Never Alone, page 10
The ledges feel human scale—like stairways from one level to another, built for my ease and convenience. I’m standing on one such ledge when I hear a cacophony of honking and catch my breath as a flock of enormous white birds flies past and settles onto the water of the north bay. Swans! I throw my arms into the air and give a holler. Really? I get all this? This whole landscape of intermittent forest and granite with no sign of anything human except me? This peninsula of rock that looks carved by an artist’s chisel, rippling with gold and orange and cherry red under a blue sky—and now the world’s most majestic waterfowl too? It’s in every way the polar opposite of the environment that had me cringing at base camp. My cheeks hurt with smiling as I climb down from the rock steps onto the next expanse of open granite.
I must have been dropped at a narrow part, as the peninsula widens dramatically as I head east. Here there are dazzling white birch trunks shining amidst the dark green of the spruces, and then up ahead a familiar looking low bush with smooth round leaves, already turning crimson. Yes! Closer up I see small dark balls against the glowing red. Blueberries! They’re on their way out, shriveled and sour with fermentation after freeze/thaw cycles, but worth stopping for. Their tartness bursting over my tongue brings my senses alive.
If this is drop shock, I’ll have a double serving. The show’s staff have seen it time and again on Alone—even the toughest, most prepared outdoors people can crumble during the first few days of finding themselves truly alone in the deep wilderness. They call it “drop shock.” We were warned about it, and I didn’t know what to expect today, but at the moment, the only drop shock I’m experiencing is the dropping of all the apprehensions I had leading into the experience.
The sun is passing its zenith, and it’s warmer than it was any day of base camp. As delicious as it feels right now, I know night will be coming sooner than I want it to, so I need to stay focused. I pick up the pace and walk the perimeter of the peninsula out to its tip, then cut back through the middle of its width to the narrow spot where I started.
The rest of the afternoon I scout the west half of the peninsula—wider than the east half, and with deeper forests punctuated by higher cliffs. Before I head into the thicker trees, I tie a small piece of hot pink paracord to a low branch to help me find my way back to my gear, my own version of a trail of breadcrumbs. Here the forest is transitioning to the kind I saw on the mainland—dense and dark and not particularly welcoming. Heaps of building material, but my stomach drops at the thought of living here. Sheltered, but claustrophobic. The water access is treacherous at best and offers only muddy, rank water for the boot-sucking effort of getting to it.
Trudging back to my gear along the southern shore, completing a circumnavigation of the peninsula, I see a huge birch with a dark blob on its side. Chaga! This fungus grows in wounds on paper birch trees and makes a wonderful tea that is earthy, delicious, and highly medicinal. Hooray! I may not have anything for dinner, but I’ve got the makings of quite a few nice pots of tea.
Scouting conclusions: this place is magical and beautiful and I’m already in love with it. It’s also barren and exposed, and what limited resources it has are already drying up. There is a ton of bare rock and a lot of thick moss, but very little actual soil, and I’ve seen none of the edible and medicinal plants I had hoped to harvest, just one medicinal fungus. Nowhere did I find the deep water I need for fishing—not even off the very point, the spot I’d deemed most likely. Survival here is going to be no picnic.
It’s late afternoon and my head is beginning to pound. I haven’t drunk water since this morning and I’ve been hiking for hours. I head back toward where I left my gear, and this time, I recognize some of the terrain—here is that low, densely forested place where I can see the water through the trees, there is that stretch of uneven rock where I have to watch my footing. Scanning the tree line ahead I see a strange profile, unlike any of the other trees. It looks like a lollipop. It’s a spruce, but a little taller than the surrounding ones, and has a bare trunk that ends in a dense tuft of branches at the very top. It’s a hell of a landmark, so I head right for it. There, on the branch of a birch tree growing next to it, is the piece of pink parachute cord I’d tied on earlier. I hadn’t looked up to notice I was marking the spot with the most distinctive tree on the peninsula. No, not a lollipop, I decide, looking up at it from below. It’s a truffula tree. Yep, it looks just like a truffula tree from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax.
