December 6, 2024 • 21 mins
Brent’s talking about how to find your way out in the woods and more importantly, how to find your way back. His navigation through life has been an interesting one to say the least, and he’s going to tell you about his struggles with and without a compass. Knowing where north is was a lesson he learned at an early age and one he still applies today. Grab a map and a compass, it’s time for MeatEater’s “This Country Life” podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to This country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences and life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airways had off. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share. Knowing where north is finding your way
around the woods can be a challenge, especially when you
don't know what you're doing. Now, I want to talk
to you about the importance of using the basics to
(00:50):
get you where you want to go, and I will,
But first I'm going to tell you a story. It
was over twenty years ago. It was cold and a
long walk back to the truck, and I was tired.
It was the last split of duck season, and Tim
(01:12):
and I had been guiding every day since thanksgiving up
at three thirty am and getting to bed sometimes at midnight.
It takes a toll after a while, and I was beat.
We were hunting the public shooting grounds and the weather
was getting cold and slowly locking up all the open
water that didn't have any current. We had four or
(01:34):
five hunters with us, and Tim took his ducks and
left early to go back to the camp and start
cooking a big, hot breakfast we'd all be wanting once
we knocked out the last few remaining ducks to finish
out our limits. That morning. There was no GPS's then
I didn't tote the compass, and I also didn't want
(01:54):
to tote all those decoys over the near mild trip
we had in front of us back to the parking lot,
over ice and waiters, and with three dozen decoys and weights,
I decided I'd just hide them. We were coming right
back to this spot the next morning, anyway, and it
wasn't that big of a no. No. The law said
(02:16):
you couldn't leave them out overnight, But did they really
mean left overnight in the hole you were hunting, or
would it be okay to leave them heading the sack
next to the hole you were hunting. Well, I knew
the answer, but I was willing to take the risk.
If I had a sleeping bag with me and could
have stayed warm, I'd have just laid down in it
(02:36):
and slept until Tim showed up. The next morning we
hunted the woods on clear days. That day had a
few clouds, but not enough to hide the moon, which
was how we navigated the last quarter of a mile
after veering off the trail that headed into the only
open water we could find, and we had it all
to ourselves. It was during the middle of the week.
(02:58):
The college kids were back at school and most folks
were back at work, and believe it or not, there
was four hundred acres of prime flooded Arkansas public timber
that we might as well have just owned ourselves. We
were the only folks hunting. Another reason I decided to
leave the decoys now. I hit them beside a tree
(03:19):
where I'd been standing, and I gathered up my charges
and we lit a shuck for the truck as soon
as the last duck was strapped into our limit. Once
back at the camp, I told Tim I hit the decoys,
and he looked at me like I'd seen him look
at me almost every time I did something stupid. It's
going to be cloudy in the morning, dummy, and it's
my turn to go in early. What if I can't
(03:42):
find them? I wanted to hit him with that iron
skillet he was using to turn a dead hog's belly
into savory strips of bypass surgery. Don't worry about it.
I'll go early again. I know where I'm going, I
know where I left him. Matter of fact, you ain't
even got to go sleep in and have the groceries ready.
We'll be back by ten. And that's how I left it,
(04:05):
and I didn't think about it again until we got
out of the truck The next morning. At the parking lot,
Arkansas was dark as four foot up of bulls behind
total cloud covered. Standing outside, you couldn't see your hand
in front of your face. We had a half a
mile of trail to walk, then we had to go
overland through the woods and a couple of thickets. I'll
(04:25):
find where we walked through the ice and trace our
steps backwards the way we came out. That should work,
but it didn't. Everything had refrozen during the night, and
about four inches of water had fallen out, and nothing
looked the same. Nothing. The small flashlight I had only
kept me from walking into trees. I had no idea
(04:47):
where I was or where I was going. After I
left that trail, headed to where I thought my decoys
and the whole we'd hunted the day before would be.
