Rewilding In Action

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Rewilding Mind & Heart
#41

Alright, I’m up against everyone telling me what a fool I am so I’ll just shut the hell up about this issue. I’ll keep my thoughts on it to myself, and will never discuss it again. But really, thanks everyone for your opinions and concerns. And you must know that I have no animosity toward any of you. One thing, though, that I will never cease discussing is the idiocy of Christopher McCandless.

Uh, actually, Chris McCandless was probably better prepared than anyone on this board. He spent a pretty long time surviving from one small town to another, including some pretty scary close encounters, before embarking on his "Alaskan Odyssey." He was an accomplished outdoorsman, probably better than any of us here.

He was a dumbass, but only insofar as he thought he could make it alone. And all he wanted to do was a little trip through Alaska; he wasn’t even trying to live there.

I used to think McCandles was a dumbass until I read the book. Then I realized he actually knew his shit--really knew it. He made the mistake--born out of a civilized mindset--of eating potato seeds, and died of the inability to digest carbohydrates.

OK, I haven’t read the book yet(and I will read it), but I’m pretty familiar with the story of his time alone and how he died. How can you call someone who had little(or no?) hunting experience, and little preparation regarding clothing, and shelter an “accomplished outdoorsman” and someone who “knew his shit”? That asshole wasted moose meat that could have kept him alive for months because he couldn’t preserve it. At least I, and I believe some of us here, have some knowledge on how to do this(I’ve never dried large game, but I’ve air dried fish, so I’m familiar with the process. Granted, it’s not the same, but I also would never leave for the wild until I am properly able to do this). Apparently he was near a river full of fish, but either didn’t think to catch any, or was unable to. I’ve personally made nets out of twisted plant fibers, and I believe many of us here could do that too. In any case he probably would have been unable to preserve the fish anyway. And what were his plans regarding shelter and proper clothing? This is Alaska. It gets cold. Did he have a tent? The only kind of tent that would work in an Alaskan winter is a heavy duty one with a wood stove. He could have built a nice, warm semi subterranean birch bark, sod, and earth dome dwelling with a hole in the top for the smoke from his open pit fire to escape like the natives of that region did, but I imagine he didn’t know how. I don’t know how either, but, as I said, I wouldn’t leave for the wild until I knew how. Also, did he attempt to tan the moose hide? Did he even have a clue as to how? I’ve never brain-tanned before but again, I would learn how to before I got out there. Also, I understand he died in a bus? How the fuck did the bus get there? I assume that means he was on a road or trail, and he couldn’t get out of there. So unprepaired. So foolish. I am telling you all this right now; I am not that foolish.

#42
Alright, I'm up against everyone telling me what a fool I am so I'll just shut the hell up about this issue. I'll keep my thoughts on it to myself, and will never discuss it again. But really, thanks everyone for your opinions and concerns. And you must know that I have no animosity toward any of you. One thing, though, that I will never cease discussing is the idiocy of Christopher McCandless.

I don’t see anyone telling you to shut up and not talk about something, for what you are talking about is extremely important to this forum, and if people were to just keep there feelings to themselves and ‘not talk about it’ this forum wouldn’t be here.

OK, I haven't read the book yet
perhaps you should read the book before you make a tirade against the guy, or at least so you can make a proper tirade ^_^
#43

Truely, we do not wish for you to “keep your opinion to yourself.” Rather, I think you should share all your opinions. We will share all of ours too. Then, the opinions having gathered together, they will proceed to mesh into each other, testing each other’s strength where they clash, supporting each other where they come together, and then each leaving better for having shared.

#44

Sometimes, I’ll watch Survivorman, and he’ll make mistakes I know not to make. Am I better equipped to life out in the woods than Les Stroud? Seems damned unlikely. See, no matter how good you are, you’re going to make mistakes. That’s why you need other people around you, no matter how good you get.

#45

Seriously (and for the record), I’m not saying you’re a fool (or an idiot). I do want to be sure that you look at it from different viewpoints. You don’t have to be an idiot to do something stupid, and one stupid thing could end up being really, really important. I think that alone warrants against the “alone” concept, which, honestly, is my biggest concern. But, it looks like you and TheJoker are looking for very similar experiences, so, I think you two should totally plan a trip together, it sounds pretty cool.

Cool, cause, we’re really not trying to be buzzkill assholes.

#46

Hey this has been an interesting thread. Thanks ya’ll.

