Campaigner Trail Tips

[Tsalagidave]

Guys, I was writing this for some of the US Civil War Campaigners but a lot of it translates to what we do here.  I even added a brief section on foraging small avian game which some of the younger fellers seem unaccustomed to.

Anyhow, this is just the tip of the iceberg so if you know some good trail tips that date to our era, feel free to add them in.

Campaigner Quick Tips for Nov. 14, 2016
This is not the be-all end-all but rather some short, quick notes to keep in mind for the march. I encourage other campaigners to share their knowledge as well.

Easy common medicines:
• "Mountain Mint" (Oil of Oregano) is good for the blood and digestion. Good for small wounds. It cures sore throats and serves well as an insect repellent. (Easier on the skin than pennyroyal).
• Pepermint Oil is good for gastric complaint and in small wounds.
• Feverfew is good for colds and headache.
• A good cure for day 2 diarrhea (from day 1's exertion and night 1's sleep deprivation) is having a few figs while hydrating. (a common US food)

Fire and Lighting:
• Forget the pretty match boxes; carry matches in a small corked medicine bottle or airtight match safe.
• Flint with steel and punk are more economical than matches and easier to start fires with when the atmosphere is wet and windy.
• When weather starts to turn, grab a hank of dried lichen, cedar bark, mouse tinder, etc. Open pinecones are great fire starters due to their high resin but don't count on them for anything but to get the fire started. It is best to split deadfall and get at the inner wood for your fire. The wet exterior can be dried at fireside to be burnt later. (I wrote a whole article just on the best woods to forage.) This is a pard effort and is easier if each carries their own light load rather than leaving to just one in the mess to do it all.
• Stab your pocket knife vertically into the base of a candle. It becomes an improvised candlestick (keep the wax off your mittens).
• For easy indoor lighting, make a "slut" of discarded tin, sardine can, or ceramic bowl full of grease and a small rag wick.

Food:
• Keep your haversack off the ground unless you like ants...in everything. Mice and other rodents also like chewing through your bag for your meal, crackers, sugar, etc. Hang it on the rifle stack or construct some other means to keep it off the ground but always respect the resourcefulness of bugs. Keep everything closed, use mountain mint as a repellent if necessary and post a watch to ensure larger animals don't wander into camp.
• Flipping flapjacks. Do it in a lightly greased pan. Wait till batter bubbles up and hardens. Use knife blade to separate contact between the cake and skillet. Use a sharp, forward motion that will throw the cake forward, out, up and over to the uncooked side. Practice at home a lot and never try to show off. (Trust me on this.)
• Don't eat where you sleep. You'll drop crumbs...and be sorry later.
• If you kill something, set up your shambles at least 200 yards outside of camp. The scent will attract every predator in the area.
• Foraging Fowl: More work goes into dressing a chicken but smaller birds like dove, quail and woodcock are fairly easy. Seize the bird by the hocks just below the thighs. Cup the back of the bird's neck with your thumb and forefinger. Tighten your "trigger" finger around the front of the birds throat; give a sharp tug and twist to launch your fine feathered friend into eternity. (Head usually pops off and the carcass then gets animated.) Keeping your trigger finger in position, squeeze firmly and with your other hand's thumb & forefinger, shear from the shoulder forward removing the wings and breast from the body. Legs are pinched off individually. Remove skin; it's not worth the effort and either pan fry or roast the breast, wings and legs from a saster. The leavings aren't worth picking over; throw them in your shambles.

