Using a Compass - Backstopping

The best way to deal with getting lost in the wilderness is to not get lost in the first place.  To this end you should always carry a compass and preferably a topo map when headed out into the wilds.  In these modern, hi-tech times many people carry a GPS unit, or have GPS on their smart phones.  I wish I could tell you more about these but you're talking to a guy who only got his first cell phone last year when forced to do so by his loving wife.  I've always held to the belief that simpler is better and more reliable.  An old time magnetic compass doesn't have any batteries to go out, it keeps working after you've fallen into a stream, and you have to bang it pretty hard to break it.  A compass alone is not nearly as useful as a compass used in conjunction with a map, but a compass can keep you going in a straight course which is very hard to do otherwise.

One technique that you can use to keep yourself found with only a compass is called backstopping.  Backstopping cannot be used in every instance but it can be used in many.  Here's how it works.

BACKSTOPPING WITHOUT A MAP

Let's say that you are going hiking in an area that you are unfamiliar with.  All you have is a compass; no map of the area other than the road map or GPS in your car that you used to get to the area.  You arrive at your take off point, say a road-side parking area, and prepare to head out into the woods.  Look at your road map or the GPS screen in your car and see if the road continues in a fairly straight line in both directions from where you are standing.  If it does, the road can serve as your backstop.  Let's say that the road runs pretty much North and South, and you are going to be hiking in an area that is east of the road.  Take a compass reading to verify that you are heading out on a course of, in this case, 90º.  If you become lost or disoriented on your hike, you can follow a compass course of 270º and you will eventually hit your backstop.  This method has its drawbacks.  When you do hit your backstop, you may not know whether you are north or south of the place where your car is parked; but you're still better off than you would be wandering around in the woods.  Railroad lines, utility lines, and pipelines all make good backstops.  They usually follow a straighter and longer course than the average back-country road.

BACKSTOPPING WITH A MAP

Let's take the same scenario as above and assume that you do have a topo map with you.  You hike for several hours and decide it's time to head back to the car.  You orient your map and take bearings on a couple of landmarks to fix your position.  Now you can set a compass course straight for your vehicle.  So you follow your course, hit the road, and there's no vehicle.  Now you don't know if you parked farther to the South or to more to the North of where you came out onto the road.  We've all been there.  There's no way to follow a compass course with that much accuracy over broken ground.  Here's something you can do to help minimize this problem.  Set a course that will deliberately miss your target either to the North or to the South.  If you haven't gone very far into the woods, you may want to aim for a point, say, half-a-mile north of your vehicle.  When you hit your backstop you know that your vehicle is going to be to the south.  The farther away from your target you are, the farther North or South your point of aim should be.  This will help guarantee that variations in your course will not put you on the wrong side of your target.

Telling Time by the Stars

The title of this post is a little misleading.  What I'm really going to show you is how to tell how much time has passed rather than how to tell the exact time.  This is a little trick that my grand-dad taught me when I was a boy.  Grand-dad was a cowboy back in the late 1800's.  In those days a time-piece was an expensive luxury that most working men didn't own, and if a man did have a watch he certainly didn't wear it when doing range work.  But cowhands still had to have some way of telling the approximate time at night so they would know when to change guards on the herd. Here's how they did it, and how you can do the same.  By the way, this only works if you live in the Northern Hemisphere.

First you need to locate the North Star (see my post of 9/3/2012).  Now look for the two constellations Cassiopeia (shaped like the letter "W") and Ursa Major (the big dipper).  If you live in the lower latitudes, like the southern United States or Mexico, you may not be able to see both of these constellations at the same time.  That's not a problem.  As long as you can see one of them this will still work.

OK, the North Star, because it's located directly above the North Pole, appears to stay in the same position in the sky at all times.  The constellations Cassiopeia and Ursa Major appear to rotate in a counter-clockwise direction around the North Star, and they make one complete trip around the North Star every twenty-four hours.

So the first thing the old cowboys would do was take note of the position of the constellations when they went out on night watch.  Pictured below: How the stars might have looked at the beginning of night watch

When the constellations had moved forty-five degrees around the North Star, the cowhand knew that three hours had passed. Pictured below: Position of the constellations three hours later

When the constellations had moved ninety degrees around the North Star, he knew that six hours had passed.  Pictured below: Position of the constellations six hours later

With a little practice a man could tell the passage of time with surprising accuracy.  In the example I just gave I used three hours and six hours to make it easy for you to visualize.  In the old days, night watch was usually in four hour shifts; and the cowboys could read the stars accurately enough to get their timing pretty close to right.      