The hunters behind me didn't have a clue. I was lost,
mainly because I acted like I wasn't. They were paying
me money to know what I was doing, so even
if I didn't, I was going to act like we
(05:10):
should be there. But now I thought that the waterfall
out had changed everything so much, I wasn't sure what
planet I was on, much less what unmarked location I
was trying to find on a wildlife management area that
I was currently wandering around then with a group of
men who were following behind me like they were sold
to my breeches. Finally one of them spoke up, how
(05:32):
much further? Oh, it's right up here, We're not far.
I shared the light up in front of me, trying
to locate a gap in the timber big enough to
look similar to a hole that we could maybe coke
some ducks down into once it got light enough to
see there, right there, about forty yards away, was the
narrowest of holes in the timber. There was nothing closer.
(05:54):
Daylight was only a few minutes away. As we finally
begun to be able to see without the aid of
the only light we had. None of them had brought one,
but there was still one other hurdle to jump. All
the water in the hole I had lucked up on
was frozen almost solid. I placed my hunters around in
(06:17):
a semicircle where they were going to be standing once
the shooting started, if there was going to be any
and I began to monkey stomp that ice until oblivia
I broke through the to find the water below was
only deep enough to cover the toe of my boot.
With all the fallen leaves taking up the space and
the water between the bottom of the ice and the
(06:37):
top of the earth, I wanted to be someplace else.
If I hadn't hid them decoys and brought them out
like I was supposed to, I would be someplace else,
and Tim would be dealing with this fiasco right now
instead of laying in his warm bed sleeping the sleep
of the guiltless. I quickly prayed he'd went the bed.
(06:57):
Then I had the idea to kill all the wet
leaves of mud up on the ice, making it resemble open, dark,
muddy water in a sea of light colored iesed up
muddy water. I was feeling good about what I'd managed
to conjure up out of literally nothing, when one of
those cats asked, are we not going to use the decoys? Now?
(07:20):
With all the confidence I could muster, I told them, now,
we don't need them. I'm gonna put them right in
through that small hole in the trees, and by the
time they figure out that that ain't water, they'll be
close enough for us to shoot them in the lips.
They seemed excited and couldn't wait to see what was
about to happen. I couldn't either, but I knew one
thing for sure. What I told them was fixing to
(07:42):
happen was probably the furthest thing that was actually gonna happen.
As it grew lighter, I glanced around for the decoy
as I stood by my clients, I looked around for
anything that might actually tell me where we were. The
only thing I saw was my hunters. Though as inexperienced
as they were, I could tell they weren't exactly smelling
(08:04):
what I was stepping in. I heard a few whispers
back and forth as I stomped and kicked more muddy
leaves up on top of that thick ice. I couldn't
tell what they were saying, but I knew they wasn't
buying it. At least not yet. Ducks started flying and
I started calling, and I was more surprised. The ducks
looked like they were trying to find a spot to
(08:26):
light in the woods that they knew better than I
did was all frozen up, and yet there they were.
I told them to be stealing and get ready, and
I started calling at a group of ducks, and my
glimpsed passing overhead, and three mallards pitched in through the
top of the trees and hovered over the hole I'd
stomped out in the ice covered with wet, muddy leaves.
(08:48):
We got them all. Twenty minutes later we were high
fiving and picking up our last green head for a
full limit of big ducks over zero decoys with zero
open water. I celebrated with him, but was trying to
be like the great Chicago Bear Walter Payton. When he
scored a touchdown, he just hand the ball back to
(09:10):
the referee and trot off the field. He said, YOA,
act like you've been there before. Well, in my mind
I was moon walking back to the truck and doing backflips.
Those cats thought I was the greatest duck guy in
the world. Walking out from that whole about thirty yards
was the sack of decoys I'd hit the day before.
I didn't even break stride. I scooped him up and
(09:31):
kept walking like I knew right where they was, straight
back to the parking lot. My hunter's walking behind and
reliving the hunt shot by shot and talking about how
we did it without decoys and water. I wasn't the
greatest duck guy in the world, not by a long shot.
I wasn't even the greatest duck guy in our business.