Marching and Making Bed:
• Wear your drawers inside-out so that the seams don't chafe you.
• Wrap a bandage around chafed parts of the legs to have relief.
• Blouse pantaloons in cool weather to conserve body heat. It also helps to keep vermin off your legs while walking through the weeds. Be careful about stuff falling down into your shoe as this offers no protection against it.  Another trick is to wrap a cord or ribbon around the cuff of your trousers right at the shoes to ward off unwanted hitchhikers.
• Wearing a night cap, or other period wrap will keep your head from getting a chill. If you don't have, cover your head in your blanket but leave your mouth exposed. (Moisture in your breath will eventually permeate your clothing and blanket causing you to lose warmth.)
• Moccasins and other camp shoes help with foot hygiene. Try to keep your socks clean and dry.
• Don't sleep in your clothes if at all possible. Wash clothing if needed when you turn in and/or hang up in fair weather if possible. Wear a night shirt and or clean drawers. If camp is attacked during an event night tactical, remove shirt and counterattack naked. They'll run.
• Use a stout wool blanket and sew a cotton drill sheet to the underside but only along one edge. Use button closures to attach the other 3-sides. When foliage is not available to make a bed, lay your clothing in it to serve as a barrier between you and the ground (Oilcloth, blanket, clothing, cotton drill sheet, you, other sides of cotton sheet and blanket, and oilcloth on top.
• If you must take a poop break on the march, follow Mosaic Law (Deut. 23:12-13).
• For period toilet paper, carry period newsprint and crumble it constantly while seated upon the necessary. Once finished, the newsprint will be soft and pliable enough to erase all signs of Uncle Grumpy's rapid departure.

Like I said, this is a whole lot of random stuff.  Feel free to add.

-Dave

[BlackHillsScout]

Nice job Dave

[PJ Hardtack]

I like the newspaper TP idea. Gives you something to read in the bargain.

I haven't done a rough camp for years. Gettin' soft. I used to do week end alpine trips, above the tree line, out of a day bag. Overhead cover was a 4' square of plastic sheet tied to whatever shrub was handy. I covered my feet with a garden/leaf bag and another with a slot cut over my upper body. My sleeping bag was a light bicycle bag and I used a thin foam pad under that.

I was water and bug proof. Worked for me.

The folks I was guiding were German and had hit an outdoor store to get equipped. They had enough gear to trek the Himalayas! They even packed a dozen fresh eggs and Perrier water. I left them behind, leaving a clearly marked trail and another Canadian to guide them. They worked like dogs, getting to my camp 1-1/2 hours after I arrived.

The 16 year old son of one couple literally quit on the way out, two women splitting up his load. I told them not to, but one was his step Mom and knew he had been raised soft.

I used to enjoy snow camping, but a two year tour on the shores of Hudson's Bay at Churchill, Manitoba cured me of that. Using 60% of your food, heat and water resources just to stay alive and ward off frost bite is no cake walk.

Hell is not hot - it's cold.

[Professor Marvel]

addendums:

carry:
- oil of cloves: carry a small bottle , apply directly for toothache
- osha root: chewed, good for sinus or upper respiratory infection. burned, breath the smoke in thru the nose for sinus problems
                ( warning - it burns, then your sinuses open and run like a faucet)
                 made into tea, good for a "tonic" and "cold or flu" symptoms. Do not try to collect yourself until you have been trained
                 by a certified herbal hunter - many mistake other things for osha, like wild hemlock!

gather on the trail:
- white willow twigs : remove the outer bark, peel and save the inner bark. boil into strong tea for pain relief
- prairie sage: burned as smudge to repell insects ( and bad woogums) . cooked into tea, "good for what ails you".
                 chew and apply damp to wounds as a disinfectant poultice.
- wild mint : make into tea to soothe nerves and sour stomach; chew to make breath fresh.

yhs
prof marvel

[Tsalagidave]

Thanks for the kind words Scout.

PJ, although you are referencing modern mountaineering, you were doing some pretty hardcore stuff especially in the Alps. I've spent some winters in the Baltic at places like Denmark, Germany, and Latvia. Those places are cold enough in so I can only imagine what you were dealing with at altitude.

I grew up running the San Bernardino Mountains so you still have me beat by about a thousand meters of elevation.

Prof. Marvel, I was hoping that my herb talk would lure you out for some gems of wisdom and it is appreciated as always my friend.  Please keep it coming.

Before posting this, I was afraid it would get the same cold reception as it did on another site because I gave a period description on how to properly dispatch and dress small game.  I learned these methods as a falconer (using ancient methods) and as a hunter.
Most of the guys on the other forum are younger. They did not criticize, they just read it and apparently did not know how to comment on it so they passive-aggressively ignored while the older guys showed approval.

Now I don't want to bash on millennials because it will be that generation and the ones following that we will hand off the torch of the primitive outdoorsman culture to.  Do it not and we'll surely carry the light with us into the eternal depths of time's vast flowing river where its dying spark will be quenched once our own lives surrender to the perpetual tide.

