Yesterday was the anniversary of the establishment in 1607 of the Jamestown settlement on a swampy, isolated, mosquito infested site in a place now known as Virgina.
That means today is the 406th anniversary of the Jamestown colonists’ “what now?” moment, in which a feeling of reality-based dread that eventually settles over many jubilant proceedings – a reaction also known as buyer’s remorse.
Not that they had actually purchased anything. The native people who were already in the area apparently weren’t using the Jamestown site because they recognized it wasn’t good for agriculture. But the natives could be wheedled and cajoled into handing over supplies. Things changed when the needy visitors proved unable to care for themselves and became even more demanding of support in this harsh new environment.
That’s not a way to win friends and influence people.
In the ensuing years, most of the colonists died from sickness and starvation. Their replacements resorted to cannibalism, documented in firsthand accounts from long ago and recently confirmed by archeologists who dug up the skeleton of a 14 year old girl. She had apparently died, been buried, exhumed, and finally had her brains scooped out for sustenance.
Ugh.
Never underestimate the power of hunger to make you do bad things.
It is easy at this distance to look down on the unprepared-for-survival people of Jamestown, and to tut-tut over the failure of their leaders. But with only a moment’s reflection I realized that I am in no way qualified to provide useful guidance in several key areas:
- The growing and harvesting of food.
- The killing and butchering of wild animals.
- The construction of buildings that could withstand more than a light breeze.
Were they clueless and lazy? I suppose. But given the chance to provide survival tips, I could only show the people of Jamestown a couple of things.
- How to surf the Internet.
- How to sit in front of the TV.
- (Internet and TV not included).
Not only are these totally useless skills, they do absolutely nothing to support healthy brain development. Which means I wouldn’t even come in handy at suppertime.
Dropped into the wilderness, how would you survive?
Trail Baboon 
thanks dale all of a sudden i feel capable. i can grow stuff. seeds would have been a handy thing to pack but i guess we can make do with whats around and i can build stuff. none of its going to be on a par with the vatican or anything architecturally robust but to have a place to keep form freezing or sweating or getting eaten by mosquitoes? no problem. being a veggie may prove to be a defining moment as i will only use the skins of found dead animals for coats and hides but i think having a garden to tend to with no netflix or online library to access would be a good thing. wish i brought some strawberries may turn into a mantra but ill bet there is some good stuff growing out there that will do the trick.
i read over the weekend that hwy 61 country between redwing and winona was favorite country of the native americans and i can absolutely see why. if the big city life didnt play into the equation the river and geography and access to the things the river holds would be a much bigger deal. if i was starving maybe it would be harder to ignore all those critters coming down at dusk to get a drink but id be willing to hold out as long as i could. no coon skin cap for me unless it was whatever the equivilent for road kill is in pre road terminology
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That stretch of Highway 61 was surely a favorite spot with native Americans, but I’m not sure it was THE favorite spot. Coldwater Spring lies right near the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. Dakota Indians living nearby regarded that spring and the land around it as “the center of the earth.” The area was trashed when the Department of Interior dropped a big ugly mine research station there. That has been torn down and moved away to create a new park, Coldwater Spring Park. I love that spot.
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I was thinking of exactly that spot as the spot I would choose especially ore big city attractions
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I haven’t visited it since it was cleaned up and made into a park. That’s on my list for summer projects. We used to drop by there often because it lies adjacent to the off-leash dog park I went to every day of my dog’s life.
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nice item to tick off the list. you want to borrow a dog?
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Thanks, but dogs must be on a leash in that park. I’ll hoof it alone.
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Has this been recently torn down? Just wondering, as we have been to the little grotto with the spring, and the old buildings around there were creeeeeeppppyyy! Thursday Next fans will know what I mean when I say my first thought was of the abandoned lab where the Shakespeare’s were cloned.
I’m really hoping that is gone now, although it was weirdly fascinating to come upon.
