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OUR MOUNTAIN HOME:
http://www.crestlinechamber.net/
http://www.heapspeakarboretum.com/
MOUNTAIN MEN:
http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/amm/gateway.html
http://www.mtmen.org/
http://nafrontiersmen.tripod.com/index.htm
http://www.mountainmanforum.com/forum/
http://www.museumofthemountainman.com/
http://wyomuseum.state.wy.us/pdf/DTMountainMan.pdf
http://home.earthlink.net/~swier/FurTrade.html
http://home.att.net/~mman/Equipment.htm
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR:
http://www.junglewalk.com/sound/Animal-sounds-P2.htm
http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/animal/SOUND/
http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/sound-library/index.htm
ANIMAL TRACKING:
http://www.ussartf.org/animal_tracking.htm
PRIMITIVE LIVING SKILLS:
http://www.prairiewolf.net/index.htm
NATIVE AMERICAN RADIO:
http://www.gatheringofnations.com/gonradio/index.htm
SELF-RELIANT LIVING:
http://www.journeytoforever.org/
MONTHLY QUOTES:
JULY 2008: "Here we had plenty of wood water meat and dry grass to sleep on, and taking everything into consideration we thought ourselves comfortably situated - comfortably I say for mountaineers not for those who never repose on anything but a bed of down or sit or recline on anything harder than Silken cushions for such would spurn at the idea of a Hunter's talking about comfort and happiness but experience is the best Teacher hunger good Sauce and I really think to be acquainted with misery contributes to the enjoyment of happiness and to know ones self greatly facilitates the Knowledge of Mankind - One thing I often console myself with and that is the earth will lie as hard upon the Monarch as it will on a Hunter and I have no assurance that it will lie upon me at all, my bones may in a few years or perhaps days be bleaching on the plains in these regions like many of my occupation without a friend to turn even a turf upon them after a hungry wolf has finished his feast."
-Osbourne Russell from "Journal of a Trapper"
AUGUST 2008: "I have often stopped to wonder why the growing hordes of urban and rural "survivalists" spend so much time buying really cool knives, oiling their marginally illegal armaments, and passing antiauthoritarian gossip around like a bunch of tongue-clicking fishwives. True survival rests not in the big macho stances, but in the gentler arts of knowing one's natural world and knowing how to use it in a moral and renewable fashion."
-Michael Moore in the foreword for "Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West" by Gregory L. Tilford
SEPTEMBER 2008: Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it; Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert's little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o'er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the Wild -- it's calling you.
-From "The Call of the Wild" by Robert Service
OCTOBER 2008: "Where's the Injuns what'll put arrers in yer back?
Where's yer slatherin' wolves of the rollin' prarie?
Where's yer grizzly brown bear as can claw the bark off a gum tree?
HERE'S A MAN for ya! I'm half horse, half gator, tougher'n a earthquake. I've got the prettiest gal, the fastest horse, and the ugliest dog this side of hell. I can out jump, out run, throw down, drag out and whip any man in old Kaintuck.
I told my pap and mam I was comin' to the mountains to trap and be a mountain man. Acted like they was gut shot! Sez, son, make your life go here. Here is where the people is. Them mountains is for animals and savages. I sez, Mother Gue, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world. By God, I was right!
I might never see 'em but my common sense tells me the Andes is foothills and the Alps is for children to climb. These HERE is God's finest sculpturing. There ain't no laws fer the braves ones. Ain't no asylums fer the crazy ones. There ain't no churches 'cepten this right here. And there ain't no priests 'cepten the birds. By God, I are a mountain man and I'll live til an arrer or a bullet finds me and then I'll turn inter a post and moulder into the further buildin' up of these here mountains, the back bone of the world.
Waugh!"
-Del Gue from the movie "Jeremiah Johnson"
NOVEMBER 2008: "It will hardly be a matter of suprise then, when I add, that this passion for Prairie life, how paradoxical soever it may seem will be very apt to lead me upon the Plains again, to spread my bed with the mustang and the buffalo, under the broad canopy of heaven,-there to seek to maintain undisturbed my confidence in men, by fraternizing with the little prairie dogs and wild colts, and the still wilder Indians-the unconquered Sabaeans of the Great American Deserts."