But I was no doubt the luckiest. And that's just
(09:55):
how that happened. Getting lost, turned around, or temporarily disoriented
is something we all take a chance on each time
we leave the house and venture into parts of the unknown,
(10:15):
and knowing how to navigate around and through our surroundings.
It's something we've been doing since the first folks decided
to see what was on the other side of the hill.
Curiosity has done more than kill the cat, as the
old saying goes, on the positive side, it's fuelled uncountable discoveries,
territorial expansion beyond what was thought possible, And on the negative,
(10:37):
unscheduled sight seeing tours of the back forty I figured
there was a lot of that taking place back in
the days of exploring the West. How can you know
where you're going if there's no one there to tell
you where to go, if no one you know's ever
been there before. You can always mark a trail to
where you've been. It's where you're intending to go that
(10:58):
can cause the problems. And I've always been fascinated with
reading maps and using them with a compass to get
around in the woods. Knowing where I am in the
wilderness and being able to point it out on the
map has always been something that I take a lot
of satisfaction in. Being able to read a map is important.
In the days before GPS, it was the two Most
(11:19):
folks that were from where I grew up had their toolbox,
and it was learned in my case from a very
early age. When I was a little boy, my dad
and I would lay on the dog box in the
back of his truck, staring at a cloudless sky while
parked on a Timber company road, waiting on the dogs
to strike. Total darkness surrounded us, and the stars were
(11:42):
clear and bright. He pointed out the Big Dipper and
the Little Dipper and then the north star, which is
the last star in the little Dipper's handle. If you're
looking at that star, you're looking north. East is to
your right, West is to your left, and south is
one about face away. Years later, when my dad got sick,
(12:03):
he was admitted to the hospital and spending what would
be his final forty two days on earth. The value
and the importance to him of the lessons he taught
me way back then became apparent. Night and day kind
of blend into one when you're in and out of
consciousness in a windowless room or one with the shades
constantly closed. The nurses were always good about writing the
(12:28):
day and the day and whether it was am or
pm on a big board with colored markers next to
a clock that faced his bed, and he could see
it whenever he woke up and looked around. During one
of his lucid moments, he looked around the room at
me and my brother Tim, who were standing on each
side of his bed. I saw him look at that
(12:50):
board and then back at us, and he waved his
right index finger back and forth as his hand rested
on top of the covers, his eyes going back and
forth from Tim to me and We could tell he
wanted to know something, but he couldn't speak. We made suggestions,
asking him what it was. He wanted, both of us
trying to decipher what he was trying to say through.
(13:11):
So finally Tim said North is that way and pointed
out the window with his left hand. Dad nodded ever
so slightly, closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
And from then on, regardless of where he was in
that hospital, the nurses or one of us always included
the word north in an arrow pointed in that direction.
(13:35):
Besides the date and the time, I would take those
lessons he taught me as a kid, and expand on
him throughout my life even today. There was one time
in January of nineteen eighty eight when it was most important.
I was in a land navigation course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
(13:55):
At that time of my life, I'd never been as
cold or seen the cold Oklahoma was beating me around
the head and shoulders with There were ten of us
in my group that started from the back of a
deuce and a half truck that we'd been freshly thrown
out of, with a compass and a map and a
list of individual points that we all had to find
on our own. There may have been ten of us
(14:18):
in the group, but we all had different points to
find and an unknown time in whish to complete the evolution.
The map had them pre marked as a dot in
a distance from where we stood. Here's how it worked.
We all had that you are here mark on a map.
This would be in the first of the field exercises.
They at least gave us that as a starting point.
(14:39):
Then from the maps they had us, we had to
find markers scattered over acres of woods in the order
that they were listed on the map. We all had
a different number of points to find that zigzagged across
the course that had followed correctly would have you end
at the corresponding endpoint marked on your map. At each
(15:00):
such reference point was a metal stob that had been
drove in the ground with a brass tag on it
that had an alpha numeric code stamped on it. You
had to write those down before shooting an asthma to
try and locate the next point. They were easy to
miss if you deviated the slightest on your path from
the previous point or miscalculated the distance, because they only
(15:22):
poked up about six inches out of the ground. The
terrain we were in went from open fields that were
grown up with waist high grass and briars to dense woods,
and compounding the problem was there wasn't only just the
markers you were looking for out there, but other markers
in close proximity that were marked differently. If you didn't
(15:44):
walk exactly along the proper asthmas counting the paces from
the previous spot to the next, you could write down
the wrong code when you reached that next point in
the series. You'd wind up back with everyone else eventually.
