The Perils of Over Inspiration: The Dilemma of Modern Wilderness Skills Instructors

Heading into the wild for the Hawk Circle
winter survival trek.

 I saw this article recently and I was both saddened for the man who succumbed to hypothermia, his family and for the instructors and wilderness school who taught him some of his initial skills, and for our wilderness education field in general.   It made me take stock yet again about the power and responsibility that we, as instructors of wilderness living skills, have, and for the ultimate impact our teachings can have on our students.

I have to add that there were many things missing in this article, including details about the types of gear he was carrying, his mental status, his family or relationship quality and other things that can come into play, like the weather at the time, and food choices or availability.   It doesn't go into whether he had practiced and trained for this outing, or what his level of experience was and many more questions we all could think of to ask about this person and the specific circumstances of this tragedy.

In the short of it, that stuff doesn't matter.   He died.  He died trying to live off the land, and practice the same skills that many of teach and share every day.   And that should sober us, and make us think long and hard about how we teach, how we practice, and how we prepare our students, who might someday try a similar sort of walkabout.

The Cherry Valley Creek: 
So Peaceful and Tranquil,
Yet Great Perils Lie for the Unwary!

It's easy to dodge our responsibility, if we choose.   "Hey, it's not one of my students.   My students would never do that."  I think it is natural for the first response to be one of defensiveness, to protect ourselves from any part of blame for this avoidable tragedy.   I know that some of that was running through my head at first.

However, it leads me to thinking about how we inspire our students.  I thought about how I was inspired, long ago, by my teachers, like Tom Brown, Jr, and John Stokes, and Jake Swamp.   I thought about the ways they inspired me, and, at the same time, balanced that with appropriate cautions and warnings in the right amounts too.   Tom used to say (and probably still does) that "the Earth will never hurt you, as long as you move and flow with it".   I believed this statement, and still do, to a degree.   But I also know that there are people who could take that statement and walk out the back door into the wilderness fully believing in it, and die a few hours later because they didn't really know what it meant, and they took that one statement out of context of a larger perspective and body of knowledge.

In other words, Tom spoke those words to us, as adults, and in the context of a full week of immersed learning and focused teachings.  He knew we weren't going out the door at the end of the day, or couple of days, and he had time to share the full spectrum.   I know, because while 20 percent of his teachings had this same type of beautiful, inspiring harmony, there was another 20-30 percent that lay in vivid stories and teaching that scared the crap out of me.   It balanced out.   It made it complete, and left me with days and nights lying in bed and going back and forth, always thinking things like:  "Am I ready to go into the woods yet on my own, to live this philosophy?"   "Have I practiced enough, to where it is reliable and a part of me?"   and "what the heck does that mean, 'the Earth will never hurt me as long as I move and flow with it?'  What is 'flow' anyway?"

Brian Sullivan heads into the wild 
for a spring survival test.

You can see, this topic is complex.   It has a lot of threads, and has few easy answers.   It is something I think about while working in our barn, mentally preparing for summer camp, or on the long drives through the rural New York countryside, heading to a meeting or after school program.   In the past few weeks, I have come up with a couple of ideas so I thought I would lay them on you and see what you think.

First, and easiest, is to Balance Inspiration with Hazard Awareness.  Give equal time to each area of your program, and tell stories on both ends.   Yes, it is great to share the wonder of seeing an early sunrise on the banks of a river, or hike in the moonlight, or whatever.   Those things are amazing and can help us feel like we are walking in the footsteps of the ancients.   But it is important to also share stories of hypothermia, of adequate nutrition and caloric intake on a wilderness trek, especially for teens and young adults.   You don't have to do it all at once, but make sure you do it.  Seriously.

Second, make sure You are Modeling Safe Behavior.   This means bringing a first aid kit on your treks and outings, and know how to use it.  Get certified for CPR and all that, so you are trained up and professional.   Wear warm clothing and gear when appropriate, and don't cut corners with safety in your programs.   Bring flashlights and headlamps, and make sure all staff carry them as well, even on short day hikes, just in case.   Bring warm clothes even on warm days, in case someone gets cold or immersed in cold water in an accident.   Don't model behavior that could be dangerous in front of kids that could easily begin mimicking your actions in unsafe ways.  

Hawk Circle Assistant Director Randy Charles 
teaches students about respect for the bush.