They aren't genetically inferior; they just haven't been taught. Our job is to find those interested in our primitive past; accept them; share with them; teach them; and in turn, learn from them. Grow our band of brothers and preserve our primal spirit.
This hobby is not meant to be hoarded over by a bunch of old guys as they are waiting for God.  It's meant to bring the generations together.  This IS our history, our culture and it should remain a strong life bond in which brotherhoods are formed as we preserve our legacy of rugged individualism, self reliance, and preservation in the face of the greatest difficulties.

Now on that note, who else has sticks for the fire. Add your thoughts boys; we have a hobby to rebuild.

-Dave

[Niederlander]

Great information, gentlemen!  I'm going to print this stuff off and put it in a binder for reference material.

[PJ Hardtack]

The outing I described with the German group was done mid-July. Very little snow even at altitude.

I spent four years in NW Europe during the Cold War. That part of Germany has the most miserable, cold, bitchy climate I've ever experienced.
In the space of one hour on a 72 hour exercise, we went from sleet to frozen rain. EVERYTHING was ice coated! You needed a bayonet to cock your FNC1 rifle. Tracked vehicles were all over the road.

The exercise was cancelled due to hypothermia and frozen feet. Fighting a winter war is my definition of hell. The Russo-Finnish War and Stalingrad come to mind .....

[Niederlander]

I'll second that.  I never experienced that sort of cold in the field, but we did a combined arms exercise at Twentynine Palms in December.  It was raining and we had sixteen Marines go down with hypothermia in the first hour.  Admittedly, we were all used to MUCH warmer weather, but still...........

[PJ Hardtack]

My son and I suffered hypothermia while kayaking one beautiful July.

We were on Chilko lake, Canada's highest, largest and coldest alpine lake. After being marooned for a couple of days due to high winds on an island at the mouth of Franklin Arm, I launched him successfully, but rolled over launching my own boat.

On the way to the end of the fjord-like Arm, a one hour paddle, we both suffered from the cold once the sun disappeared, screened by the mountains. By the time we got there, he was incoherent and barely able to function.

I wasn't far behind, but managed to get him out of his boat and into a guide's cabin which fortunately was unlocked. I t had a wood stove, propane range and hot water tank! I built a fire and parked him in front of it. It was an hour before he could respond.

The next day we repaired the broken water line with materials from a shed and discovered the outdoor shower and sauna! We had died and gone to heaven!

There is no doubt in my mind that the cabin saved our lives as I'm not sure I would have bee able to make a fire otherwise. We left a sincere thank you note to the cabin owner.

[Niederlander]

Glad things worked out!  I'm much more of a desert guy than a snow drift guy, but I prefer right where I'm at!

[pony express]

Warning: Thread drift alert! I spent 3 1/2 years in southern Germany, probably not as bad weather as NW, but still-a cold miserable muddy time in the occasional field exercises we did. It gets much colder(and hotter) here in Missouri, but the "damp cold" there was something else!

[Tsalagidave]

I've spent most of my life running the Sierras, San Bernardinos, and the Mojave/Sonora Deserts.  There were torrential thunderstorms, to blizzards, to+110 degree weather. The wind gusts are so intense it will sandblast the powder out of a well fit pan.  You have to wrap strips of calico over your eyes to keep the fine alkali dust from burning your eyeballs.  With all that can be said about it, the southwestern deserts are still my favorite places on earth. 

Eastern woodland footwear is useless on this terrain.  Hard soled shoes or Southwestern pattern moccasins are the rule but the native people of the Mojave preferred sandals made of woven yucca fibers. As much as I do like greenery, I'll always be more of a desert rat.

-Dave

[Professor Marvel]

I have to go back to my notes and post more about foraging herbs.

the "leaves" of almost any cedar can be cooked into a disinfectant tea, exteranl use only. It is also used by N.A. to preserve feathers - swish feathers thru the decoction and let dry. it kills the feather mites and leaves a lovely smell.

when in dire straights, you can run down and kill a porcupine with a stick. natsy tasting, but hey, you are starving.

if it's worse than that, and you are starving, make pine bark soup/tea . (I have to look up the specific pine tree tho - aha
Mrs marvel reports it is "Pinus Pinaster"  aka French Maritime Pine)
it will fill the stomach and stop the body from eating up the muscle tissue. if one relies on it for too long, you are dead anyway.

