I feel most alive when I’m connected to the “moods” of the weather and the land.

The sun peeking through the cloud cover after a snow storm.

This shelter seems a little small for the porcupine…

A friend of mine checking a (not so primitive) beaver trap under the ice.

In February I attended a week-long wolf tracking class that was organized by Teaching Drum Outdoor School and Wilderness Awareness School. It was very inspiring and informative, as we spent most of the time in the field tracking, and got together in the evenings to listen to the stories that each group brought back from their particular area. One of the highlights for me was following the tracks of a wolf for hours who was running at full speed through dense brush, and our group of five almost moved like a wolf pack too, with one person following the tracks and the rest covering the rear and sides, semi-circling whenever necessary to pick up on the trail again. The tracks finally led us to a kill site (see pictures above), where some blood, hide scraps and scattered stomach contents were the only remains of a young deer…

Spring thaw – the end of the winter.

Wilderness Living Course

Torjus Gaaren — Fri, 04 May 2012 08:55:25 +0000

There are a couple of places left in a course organized by a friend of mine, Bjørn. Him and me will be running it together in the south of Norway, about an hour’s drive from Oslo. The course will be held in Norwegian, but I will do some translations on the fly if there are any English-speaking participants.

Link to information page (Norwegian)

If you don’t have facebook, send me an e-mail and I’ll forward your request to Bjørn.

Norway…

Thomas — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:30:09 +0000

It’s been a little while since I’ve been posting here. As Torjus mentioned in his previous post I recently visited him in the mountains of southern Norway. It’s been good reconnecting again in person after a couple years of living on different continents, and checking out what he’s been up to. Following are some pictures from the time we spent together.

Our base camp – an earth lodge that Torjus had built some time ago. Though not necessarily an ideal winter location, it’s situated in a good spot for fishing, right next to a lake. It turned out to be a little drafty with the door left open so we later on used a caribou hide as a door flap.

Torjus arranging the fire after we cleaned up the lodge and made slightly elevated sleeping platforms with boughs.

Spring started early this year, and most of the lakes in the valley were already ice-free. We set out several nets for trout and ended up catching quite a few. The trout population in this particular lake is pretty high so most of the fish stay small and many of them have parasites. In the picture above, Torjus is pulling in the day’s catch.

Some pictures of valley and surrounding mountainous area. The weather conditions are very variable at this time of the year, and at any time one may encounter rain, snow or sunshine.

Snow, of course, makes tracking much easier. Here we’re following a fox trail in the mountains…

Feeding sign of two moose on a downed rowan tree.

Roasted caribou head – a delicacy!

Some New Things

Torjus Gaaren — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:09:59 +0000

Since I got my smallholding a little over a year ago I have been very confused to whether I have been doing the right thing. The place was very cheap, but requires quite a lot of repairs which I am not awfully motivated to do. In hindsight though I can see that getting a fixed place was the right thing to do since I started relying more and more on my parents as my gear started failing during the second year of my outdoors living.

Although all of the things related to the smallholding doesn’t interest me massively it allows me to experiment with gear and subsistence methods in relative comfort without relying too much on someone else. Then, who knows what will happen in the future…

Transition clothing is the greatest issue I feel. Dry weather clothing is relatively straight forward, summer as winter. But during winter thaws and great portions of the spring and autumn life can be truely miserable without a solution on how to stay dry when out and about. Subsistence in this area requires a lot of moving about because of a relatively thin population of game. The ground is rocky and boggy so buckskin footwear doesn’t last long. Rawhide shoes haven’t provided me with the needed warmth. So currently I am looking into traditional Saami footwear. They live in areas relatively similar to here in most regards so I’d expect their bark tanned shoes to work better. If anyone has suggestions to what could work, I’d be very grateful.

While the skins are under way, I am experimenting with a number of other things. I try to learn from the poor people of the boreal region, since I don’t consider myself as being a good enough hunter to go for the rich man’s solutions… I’ve made a bone hammer to smash the bones (particularily vertebrae and pelvis) and boil out the fat in them. There is a remarkable amount of high quality fat in these bones. I have started saving all the bones from every roasted or boiled meal for this purpose.