-From "Josiah Gregg and His Vision of the Early West" by Paul Horgan
DECEMBER 2008: "Haveing fomed a Slight acquaintance with Mr Ashley we occasionly passed each other on the streets at length one day Meeting him he told me he had been looking for me a few days back and enquiredd as to my employment I informed him that I was entirely unemployed he said he wished then that I would assist him ingageing men t for his Rockey mountain epedition and he wished me to call at his housse in the evening [pg3] which I accordingly did getting instrutions as to whare I would most probably find men willing to engage which found in grog Shops and other sinks of degredation he rented a house & furnished it with provisions Bread from to Bakers -- pork plenty, which the men had to cook for themselves
On the 8th of March 1824 all things ready we shoved off from the shore fired a swivel which was answered by a Shout from the shore which we returned with a will and porceed up stream under sail
A discription of our crew I cannt give but Fallstafs Battallion was genteel in comparison I think we had about (70) seventy all told Two Keel Boats with crews of French some St Louis gumboes as they were called
We proceeded slowly up the Misouri River under sail wen winds ware favourable and towline when not"
-From "A Short Detail of Life and Incidents of my trip in & through the Rockey Mountains" by James Clyman
JANUARY 2009: "There is usually little object in traveling tough just for the sake of being tough."
-Hudson's Bay Company
FEBRUARY 2009: "His skin, from constant exposure, assumes a hue almost as dark as that of the Aborigine, and his features and physical structure attain a rough and hardy cast. His hair, through inattention, becomes long, course, and bushy, and loosely dangles upon his shoulders. His head is surmounted by a low crowned wool-hat, or a rude substitute of his own manufacture. His clothes are of buckskin, gaily fringed at the seams with strings of the same material, cut and made in a fashion peculiar to himself and associates. The deer and buffalo furnish him the required covering for his feet, which he fabricates at the impules of want. His waist is encircled with a belt of leather, holding encased his butcher-knife and pistols -- while from his neck is suspended a bullet-pouch securely fastened to the belt in front, and beneath the right arm hands a powder-horn transversely from his shoulder behind which, upon the strap attached to it, are affixed his bullet-mould, ball-screw, wiper, awl, &c. With a gun-stick made of some hard wood, and a good rufle, placed in his hands, carrying from thirty to thirty-five balls to the pound, the reader will have before him a correct likeness of a genuine mountaineer, when fully equipped. "
-Rufus B. Sage
MARCH 2009: "I have clinched and closed with the naked North,
I have learned to defy and defend;
Shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out --
yet the Wild must win in the end."
From "The Heart of the Sourdough" by Robert Service
APRIL 2009: "How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man --- all belong to the same family...
For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors...each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children...The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath...The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.
All things are connected.
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children that we have taught our children that the earth is our mother.
This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth."
-Excerpts from a speech disputedly given by Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe
MAY 2009: "May the warm winds of Heaven blow softly upon your house. May the Great Spirit bless all who enter there. May your mocassins make happy tracks in many snows, and may the rainbow always touch your shoulder."
-Cherokee prayer blessing
JUNE 2009: "I am the eagle, I live in high country
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky
I am the hawk and there's blood on my feathers
But time is still turning they soon will be dry
And all of those who see me, and all who believe in me
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly
Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops
Sail o'er the canyons and up to the stars
And reach for the heavens and hope for the future
And all that we can be and not what we are"
-From "The Eagle and the Hawk" by John Denver
JULY 2009: “Many Cahuilla regret the loss of traditional subsistence patterns, particularly the mixed and well-balanced dietthat traditional foods provided. Longevity, mental alertness, and goodeyesight are associated in the minds of many Cahuilla today with theirtraditional diet. They believe that adopted foods have brought about ageneral physical weakness, shortened life-span, a tendency to obesity,and a proneness to such diseases as diabetes. Among women,dysmenorrhea, painful childbirth, and stillbirths are attributed to thenew dietary habits…
…During the Depression, when the economyof the country so radically affected millions of people, Indiansthroughout southern California who still remembered the traditionalplants were able to turn once again to their use…
…Traditionalplant medicines are still utilized to some extent. Some of the oldercures are considered to be efficacious in many cases where frequentvisits to a non-Indian doctor have failed…
…There can be littlequestion that traditional Cahuilla foods provided well for thesepeople. There were less fats and carbohydrates in the diet, onlynatural sugars, and food was generally fresh, retaining its nutritionalelements. Processing methods employed by the Cahuilla rarely resultedin a deterioration in food value. Obesity was rarely caused by toomuch or the wrong type of food. Undoubtedly, the Cahuilla are correctin believing that many of the medical problems associated with modernCahuilla life are related to changes in their diet…
…WhenCahuilla speak of their grievances against the white man, theyfrequently mention the loss of traditional foods. The fact that manyethnobotanical researchers are increasingly recognizing that the plantknowledge of the American Indian was highly sophisticated and that inrecent years the positive contributions of Indians to contemporarymedicine have been documented is a source of cultural pride to theCahuilla as it is to other Indian people of America.”