#47

To perhaps chime in on a already expressed sentiment or two,
I’d totally be down to ‘go’ but yes, I have a family,and to be honest, at this point, I’d be scared shitless running off into the woods.
why?
not because I’m afraid of bumps in the night, but because I don’t know shit about survival out side of surviving in civilization. I’d be no use to myself or my family.I would do everything I could,but just like with Les Stroud, sometimes that isn’t enough. Yes,Jason is right, it shouldn’t be attempted all alone.i understand the ideology behind kissing all this shit good bye, but we all want to live long enough to enjoy being away from civ.

#48

wow, this is a very interesting thread, so I hope you don’t mind me jumping in.

First off to answer the question; mostly yes. There are the exceptions of course. I would much rather tough it out in an environment which is genetically natural for me, i.e: damp, warm kind of place. In canada: no chance in hell, i’d die, my body is not made for canada, it just is not natural. And I am NOT one to go against nature when I am about to depend on her. My metabolism and body chemistry and health is MUCH better when I go back to india. This is a known and observed fact in my case.

I would like to point out that, as someone said earlier “wilderness” is just a matter of comparison. For someone like me or my friends from india, who spend most of the childhood living in the national forests. (This is possible there since rules there are less stringent, and most of my friends’ family owned the land much before india was even a country on its own, let alone bought the land and called it a “national park”). What’s my story? I happen to have lived with my friend (one of them) for a bit. I also went to a school called Rishi Valley.

Yes, I agree that Rishi Valley is not exactly “in the middle of the amazon alone” kind of situation, but it’s a couple of leaps and bounds towards that. We made our own food, helped cook it. We cleaned the stuff ourselves (had help from the neigbouring village of course, which is 20Km away, which in indian countryside is a LONG distance).

About my friends, most of them make their living hunting and fishing in the forest or “national park” land they own. Some of them have gone on to farm on the land a bit of course. Not to say they do not have touch with civilised world (so to speak), they do go to the nearest village every now and then for things. But even that is FAR step from anything most western urbanites are used to. And these people have been doing it for centuaries, generations. My friend comes to school (Rishi Valley). He even visits major cities, he studies in College in Bangalore and such. But he goes back to his “feral” lifestyle whe he goes home.

He has to collect his own food. Most of us who have grown up in Rishi Valley know how to survive in that eco-system. We know what plant does what etc. Of course I did not, but a lot of my friends who were there came from backgrounds like what I mentioned above, so they HAD to know, it was part of their life, and it soon became part of mine.

Of course the sad part is, since then Rishi Valley has become more “westrenised” and less “traditional” and feral or whatever you want to call it. I am sure there is NO possibility of getting land like my friends will soon inherit, unless your family already had it for 100 years and so on.

Nevertheless, I personally know people who have gone pretty far in rewilding, not totally of course, because civilisation is like a virus, wherever you go it will hunt you down, there is nowhere on earth where you can escape it altogether (or almost nowhere). And more importantly these are people who have remained in the “semi-feral” state (lets call it that) for generations. I am sure any one of us given some time can simply cut off from civilisation (especially some of my friends who are especially used to a wilderness lifestyle) and live in the wilderness. This may sound like being to proud or boastful, please pardon me if it comes out that way, but I am just trying to make a point here.

But its not for everyone. You have to grow up in an environment that nurtures primitive living and wilderness skills, and is reasonably removed from western civilisation. Not many people have. I had the fortune of doing so for a bit, sadly I too have been “domesticated” to an extent. But I know its not all lost.

My mom for e.g. can’t survive more than 6 weeks in rishi valley. I know people from US and england who visit Rishi Valley, who cant make it past day 10. Without needing to go to Bombay. The mosquitoes bother them, the millipedes around the bed are “icky” (it’s pretty normal occurance in the monsoon season there), the water makes them sick (it’s quite ‘hard’ and essentially in its natural form, my stomach is used to it, infact if i drink “bottled water” or softened water here (in T.O.); which is all demineralised and purified etc, i get sick). And all in all life involves TOO MUCH WORK for some in Rishi Valley.

-Tj

#49
wow, this is a very interesting thread, so I hope you don't mind me jumping in.

First off to answer the question; mostly yes. There are the exceptions of course. I would much rather tough it out in an environment which is genetically natural for me, i.e: damp, warm kind of place. In canada: no chance in hell, i’d die, my body is not made for canada, it just is not natural. And I am NOT one to go against nature when I am about to depend on her. My metabolism and body chemistry and health is MUCH better when I go back to india. This is a known and observed fact in my case.

I would like to point out that, as someone said earlier “wilderness” is just a matter of comparison. For someone like me or my friends from india, who spend most of the childhood living in the national forests. (This is possible there since rules there are less stringent, and most of my friends’ family owned the land much before india was even a country on its own, let alone bought the land and called it a “national park”). What’s my story? I happen to have lived with my friend (one of them) for a bit. I also went to a school called Rishi Valley.