Another thing I have looked into is bark. Wych Elm (Ulmus glabra) bark, both dried and roasted left a bit to be desired for me I must say, I have a method for making syrup from the bark. This method is far better since it also saves the bark which in turn can be made into pretty good string. I might post about this method after I have done some refinements on it.

Norway spruce (Picea abies) bark is fairly tasty I find, but it’s quite stringy (although not nearly as bad as elm bark) and difficult to grind into digestible pieces. Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris) bark I have found quite satisfying though and this was appearantly the bark that was generally prefered by northern natives, some which used it as a staple in their diet, especially combined with fish. After trying various methods I found that scraping off the outer bark while it’s still on the tree is the most effective. When the white cambium is exposed, then I shave the white bark off the tree. Some of it I eat right away since I like the fresh, resinous taste. After drying the bark becomes extremely brittle and it can be crumbled in the hands without using any other implements. I have yet only tasted it mixed with fish broth in rather small quantities, but I liked the taste. Thomas, whom was visiting me at the time was not equally enthusiastic though. I guess they are being fed too well at Teaching Drum… hehe

Having seen the usefulness of Thomas’ gathering bag and I always find something which I’d like to bring home when I am out hunting I decided to make a gathering bag similar to his. It’s a fairly simple affair made out of grain on reindeer buckskin with a light willow bark tan. The other implement in the photo is a virtually unmodified cowhorn, I have only sharpened the edges a bit. This will serve as a sap scraper. I remember as a kid we sometimes in the spring used to fell aspen trees to eat the sap under the bark. Appearantly we weren’t the first to think of that and I found some horns in an online museum which were labled to be for such a purpose.

In my family I’m the only one who cares for skinning beavers properly, although most of us seem to care for eating them. So I do it in return for their skins. The method I use is of native American origin. It’s a bone chisel. As long as the chisel is sharp this method is far superior to a knife in my opinion, leaving a perfect skin and a perfect carcass.

And finally, although I don’t have any pictures of it in action, is an arrow planer of Fenno-Ugrian origin. It’s made of bone and is simply used with your regular hunting knife to shave down arrow shafts. Works better than I expected.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos from Thomas’ stay, but I think he has quite a few that he might post. My camera had died during that time, but has now miraculously resurrected itself.

Firewood in The Stone Age

Torjus Gaaren — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:28:26 +0000

I have been thinking quite a bit about how it was possible to efficiently getting enough firewood for the winter up here. Stone axes and antler axes have not shown to be sufficiently efficient to me. It is worth noting that before getting guns (in America) it was not possible to keep a large number of dogs in the subarctic zone and thus limiting mobility in winter. Women’s winter camp was generally in a fixed location, in a rather well insulated earthlodge, often with several families in it. In Siberia, a similar pattern seems to have been the case before the spread of reindeer husbandry.

This made it possible to save up quite a lot of firewood in advance and three options were particularily valuable I feel:

Twigs on standing or downed trees. This method requires frequent collecting of firewood.
Beaver sticks provided an abundance of perfect sized wood for the fire. Often high quality hardwood.
The remains of burned patches of wood. Natives in most areas burned ares that had a lot of deadwood to rejuvenate them. The leftover unburnt pieces were usually better sized (and without the brush) lengthwise than dead standing trees.

I don’t recommend stripping a beaver lodge or dam to stock up on a winter of firewood. There are usually plenty of pieces laying around in the forests in which they fell trees. Unutilized ones laying on the shore of lakes are also common.

When it comes to setting fires to windfelled forests, it’s a pretty hot affair and I wouldn’t recommend it for someone without previous experience in burning lands… I’m not sure if I’d dare myself, at least close to habitation.

It’s an unusually early spring here. More than a month earlier than normal. There are however many patches of snow left. With the marshes pretty dry this makes for perfect burning conditions. It’s long overdue, with lots of dead material on the ground. I burnt in heavy winds towards a snow drift. Started with small strips close to places judged to be dangerously close to the forest. The heavy wind helps keeping direction of the fire and it’s easier to extinguish it on the sides.

When the edges of the burn have been established the fire is started in the direction furthest away from the wind in many places and let go. The fire got pretty hot in places, but I’d expect most of even quite small trees to survive. Hopefully the new grass and heather will be attractive to wildlife.

Here is a simple, temporary storage platform that I’ll store skins on while the house is being renovated.

