Living Primitively

First of all, thanks to: Santiago, Simon, Samuel, Robert Z., Sean, Darlene, Robert D., Douglas, Gerald, Randall, Halley and Survival Acres for all of your donations! It will surely help me pay some hunting license fees (I like to keep my path clear if I can).

The focus of the last weeks has been procuring the materials needed for my winter lodge. The four main beams have been cut down and debarked and I have in excess of 40 spruce poles to make the roof out of. One of my brother has been logging firewood for my father, which has given me a great supply of birch bark. Now in the summertime, there is no need for a lodge, so I either live out in the open or in the lavvo (tipi).

Foodwise, I have been some modern food, but mostly game and fish. The second picture here is of my favourite way of preparing the local trout, which is the clear summer staple in this area. Any trout that I don’t eat straight away is split, sliced and hung up in the smoke to dry. When dry it is gently fried in the coals. This makes it turn out like a deliciously crunchy fish-bisquit.

Other things I’ve been eating in various quantity, from various sources:

• Caribou
• Roe Deer
• Moose
• Wood Cock
• Trush
• Magpie
• Black Grouse
• Frog
• Lamb’s Quarters
• Nettle
• Rosebay Willowherb
• Dandelion
• Chickweed
• Orphine
• Blueberry (at the coast)
• Wild cherry (at the coast)
• Mussels (at the coast)
• Sea Snails (at the coast)
• Several species of seaweed (at the coast)

Some other things I’ve done, not mentioned above:

• Made some more Aspen bark containers.
• Made a willow basket.
• Hafted an axe.
• Stitched up a rawhide container to store food in.

I haven’t mentioned that I’ve had visitors. Thomas from Germany and Patrick McGlinchey from Scotland. Both a pair of primitive nutters. Here it may look like they have been smoking more than fish, but that’s just an attempt to smile in overly smoky conditions.

The southern coastal oak forests are huge, too bad that the seashore itself has been almost totally built over by cottages and houses. Because of that I didn’t care to stay there any length of time. I’d be extremely thankful if someone would show me a relatively untouched piece of coast somewhere between Skien and Kristiansand.

Here are a few sceneryshots from the area of the high school where I work occasionally.

It’s been a struggle, I’ve had to make some trade-offs, but from now and on I am living out in the woods. Actually I’ve already been doing it for some days. It is going to be a transition, making everthing for my daily life, food will be gathered, caught, stored and cooked. I’ll be juggeling two lives to some extent, though with clear emphasis on the primitive living. Legalities and real life situations will dictate that I continue to ask local hunters for skins and do some work to make a little money.

About once a week I’ll try to post an update on how things are and my progress.

Things I’ll do:

• Get food through: Hunting, fishing, gathering, gardening, forest gardening (a hybrid approach between gathering and gardening) and scavenging stuff from hunters.
• Make everything I need in my daily life. No exceptions, I’ll continue to use some of the stuff I already have, like fishing nets and clothes, but it will all be phased out as I manage to replace it with primitive gear.
• Live in primitive accomodations for most of the year (when I’m not visiting somone).
• Take photos and update the blog occasionally.

Things I’ll not do:

• Raise livestock. They need regular tending and I value freedom of movement and action.
• Try to make things as hardcore as possible. I’m not interested in a life of perpetual suffering, so I’ll try as hard as I can to find the solutions that makes a primitive life enjoyable (without resorting to modern tools).

PS! If you like what you are reading, please donate as I really need it.

Down “on location” now and have been so for a few weeks. Just a simple update on what I’ve done:

• Finished planting all the corn in the garden. A lot of the corn, sunflower and the peas are now coming up. Planted some beans and squash.
• Unsuccessfully fired some pottery I made. The pottery was ok I think, but I was probably too impatient with the firing, raising the temperature too soon.
• Chopped down (sorry, metal axe for the sake of speed) a few more aspens, some are to serve as main beams for the earth lodge, the rest for firewood. A second reason I have for chopping down these trees is to give the garden more sun and to give light to a few bushes of hazel that aren’t producing anymore.
• Cut a fairly large number of spruce poles for the lodge and collected the bark for thatching.
• Thinned out a suitable patch of forest by cutting most of the birch there. The logs I’ll use for various projects and firewood.
• Planted 2 seeds of American Chestnut, most graciously given to me by Scott on Paleoplanet.
• Have done some fishing, mostly with a rod, caught a number of fish.
• Managed to overbuck a skin (first one, not fun). May still be usable for a few things I hope.
• Made a pair of rawhide moose skin shoes (pampooties).

