Friday, November 11, 2005
Going primitive
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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APPOMATTOX -- Mary Margaret Kopp's head spins when she thinks about the world today's kids grow up in.
"They're inundated with fast food, fast cars, fast everything," said Kopp, a 54-year-old from Bent Mountain.
So when Kopp learned of an opportunity to introduce her granddaughter to a slower way of life, she took it.
This past weekend Kopp and 10-year-old Katryna Trusty of Salem were among the four-dozen participants in a primitive skills workshop at the Holiday Lake 4-H Center.
Participants got primers on a variety of ancient skills, including identifying edible wild plants, wilderness tracking, bow building and tanning animal hides.
"I think it's important to give kids information they can actually use," Kopp said. "You never know when you might have to fall back on these skills."
Mike Hayslett, the center's director of natural resource education, organized the workshop as a way to give people a quick taste of some of the more in-depth sessions held at the center.
"It's our first attempt," Hayslett said. "And it's a pretty successful start."
Hayslett hopes to hold similar events each spring and fall at the center. An "Old Ways Weekend" is planned for May 12 and 13.
Campers weren't completely cut off from the modern world. They stayed in comfortable cabins and ate hot meals in the camp's cafeteria.
But there was no TV, radio or Internet access.
Katryna hardly had time to miss her Game Boy.
She and two boys took part in a special workshop during which they built a primitive shelter, learned how to collect water, and even how to make spears for gigging fish and frogs.
One of their tasks was to try to start a fire.
First, they tried sparking tinder by striking a rock with hatchet blade. When that didn't work they quickly rubbed the tip of a stick in groove in a piece of wood. That didn't work, either.
So how did they start the fire that smoldered in their creekside camp?
"We used this," said smiling instructor Paula DeLuca, holding up a disposable lighter. "One of the other lessons we're learning is to always be prepared."
Katryna, along with 10-year-old Raven Moon of Afton and 12-year-old Cody Shaw of Montebello, spent close to four hours building their shelter, which had a covered area for sitting out of the weather, and a nearly completely enclosed sleeping area. The shelter appeared quite able to withstand rain and wind, and it wasn't yet done. The next day the three planned to reinforce the roof.
"The hardest part was dragging all the logs back to camp," Katryna said.
Adults got to get their hands dirty, too.
In one four-hour workshop Saturday morning, Hayslett covered the basics of using natural ingredients to tan animal hides.
Gordon Pierce enjoyed the session.
"It think all of it is fascinating," said Pierce, a retired college professor who lives in Appomattox.
Pierce said he was thinking of coming back to the center for Hayslett's four-day tanning workshop, where participants get to, according to Hayslett, "go from the animal to a buckskin shirt."
"They basically want to whet your appetite to get you back," Pierce said with a smile.
In a workshop on flint napping, instructor Chris French showed how to chip pieces of hard stone into arrowheads and knives. With a lack of natural materials on which to practice, the campers made their creations out of chunks of a shattered porcelain toilet tank.
Bow builder David Welker's workshop was also popular. With just two hours, he didn't have time to make much progress on building a bow, but he had samples of bows in various stages of completion. After the workshop he demonstrated the capabilities of his handmade longbows, shooting cedar arrows into a bank.
He also advised would-be bowyers to shut out distractions when they worked.
"Get rid of the kids, get rid of the wife," he cautioned. "Then lock the door so you can commune with your wood and make your bow."
At the end of the first day, several of the instructors got together for a display of pioneer life.
Black powder gun enthusiast Owen Peters displayed several of his prized flintlock rifles and pistols. Campers passed around a jar of cream, taking turns shaking it to make butter. Instructor Tim Kasper used a mallet and a wooden wedge to split oak logs, while Hayslett demonstrated how to cut cedar shakes.
After checking out the action, Katryna had a question for her grandmother.
"Can I go lay down for a few minutes before dinner?" she said. "I'm tired."
Kopp nodded.
"That's genuine tired," she said, smiling as Katryna trudged off toward their cabin. "Not sitting-in-front-of-the-TV-all-day tired."
Which was just what Kopp was hoping for.