Yes, I agree that Rishi Valley is not exactly “in the middle of the amazon alone” kind of situation, but it’s a couple of leaps and bounds towards that. We made our own food, helped cook it. We cleaned the stuff ourselves (had help from the neigbouring village of course, which is 20Km away, which in indian countryside is a LONG distance).

About my friends, most of them make their living hunting and fishing in the forest or “national park” land they own. Some of them have gone on to farm on the land a bit of course. Not to say they do not have touch with civilised world (so to speak), they do go to the nearest village every now and then for things. But even that is FAR step from anything most western urbanites are used to. And these people have been doing it for centuaries, generations. My friend comes to school (Rishi Valley). He even visits major cities, he studies in College in Bangalore and such. But he goes back to his “feral” lifestyle whe he goes home.

He has to collect his own food. Most of us who have grown up in Rishi Valley know how to survive in that eco-system. We know what plant does what etc. Of course I did not, but a lot of my friends who were there came from backgrounds like what I mentioned above, so they HAD to know, it was part of their life, and it soon became part of mine.

Of course the sad part is, since then Rishi Valley has become more “westrenised” and less “traditional” and feral or whatever you want to call it. I am sure there is NO possibility of getting land like my friends will soon inherit, unless your family already had it for 100 years and so on.

Nevertheless, I personally know people who have gone pretty far in rewilding, not totally of course, because civilisation is like a virus, wherever you go it will hunt you down, there is nowhere on earth where you can escape it altogether (or almost nowhere). And more importantly these are people who have remained in the “semi-feral” state (lets call it that) for generations. I am sure any one of us given some time can simply cut off from civilisation (especially some of my friends who are especially used to a wilderness lifestyle) and live in the wilderness. This may sound like being to proud or boastful, please pardon me if it comes out that way, but I am just trying to make a point here.

But its not for everyone. You have to grow up in an environment that nurtures primitive living and wilderness skills, and is reasonably removed from western civilisation. Not many people have. I had the fortune of doing so for a bit, sadly I too have been “domesticated” to an extent. But I know its not all lost.

My mom for e.g. can’t survive more than 6 weeks in rishi valley. I know people from US and england who visit Rishi Valley, who cant make it past day 10. Without needing to go to Bombay. The mosquitoes bother them, the millipedes around the bed are “icky” (it’s pretty normal occurance in the monsoon season there), the water makes them sick (it’s quite ‘hard’ and essentially in its natural form, my stomach is used to it, infact if i drink “bottled water” or softened water here (in T.O.); which is all demineralised and purified etc, i get sick). And all in all life involves TOO MUCH WORK for some in Rishi Valley.

-Tj

I always find it interesting that many Asian countries, some of which have a large population may actually be easier to re-wild in and find others who are doing so compared to some less-densely populated northern countries . Of course it’s different for everyone and some do better in the cold regions versus the warm ones. I have lots of friends from Pakistan for example who have invited me to visit them over there who have told me about the nature over there and the animals and places where you can live out on the land. Yet when you look at the statistics for the country, it appears to be overloaded with people (and many parts are) with no wilderness whatsoever.

I think we get so used to the idea of the Amazon/Northern Canada/Russia and other such huge people-less areas as the only intact pristine wilderness areas that we forget that many times it’s often easier to live closer to the land in smaller spaces which have a more warm-to-hot climate. They also tell me stories about how they used to gather mangoes all the time and throw rocks at date palms and eat all this fresh fruit all the time which they sorely miss now that they are living in Canada. Many of those friends have actually returned to Pakistan now after spending a few years going to college in Canada.

I have a hard time doing a lot of re-wilding here in Canada mostly because I don’t know many rural people anymore to have a base for hunting and trapping and my body-mind prefers a subtropical climate to a subarctic one(even though I spent over 16 winters living out in the country on the Canadian prairies, go figure), and most of the re-wilding stuff I have done has had the most success in the subtropics, especially when it comes to sharing the experiences with others.

Let’s hear more about you and your friend’s re-wilding experiences in India :slight_smile:

#50

you’re in canada? Where in canada, maybe we can meet up (if you live in the GTA).

-Tj

#51

I’m in Saskatchewan at the moment, quite far from the GTA.

#52

awww…:frowning: too bad! It’s always nice to meet to like minded people in real life.