But if you mark down the incorrect code, you failed course.
If you failed the course, you had to recycle and
do that phase of training all over again. If you
(16:06):
failed the second time, I think that took you out
back and shot you, or worse, made you join the Navy.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I love the Navy. I'm kidding now.
I loved every minute of it, and it was a
great example of the difference between being close and being
right on the money. And it's good to know where
(16:28):
you are in relation to what you're asking other folks
to shoot at, if you know what I mean. There's
all kinds of GPS devices, apps and trackers that are
as common today as that computer camera, television telephone A
bunch of you are listening to me talk on right now,
But that hasn't always been the case. I love the
(16:49):
on X app on my phone. I use it literally
every day for something. I depend on it to help
me navigate. But there was a time, as my daughter
Bailey calls it back then, when those things didn't exist.
Those simple skills are not as common as they used
to be because of the great convenience of technology. But
we owe it to ourselves and our kids and the
(17:12):
new outdoor folks that we should be entering to pass
along the basic skills that will help you get around
in the woods when your computer, camera, television telephone battery dies.
Keep a compass in your pocket and no how it
works and how to use it. In its most simplistic form,
if you walk into an area you're unfamiliar with in
(17:32):
a northerly direction to get back in the vicinity of
where you left from, you know you're gonna have to
walk in a southerly direction. You don't even need a
compass to do that. If the sun is on your
right when you leave, it needs to be on your
left when you return if you're only gone for half
the day. Now, don't be jamming up my email with
(17:53):
what if you left at ten am and came back
at two pm, Galileo, I know the sun would have
to be on the right side. Again, I'm talking in
very general terms here, so take it easy. Look at
a map of the area you're in before you leave
the truck, and orient it with a complaice to where
you are and what direction you want to go. Better, yet,
(18:15):
look at it at home and familiarize yourself with it
before you ever leave the house. The degree of accuracy
of maps online is extremely detailed and manipula to the
point that you can just about see what you'll be
seeing before you load up and go. A physical map
of the area is good to tote in your pocket
as well. It's not that you're gonna need it. It's
(18:38):
all about if you suddenly find out you do you
vetteran backcountry folks know what I'm talking about. Sometimes a
day of hunting in the wilderness can turn into an
overnight stay because of weather or packing out an animal,
or maybe an injury, or, for heaven's sake, battery dies
on your computer, camera, television, telephone. Being prepared, it is
(19:00):
essential an extra pair of socks, a packable sleeping bag
and warm clothes jamming until a day pack doesn't take
up much room, and a compass hanging around your neck.
For sure. Dog, I go overboard when packing for a
trip and take way more than I'll ever need. But
regardless of where I'm going to what I'm doing that
requires me to take things into the field. I have
(19:22):
a minimum a compass in every day pack, backpack and
chest rig I on if I'm talking all three on
a trip, I have them all Three is two, two
is one, and one is none. I googled how to
read a map and added me to either in the
search bar. There were half a dozen great articles on
(19:43):
the media to the website explaining in detail how to do it.
The Bureau of Land Management has an entire free course
on map reading on their website that goes into the
weeds so deep you could plan a mission to Mars
with it. And of course there's always the universe. Thank
give you Tube for video instruction. The main thing is
(20:04):
it's a great tool to have in your toolbox should
you need it. It's also a skill that's being lost
to the convenience of modern technology. And maybe best of all,
it's an activity you can share with you young as
it gets you both outside doing things that doesn't require electricity, batteries, bait,
or even bullets, just a little time and a willingness
(20:27):
to learn. Knowing where north is it's the first step,
and knowing where to take your second. Thank y'all so
much for listening to all of us here on the
Bear Grease channel, as really is something for everyone here
at Mediator, from how to and trivia and music documentary,
(20:48):
kids and this calamity that drops every Friday morning until
next week. This is Brent Reeves. Sign it off, y'all,
be careful to be done. R.