Just beyond it is a wide rock avenue that leads right toward my gear. The small cluster of trees between here and there is just enough to break the wind, but I can see through them in all directions. The grove is close to the drop spot but not right at it, which also means good access to the water. It isn’t a south slope exactly, which would be my preference in terms of getting the most light and warmth from the sun. It’s at least on the south side of the peninsula, though, which is as close to a south slope as I’m likely to get from what I’ve seen. Plus, it’s bordered by an amazing landmark I can see from a long way off. My gut sense and the landscape agree, this grove of trees is home.
22
The Other Survival Skills
The sun is descending quickly now, and I want a temporary shelter set up before it goes down completely. I cut a small spruce tree to use as a ridge pole and carefully limb and peel it so it’s smooth enough not to damage my tarp. By dusk I’ve got a low, lean-to style shelter, with a fold of tarp beneath me to keep my bedding off the damp ground.
I haul myself and the camera down to the lake to gather water for an evening “meal” of tea. My head pounds harder with every step, but the beauty of the sunset reflecting off the lake soothes the ache. I’m finally here. I would take this hunger and pain with this incredible beauty over the chaos and stress of the last three months any day, no question.
I guzzle as much as I can hold then stand looking at the dark water stretching out before me. As the distant glow fades into the horizon, I sing my friend Ida’s sunset song to praise the sun and thank it for the day.
Sun’s going down. Beauty is unbound. Day to night, night to day. Blessings on you on your way. Oh-way-oh. Praise be to the sun.
Back at camp the cold is already pressing down on my shoulders as I draw the ferro rod and multitool from my belt to make my first fire on the land. A spark catches the fine wisps of birch bark I’ve laid out, and the smoke curls around my face as I blow the flame into a nest of spruce twigs. I heave a deep sigh as the fire’s light and warmth reflect back onto me from the lean-to wall. Nothing says home like a fire in the hearth. I make spruce tip tea, easier to prepare than chaga. Green and tangy, it doesn’t exactly scream “dinner,” but it’s full of vitamin C and I need the liquid. I stare at the flickering light for another hour then drag myself out for a final pee before bed.
It’s already well below freezing outside the small circle of my fire. I peel my bra off under my clothing and toss it to the back of the shelter. My head is still pounding and my belly rumbles in confusion at the shift from absurd abundance to near total lack as I settle into my sleeping bag for my first night.
Not quite enough hours later, the rays of the rising sun catch me in the face. The cold air stings my nostrils and the last thing I want to do is emerge from the cozy womb of my sleeping bag. Instead, I reach one arm out and fumble with the camera and tripod to document my morning and my plans for the day, a routine I’ll repeat every morning from here on out.
That done, I savor one last moment of warmth, letting the sun paint its kaleidoscope of colors on the insides of my eyelids, then shiver into my clothes. I’m buttoning up my pants but not done dressing when a rising pressure in my guts prompts me to find a place to make a quick hole, so I toss on a sweater and boots and head out. With so little soil to dig in, I pick a spot of deep sphagnum moss well away from the shelter for my latrine. The moss seems to choke out all plants but cranberries and Labrador tea, both iconic plants of the northern boreal region. As the name implies, you can drink an infusion of Labrador tea leaves. They’re everywhere out here, so I don’t bother harvesting any in my urgency to do my business, but I don’t want to waste these cranberries. I pick a beautiful red handful before digging my hole and squatting in the undergrowth, then mark the spot with two crossed sticks so I know not to dig in this place again.
The movement down below has woken up my stomach, which growls and gnaws at me. I’d love to hunt, but since I arrived in Yellowknife, yesterday was the only clear and mild day we’ve had. Sleety snow like we had at base camp, and worse, could be here any day. Caught unprepared in an arctic storm, I could die of exposure in hours. It takes weeks to starve to death, though, so I ignore the hunger and head back to camp.