#53

Basically, it would depend on who it was, and where exactly they were going. If it wasn’t too far off from my friends and family, I’d be down for it, if only to keep them from dying because they tried to go it alone. With any luck, we’d succeed enough that it looks attractive to friends and family, who might just decide to join us.

#54

My daughter is young, without her I would step off this game tomorrow.
I almost moved to a commune a few years back, but decided it was a cop-out; people as concerned as i with the events of the world have work to do.
Thus I feel that living in harmony with nature is a case of moving with your circumstances, not abandoning them. To quote Someone’s Laws of Magick

1.Whoever is there are the right people.
Everybody has his or her role in the story.

  1. Whatever happens is the right thing to happen.
    Everything happens for a reason and is there to help us gain more insight.

  2. Whenever it starts, it starts.
    Magic has its own timing.
    It might already start weeks before the [experience/conference] happens.

  3. Whenever it stops, it stops.
    Don’t linger on, when the feeling is too good, nor stay when things that don’t work. Follow the flow.

  4. Follow the law of the two feet.
    Keep your own responsibility.
    You can leave an [experience/workshop] if it doesn’t suit you.

  5. Be prepared to be surprised.
    The soul always leads us to our highest good, but it might be an unexpected journey.

From imaginify.org

Incidentally, hello! British Pict here. Be good, y’all. Stay true. @)

#55

hey, great name, Yarrow! :wink:

welcome.

#56

To answer the question originally asked at the beginning of this post:

Already doing it.

Now, to put MY 2 cents in:

Isn’t the term “RE-wild”, not “TO-wild”? There’s been quite a few posts going back and forth on this thread about the definitions of wilderness and community. Definitions aside, the concept of rewilding, to me, isn’t to remove yourself from “civilization” (which is impossible to do anyway), but to “rewild” civilization. In this sense, guerilla urban camping, and modern primitivism, WITHIN the city, would seem to be the best way to rewild. Why would you want to rewild the wilderness? Why run away from civilization when you can stay and make a difference by making an example of how one can live in the city yet remain WILD. Isn’t that the whole point?

#57

Atropium, I do see your point, but at the same time, goign out into the wild can be an effective way to re-wild yourself. Staying within the city can be an effective way to re-wild the city, and even then, that’s an up hill battle. There actually was a discussion here a while back about whether you could or even should try to re-wild cities(permaculture cities thread). I think that the idea, at least from my perspective is not to rewild civilization, but to move beyond civilization. Our responsibility isn’t to civilization or to cities, but to other people. The best way to honour that responsibility may be to live in the wilderness as an example, or it may be to live in the city to show people directly.

However, I do agree with you a bit, though I think we have to move beyond civilization, I think that there still may be a place for large, self-sufficient towns, which may look like small cities, but wouldn’t be cities by conventional rewilding definition.

#58

[quote=“Yarrow, post:54, topic:373”]To quote Someone’s Laws of Magick

1.Whoever is there are the right people.
Everybody has his or her role in the story.

  1. Whatever happens is the right thing to happen.
    Everything happens for a reason and is there to help us gain more insight.

  2. Whenever it starts, it starts.
    Magic has its own timing.
    It might already start weeks before the [experience/conference] happens.

  3. Whenever it stops, it stops.
    Don’t linger on, when the feeling is too good, nor stay when things that don’t work. Follow the flow.

  4. Follow the law of the two feet.
    Keep your own responsibility.
    You can leave an [experience/workshop] if it doesn’t suit you.

  5. Be prepared to be surprised.
    The soul always leads us to our highest good, but it might be an unexpected journey.

From imaginify.org

Incidentally, hello! British Pict here. Be good, y’all. Stay true. @)[/quote]

Way to presence the Open Space principles and laws!!! I forgot to say “yay” when you first posted this, but I meant to. So now I have. Yay! Incidentally, I consider these guides as central to why Rewild Camps rock so hard. Yep.

#59

Crazy cool! I didn’t even know you posted that, Yarrow. Thanks for bringing that to the table again, Willem, and thanks for posting that, Yarrow, you rock or at least get koodoos from me for posting that. :slight_smile:

Welcome to the forum. :wink:

#60

Yeah, I totally missed that too, its a really awesome list of “rules” or outlooks not only for open space meetings, but also for life I think. If we apply all those things to our lives, I think that we can certainly live easier lives, as well as ones that have more meaning, as we go with the flow and find more things that we don’t look for. Thanks yarrow.

I’ve definitely had to learn to go with these kind of things more recently, just sort of letting go of the facilitation experience and letting things that want to happen happen. Really, really cool things came up. In the same experience, I also had to deal with the whole letting go thing. No matter what you want, some things just have to end.