Welcome to This country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
I want you to stay a while as I share
my experiences and life lessons. This Country Life is presented
by Case Knives on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you
the best outdoor podcast the airways had off. All right, friends,
(00:28):
grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some
stories to share. Knowing where north is finding your way
around the woods can be a challenge, especially when you
don't know what you're doing. Now, I want to talk
to you about the importance of using the basics to
(00:50):
get you where you want to go, and I will,
But first I'm going to tell you a story. It
was over twenty years ago. It was cold and a
long walk back to the truck, and I was tired.
It was the last split of duck season, and Tim
(01:12):
and I had been guiding every day since thanksgiving up
at three thirty am and getting to bed sometimes at midnight.
It takes a toll after a while, and I was beat.
We were hunting the public shooting grounds and the weather
was getting cold and slowly locking up all the open
water that didn't have any current. We had four or
(01:34):
five hunters with us, and Tim took his ducks and
left early to go back to the camp and start
cooking a big, hot breakfast we'd all be wanting once
we knocked out the last few remaining ducks to finish
out our limits. That morning. There was no GPS's then
I didn't tote the compass, and I also didn't want
(01:54):
to tote all those decoys over the near mild trip
we had in front of us back to the parking lot,
over ice and waiters, and with three dozen decoys and weights,
I decided I'd just hide them. We were coming right
back to this spot the next morning, anyway, and it
wasn't that big of a no. No. The law said
(02:16):
you couldn't leave them out overnight, But did they really
mean left overnight in the hole you were hunting, or
would it be okay to leave them heading the sack
next to the hole you were hunting. Well, I knew
the answer, but I was willing to take the risk.
If I had a sleeping bag with me and could
have stayed warm, I'd have just laid down in it
(02:36):
and slept until Tim showed up. The next morning we
hunted the woods on clear days. That day had a
few clouds, but not enough to hide the moon, which
was how we navigated the last quarter of a mile
after veering off the trail that headed into the only
open water we could find, and we had it all
to ourselves. It was during the middle of the week.
(02:58):
The college kids were back at school and most folks
were back at work, and believe it or not, there
was four hundred acres of prime flooded Arkansas public timber
that we might as well have just owned ourselves. We
were the only folks hunting. Another reason I decided to
leave the decoys now. I hit them beside a tree
(03:19):
where I'd been standing, and I gathered up my charges
and we lit a shuck for the truck as soon
as the last duck was strapped into our limit. Once
back at the camp, I told Tim I hit the decoys,
and he looked at me like I'd seen him look
at me almost every time I did something stupid. It's
going to be cloudy in the morning, dummy, and it's
my turn to go in early. What if I can't
(03:42):
find them? I wanted to hit him with that iron
skillet he was using to turn a dead hog's belly
into savory strips of bypass surgery. Don't worry about it.
I'll go early again. I know where I'm going, I
know where I left him. Matter of fact, you ain't
even got to go sleep in and have the groceries ready.
We'll be back by ten. And that's how I left it,
(04:05):
and I didn't think about it again until we got
out of the truck The next morning. At the parking lot,
Arkansas was dark as four foot up of bulls behind
total cloud covered. Standing outside, you couldn't see your hand
in front of your face. We had a half a
mile of trail to walk, then we had to go
overland through the woods and a couple of thickets. I'll
(04:25):
find where we walked through the ice and trace our
steps backwards the way we came out. That should work,
but it didn't. Everything had refrozen during the night, and
about four inches of water had fallen out, and nothing
looked the same. Nothing. The small flashlight I had only
kept me from walking into trees. I had no idea
(04:47):
where I was or where I was going. After I
left that trail, headed to where I thought my decoys
and the whole we'd hunted the day before would be.