Finding Direction at Night Using the North Star

It is not a good idea to travel at night in the wilderness unless you are in desert terrain, but night-time is a good time to orient yourself and figure out directions.  In the Northern Hemisphere the North Star (Polaris) has been used for thousands of years to establish which direction is north.  Contrary to popular belief, the North Star is not the brightest star in the night sky.  In fact there are forty-seven stars that are brighter than the North Star, so we must use some method other than brightness to locate the North Star.  The North Star is at the end of the handle of the constellation we call the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor).  Unfortunately, the stars of the little dipper are not very bright, and this constellation can be difficult to locate.  Two easily identifiable constellations will help you locate the North Star.  One of these is the constellation that we call the Big Dipper (Ursa Major).  If you draw a straight line through the two stars at the end of the cup in the dipper (called the pointer stars), the line will point toward the North Star.  The distance to the North Star is about five times the distance between the two pointer stars. 

Depending on the time of night, the month of the year, and your own latitude; the Big Dipper may not be visible to you.  If this is the case you can look for the constellation Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia also revolves around the North Star and is located on the opposite side of the North Star from the Big Dipper.  Cassiopeia looks like the letter "W" or the letter "M" depending on where it is in its path around the North Star.

Once you have located the North Star you can take a sharp stick and draw a line on the ground.  Draw the line from where you are standing so that it points toward the north.  Label the end of the line that points toward the star with an "N".  Label the other end of the line with an "S".  Now draw another line that crosses your north/south line at a ninety degree angle.  As you face the north, the right end of your second line will be pointing to the east.  Label it with an "E".  Label the other end of this line with a "W".  Now get a good night's sleep and when you wake up in the morning you will have a compass drawn on the ground that will help you get started in the direction you want to travel.

Maintaining a Straight Course in the Wilderness

Of course the best way to stay on course in the wilderness is with a compass, but you may be in a circumstance where you need to travel through the wilderness and you don't have a compass.  You would think that traveling in a straight line would be an easy thing, but it is not.  It is very common for people who are lost in the wilderness to walk in circles.  If you think this would not apply to you, try the following experiment:

1. Go out into a large field, parking lot, or other unobstructed area.  It's a really good idea to have a friend with you to stop you from running into something or walking out into the street.

2. Take a sighting on an object or landmark on the opposite side of the field.

3. Put on a blindfold and walk in a straight line toward your landmark.

4. When you take the blindfold off, I guarantee that you will be nowhere near your goal.

You see everyone has one leg that is a little shorter than the other, and everyone has one leg that is a little stronger than the other.  The difference in the stride of your right leg and your left leg may be tiny, but over the course of thousands of steps it is enough to cause you to move in a curved path.  Eventually you will curve all the way around and end up back where you started.

The only way to stay on a straight course without a compass is to use landmarks.  You need to begin your journey from a recognizable landmark, sight on a distant landmark, and walk toward it.  Turn back on a regular basis and note the location of your starting landmark.  When you reach your goal, look back to the landmark that you started from, then turn to the front and select another landmark that will keep you moving in the same direction.   This method will work over long distances if the country is fairly open.

If you are in dense forest you can use the same method on a much smaller scale, sighting from tree to tree in a straight line.  It is time consuming, but not as time consuming as walking for two days only to end up back where you started from.

Legend has it that the early Spanish explorers could only cross the vast, treeless plains of North Texas by driving stakes in the ground and sighting from stake to stake in order to keep a straight course.  This is supposedly where the name of this region, the "Staked Plains", came from.  I doubt if this legend is true because compasses were widely used by this time, and I can't imagine a large expedition that would be without one; but it makes a good story, and it would be a very practical way to cross an area with no natural landmarks.

Make a Cane Arrow with Split-Shaft Fletched

The split-shaft fletched cane arrow is one of the quickest and easiest types of arrow to make.  You will need the following tools and materials to make this arrow.

