Date: May 08, 2009
Location: JMB, Masardis, Maine
As it rained last night today was another adventure in wet weather fire lighting. I found what seemed to be an appropriate tree for feather sticks. After felling it and bringing the top section back to camp I carved feather sticks. Before lunch we made net bags for water bottles. After lunch we went onto the Aroostook to work on poling. We poled up and down a section of rip a number of times. On the same section we tried lining the canoe up and down stream.
Accomplishments and Observations:
1) Made 2nd feather sticks
2) Made 1st net bag
3) Poled and snubbed a rip 5 times
4) Down stream pole ferry across Aroostook
5) Lined canoe
Initial Reflections:
Today's feather sticks were worse than the first ones. The log was too damp and the shavings were poor. The net bag is actually really useful and a great thing to know. I "got" poling today. Everything from earlier this week clicked and I could actually pole properly. I saw a varying hare again, I think its the same individual.
Current Reflections:
It was a great relief to have less canoe rage at this point. As I mentioned, I was getting quite frustrated about the whole boat situation but today helped correct that. Spending some time poling the same rip repeatedly was a valuable practice experience. I guess just like any physical task, getting to try the same thing over and over again to refine your approach helps your body learn.
My crappy feather sticks did a good job of highlighting the importance of being well experienced in essential bushcraft skills. If someone has a purely intellectual understanding of feather sticks (through books and youtube) the result could very easily be like my crappy failsticks. You need the experience for the places in between the "skills", like which trees are actually going to work and how to change your shaving technique depending on the wood.
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