The hunters behind me didn't have a clue. I was lost,
mainly because I acted like I wasn't. They were paying
me money to know what I was doing, so even
if I didn't, I was going to act like we
(05:10):
should be there. But now I thought that the waterfall
out had changed everything so much, I wasn't sure what
planet I was on, much less what unmarked location I
was trying to find on a wildlife management area that
I was currently wandering around then with a group of
men who were following behind me like they were sold
to my breeches. Finally one of them spoke up, how
(05:32):
much further? Oh, it's right up here, We're not far.
I shared the light up in front of me, trying
to locate a gap in the timber big enough to
look similar to a hole that we could maybe coke
some ducks down into once it got light enough to
see there, right there, about forty yards away, was the
narrowest of holes in the timber. There was nothing closer.
(05:54):
Daylight was only a few minutes away. As we finally
begun to be able to see without the aid of
the only light we had. None of them had brought one,
but there was still one other hurdle to jump. All
the water in the hole I had lucked up on
was frozen almost solid. I placed my hunters around in
(06:17):
a semicircle where they were going to be standing once
the shooting started, if there was going to be any
and I began to monkey stomp that ice until oblivia
I broke through the to find the water below was
only deep enough to cover the toe of my boot.
With all the fallen leaves taking up the space and
the water between the bottom of the ice and the
(06:37):
top of the earth, I wanted to be someplace else.
If I hadn't hid them decoys and brought them out
like I was supposed to, I would be someplace else,
and Tim would be dealing with this fiasco right now
instead of laying in his warm bed sleeping the sleep
of the guiltless. I quickly prayed he'd went the bed.
(06:57):
Then I had the idea to kill all the wet
leaves of mud up on the ice, making it resemble open, dark,
muddy water in a sea of light colored iesed up
muddy water. I was feeling good about what I'd managed
to conjure up out of literally nothing, when one of
those cats asked, are we not going to use the decoys? Now?
(07:20):
With all the confidence I could muster, I told them, now,
we don't need them. I'm gonna put them right in
through that small hole in the trees, and by the
time they figure out that that ain't water, they'll be
close enough for us to shoot them in the lips.
They seemed excited and couldn't wait to see what was
about to happen. I couldn't either, but I knew one
thing for sure. What I told them was fixing to
(07:42):
happen was probably the furthest thing that was actually gonna happen.
As it grew lighter, I glanced around for the decoy
as I stood by my clients, I looked around for
anything that might actually tell me where we were. The
only thing I saw was my hunters. Though as inexperienced
as they were, I could tell they weren't exactly smelling
(08:04):
what I was stepping in. I heard a few whispers
back and forth as I stomped and kicked more muddy
leaves up on top of that thick ice. I couldn't
tell what they were saying, but I knew they wasn't
buying it. At least not yet. Ducks started flying and
I started calling, and I was more surprised. The ducks
looked like they were trying to find a spot to
(08:26):
light in the woods that they knew better than I
did was all frozen up, and yet there they were.
I told them to be stealing and get ready, and
I started calling at a group of ducks, and my
glimpsed passing overhead, and three mallards pitched in through the
top of the trees and hovered over the hole I'd
stomped out in the ice covered with wet, muddy leaves.
(08:48):
We got them all. Twenty minutes later we were high
fiving and picking up our last green head for a
full limit of big ducks over zero decoys with zero
open water. I celebrated with him, but was trying to
be like the great Chicago Bear Walter Payton. When he
scored a touchdown, he just hand the ball back to
(09:10):
the referee and trot off the field. He said, YOA,
act like you've been there before. Well, in my mind
I was moon walking back to the truck and doing backflips.
Those cats thought I was the greatest duck guy in
the world. Walking out from that whole about thirty yards
was the sack of decoys I'd hit the day before.
I didn't even break stride. I scooped him up and
(09:31):
kept walking like I knew right where they was, straight
back to the parking lot. My hunter's walking behind and
reliving the hunt shot by shot and talking about how
we did it without decoys and water. I wasn't the
greatest duck guy in the world, not by a long shot.