Pics:

Corn and sunflower coming up (quite a while ago).

View from the garden.

The garden.

Skinning the spruce poles for the earth lodge.

The spruce bark laid in pressure.

The crude shoes I made (please ignore the ripped pants…).

Various scenery pics.

Although the Greater Burdock (Arctium lappa) has a quite extensive range both in Norway and most of Europe in general, it seems absent in the area I grew up. Because of that I have never tasted this wild root before. In the upper temperate/subarctic zones, such big, edible roots are only found on a very few species. It’s easily recognised by it’s large leaves.

The plant is biennial. I dug up two roots, one was obviously from last year and one seemed like it had grown from a seed this spring. This rather big one, held by my 3 year old daughter is probably on it’s second year. It was quite hard to dig up, dispite nice loamy soil because of a large number of rocks.

The way I do it with such roots is that I skin off the outer layer, I know a lot of people scrape them and wash them, but I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. And with a few species, like Cow Parsley the bitter taste is found in the outer layer and removing it will make it good (but bland) with only one cooking instead of several. Whether this is also true of burdock I can not tell, since I haven’t tried anything else than removing the outer shell.

Young roots seems quite pleasant to eat raw and has a nice texture not unlike bamboo shoots. The older root was almost like wood and I fried it in a little oil first and then cooked it in soy for a short while. This made achieve the bamboo shoot texture and it became rather good eating. I added it to some ready made pastasauce.

The plant is medicinal (blood purifying and a number of other things) and should not be eaten in excess. Pregnant women, not at all.

When I was away now for 2 weeks I was teaching at a local high school (Fyresdal Videregåande Steinerskole). This isn’t the regular type of high school, but one that specializes in teaching sustainable crafts and biodynamic farming. However, it is still possible to also do the curriculum required to qualify for subsequent studies at university or college.

Details about the school:

• It’s a large farm/ranch owned by a foundation. They have sheep, cattle, swine etc… And quite extensive vegetable gardens. All ecological and run on biodynamical principles.
• The school is a Rudolf Steiner School.
• The location is quite remote and located in the sparcely populated muncipality of Fyresdal. Remember, you can walk around wherever you want in Norway. Trespassing isn’t an issue. That gives you plenty of opportunity for outdoors life.
• There are two directions you can take to achieve a proffession at this school: ecological agriculture (+ forestry, crafts etc.) and ecological construction.
• As a student at this school you are allowed to hunt, trap and fish for free on several thousand acres of land. In regards to hunting and trapping you still need to pass the government issued test before you qualify.
• You have the opportunity to live in a dorm at the school. The food produced at the farm is by large consumed by the students.

From this autumn I’ll be teaching outdoors life (3 seperate weeks of fieldtrips around in the terrain. ) which I’m allowed to impart my own angle on (will of course include primitive skills) and some crafts.

If you are interested in more information, I’d advice that you drop them a mail.

Various photos of the school:

The sheep at the school are of the Norwegian stone age type (though not totally pure).

The mountains behind the farm makes for quite good scenery.

This is the main area of the school. Not all of the buildings are so easy to see from this point of view.

Photo of various working buildings. There are is a building dedicated to wood working a smithy etc…

Some rather small examples of buildings built with sustainable methods. The one to the left is a traditional timber cabin, the one to the right is a hay bale house.

A closer look at one of the vegetable gardens and a part of the orchard.

The second vegetable garden, with the barn at left and you can probably see some cows and a greenhouse on the photo too.

Some of the students (They aren’t all males, though it appears to be from this photo) .