Third, Teach from Your Own Mistakes.   In other words, share your failures, your times where you forgot your rain coat, or got lost, or built your shelter poorly, etc.   If you don't have a lot of those, then you have to use other people's misfortunes or learning stories, changing the names if necessary so as to not embarrass anyone.   Doing this will help your students see that it is possible to make mistakes, and to fail, and to have to work at these skills, and that they don't come easy.   It helps to hear stories about how much practice it really takes to make a fire in the rain with one match, or skin a deer at -3ºF or whatever.

Fourth, Emphasize that there is Nothing Wrong with Using Back Up Gear while you are Learning.   I think this is pretty self explanatory, but hey, I have to say it.   And an addendum to this one is Watch out for The Crazy, Passionate, Over-Inspired Student!  This is where your mentoring really has to kick in.   You have to be willing to make sure that students are also modeling smart, safe behavior, and if they don't, then let them know they might not be able to stay in your program.   Not as punishment for being inspired, but as a safety issue for other students.   And for the safety issues for themselves.  

In  those situations, you have to find ways to get through to that person, not in front of the group where they might be embarrassed or feel self conscious, but at another time, discreetly, and have many as many conversations as necessary to help them value their own life, and others nearby.   What will help is if you have developed a bond of trust, and if you communicate through that trust, and really listen to what they are saying, and hearing whether or not you are getting through.   It takes time, and it isn't easy, but this is what we do.  This is what makes us good and real and awesome.

Ryan Smith cooks over an open fire on
his wilderness skills intensive.

It's all great to share about how the native people didn't have this or that, and could do these amazing things, but all of your great teaching will amount to nothing if you have a student get over-inspired and head out in bad weather and die.  Or fall off a cliff.  Or cut themselves with a hatchet or a knife doing something stupid.  So trust me on this, and tone it down a little.   Just be real.

Fifth, Be Sure to Praise Good Examples of Positive, Safe, Smart Behavior.   Give credit to your staff.   Give credit to the parents.   Give awards to kids who don't get cut, or forget their rain coats, or whatever.  I guess you can figure out what will work in your school or class, or camp or program.   But it is true that what we focus on will get attention and lead to positive change.

I do think that over inspiration can be a real problem in some learning cultures in various wilderness schools, and the problem sometimes comes about because we, as instructors, like to share what got us into these skills, or way of life, and we share the same stories because it worked for us.   However, we just sometimes forget about all of the other stories that were also shared at the same time as we were learning, or maybe our teachers never gave those to us in the first place.   So we can just go through our teaching routines, and find the balance, and tone things down, and make the adjustments.   It's not really all that hard, but the payoff is sweet.

I remember sharing some stories with a group of campers about one of my survival camp outs, telling them about the back up food I brought, and being huddled in a thick wool blanket in the early morning cold, leaning against a big pine tree and seeing the raccoons heading back to bed along the creek in the mist.   I remember sharing about my army poncho, and how it kept me warm and dry in a massive, two hour downpour in the back country on a cold November evening.   A year later, one of those same campers came back and shared her story, about how she remembered my wool blanket, and brought one along on her camping trip and was able to see deer pass within a few feet of her, on a morning where she would have had to leave early because it was just too cold for the clothing she had on.   Kids listen.   They understand, and they emulate.  And when they have a success, they will know your teaching helped them have that experience, and it will be good.   And those teachings will be passed down to the next generations, and so on.

Let's make sure we can pass on the best of our teachings to the kids of the future.   Doesn't every student of ours deserve our best?  And, if we do this, in a serious and deliberate way, the passing of this young Scottish man will not be for nothing.  It will matter.  It will make a difference.

Maybe his family would like that.

What do parents think?  

What do students of the wilderness feel about this post?

What do you think?

Hunting: A Practice in Invisibility

When I first began training in wilderness survival, I remember Tom Brown, Jr. talking about the concept of invisibility. I had never really imagined that as a skill other than my comic book characters who could disappear from sight as their 'super power'. I knew there were ways to do it, but had never really thought about it much up to that point.

Tom talked with us about camouflage, stalking, and movement in terms of hunting, or escape and evading your enemies, and how to use the clays, mud and patterns in nature to let a person virtually disappear in the forest or fields. When we actually did it, I could almost not believe my eyes! This summer, we actually had a TV film crew come out and Ben Gallagher made it happen, on film, and it was really cool.