Finally are various scenery pics, two from about a month ago and one from this day.

Marten Deadfalls

Torjus — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:08:01 +0000

I’d like to welcome Kyle as a poster here. I’m sure his projects will be an interesting addition to this site.

Over the past year I have been travelling a lot and also working quite a bit. It looks like 2012 will be some of the same, but I’ll also try to live outdoors more again. Inspired by the “Happy People” video I decided to make a couple of those sable traps (Martes zibellina). Although the sable is long since extinct in this area (if they were ever here), we have pine marten (Martes martes), which is very similar.

A side note about the photo below is that I stuck most of the branches from the felled pines into the snow to make it easier for the moose to eat their needles. Since people started only planting spruce, even where there used to be pine, I fear that the moose has too little quality winter feed available to them.

Back to the trap. Almost everything about it is fantastic. It doesn’t dislodge easily when it’s not supposed to, but still locks in place quite well when sprung. You can use lighter weight logs than with a regular log deadfall and the roof makes maintainance less needed. From now on I’m going to make all of my traps with such a roof.

Features to notice (some only observable in the movie):

The bait stick is stuck into the roof, making it pull directly out of the notch when bait is taken. Normally the trigger twisting can be a problem, but this is eliminated with this set up.
The bait is out on the side, so that the marten has to stretch his neck and get his body between the logs. Because of the roof, the bait won’t be snowed on.
To eliminate the need of tying the roof logs, a cleft stick is used to support them against a tree.
The climbing pole directs the marten in from the right side of the trap and makes them more likely to bother with going for the bait.
The trigger sticks are tied with a string to the trap itself (with sufficient slack of course). This eliminates the problem of having to replace them because they’re lost in the snow when released.

On the minus side it can be mentioned that it takes 2-3 hours of work to make (plus triggers) and that the trap isn’t really practical to make without a metal axe available.

I’ve never put all that much effort into trapping, but with this new tool I’m more eager to do so.

Here is a photo from the common type of habitat in the shade side of the valley floor. Mixed pine and spruce with the occasional birch.

Another picture looking up onto a mountain called Ramnfjødd (Raven mountain).

This picture doesn’t look all that exciting, it’s of the tip of a pine branch. These sometimes lay in clusters under certain trees. They signalize that the capercaillie has been feeding above, which they usually do when food becomes unavailable on the ground. Sometimes you can also find their poop mixed with the needles. They usually have a few trees they favour, so if you take note of these trees you can return at another time, sneak upon it and shoot the bird.

Kyle and the Quiggly Hole

Kyle — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:53:17 +0000

My name is Kyle. I live in the Inland Northwestern United States. I am on a somewhat different path than Torjus and Thomas. I have not achieved the dirt time or the craftsmanship these two have. I am nonetheless very passionate about primitive living.

As a teenager I spent some time as hunter/gatherer in the steppes and forests of my region. Those experiences were more powerful for me than anything I’ve encountered since. As and adult, I’ve worked to curb the trajectory of my modern existence toward the sanity and dignity of the hunter/gather lifestyle. And I’ve wanted to do it in a way which is gradual, reasonably comfortable, and replicable by others.My plan centers around my relationship with the land. I’ve played the modern game to win land I can call my own; twenty acres, above the confluence of the Kettle and Columbia Rivers. Here, I am working to foster an optimal human habitat, a forager’s paradise. I want to create a lifestyle here which is healthy and human. It’s an experiment, but then, so is modern civilization. I think we need more experiments!

In the fall of 2009 I built this pit house.

My then partner and I needed a shelter for the winter, and I’d always wanted to build one. We were broke, so the pit house was actually one of the best options available to us. It didn’t cost a dime to build. All the materials were gathered on site.

Pit houses, also called earth lodges, kekulis, or ‘quiggly holes’ were the traditional winter dwelling of my region, the Plateau. Similar structures seem to have been used circumborealy. Pit houses of are of archaeological interest because they indicate a transition to more sedentary lifestyles. They were used by sedentary or semi-sedentary fishing cultures, also by farmers.

The pit house is a brilliant solution to the age old shelter problem. As many northern mammals know, a burrow in the earth is relatively dry and remains at a steady moderate temperature. When hides, or suitable tree bark, isn’t available, round timbers and earth are the next best covering. Before the saw, only easily split woods like cedar could be used for boards. I suspect thatch only became popular as as populations rose and forest products became scarce.