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Yes, the creepy buildings were torn down. Or so I have heard. The new park opened last year, I think. Go visit it now!
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we will! we will! thanks for the update!
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ill bet the indians would like to have their options back when it came to helping those poor starving settlers out in hindsight. progress marching on left ugly entrails on the indian world. gone the freedom to move to the summer cottage when the seasons changes and to retreat to the place where the cover provided protection and near a good food source like the path where the millions of buffalo would pass by. it was unimaginable that any of these beautiful god given gifts of sustenance could ever be lessened or turned into a political chip. then along came white guys. eating brains and acting ugly and eventually snuffing out the existence of a thousand years of evolution in the snap of fingers called colonization. how about treaties? we will let you live over here… oh wait there is something we want over there, lets move you over here… oh wait here is a worthless piece of land we can give you. you dont like that you savages we will put you in schools and teach you to be like us and hang the malcontents. america the great. shame on my forefathers. id give everything to return to those times when integrity could be measured in a handshake and living with the land was a must not a politically correct badge. if the indians had known they could have just set up a greeting party and killed them all as they landed and put the whole thing off while they sculpted a plan to deal with the intrusion. america. how do they like in on the rez?
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Good morning. I have spent some time in the canoe area wilderness of Northern Minnesota. However, I had equipment and supplies. I know a little about gathering wild food. Also, I like reading about people living in wilderness areas. Still, I think the best thing for me to do, if I get left in a wilderness, would be to get out of there as soon as possible. I doubt that I would have any chance surviving in a wilderness if you just dropped me there without supplies and equipment.
I would not mind living in a wilderness, or maybe spending my summers there, if set up with a place to stay and some food. One of my favorite books is the one Helen Hoover wrote about living through the winter at the edge of the wilderness on the Gun Flint trail at a time when very few people stayed there during the winter. She had the company of a lot of different kinds of wild animals who got use to her being there and would come close to her cabin.
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As a lifelong outdoorsman, I could survive in a wilderness quite a long time, especially if I had any aids (knife, means for starting a fire, gun, rope, string, tarp, etc). There are some good books on this. Into the Wild is about that kid who died in Alaska trying to live on his own. I just read an intriguing book about getting lost in the BWCAW, Lost in the Wild.
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my business partners dad left civilization to be the guy who would put you in a boat and take you to your starting point in the boundary water up around crane lake. he had some great stories about people getting lost in the canoes he would drop them off in. a map and a compass are not much good if you have no idea how to use them.
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I was never worried about getting lost in the Boundary Waters on canoe trips because it is very easy to tell where you are by keeping track of your route on a map. Once in a while it might take a little time to find a potage trail, but I never was in any danger of getting completely lost. I think I took a compass with me, but I never used it.
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The guys who got lost and were written up in that book were walking, not canoeing, when they got lost in the bush.
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I’m like you, Jim. After BWCAing with my dad for several trips and acclimating to water navigation up there, when I started leading my own trips or going solo, I’ve never had trouble navigating the lakes without a compass. I just constantly check the landmarks, find them on the map, and gauge the boat’s speed, then anticipate where the next island or peninsula will be. Finding the portages are often the hardest part because they can change with water levels or be obscured by fallen trees.
And with those lakes, it’s darn hard to get totally lost because one can only get to the next lake via portage or some sort of channel (river, narrow spot, rapids, etc.). I hope the average mulyak in a canoe up there can at least figure out where the lake narrows into a stream or rapids that require portaging.
Maybe we’re the lucky ones who are blessed with a good sense of direction and an eye for map reading.
Chris in Owatonna
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Did the boundary waters in high school. it was wonderful.
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I read “Into the Wild”. Sad story — as I recall, he ate something that didn’t poison him outright but kept him from getting any nutrients from other foods?
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He ate something that was edible at some times of year, but it was toxic when he ingested it. Then he died slowly. It was made into a movie, too.