A piece of cane (bamboo or river cane) that is about three feet long and about the size of your little finger on the large end

A dried hardwood shoot about three-eights inch in diameter and about a foot long

A wild turkey tail feather

A yucca leaf

About a teaspoon of pine sap

A sharp knife

Pictured below: Materials needed to make a cane arrow with split cane fletching

A cane arrow shaft consists of two parts; the main shaft which is made of cane and the fore-shaft which is made of hardwood.  The cane portion of the shaft will be twenty-four to twenty-eight inches long, depending on your personal draw length.  To make the cane portion of the shaft you will need a piece of river cane or bamboo that is about the thickness of your little finger on the large end.  It should be several inches longer than you need the finished shaft to be.  This will give you some leeway in positioning the cane joints on the finished shaft, and it will also make the shaft easier to straighten.

You want to select the straightest canes that you can find for making arrows.  This will save you a lot of work when you straighten the shafts.  To straighten the shafts you will need to heat them gently over flame or coals and then bend them straight and hold them until they cool.  Canes can be straightened at the joints or in between the joints, whichever is necessary.  Be sure and heat the shafts slowly so the do not scorch or burn.  Rubbing grease or oil on the shafts before you heat them will help keep them from scorching.  To check the straightness of a shaft you can sight down the shaft and turn it slowly.  Any kinks or curves will be quickly visible.  Be sure and wear gloves or use pot-holders when straightening the hot shafts.

Now we need to cut the shaft to length.  It is very important where you locate the joints in this kind of arrow.  The large end of the cane will be to the front of the arrow, and the hardwood fore-shaft will fit down into the hole in the cane.  In order for the fore-shaft to have a solid base to rest on, you want to have cane joint located about two inches back from the front of the cane.  The back of the cane is where we will have our nock, and where we will insert our fletching; so you need to have a joint about an inch from the back of the shaft.

The string nock at the back of your arrow can be created by shaving of a about a half inch sliver of the cane on opposite sides of the cane.  This will leave a nice little nock.  You will need to use your knife to smooth down and flatten the part of the nock that comes into contact with the string.  If it is left sharp it may cut the string.  Pictured below: top, straightened and smoothed cane; bottom, close-up of the finished nock

Now place you knife blade down into the bottom of the nock and very carefully split the cane down to the last joint on the back of the cane.  This is where you will insert your fletching.  Pictured below: splitting the cane

We are going to fletch this arrow with a wild turkey feather.  Be sure to select a feather that has a good vane on both sides of the quill, and make sure that the vanes don’t curve too much.Take your turkey feather and cut a five inch section across the width of the entire feather.  Pictured below: top, Wild turkey  feather; bottom, section cut from whole feather

Very carefully open up the split in the back of the arrow shaft and slide the quill of the feather into the hole in the cane.  The vanes of the feather will stick out of the splits on each side of the shaft.  Pictured below: feather in place in cane shaft

When you have the feather positioned where you want it, take some yucca leaf fiber and wrap it tightly for about a half-inch in front of and a half-inch behind the feather.  Coat the wrappings with a little pine sap to help hold them in place and protect them from moisture.  Use a sharp knife or a flint flake to trim the fletchings to the desired shape.  Pictured below:  finished fletching

Now we need to put a fore-shaft into the front of the cane.  The fore-shaft is the only part of the arrow that will penetrate your target so it needs to be long enough to do some damage.  You will want about six to eight inches of fore-shaft to stick out of the cane.  Since you need to add the two inches that will fit down into the cane, the total length of the fore-shaft needs to be eight to ten inches.  You can just cut a fore-shaft to length, sharpen the point, and call it done; or you can use a larger diameter stick and whittle out a wooden broadhead type point.  Drop a little pine sap in the front of the cane and insert the foreshaft.  That's it.  Pictured below: front of cane shaft with foreshaft glued in place

A Good Trick for Notching Arrows without a Saw

If you don't have a Swiss army knife with a saw blade it can be a little tricky to cut the nocks on the back of arrows.  It's even harder to cut the deep notch needed to attach a stone or glass arrow point.  There is a way to make those notches with nothing but a knife blade.  This was taught to me by the old man who was my mentor in the wilderness.  I'm not sure where he learned it, but it's a pretty good trick.

First of all you need to cut your arrow shafts about six inch longer on the front and back than you want the finished arrow to be.  The reason for this extra length will become apparent in a moment.

