Week one of our 9-week semester is all about making people self-sufficient. We spend a lot of time workong on fire, cooking over the fire, using an axe to get wood for the fire, sanitation, and settling into the woods life. We also spend a lot of time on the academic side of the course, going through the workbooks, logbooks and other aspects that make up the cerebral side of what we do here. The end result is a mix of both. I’ve always believed that real learning includes both physical and mental components. To focus solely on one or the other is incomplete at best. We have both a body and a mind, and we need to train them both.
Today we finish week one. Among other things, we’ll be working on our wet-weather fire protocol. When small sticks are too wet to light with a single match, we need to take action. It is a meta exercise that brings together most of what we have done so far in order to achieve a goal. There are a series of steps. First, find a dead-standing tree of the appropriate diameter and height. Second, use a series of subjective tests to see if the heartwood is dry. Third, fell the tree, isolate a small section, split it down into small pieces, then carve them into feather sticks that will light. Fourth, light it, cook on it, enjoy the warmth. It is a foundational skill eveyone has to master before we can leave on our first expedition, and they have to accomplish it while not violating any of our safety protocols. Because while an axe cut is a terrible thing in camp, it is far better than an axe cut on a remote expedition where we can’t get someone to the hospital in a timely manner. So we train here first, then expedition.
The weather has turned the corner towards spring, with temperatures rising into the 40’s. Not much snow left except for the road into the field school.