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Ah, yes…. that’s what I’m remembering. Never did see the movie.
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Actually, I think the official verdict is that he starved to death. There were no toxins of any kind found in his body. Krakauer did some speculating when the wrote the book, and they were expanded on in the movie (which I haven’t seen).
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What I’m remembering is the what he ate SHOULD have been OK — either it was the wrong time of year or he ate the roots instead of the seeds or vice versa. But the upshot was that what he ate kept him from being able to get the nutrients out of anything else, so he did actually starve.
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I can build things – though after years of building for theater, I don’t guarantee my work past 6 weeks. Daughter’s swingset is still standing several years later, but that may be a fluke. Foraging for food…well…I’d probably wind up eating poison ivy.
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i need to get up to the boundry waters. i have lived here all my life, loved that stuff and only been there once with the family who enjoyed it immensely but kind of gentrified the outdoorsiness aspect of the whole thing. i will try to put an x on my calendar for this summer.
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You should check out the way reservations are currently being done for taking trips into the boundary waters, tim. I am not up to date on this. I think there may be a waiting list for getting approval to travel in that area by canoe.
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i think you are right. thanks for the heads up
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Well, I can garden and cook. As long as I was dropped in the wilderness with tools I suppose I could try to manage. I think we baboons could collectively survive given all our different skills.
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You and I could effectively help our Congress deal with Cabin Fever.
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If a baboon were to get lost in the wilderness with Jacque or Renee, they could keep that person from going crazy. That’s the great danger of getting lost: going crazy and doing something dumb.
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You are assuming that Jacque and I would remain sane and not panic.
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i doubt id go crazy and i can just about guarantee i would do something dumb
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Just for the principle of it…
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i could pretend it was intentional but reality is it likely would just come up without being prompted
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
At this point in my life, if I was dropped off in the wilderness, I would not last long at all. I am now a fat, slow juicy morsel for the local puma population. My body no longer stands up for survival situations as it did in the past.
Meanwhile, who needs the wilderness? This morning while walking the dog I saw several bald eagles flying over. They regularly hunt in my neighborhood near their nesting grounds on the Minnesota River. 2 weeks ago a bobcat killed Peter Rabbit (“go bobcat!” said Farmer McGregor) in my neighbors’ front yard. I over heard the “YYYEEEEOOOOOWWWWL” then witnessed fur flying in my yard and the offal left in the Riley’s grass. Oh My. Then last year our local Pileated Woodpecker was feeding at our bird feeder.
Why go to the wilderness when our deck provides this kind of scenery and gore.
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This was just in the news yesterday. Two eagles apparently were having a territorial battle. They grabbed each other in the air and somehow their talons got locked in that position. Unable to fly, they crash landed on an airplane runway in front of startled people. Both survived.
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About 3 weeks ago Lou and I took our dogs to the Bryant Lake dogpark on the border of EP and Minnetonka. As we hiked, an eagle flew out of a tree behind me, so close I could hear the whooshing of its wings. Nearly jumped out of my skin!
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A few years back, a paper carrier in Bismarck was noticed doing his route wearing a motorcycle helmet. Apparently there was an owl that kept swooping at the carrier every morning on the route. Game and Fish decided that the owl was just prtecting its territory from the intruding teenager. I would find an owl attack every morning a little daunting. I thought the helmet was a great idea.
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Morning all! Like Jacque, I think my only survival strategy would be to head in the direction of civilization and keep walking!
Years ago, I was fascinated by the “Connections” series on PBS by James Burke. One episode started off with “how would you survive” and it became clear to me immediately that if we ever have a catastrophic civilization failure, I’ll be toast!
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Great series! We found it in the library and were totally hooked.
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It was one of those series that really got me too. In fact, I quit wearing make-up because of one of the episodes!
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Bradford Angier wrote a series of books on this subject, books like “How to Stay Alive in the Woods,” back in the ’70s. We used to have copies of some of them and they were interesting reading. That was when a lot of us entertained fantasies about moving “back to the land.” I’m glad now that we never attempted it. There aren’t even many small towns I would want to live in now.