My design is not a traditional one. It is kind of a hybrid. The traditional house for my region was round, and had an overhead smoke hole which also functioned as the entrance (a ladder was used). I wanted a ground level entrance, similar to what some Plains and Subarctic cultures used. I also opted for a squarish design, and twin smoke holes in the gable ends, after a photo I saw of a Scandanavian ‘earth lodge’ replica. I did this because I didn’t like the idea of snow falling down the smokehole, and because I was unclear about how some crucial parts fit together in the traditional round design. I now wish I had used a more traditional style. I’ll explain why further on. It took over three weeks to build, with some help from my partner. I also had another big guy help me move and set the four large uprights. All the work was done with hand tools. Skinning all the roof poles took the most time. The floor is 12″x12″.

This was our home for the winter. It never dropped below freezing inside, even when we were away, despite outside temps in the negative teens F. Taking a hint from the old ones, we burried a storage cache in the floor- a garbage can full of gleaned potatoes. We were also given a whole sheep, by a kind friend, which we kept in a toolbox under the snow outside.

Unfortunately my experimental design had some major flaws. The vertical smoke holes turned out to be a particularly bad idea. Smoke drainage was terrible. Because of this, we had fires only briefly to cook dinner. We used a sheep fat lamp, and often hid in bed for heat. We also found that our covering of fir boughs and sandy soil imperfectly shed rain and melting snow. Moisture gradualy soaked in, a problem exacerbated by lack of fire. Mould grew. I know some groups used a simple brush and soil covering like ours. With clay soil, in a cooler drier climate, that could work. But I’ve since learned that the local villagers used a layer of cedar bark shingles. I’ve also seen good photos which clearly illustrate how thier round design was fit together. Live and learn. I also wish we’d have used a better floor covering, since our things tended to get filthy.

In any case, we survived. We certainly kept warmer than we would have in a tent or similar open air shelter. We were eager to move back into the tent in the spring. But then, so too were the natives, who spent thier summers in well ventilated tule mat lodges. This winter, I stayed in the tent while at home. Being single now, I’m less concerned with comfort. Also, I’ve developed an ironic allergy to the mould in the pit house. I use it for a tool shed and cellar.

I think I could fix the smoke problem by cutting back the roof poles to make one long overhead vent. I could also fix the leakage by pulling off the earth covering and installing cedar bark shingles. I don’t have cedar on my land, so I’ve have to truck it in. For now, this isn’t a priority.

In an age when people are breaking their backs for rent and mortgage payments, the pit house is an excellent alternative. It can be built with no money, in matter of weeks, with on site materials. If you plan to use an open fire, I recomend the traditional local design. A pit house could also be adapted to use a woodstove. The book “The Fifty Dollar Underground Home” illustrates how to use the same basic concept, and plastic sheeting, to create a functionaly modern, low cost, energy efficient house. See http://www.richsoil.com/wofati.jsp

Here’s a link to photo of a traditionaly designed pit house: http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/features/fraser/storyimage.html?id=601baa24-d77c-4293-a47e-b8e0df37f68e&img=fc78ad1d-96bc-4bba-bca4-70e7ea22e733&path=/vancouversun/features/fraser/

There are some amazing pit house replicas built by native groups in BC. I think one of the most impressive is the Sinixt pit house in Vallican, BC. It is the gold standard in my eyes. I can’t find good pictures of it now. One day, I would like to build a proper pit house like this one.

Building a structure like this gave me deep appreciation for the ingenuity and industriousness of the natives. Building a full sized pit house, with stone tools, would take expert planning, huge amounts of labor, and a considerable food surplus. These were obviously not the work of starving savages. Rather, the existance of pit houses is a testament to the affluence and organanization of past societies.

-Kyle

Traditional lifestyles…

Thomas — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:39:52 +0000

There aren’t too many places left on this planet where people life a more simple life, subsisting mainly on what the land provides. I recently came across a documentary about a village in central Siberia called “Happy People – A Year in the Taiga” where this is true to some degree: ancient traps exist next to snowmobiles.