However, other than hiding from people in our various scout games and such, having fun and practicing our skills, there isn't much of a modern use for invisibility. Unless you are in the military, or work as a cat burglar, or so forth! But in hunting, it is everything.

Being invisible to animals is hard. The scent issues alone are huge. Animals smell hundreds of times better than us, and their hearing is keen too. The eyesight of turkeys is phenomenal, and any movement can give an immediate alarm to everyone in the vicinity that you are hiding.

However, there are layers of invisibility, I was taught. There is, of course, the physical methods, where you are camouflaged into the landscape, blending perfectly and if the wind is just right, you are gone. Then there is the mental invisibility, where the place you are hiding is so obvious, so unique and different, that the mind of a person looking for you can't see you. Because no one would ever be able to hide in a place like that! (I once hid in a living room full of people, standing behind a couch, holding a picture frame up, and no one noticed me for over twenty minutes, then I moved the picture and everyone screamed. They still couldn't believe they hadn't seen me, though. It was uncanny!) It is important that your mind be free from thoughts, other than being a wall or a tree or rock. If you start thinking as a person, you will be seen almost immediately!

The last layer of invisibility is the spiritual. This is where the earth, or spirit, if you will, opens up and swallows you, and you are part of the spiritual fabric of the universe (aren't we all, already?) and you disappear from the earth, so to speak, as a human. You are one with everything, and no one can see you. In some ways, you could say that you cease to exist as a human being, and are instead something more, something greater, than a small human being.

Anyway, this is the sort of stuff I think about while sitting in my camo clothes (it ain't summer, people, so no clay and mud stuff now!), totally still, trying to stay warm and being watchful of the wind. I meditate, and pray, and day dream and take short naps. I have found that being without thought is very important. As soon as I start thinking like a person, I have found animals that will run away or just turn and walk the other direction, even though I made no sound and the wind was perfect. That says a lot about what animals can sense and feel. There are times when I am without thought, and animals seem to come around me very close. Not just deer but chickadees, squirrels, weasels, rabbits and mice. It also seems like there are times when the land just lets me sink in, and I forget about the cold, the wind, everything. Maybe I am just imagining it, but it is those times when the sunlight, or the wind, seems particularly alive, and the world is a magical and beautiful place, and I am a part of that somehow. It feels really good.

I am posting some pictures of antler rubs, buck scrapes and a deer hiding in the snow, that my friend Tiffany took a week or so ago. These are all things that you can look for when walking through the woods, and noticing what is going on out there. The scrapes are where the male deer scrape out the soil to make a fresh place, then they pee in the spot and leave various scents and hormones from their meta-tarsal glands in their feet that tells the female deer to leave her urine there when she is ready to ovulate. He places his footprint deep in the scrape as he does this, and you can see his track clearly! He also rubs his orbital gland near his eye on the branches above the scrape (which is almost always present), for what, I don't know. The buck will travel back and forth along his many scrapes, made along where female deer are traveling, to see if any females are ready to mate. If the scrapes are fresh, he will be back, so these are good areas to hunt if you are going after bucks.

The antler rubs occur near deer bedding areas or where they frequently travel, and they scrape up small saplings vigorously with their antler tines. The general rule is, the larger the tree rubbed, the larger the antlers and the larger the deer. Height is also an indicator in factoring in the size of the deer. I have never had much luck hunting antler rub areas, however, as it doesn't seem like the deer return to that area that much, as opposed to scrapes. It does let you know that there are bucks around, though. Which is exciting, as they mostly write the book on invisibility!

The Gathering Time is Here...

I spent an hour gathering dogbane stalks on the side of the road today, and got enough for about ten bundles. The weather was perfect, about fifty five degrees F and sunny. The stalks were tough, so I had to cut them with a knife! The patch I gathered from was on the side of the road, along a field edge, and the farmer came along with his four wheeler, and about four sheep following him, and asked if I needed help with the car. I told him I was just gathering some weeds by the side of the road, and he said "Take all of the weeds you want!" and drove off, slowly, with the sheep following him around. It was pretty funny.