I need to disassemble last night’s shelter and decide what the heck I’m building today, but I want to dress properly first. The last thing I did yesterday was toss my bra aside, but I can’t find it anywhere. I’m sure I’ll get less self-conscious as time goes on, but it’s going to be a big filming day. It’s still warm enough that I’m wearing only a few, snug layers, so I’m not doing it braless. I walk a circle around camp and then go through everything I’ve got. Nothing.
Stumped, I let the bra go for now and launch into the work of the day. I take down the temporary shelter and get a sense of the space I’ve got to work with.
“What’s your favorite type of shelter?” Quinn had asked me back in our first casting interview.
I could tell the answer mattered, that I was expected to rattle off different styles and my experience with them. But I couldn’t—it was a silly question.
“Having favorites doesn’t serve in a survival situation,” I answered. “Preconceived ideas and attachment to them aren’t survival skills, they’re handicaps. Flexibility, observation, and the ability to adapt to what the environment calls for; those are the real survival skills.”
Here is a case in point. I’d had some ideas about what I might build out here—of course I did—a low, yurt-like structure perhaps? A bent willow wickiup? But nothing I had pictured is going to work in this space or with the materials I’ve got. Instead, I need to listen to the land, take stock of my resources, and go with what they dictate.
An idea takes shape, and I move my things out of the way to make room to work.
I’ve got the space all clear, but seriously now, where the heck is my bra? Did something drag it off? Then it hits me like a slap to the forehead—Wait a minute. I’ve already been here for a full day. I’ve harvested trees, chaga, and berries, but I haven’t given anything back.
I sometimes go through phases where I lose things all the time. I know I put my keys in my backpack, for example, and then I go through every pocket but there is no jingling metal to be found. I do the same thing three times to no avail, then sometime later I look again and there they are. I used to find it maddening, but these days, I’ve got a theory about it.
I’m basically an animist—I believe in the sentience of the world around me, and not just the things with central nervous systems. I fumble it sometimes—I’m a flawed human after all, raised in a modern culture that constantly takes without thinking twice—but I try to remember to always ask permission before I gather anything from a wild place. If I get a yes, I strive to harvest respectfully and to give back in some way, whether it’s thinning around the plant, leaving it some food or water, singing an impromptu song, anything. When I’m caught up in my own needs and not making offerings, things of mine occasionally go missing. If I’m not remembering to do it myself, it seems, the world takes its own offering. When I realize my mistake and make an appropriate gift, I find what I’m looking for in a place I’ve already checked. Darn forest fairies!
What have I got to offer this grove? I came with such limited gear that there isn’t much to spare. Then I remember the pendant. It was a charm a fellow instructor at an ancestral skills event had given me, a copper disk embossed with a stylized deer’s head. It was originally a necklace, but before the salt buttons idea, when I thought I’d be making my own silver buttons, I tied it onto my wool shirt as an additional button to help cinch the neck closed. With my bulky sweater I can’t cinch the shirt’s neck down tight anyway, so it’s still there but no longer useful.
This image of the deer head has always held special significance for me, and now it’s as if I planned it. We’re far north of deer range up here, but I’ve come dressed in buckskin, and in my life back home, venison is a staple. What better gift is there to offer the land I’m asking to feed me than something that means clothing and food back where I come from?
I choose a lovely, twisted willow snag on the south side of my shelter site, aim the camera at it, then approach it, aware of the soft duff under my feet and the spicy scent of spruce needles in my nose as I drop deeper into the present moment.
“My name is Woniya,” I say, feeling awkward yet again about speaking my prayers on camera, and wedge the narrow disk into the split trunk of the willow snag.
“I want to be here in a good way. I humbly ask your permission and your blessings to build my life in this place from what you have to give and to make the substance of my body from your substance. If you’re with me, I intend to stay as long as I can and to share the story of my time here with the world, to inspire people to live in a more connected and respectful way.”