Now to cut a nock in the back you need to take your knife and make a couple of little cuts on opposite sides of the shaft at the point that you want to be the back of your arrow.  Make these cuts about one-eighth of an inch deep.

Now turn the shaft 90 degrees, drop down about three-eighths of an inch, and make two more cuts on opposite sides of the shaft.

Now for this next part you really need to look at the picture because it's kind of hard to explain.  You're going to grab hold of the extra shaft length above the soon-to-be nock and pull it gently toward one of the top cuts.  Then you're going to push it in the opposite direction toward the other top cut.  As you rock the shaft back and forth, the grain of the wood should separate and run down from the two cuts.

Now start rocking the part that you are holding again, but this time you want to rock it ninety degrees from how you did the first time.  In other words, if you were pushing forward and backward the first time; now you want to be rocking from side to side.

Put some more pressure into the motion until the bottom cuts snap and come loose.  You should now be left with an arrow that has a nock in it.

Do the same thing on the front of the arrow only make the notch longer, about three-quarters of an inch.  This will give you a nice deep notch to seat an arrowhead in.

I wouldn't use this method to make a nice finished arrow, but for a quickie, survival type arrow it's a good trick to know.

Edible Wild Plants - Sassafras

DISCLAIMER:  Don't believe anything I or any body else tells you about edible wild plants.  Don't eat edible wild plants based on what you see in a book or on the inter-net.  Get a qualified instructor to show you the plants, and don't eat them until the instructor shows you how to prepare them, and then eats them him or herself.  Be aware that you may be allergic to a plant that someone else can eat without harm.  Be sure that any plants that you gather have not been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides.

In the "old days" it was common practice for pioneer families to imbibe a spring tonic.  This ritual was part medicinal and part psychological.  It was medicinal in that the tonic in question usually had some medicinal benefit, either real or imagined; and it was psychological in that it was an acknowledgment that the natural world was renewing itself and man, by the act of taking this purifying herb, was to be part of this renewal.  In the South, one of the most common spring tonics was Sassafras tea. 

The Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) is a fairly small tree, sometimes up to 40' tall, which grows throughout the Eastern United States.  The easiest way to identify the Sassafras is by its leaves.  You will find that the Sassafras has three distinctly different shaped leaves on the same tree.  Some of the leaves are oval shaped, some of the leaves are mitten shaped, and some of the leaves are three lobed.  All of the leaves have smooth edges, and are shiny on the upper surface.  Pictured below: The three different shaped leaves found on the sassafras tree

If you have any doubts about whether you have correctly identified a Sassafras, all you have to do is dig up a small root and smell of it.  Sassafras root smells exactly like rootbeer.

To make Sassafras tea, dig up several small roots and wash the dirt from them.  Bring a pot of water to a boil and throw the roots into the boiling water.  Let the roots boil for a few minutes until the water begins to turn a deep red.  Remove water from heat and let the tea steep.  Serve hot or cold.  Add honey or sugar if you like.  Native Americans added maple sugar.

Old timers referred to Sassafras tea as a blood thinner.  They said that it helped a person tolerate the coming summer heat better.  Modern science tells us that Sassafras contains a mild narcoleptic, a drug that induces drowsiness.  The Food and Drug Administration also warns us that Sassafras can cause cancer if given in large doses to laboratory rats over extended periods of time (so don't give your pet rat a washtub full of Sassafras tea every day).   

Apparently mosquitoes do not like the smell of Sassafras.  Take some of the tea and rub it on exposed areas of your skin to repel these pesky little critters.

Yet another use of Sassafras is as a thickener in stews.  You may remember the Hank Williams song about "Jambalya, crawfish pie, and filet gumbo."  Well, filet is the substance used to thicken gumbo, and filet is made from dried and powdered Sassafras leaves.  If you make your own filet be careful to remove the sharp stems and veins after the leaves have been crushed.  These can cause major stomach problems.  Also, be sure and don't give your pet rat too much gumbo.

I have read that Sassafras can be used to make a fire-bow-drill, but I have had no success with this.  The wood seems to be too hard.  I have intended to try and dig up a large Sassafras root, let it dry for six months and see if that wouldn't make a usable fire-bow-drill.  The root of the Cottonwood is the only part of that tree that I have ever been able to start a fire-bow fire with, and I was thinking that the same may hold true for the Sassafras, but I haven't got around to trying it yet.  Maybe you'll try it first and let me know.