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Before I made my first BWCA trip, I read Angier. He said “eschew extra weight,” so I left my belt at home. When I made my first portage, my pants fell off.
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ha ha!
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moon over lake vermillion?
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Common survival wisdom says find water first, then food, then shelter (or in a cold climate, shelter first). But with most water on the planet being polluted to some degree (yes, even our beloved BWCAW water isn’t 100% safe to drink anymore), my first goal would be to get a fire going so I could boil water for drinking in whatever vessel I could find. Barring that, pray for rain and collect water as it falls.
Even with that said, I’ve been to the BWCA 20-30 times, and wouldn’t be able to survive there without the modern tools of survival–water purifier, camp stove, freeze-dried food, sleeping bags, tents, tarps, etc. I’m a wannabee “Survivor” who’s a real-life wannabee Grizzly Adams. So my survival solution would be to find the nearest flowing water and follow it downstream as far as I could in hopes of finding some sort of civilization.
And if one is going to die, I can think of worse ways than perishing from lack of water, or hpyothermia, in a beautiful wilderness setting. Better than dying from cancer or Alzheimer’s, I would think.
Chris in Owatonna
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jeramiah johnson
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OT – how does the fact that Minnesota became the 12th state (& the first Midwestern state) to endorse gay marriage not make the national news????? Was the interest cut-off at #11?
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We were wondering the same thing. Maybe indifference means we’ve arrived: “Oh, yawn, another state has gay marriage. What took them so long?”, but it’s probably that the mainstream media are salivating over the IRS thing and hoping to be on the spot with cameras trained in case there’s a huge catfight on the Senate floor. Certain quarters really, really, really want this to be a scandal that will bring down the Obama White House, since the Bengazi thing isn’t quite panning out the way they’d planned.
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its that conservative news bias
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I have nothing in the way of wilderness survival skills, as I seldom venture past the 494-694 loop, though “heirloom skills” (aka homesteading skills) interest me greatly. I could probably remember how to process acorns for food, if I had the resources and time, but more than likely I’d starve to death in short order. I have friends who would be a great deal more useful than me–my hippie gardener friend knows edible weeds, and my roommate spent much of her childhood at a nature center in Michigan. Besides learning to identify wild plants and track animals, she learned to knap flints, though I don’t know how much she remembers of that. I also know someone who is an avid mushroomer (thanks to her, I tasted a puffball for the first time a couple of years ago. Delicious!).
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i would love to learn mushrooms. last year i went out and found a beautiful merrel and then my inattention transformed it into a slimey mush by leaving it in a plastic bag in the sun for 24 hours. i get concerned about mushrooms and guessing wrong
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I suppose it might help if we had our dogs. Tim’s beasts, and Anna’s bassett, and our terrier might come in handy for protection and finding things.
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We would have to leave my two at home. Unless we are stranded long enough that we can spin my fluffy dogs fur into yarn with which to knit sweaters. And then, of course, we’ll need someone who can actually knit!
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I can do that knitting thing….
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my dogs would make life more enjoyable and would show us where all the birds and squirrels were in the trees. they could tree a racoon but what do you do even if you catch a treed racoon. paws and barney could sniff out stuff worth sniffing. little dog wuld be good bait for something vinny and nala would be wilderness kindred souls , frolicing and making a life in the wilderness a joy.
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Barney only has one good eye, but his nose works pretty well. He is, however, remarkably lazy (like most bassets). He’s an excellent stress reliever though – he’ll roll over and let you rub his belly until everything is right again with your world (and then will wonder why you stopped since he’s still there and that belly ain’t gonna rub itself).
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Morning–
A few years ago Mom showed me how to butcher chickens. After we were done I made notes so I could remember how. I also realized I prefer collecting eggs to butchering chickens.