Inner bark of Red willow and Bear Berry Leaves make Kinnikick , a good smoking mixture.

OK Desert Loving Dave -

The Prickly Pear Cactus offers an edible fruit, edible pads ( preferable cooked - bleh ) and the body of any succulent cactus can be squeezed for water. Burn off the spine first. The tiniest ones are as fine as hair and you'll never get them out.

Find a cottonwood tree and you find water 6-8 feet down. pretty muddy, but water.

The Tarantula is essentially inoccuous , and won't bite if you leave it alone. most scorpions are the same.
Any desert multipede is potentially poisonous - "red is the warning".
Desert Bats won't bother you at all, and keep the insects down.

I myself have never had a problem with pit vipers - sidewinders, rattlesnakes , etc. but a friend had a rattler actively
pursuing his dog until his wife shot it in the head from 50 feet. "Little Sure Shot" lol.

I go my way and leave snakes alone, they seem to return the favor.
I have come across rattlers in South Dakota that were merely curious and left when I explained that they would scare
the kids in camp. Next to  our house, I once found myself standing next to a little one all curled up looking like a turd.
It did not move at all, and I  relocated it easily. don't try this at home, kids. getting snake bit hurts and antivenom
is tres expensive.

The neoighbor however, had several rattlers acting agressively and he had to kill them with his shovel.

Maybe my singing the Snake Song helps.
YMMV .

Mrs Marvel and I unknowingly shared a warm rock with a huge bull snake, we only realized it when he left first.
I tried to pursuade him to come back and live in my shed and eat the mice, but to no avail.


more later
prof marvel

[Major 2]

Cool stuff, I heard some before, other I'll file  

Not much, Alpine or Desert is my neck of the woods, but if you are Swamp slogger or Bay Head & Palmetto Prairie drifter,
there are similar foraging guidelines.

If you bare with , for a bit more thread shift...I'd relate a true snake story ...OK ?

here it tiz.... as relayed by my Dad... and true !  

Fishing on the Miami River ( up river as it flows from west (Everglades) into Dade Co. ) still wild back then, west of Hialeah, Dad had settled back with cane pole.
Fishing with only bits of bread for bait, wasn't have any luck...
He felt a bit of movement , some what commotion just behind him , looking around he saw a Black snake ( harmless) with a tree frog , and struggling to swallow the kicking frog.
In the flash of the moment, Dad grabbed the snake behind its head , and yanked the frog out of his mouth...
now it seems Dad had a pint , (this was Prohibition Era mind you) of some kinda bootleg. He gave the Snake a snort and throws him over in the brush. Dad cut the frog up for bait , and in short order he had a small string of bass .  In about an hour,
He feels a tap on the leg , looks down and here is that snake , with another frog to trade ...

Not sure how many pulls Dad had had on the pint prior to snake's return. But he swore it was a true account...

 

[Professor Marvel]

My Dear Major 2 -

I do have packrats here and they regularly trade pinion nuts for "pretty shiny things"

But I cannot top this:

He feels a tap on the leg , looks down and here is that snake , with another frog to trade ...

"Now I don't care who you are , that there is funny!"

yhs
prof marvel

[Professor Marvel]

Remember that A healthy person can easily go for more than 7 days without food.

The Women of the Lahkota Soiux used to save rawhide scraps in case of winter famine - they can be boiled down into a horrible soup that is better than starving ( thus the stories that they were reduced to eating their moccasins) . If they
made it through till spring, those scraps would be cooked down into rawhide glue for seasonal repairs .

The Souix names for the months sound romantic - until you know what the mean! The Moon Of The Popping Trees is February, when it is so cold in the Northern Prairie ( sometimes below -40 F ) that the remaining sap in the trees freezes, expands,  and the tree explodes!

When foraging,  watch what the animals eat. Mice, Prarie Dogs, Coyotes and Bears especially. Do not trust what Deer or birds eat, they can tolerate stuff that gives humans montezumas revenge from both ends.