Some of you may know it already – the english version is now available on the internet (just click on the picture below to watch it)

The russian original is a four part documentary with much more footage (though without translation) and can be found here:

Spring:         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eh05uk7xUI
Summer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqektlVMXts
Fall:             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiffAAUhw7Q
Winter:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uev2ueBdWes

Speaking of documentaries of “modern” examples of traditional lifestyles, there is a documentary called “Cree Hunters of Mistassini” that shows several Cree families back in the 70′s that moved into the bush for their winter hunting and trapping. Highly recommended.

There are, of course, a number of other documentaries about that subject (though many of them are not available for free on the internet like the two mentioned above).

“Year of the Caribou” is another one I can definitely recommend. It shows a family who moved into a remote part of interior Alaska to live off the land (the DVD is available for sale online).

Winter preparations

Thomas — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:37:38 +0000

The snow has been carpeting the ground since well over a month. Craftwise, I’ve been mostly doing some minor repairs on my existing gear and tools.

The fur on the sleeves of my coyote parka got worn off in some spots, so I decided to cut out the thin parts and replace them with new fur. Lacking tanned coyote fur, I used racoon instead, which is actually of pretty similar quality.

The picture on the lower left shows a piece of tanned racoon fur and a piece of tanned (and worn-off) coyote fur – both are winter pelts. The hairs are of similar length and insulating properties, and in the end the patching is hardly visible (lower right). Ready for some cold weather!

I’ve posted about the skin boat I made earlier this summer…I appreciated all the feedback and questions about it. I’d sure do a few things differently with the next one, though this one has been quite satisfying so far. This is how it’s currently stored…

…tied to the ceiling of a crafts shelter to keep it away from ground moisture.

I’m always curious about how the things I craft perform when they’re used on a everyday basis. Here are some pictures from one of my more recent trips in the woods:

The toboggan, finished last spring, seems to work just fine. I actually salvaged my gear lashing cord when I was running short of rawhide for my skin boat so I need to make some more…

The other pictures show some of the landscapes you might encounter here in the northwoods. Whenever possible and practical, I like to camp in hardwood forests such as the maple forest shown above, since they provide excellent firewood. Bogs and swamps can be hard to travel through in the summer time, but in the white season, once the ground is frozen and covered with snow they are easy to cross on snowshoes (and toboggans, if any gear needs to be hauled).

A little while ago I made this crooked knife with my friend and fellow craftsman Jarrod StoneDahl.

After using mass-produced crooked knives for a number of years, I came to appreciate the qualities of a hand-made tool more and more. On some of the more specialized projects that involved a crooked knife, I noticed how my hand and wrist started hurting after a while. Traditional craftsmen used tools that were matched to their needs, including the shape and size of their hand. The handle of this crooked knife has a thumb rest for additional support which greatly reduces the stress put on the wrist (see picture on the right) – and how that thumb rest needs to be shaped depends on who is using the knife – there is no “standard”.

We used his forge to craft the blade and fit the extension of the blade into a notch in the wooden handle, glued a wooden plug on top and wrapped it with linen string. More recently I put a sheath together to protect the blade. Jarrod has been making quite a number of such individually crafted crooked knives and if you have an interest in this subject, I recommend checking out his blog.

Skins for Water and Warmth

Torjus — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:43:03 +0000

Lately I’ve been experimenting a lot with a more refined way of working skins. Most of it is based on native Siberian tanning, just utilizing stone tools instead. I will not give you all the details of the process as of yet, but briefly show you one of two new tools which removes the need for sandpaper or pumice for removing the membrane.

Reindeer (and deer skins in general) are very sensitive when tanning hair on. The sharpness of the tool is important, otherwise you will put a lot of strain on the grain and produce a spotted piece of fur or in the best case scenario; eskimo tan. Eskimo tan is super soft, but the durability of the clothing is not satisfactory if you don’t shoot enough caribou to make a new set of clothing every year or two.

The scraper is made of flint, but any knappable stone can be used:

They don’t seem to need resharpening very often at all. This small one I use as a dry scraper and as a stretcher on small skins such as leg skins. I also have a big one that acts as a stretcher on bigger skins.

On the veidemann course this year, following the tradition, the students made a moose skin currach. I had to use it when crossing the lake a few times recently. The lake was just starting to freeze over and I had to break my way through at some spots.