I wasn't even the greatest duck guy in our business.
But I was no doubt the luckiest. And that's just
(09:55):
how that happened. Getting lost, turned around, or temporarily disoriented
is something we all take a chance on each time
we leave the house and venture into parts of the unknown,
(10:15):
and knowing how to navigate around and through our surroundings.
It's something we've been doing since the first folks decided
to see what was on the other side of the hill.
Curiosity has done more than kill the cat, as the
old saying goes, on the positive side, it's fuelled uncountable discoveries,
territorial expansion beyond what was thought possible, And on the negative,
(10:37):
unscheduled sight seeing tours of the back forty I figured
there was a lot of that taking place back in
the days of exploring the West. How can you know
where you're going if there's no one there to tell
you where to go, if no one you know's ever
been there before. You can always mark a trail to
where you've been. It's where you're intending to go that
(10:58):
can cause the problems. And I've always been fascinated with
reading maps and using them with a compass to get
around in the woods. Knowing where I am in the
wilderness and being able to point it out on the
map has always been something that I take a lot
of satisfaction in. Being able to read a map is important.
In the days before GPS, it was the two Most
(11:19):
folks that were from where I grew up had their toolbox,
and it was learned in my case from a very
early age. When I was a little boy, my dad
and I would lay on the dog box in the
back of his truck, staring at a cloudless sky while
parked on a Timber company road, waiting on the dogs
to strike. Total darkness surrounded us, and the stars were
(11:42):
clear and bright. He pointed out the Big Dipper and
the Little Dipper and then the north star, which is
the last star in the little Dipper's handle. If you're
looking at that star, you're looking north. East is to
your right, West is to your left, and south is
one about face away. Years later, when my dad got sick,
(12:03):
he was admitted to the hospital and spending what would
be his final forty two days on earth. The value
and the importance to him of the lessons he taught
me way back then became apparent. Night and day kind
of blend into one when you're in and out of
consciousness in a windowless room or one with the shades
constantly closed. The nurses were always good about writing the
(12:28):
day and the day and whether it was am or
pm on a big board with colored markers next to
a clock that faced his bed, and he could see
it whenever he woke up and looked around. During one
of his lucid moments, he looked around the room at
me and my brother Tim, who were standing on each
side of his bed. I saw him look at that
(12:50):
board and then back at us, and he waved his
right index finger back and forth as his hand rested
on top of the covers, his eyes going back and
forth from Tim to me and We could tell he
wanted to know something, but he couldn't speak. We made suggestions,
asking him what it was. He wanted, both of us
trying to decipher what he was trying to say through.
(13:11):
So finally Tim said North is that way and pointed
out the window with his left hand. Dad nodded ever
so slightly, closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
And from then on, regardless of where he was in
that hospital, the nurses or one of us always included
the word north in an arrow pointed in that direction.
(13:35):
Besides the date and the time, I would take those
lessons he taught me as a kid, and expand on
him throughout my life even today. There was one time
in January of nineteen eighty eight when it was most important.
I was in a land navigation course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
(13:55):
At that time of my life, I'd never been as
cold or seen the cold Oklahoma was beating me around
the head and shoulders with There were ten of us
in my group that started from the back of a
deuce and a half truck that we'd been freshly thrown
out of, with a compass and a map and a
list of individual points that we all had to find
on our own. There may have been ten of us
(14:18):
in the group, but we all had different points to
find and an unknown time in whish to complete the evolution.
The map had them pre marked as a dot in
a distance from where we stood. Here's how it worked.
We all had that you are here mark on a map.
This would be in the first of the field exercises.
They at least gave us that as a starting point.