-From “Temalpakh (From the Earth): Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants” by Lowell John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel
AUGUST 2009: "Tracking is like dancing, because your body is happy. It is telling you the hunting will be good. You feel it in the dance. It tells you. When you are tracking, and dancing, you are talking with God."
-- from "The Great Dance", a movie about the Koi San hunters and master trackers of Africa
SEPTEMBER 2009: "The worship of the "Great Mystery" was silent, solitary, free from all
self-seeking. It was silent, because all speech is of necessity feeble
and imperfect; therefore the souls of my ancestors ascended to God in
wordless adoration. It was solitary, because they believed that He is
nearer to us in solitude, and there were no priests authorized to come
between a man and his Maker. None might exhort or confess or in any way
meddle with the religious experience of another. Among us all men were
created sons of God and stood erect, as conscious of their divinity. Our
faith might not be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who were
unwilling to receive it; hence there was no preaching, proselyting, nor
persecution, neither were there any scoffers or atheists.
There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature. Being
a natural man, the Indian was intensely poetical. He would deem it
sacrilege to build a house for Him who may be met face to face in the
mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit
bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles of naked rock,
and yonder in the jeweled vault of the night sky! He who enrobes Himself
in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where our
Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire, He who rides
upon the rigorous wind of the north, or breathes forth His spirit upon
aromatic southern airs, whose war-canoe is launched upon majestic rivers
and inland seas--He needs no lesser cathedral!"
-Charles Eastman from "The Soul of the Indian"
OCTOBER 2009: "The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I've bade 'em good-by -- but I can't.
There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There's a land -- oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back -- and I will."
-From "The Spell of the Yukon" by Robert Service
NOVEMBER 2009: There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled,
which leads to an unkown, secret place.
The old people came literally to love the soil,
and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of
being close to a mothering power.
Their teepees were built upon the earth
and their altars were made of earth.
The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing.
That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of
propping himself up and away from its life giving forces.
For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply
and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of
life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him.
-Chief Luther Standing Bear
DECEMBER 2009: "The lodge of a mountain Indian consists of a frame work of light poles, some twenty-five feet long, bound together at the small ends, and raised by planting the opposite extremities aslope, at given distances apart, so as to describe a circle, at the base, converging to a triangular apex, for roof and sides; —over this is spread a covering of buffalo robes, so nicely dressed and seamed, it readily sheds rain and excludes the fierce winds to which the country is subject. A small aperture at the top, affords passage for the smoke emitted from the fire occupying the centre ground work. The entrance is at the side, where a large piece of undressed buffalo skin (hung from the top and so placed as to be opened or closed, at pleasure, upon the ingress or egress of the inmate) furnishes the simple substitute for a door.
These lodges (some of them containing quantities of roofage to the amount of ten or fifteen buffalo skins) are large and commodious; and, even comfortable, in the severest weather; the heat from the centre fire, being refracted on striking the sloping sides, communicates an agreeable warmth to every part.
An Indian lodge, in the summer, is admirably adapted to the pleasure of its occupants, —by raising the lower extremities of the envelope and securing them at a proper elevation, a free passage of air is obtained, which greatly contributes to increase the merits of the delightful shade afforded by the superstructure.
A lodge of the largest size may easily be made to accommodate fifteen persons. The interior is arranged by placing the fixtures for sleeping at the circumference of the circle, which afford seats to the inmates, and thus a sufficient space is left vacant between them and the centre fire.
This kind of dwelling is the one almost universally adopted by the mountain and prairie Indians, and is, perhaps, better suited to their condition and mode of life than any other that could be devised.
Dependent solely upon the chase for a subsistence, the various Indian tribes inhabiting the mountains and countries adjacent can occupy no fixed residences. Contrary to the habits of more eastern nations, among whom agriculture commands attention to a greater or less extent, they are continually necessitated to rove from place to place in pursuit of game.
Give to one of them a bow, arrows, knife, lodge, and running horse, and he is rich, happy and contented. When the erratic propensities of the buffalo (upon which is his almost exclusive dependence) compel him to change his location, he has only to pull down his lodge, saddle his horse, and away.