When in doubt, don't eat it, or at worst, if desparate and starving, taste a little bit on the tip of your tongue and see what happens in half an hour. If that goes well, eat a nibble and wait again. Make absolutely certain you have a good source of clean water for "flushing" and dilution of any poisons, because if you are wrong and start vomiting you *will* die of dehydration.

Unidentified Roots can be questionable - is it wild carrot or Osha Root or poisonous hemlock ? The same for mushrooms.

Berries also must be clearly identified - pokeweed, mistletoe, holly, yew berries and ivy berries can kill you. Monseed looks like grapes and birds tolerate it well but it is toxic to humans.

Almost all pine nuts, esp pinon are edible, if you can find and harvest them. Out of season, you are out of luck.
some need to be cooked before eating.

eastern white pine needle tea: use long green fresh needles, make an infusion with very hot water, but do not boil.

eastern white pine inner bark can be harvested, roasted, and ground into a flour, as done by the algonquins.

bear in mind:
be able to identify your trees and needles with certainty!
The hemlock trees ( not the hemlock flowers) are said to be safe.

Yew is extremely toxic.

"The junipers and cedars are safe for most people in moderate amounts; that said, many of them do contain relatively powerful compounds. Eastern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis) for example is one of the richest sources of thujone, which is a stimulant at low doses but at higher doses toxic to the nervous system and liver."

-----------------
Thujone is in culinary herbs like sage and rosemary, and can be toxic or hallucinatory in quantity.

Beware of Wormwood - it is good ( ie topically for bruises) IF YOU ARE WELL TRAINED .
Essential oil of wormwood contains more than enough thujone to kill you
The levels available from White Cedar may be risky for the young, or those pregnant or nursing.
-----------------

stolen from the webs:
"For regular consumption across a range of constitutions the true pines are the best, though. Almost all of them are quite benign, except perhaps (again) if you're pregnant, as they are reputed to be able to induce miscarriage (also probably dose-dependent, but who would want to mess around with a risk like that?) Ponderosa Pine, also called yellow pine, is the only one that I am aware of being potentially harmful, and this seems to be usually connected with pregnancy risks as well, but to a much greater degree, at least based on its well-known toxicity to cattle. Clearly there are plenty who use it, but if you have multiple pine species around it may be best to concentrate on the others. Couldn't hurt. White Pine in particular is pretty much unimpeachable. It's easy to positively identify by the needles, which are attached in clusters of 5. White pine is the only pine with this characteristic. A good primer on pine tea: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3126/#b Anyone further interested in the ethnobotany and chemistry of human use of pine products for nutrition will find this paper a treat:
https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443//handle/1828/3248"

hope this helps
prof marvel

[PJ Hardtack]

[quote author=Professor Marvel link=topic=58405.msg698819#msg698819 date=1482536421

The Sioux names for the months sound romantic - until you know what the mean! The Moon Of The Popping Trees is February, when it is so cold in the Northern Prairie ( sometimes below -40 F ) that the remaining sap in the trees freezes, expands, and the tree explodes.[/quote]

Been there - heard that a few times. Mercifully, it hasn't been that cold for the last several years. We still have trees on our wood lot that show the results.

[Shawnee McGrutt]

Professor, what no recipes for porcupine pie?

Roasted porcupine
1- 15 pound porky
2- sweet onions
1- bunch carrots
Salt & pepper to taste

In large Dutch oven, place ingredients on a brick.
Place in hot coals and cover with hot coals.  Add coals as needed.
Roast for five hours.
Toss all ingredients and eat brick

If anyone has interest I have a few for skunk.

[Blair]

Mac,

I find that very funny, and I thank you.

I have found that to be very true with porcupine as well as with beaver. While they can keep you alive in tough times, each are considered survival food.
Beaver, as a fur bearing animal is regulated, however, in the great white north, porcupine is considered as a survival food.
Just my opinion, based on my own trial, neither, are not very good eating.
My best, and a very Merry Christmas to Everyone.
Blair

[Shawnee McGrutt]

Seeing that the new year is fast approaching, (boy this year went fast)...
Thought I would pass on an old family favorite,
Would anyone,  be interested in Pickled Skunk Shanks?