It feels well received, so I turn back to the clearing and start over.
Without a shovel, I need a digging stick to level the ground, so I cut a nice length of a birch trunk to make it from. The axe I left behind would have come in handy for working the end down into a wedge shape for digging, but I’ll have to make do with my saw and knife.
When I go to grab the saw from my pack, my bra, which had apparently been wedged between my backpack and my sleeping bag stuff sack, falls to the ground. I stare, stunned, at the black shape against green moss. What the heck? That’s impossible.
I’d just moved those bags—paying attention—and never saw it. The part of me that believes in magic wrestles with my rational brain. The bra is here, impossible or not. Magic wins. I pull my shirt off and shrug into the bra, not willing to let it out of my reach, and get back to work.
The digging stick I make isn’t as useful as a shovel, but it does the job, and doubles as a pry bar for lifting up mats of moss to use as insulation and bedding.
As I work, I go over my shelter criteria for building in this environment:
Orientation—I want my thickest, sturdiest walls in the direction the blustery weather and storms roll in from, and the door sheltered from prevailing winds.
Sealed Walls—I want to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. This means tight walls and plenty of insulation.
Size—I don’t want it any bigger than necessary. Additional square footage is more space to heat, and I’ll be warming it with either body heat or firewood, both of which cost me a lot of calories. I want the roof as low as possible for the same reason.
Roof Pitch—I’m building for snow, and plenty of it. Triangles are incredibly strong and stable, and steep pitches shed snow, while flatter roofs bend and buckle.
Best Use of Materials—Efficiency saves me time and effort, which means saving calories.
Hearth—This climate calls for an indoor fire for warmth, light, and cooking. I need to make sure the shelter is built with a hearth in mind.
I settle on a slanted A-frame—tall enough to stand up in at the entrance, but with a ridge pole that slopes down so there’s less dead space to heat at the foot of my bed. That gives me both a steep pitch and a triangular cross section, so a polar bear could do jumping jacks on the roof and it wouldn’t collapse. I’ll keep my fire toward the front of the shelter, where there will be more room to cook and store firewood.
Cutting my materials right here where I’m building would save calories—which matters—but so does spreading out my impact to minimize the damage I do to the forest, so I shoulder my saw and look for spots that would benefit from selective thinning. When I find an area where the trees are crowded, I lay my hand on a white spruce and ask, “Are you willing?”
It’s hard to describe how I get an answer—not in words certainly, but a feeling. A “no” feels like resistance, a “yes” like a yielding. I feel a “yes.” Whenever I kill an animal, I do my best to use as many parts as possible. I make the same promise to these trees. I limb them where they stand, then haul the trunk and the armfuls of spruce boughs back home.
All afternoon I cut, haul, and film, until the rock ledge behind the shelter, my “back porch,” is piled with limbed logs and branches and it’s time to start building. As I walk through one particularly thick stand of trees, I see another impossible thing—a mushroom growing out of the end of a tree limb. Not actually growing, I see, stepping closer. The stem is broken off and the skin is wrinkled and desiccated.
A squirrel yells at me from a neighboring tree. Oh wow—a squirrel must have carried it here to dry for winter food! Once I’ve registered it, I notice more mushrooms in every stage, from perfectly fresh to totally dry, in other branches as I pass back and forth hauling poles. I tuck some of the driest ones into my pocket. They are too dry to identify and I’m not going to take risks with wild mushrooms, squirrel endorsed or not, but you never know when squirrel bait might come in handy.
Back at the shelter site, I start my building project by peeling some parachute cord. Having almost left it behind, I’m not taking an inch of it for granted. It might look like a lot now, but these eighty meters could get used up quickly if I’m not careful. Luckily, every strand of 550 parachute cord is made of a strong outer sheath surrounding seven thin inner strands. Separate them, and that’s eight feet of string for every foot of paracord.