So accustomed are they to this incessant rambling, they regard it more as a pleasure than an inconvenience. I have frequently seen hundreds of families moving together, —presenting to the unsophisticated beholder a novel and amusing spectacle, —with their horses, mules, dogs, men, squaws, children, and all the paraphernalia of savage domestic economy, and the rude accoutrements of peace and war, commingled indiscriminately."
-From "ROCKY MOUNTAIN LIFE OR, STARTLING SCENES AND PERILOUS ADVENTURES
IN THE FAR WEST DURING AN EXPEDITION OF THREE YEARS" by Rufus B. Sage, 1841
JANUARY 2010: "There was frustration, though, in finding no fish in the creek and in the acknowledgement that we were sitting in a forest full of edibles and neither of us could read the menu...we were tired, exhausted and most definitely hungry. By then we had grown aware, and justly so, that our knowledge of wild edibles was basically worth nothing."
-From "A Pilgrim's Journey:Volume 1" by Mark Baker
MARCH 2010: When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
-Cree Prophecy
APRIL 2010: “All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.”
-Daniel Boone
MAY 2010: "Behold, my brothers, the spring has come; the Earth has received the embraces of the sun and we shall soon see the results of that love!
Every seed is awakened and so has all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land.
Yet, hear me, people, we have now to deal with another race -- small and feeble when our fathers first met them but now great and overbearing. Strangely enough they have a mind to till the soil and love of possession is a disease with them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break but the poor may not. They take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own and fence their their neighbors away; they deface her with their buildings and their refuse. That nation is like a spring freshet that overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.
We cannot dwell side by side. Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that away from us. My brothers, shall we submit or shall we say to them: "First kill me before you take possession of my Fatherland..."
--Sitting Bull, after being told the government was breaking its promise
JUNE 2010: "Gather round me, boy and grey-beard, frontiersman of every kind.
Few are you, and far and lonely, yet an army forms behind:
By your camp-fires shall they know you, ashes scattered to the wind.
Peer into my heart of solace, break your bannock at my blaze;
Smoking, stretched in lazy shelter, build your castles as you gaze;
Or, it may be, deep in dreaming, think of dim, unhappy days.
Let my warmth and glow caress you, for your trails are grim and hard;
Let my arms of comfort press you, hunger-hewn and battle-scarred:
O my lovers! how I bless you with your lives so madly marred!
For you seek the silent spaces, and their secret lore you glean:
For you win the savage races, and the brutish Wild you wean;
And I gladden desert places, where camp-fire has never been.
From the Pole unto the Tropics is there trail ye have not dared?
And because you hold death lightly, so by death shall you be spared,
(As the sages of the ages in their pages have declared).
On the roaring Arkilinik in a leaky bark canoe;
Up the cloud of Mount McKinley, where the avalanche leaps through;
In the furnace of Death Valley, when the mirage glimmers blue.
Now a smudge of wiry willows on the weary Kuskoquim;
Now a flare of gummy pine-knots where Vancouver's scaur is grim;
Now a gleam of sunny ceiba, when the Cuban beaches dim.
Always, always God's Great Open: lo! I burn with keener light
In the corridors of silence, in the vestibules of night;
'Mid the ferns and grasses gleaming, was there ever gem so bright?
Not for weaklings, not for women, like my brother of the hearth;
Ring your songs of wrath around me, I was made for manful mirth,
In the lusty, gusty greatness, on the bald spots of the earth.
Men, my masters! men, my lovers! ye have fought and ye have bled;
Gather round my ruddy embers, softly glowing is my bed;
By my heart of solace dreaming, rest ye and be comforted!
I am dying, O my masters! by my fitful flame ye sleep; My purple plumes of glory droop forlorn.
Grey ashes choke and cloak me, and above the pines there creep
The stealthy silver moccasins of morn.
There comes a countless army, it's the Legion of the Light; It tramps in gleaming triumph round the world;
And before its jewelled lances all the shadows of the night
Back in to abysmal darknesses are hurled.
Leap to life again, my lovers! ye must toil and never tire;
The day of daring, doing, brightens clear,
When the bed of spicy cedar and the jovial camp-fire
Must only be a memory of cheer.
There is hope and golden promise in the vast portentous dawn; There is glamour in the glad, effluent sky:
Go and leave me; I will dream of you and love you when you're gone;
I have served you, O my masters! let me die.
A little heap of ashes, grey and sodden by the rain,
Wind-scattered, blurred and blotted by the snow:
Let that be all to tell of me, and glorious again,
Ye things of greening gladness, leap and glow!
