Thriving in the Wilderness

I have always been fascinated by the art of survival without electricity, shops, buildings, or any of our modern-day comforts.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps this harks back to happy childhood memories of being in the New Zealand mountains for weeks or months at a time with no power or plumbing or nearby supply centre, and regularly tramping in the bush for days on end in all weathers and terrains while my father did his fieldwork, cooking on open fires with a billy, sleeping under the stars.  My brother became a passionate speliologist (caver) and would disappear underground for days or weeks underground, exploring new cavern systems.  My mother would join my father on his field trips even when we were babies, washing nappies in the creek and then hanging them out to dry on a rope attached to the tent, and dangle my brother by a backpack over a high waterfall to keep him occupied for hours when he was about one year old. Meanwhile, I have become an indoor writer with an indoor job in a country that is so overpopulated it is almost impossible to be alone, anywhere.

With some regret I admit that as a family we did use matches and sleeping bags, and we did bring our own food.  So it wasn't strictly speaking 'survival'.  It was more 'minimisation'.  But my father did used manage to light small fires for a cup of tea in the wet rainforest and keep them burning, and used his skills with a knife to create makeshift tools from the bush when needed, and taught me to eat things like the pulp of the nikau palm (but only if it had fallen over, since all NZ bush is protected).

Over the years I've come to realise what I'm most interested in is bushcraft.  My husband laughs at me when I say this, and remarks that I'm more likely to cut my thumb off with a bush knife than skin a rabbit.  He has a point.  But it doesn't suppress my desire to learn all I can about how to survive - even thrive - without any modern tool except a decent knife, a foldaway saw, and perhaps a sleeping bag (my one concession to comfort).

Perhaps I fear an apocalypse.  Or a financial crash so huge that the world is brought to a halt.  Or solar flares so severe that all the computer systems seize up and we find ourselves incapacitated in ways we can't imagine in the modern world.  Or perhaps I just don't like being dependent on external systems to the extent that, without them, I would be as helpless as a babe.

One of my all-time heroes is Ray Mears.  I devour his television series, buy his books on bushcraft, and plan to attend a Woodlore course. (He and David Attenborough top my hero list.) Thriving in the bush will never be like learning a mother tongue for me, not at my age, but one day perhaps I can be as competent in it as a halting second language - well, enough to survive, were I to find myself in that position.  I have a decent compass, which I still can't read properly, but I can at least read ordinance maps, thanks to my father.  I am trying to learn as many knots as I can.  I am investigating decent bush knives and am horrified at the prices and wondering whether I can justify it or if this whole thing is some kind of wishful dream.

I did manage to do a 3-day survival course some years ago in the Lake District.  It wasn't quite what I hoped.  It was run by two ex-army men, and part of it even involved a mock hostage situation where we had to kneel in the mud with our wrists tied behind us while we were interrogated.  But we did navigate by night to find a tarn (took us five hours) and crossed rivers with our backpacks on, and learned how to use the emergency survival cigar tin with its sugar and magnesium and flint with knife for lighting fires.  I still want the pure version. I want to learn to use friction with the right kinds of sticks for lighting fires using a fire drill, and make ovens in the soil and our own shelters and catch fish with tools I've made.

In the meantime, I live vicariously through my story characters.  For twenty years I have had a novel on the backburner, much of which involves researching survival techniques in the wilderness.  Even if I learn the skills second-hand in this way, it is a start.  

And you have to start somewhere, with every dream.

Photo (right): Gypsy Nester.com (Masai warriors)