So if the lame, crippled wild animals that I would actually be able to catch are skeletal-ly built like chicken I might be able to survive.
Assuming I had a knife. Preferably sharp.
Shelter, yeah, I could probably come up with something. But how will I recharge the cordless drill batteries? How’s the phrase go: ‘When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’.
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so if your only tool is a mind, every thing is a mind game
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I learned how to butcher hogs last spring. I even learned how to make head cheese.
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i have that same talent at my house but a little different, i make stuff no one will eat too.
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Oh, I didn’t eat it. I just learned how to make it.
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at least i eat mine . its just everyone else who shies away
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Renee, I’d eat your headcheese anytime, love the stuff. An open faced sandwich with headcheese, a good mustard and pickled beets; a rare treat.
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You and my husband could be great luncheon buddies. He loves that sort of thing. I am a little more squeamish.
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i think the early settlers in va had mustard and beets to go with thier meals too. that and an axe to get through skull is all you need
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Needs must, I could probably manage butchering anything edible the rest of you caught. I could make myself eat it too, if I had to.
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But could you eat a 14-year-old girl?
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no no steve… its the brains of an already dead and buried 14 year old girl
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not sure about that, but I do have some experience that would make me skilled at butchering one. In my experience, a saw is the neatest way to get at those brains, dead and buried or not.
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oh, and I would have to consult with Renee and Jacque if I would have weird flashbacks later if I did eat those brains.
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Eating brains can be really hazardous to your health.
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not near as hazardous as it is to the persons brains you are eating
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In some ways I feel as though I was dropped into a wilderness a birth and have been looking for civilization all my life without finding it.
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I think I’ll rent “Swiss Family Robinson” as a tutorial, or “Gilligan’s Island”…
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swiss family was a nice one. robinson crusoe no so much…a little more of the dark side
speaking of the dark side. the days and nights of molly dodd just showed up in the mail. thanks bill. im in heaven
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Ooh, I love Molly Dodd…
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Tim, you are very welcome. Molly Dodd may never be released as a commercial DVD. I’ve heard it’s because it’s because of the difficulty of licensing the music Molly sings from time to time with her ex husband’s band. At any rate, it seems unlikely if it hasn’t been released yet that it ever will be. I’ve had a standing order in at Amazon for it for years.
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I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t last long if I was dropped into the wilderness. I can build a fire, cook, and garden (sort of) and I’ve also chopped wood, been on canoe trips, and helped butchered chickens (I did the gutting, not the head chopping). However, there is not much stuff to garden with in the wilderness, and probably no chickens laying eggs or volunteering to be eaten, so I don’t think those skills would help much.
Also, if it’s cloudy, I tend to lose my sense of direction, so unless the sun shines, I would never find my way out. I’ve never fished or hunted, so I’m not sure what I would cook anyway. Oh and I also have zero building skills. Somehow reading books and stuff like that doesn’t seem very useful in a wilderness survival situation…so I think I would prefer to be dropped into the wilderness with some other baboons who are more skillful than I am. At least we could have some fun before we find our way to civilization. I like my solitude – but not if I was dropped deep into the wilderness.
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A few times on the portage trails in the boundary waters I saw some small game birds that would let you get close to them. I think the birds I saw were Spruce Grouse and they are know to have very little fear of people. I think it would be easy to catch some of these birds which would give you a chance to use your butchering skills, Edith.
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I didn’t actually do the butchering, Jim. Someone else chopped the heads off and I took the guts out. Worst thing about it was that it was May – and the black flies absolutely loved all the blood and gore on my arms and legs – and it was nearly impossible to slap at them when I was holding a dead chicken. Black fly bites are incredibly painful – I still remember how that felt decades later. OUCH!
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I bow to the superior hunter-gatherer skills of others. I will just hitch my wagon to yours if you know how to manage this kind of thing. I can do basic bookkeeping and that sort of thing if it would be useful.
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