A black scar in the sunshine by the palm-leaf or the pine,
Blind to the night and dead to all desire;
Yet oh, of life and uplift what a symbol and a sign!
Yet oh, of power and conquest what a destiny is mine!
A little heap of ashes -- Yea! a miracle divine,
The foot-print of a god, all-radiant Fire."
From "The Song of the Camp-Fire" by Robert Service
JULY 2010: "We are remembered forever by the tracks we leave."
-Native American proverb
AUGUST 2010: "There is magic in running water. Who does not know it and feel it? The railroad builder fearlessly throws his bank across the wide bog or lake, or the sea itself, but the tiniest rill of running water he treats with great respect, studies its wish and its way and gives it all it seems to ask. The thirst-parched traveler in the poisonous alkali deserts holds back in deadly fear from the sedgy ponds till he finds one down whose center is a thin, clear line, and a faint flow, the sign of running, living water, and joyfully he drinks."
-From "Wild Animals I Have Known" by Ernest Thompson Seton
SEPTEMBER 2010: “I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.”
-Daniel Boone
OCTOBER 2010: "Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
-Chief Seattle, 1854
NOVEMBER 2010: "Healthy feet can hear the very heart of the Holy Earth"
-Sitting Bull
DECEMBER 2010: "Season's Greetings, everybody, from KBHR, the heart and soul of Cicely, Alaska. This is Chris In The Morning. From where I'm sitting, I've got a great view of all the yuletide decorations going up all over town. That's right, everywhere I turn my head I see ebony birds roosting for the holidays. You know, twinkling colored lights are nice, and so are plastic Santas and reindeers and manger scenes, but I'll tell you something, friends... nothing like the sight of beautiful black-as-pitch raven to get you in the Christmas spirit."
-Chris Stevens from the television series "Northern Exposure"
JANUARY 2011: "Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."
-Aldo Leopold
FEBRUARY 2011: "At this camp I had the unique experience of showing all these seasoned Westerners that it was possible to make a fire by the friction of two sticks. This has long been a specialty of mine; I use a thong and a bow as the simplest way."
— Ernest Thompson Seton
MARCH 2011: "The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers, he belongs just as the buffalo belonged...."
- Luther Standing Bear (Oglala Sioux)
APRIL 2011: "Wildness, Ed. We're running out of it, even up here in Alaska. People need to be reminded that the world is unsafe and unpredictable, and at a moment's notice, they could lose everything, like that. I do it to remind them that chaos is always out there, lurking beyond the horizon. That, plus, sometimes, Ed, sometimes you have to do something bad, just to know you're alive."
Chris Stevens to Ed Chigliak from "Northern Exposure", explaining why he was stealing radios
MAY 2011: "There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot."
- Aldo Leopold
JUNE 2011: "At each of these northern posts there were interesting experiences in store for me, as one who had read all the books of northern travel and dreamed for half a lifetime of the north; and that was - almost daily meeting with famous men."
- Ernest Thompson Seton
JULY 2011: "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of
earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along...
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space...
...put out my hand, and touched the face of God."
-from the poem "High Flight" by John
Gillespie Magee, Jr.
AUGUST 2011:
"We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce
green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that
there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and
to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that
because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’
paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf
nor the mountain agreed with such a view."
— Aldo Leopold
SEPTEMBER 2011: "Have the wild things no moral or legal rights? What right has man to inflict such long and fearful agony on a fellow creature, simply because that creature does not speak his language?"
-Ernest Thompson Seton
OCTOBER 2011: "One of the penalties of an ecological education, is that one lives alone in a world of wounds."