Anyway, the dogbane is still in my car, filling up my trunk and back seat completely. I have to pull it out, separate it and then tie it into bundles that we can bring to our school programs or use in our summer camps for making bow drill cords, bow strings, arrow fletching, bracelets, snare cord, paiute deadfall cords, necklaces, fishing line and much more. You just can't have enough dogbane laying around! I will hang these up in our barn so we can grab it when needed for a class.

It is important to keep it dry and don't let it get wet when bundled or it will all mold and be no good. I check the stalks to make sure they have good fibers, that are strong and easy to peel and process. I don't harvest the tiniest plant stalks, generally, and try to get the largest ones with the longest stalks to make the best cordage.

Dogbane has a dark brown, almost mahogany colored stalk, and the fibers are a beautiful brown red color when peeled. The large branches at the top of the stalk have fibers in them too, but are hard to process easily, so we usually discard them during the classes. The leaves of dobgane are bright yellow during the fall, so they are easy to see from the road, along field edges and damp places. They sometimes have seed pods on the stalks that you should remove if you are gathering them before putting them in your car. Once I had a large bundle of dogbane that we left in our barn because it was wet, and then made a fire in the woodstove a few days later, and got the room all warm. The seed pods dried out and opened up, spreading fluffy seeds everywhere. It was funny but a huge mess. And the fibers were so fine that they caused a huge problem with breathing, too.

We had a great vacuum party and opened all of the windows and doors to try to get it out of there.... It was a lot of work! It has happened with milkweed, in my car, too, and even mullein stalks, although that was mostly dust, rather than seed heads. And it was very, very dusty and I sneezed for over an hour!

So, now is a good time to gather milkweed, which is easy to spot with their stalks bursting with white fluff from the seeds, and mullein, for hand drills and torches, and golden rod, for hand drills, and nettles, for cordage, and grasses, for grass mats and tinder. These plants are great to gather now, before they get pressed down by the snow and begin to decay.

Gather milkweed and select the ones that are very white and clean. The ones that are greenish, or dark grey and have black splotches usually are too far gone to make good cordage fibers. The white stalks (or light grey) are the best, with silky fibers that are fairly strong.

If you can find swamp milkweed, that stuff is really strong and very fine, too. Great for bow strings and anything that needs to be tough and strong. It loves water, so check the swamps, the water ways, drainage ditches, irrigation trenches and similar places. It is a perennial, so it will grow there again and again, which is great!

Anyway, hope this helps you get out there and get your year's supply of fire making and natural fiber resources!

Up Next: Earth Skills Correspondence Course Conference Call: May 4th, 7 pm

Just a quick update to let you know that I am planning the first Conference Call for the Earth Skills Correspondence Course for Tuesday, May 4th at 7 pm.

To register, just send me an email and I will send you the call in number and code to join the call.

Then send me your questions by email and I will answer them in the call, as well as any others that come up through the conversation. I will be focusing on skills for Spring for a short time and then open the call up to you and your questions.

I expect the call to be about an hour, maybe slightly longer, depending on your questions. It is okay if you can only make part of the call, too.

Also, I have the dates set for the June Earth Skills Correspondence Course weekend, which is June 12-13th. If you would like to come out to Hawk Circle, stay in a cabin or leanto and practice some skills and get some first hand mentoring on the skills of your choice, please let me know. I just need to register you so we know there is a place for you to stay and what skills your are hoping to work on during the weekend.

The weekend is free, but donations are accepted! Bring you own food and drink (we have great spring water here) and you can use our camp fire circle for cooking too. Or you can get pizza in Cherry Valley as well as other food if you don't want to cook.

Hope you are enjoying a great spring!

Earth Skills Correspondence Conference Calls: Are you In?

I am about to unveil an important announcement (no, not the snow 'wave' sliding off of our hide shed roof!). It's regarding a new Earth Skills Instructor Certification Training Course I am doing, so stay tuned for that next week, but in the meantime, I have a quick question for those of you taking the Earth Skills Correspondence Course:

Are you interested in being part of a conference call (toll free) of earth skills students, where you send in questions by email and I answer them, as well as provide further mentoring to the group?

The call would be for about an hour long, and probably held sometime in the early evening perhaps in the middle of the week.

I can arrange for the first call to be in mid April if you guys are wanting to try this out and see how it goes. Please let me know and we can take this to the next step and set it up.

Hope you are all well and let me know! Thanks!