— Aldo Leopold
BOOK AND VIDEO REVIEWS:
Bean, Lowell John, and Katherine Siva Saubel. 1972. Temalpakh: Cahuilla Indian knowledge and usage of plants. Malki Museum Press, Morongo Indian Reservation (Excellent book on our area-a MUST OWN-but no pictures)
Moore, Michael. 1979. Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West. The Museum of New Mexico Press, Post Office Box 2087, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87503 (Excellent book on medicinal plants but only drawings, not pictures)
Little, Elbert L. 1980. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees, Western Region. Chanticleer Press, Inc. (Good book on trees of our area with many pictures and often a short description of their uses)
McPherson, John and Geri. 1993. Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills. Prairie Wolf, P.O. Box 96, Randolph, KS 66554 (A must-have book on primitive survival skills. The authors taught Les Stroud of "Survivorman" fame)
Fuller, Thomas C., and McClintock, Elizabeth. 1986. Poisonous Plants of California. University of California Press, Berkeley, California (Good book to have-perhaps the only of it’s kind)
Scully, Virginia. 1970. A Treasury of American Indian Herbs: Their Lore and Their Use for Food, Drugs, and Medicine. Crown Publishers, Inc., New York (this book is limited to the Indians of the Rocky Mountain region)
Arnosky, Jim. 1979. Crinkleroot’s Book of Animal Tracks and Wildlife Signs. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York (cute book for children 3-8)
Webster, David. 1972. Track Watching. Franklin Watts, Inc., New York (Excellent book for teenagers or beginning trackers)
Rezendes, Paul. Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How To Read Animal Tracks and Sign. Harper Resource Book (The definitive book on track and sign identification; a MUST OWN book with excellent photographs)
Clyman, James. Journal of a Mountain Man. (The actual journals of a U.S. government surveyor/mountain man. Great reading!)
Eastman, Charles. The Soul of the Indian. (An early book about Native American spiritual beliefs. Great book and free to download at this link: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/340 )
Sweet, Muriel. Common Edible and Useful Plants of the West. (Small book with great information on uses but no pictures, only drawings)
Murie, Olaus J. A Field Guide to Animal Tracks; Peterson Field Guide Series. (Decent book; covers birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians as well as mammals and all sorts of sign and scat)
Lee Rue III, Leonard. 1968. Sportsman’s Guide to Game Animals. Outdoor Life Books, Popular Science Publishing Company, Inc. (Fantastic book on hunting methods for North American mammals)
Gibson, W. Hamilton. Camp Life and the Tricks of Trapping. (Excellent book on a variety of old-style deadfalls and snares and it’s free at this link: )
Elbroch, Mark. Mammal Tracks and Sign. (GREAT book-a MUST own. As good or better than Rezendes' book and also covers insects, reptiles, and amphibians)
Rezendes, Paul. The Wild Within (the trailing chapter is good)
Tilford, Gregory L. 1997. Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West. Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula, MT (A great book that covers many plants in our area)
Western Society of Weed Science. 2002. Weeds of the West. University of Wyoming (Excellent book on the less commonly found plants discussed in ethnobotany books)
Clark, Charlotte Bringle. 2005. Edible and Useful Plants of California. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA (Excellent book about uses but very few pictures)
Elias, Thomas S., and Dykeman Peter A. 1990. Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 387 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016 (Good book for the overall United States but not quite specific enough to our area; still, a good book)
The Complete Poems of Robert Service (Great poetry about Alaska and the great outdoors)
Byrd, William and Attalia, Joseph. 1999. The Wilderness Gourmet: Recipes From The Wild. RavenHaus Publishing, 227 Willow Grove Rd. Stewartsville, NJ 08886 (Decent book on what to do with your wild plants when you get them home but not very useful in the woods)
Mead, George R. Ethnobotany of the California Indians (Great book-worth buying but no pictures or drawings)
Hutchens, Alma R. A Handbook of Native American Herbs (Great book-buy it; useful for medicinal applications)
Bachrach, Yaniv. Handbook of Medicinal Plants (not so good; global in geography and too scientific)
Williams, Kim. 1984. Eating Wild Plants. Mountain Press Publishing Co. (Decent book, no pictures, only drawings, Montana in geographic area so not so applicable to California)
Rundell and Gustafson. Introduction to the Plant Life of Southern California (not bad, many pictures, just not my favorite)
Nyerges, Christopher. How to Survive Anywhere (decent book, has some unique ideas, particularly in urban living survival)
Knopf. Field Guide to Wildflowers: Western Region. National Audubon Society (good-should own)
George, Jean Craighead, and Mirocha, Paul. 1995. Acorn Pancakes, Dandelion Salad and 38 Other Wild Recipes. HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 33rd St., New York, N.Y. 10022 (A decent starter book if you want to use wild edible plants in your home cooking; no pictures, just color drawings; short book)
Seton, Ernest Thompson. 1958. Animal Tracks and Hunter Signs. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden city, New York (A great starter book for case studies of extended tracking and behavior; Seton was one of the first naturalists to write about tracking skills)
Raccoons: A Natural History. 2002. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London (Good book about Raccoons and their behavioral patterns)
Denver, John. Let This Be A Voice (Great video of the majesty of the great outdoors and John Denver's music-unfortunately only available in VHS)