(14:39):
Then from the maps they had us, we had to
find markers scattered over acres of woods in the order
that they were listed on the map. We all had
a different number of points to find that zigzagged across
the course that had followed correctly would have you end
at the corresponding endpoint marked on your map. At each
(15:00):
such reference point was a metal stob that had been
drove in the ground with a brass tag on it
that had an alpha numeric code stamped on it. You
had to write those down before shooting an asthma to
try and locate the next point. They were easy to
miss if you deviated the slightest on your path from
the previous point or miscalculated the distance, because they only
(15:22):
poked up about six inches out of the ground. The
terrain we were in went from open fields that were
grown up with waist high grass and briars to dense woods,
and compounding the problem was there wasn't only just the
markers you were looking for out there, but other markers
in close proximity that were marked differently. If you didn't
(15:44):
walk exactly along the proper asthmas counting the paces from
the previous spot to the next, you could write down
the wrong code when you reached that next point in
the series. You'd wind up back with everyone else eventually.
But if you mark down the incorrect code, you failed course.
If you failed the course, you had to recycle and
do that phase of training all over again. If you
(16:06):
failed the second time, I think that took you out
back and shot you, or worse, made you join the Navy.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I love the Navy. I'm kidding now.
I loved every minute of it, and it was a
great example of the difference between being close and being
right on the money. And it's good to know where
(16:28):
you are in relation to what you're asking other folks
to shoot at, if you know what I mean. There's
all kinds of GPS devices, apps and trackers that are
as common today as that computer camera, television telephone A
bunch of you are listening to me talk on right now,
But that hasn't always been the case. I love the
(16:49):
on X app on my phone. I use it literally
every day for something. I depend on it to help
me navigate. But there was a time, as my daughter
Bailey calls it back then, when those things didn't exist.
Those simple skills are not as common as they used
to be because of the great convenience of technology. But
we owe it to ourselves and our kids and the
(17:12):
new outdoor folks that we should be entering to pass
along the basic skills that will help you get around
in the woods when your computer, camera, television telephone battery dies.
Keep a compass in your pocket and no how it
works and how to use it. In its most simplistic form,
if you walk into an area you're unfamiliar with in
(17:32):
a northerly direction to get back in the vicinity of
where you left from, you know you're gonna have to
walk in a southerly direction. You don't even need a
compass to do that. If the sun is on your
right when you leave, it needs to be on your
left when you return if you're only gone for half
the day. Now, don't be jamming up my email with
(17:53):
what if you left at ten am and came back
at two pm, Galileo, I know the sun would have
to be on the right side. Again, I'm talking in
very general terms here, so take it easy. Look at
a map of the area you're in before you leave
the truck, and orient it with a complaice to where
you are and what direction you want to go. Better, yet,
(18:15):
look at it at home and familiarize yourself with it
before you ever leave the house. The degree of accuracy
of maps online is extremely detailed and manipula to the
point that you can just about see what you'll be
seeing before you load up and go. A physical map
of the area is good to tote in your pocket
as well. It's not that you're gonna need it. It's
(18:38):
all about if you suddenly find out you do you
vetteran backcountry folks know what I'm talking about. Sometimes a
day of hunting in the wilderness can turn into an
overnight stay because of weather or packing out an animal,
or maybe an injury, or, for heaven's sake, battery dies
on your computer, camera, television, telephone. Being prepared, it is
(19:00):
essential an extra pair of socks, a packable sleeping bag
and warm clothes jamming until a day pack doesn't take
up much room, and a compass hanging around your neck.
For sure. Dog, I go overboard when packing for a
trip and take way more than I'll ever need. But
regardless of where I'm going to what I'm doing that
requires me to take things into the field. I have
(19:22):
a minimum a compass in every day pack, backpack and
chest rig I on if I'm talking all three on
a trip, I have them all Three is two, two
is one, and one is none. I googled how to
read a map and added me to either in the
search bar. There were half a dozen great articles on
(19:43):
the media to the website explaining in detail how to do it.
The Bureau of Land Management has an entire free course
on map reading on their website that goes into the
weeds so deep you could plan a mission to Mars
with it. And of course there's always the universe. Thank
give you Tube for video instruction. The main thing is
(20:04):
it's a great tool to have in your toolbox should
you need it. It's also a skill that's being lost
to the convenience of modern technology. And maybe best of all,
it's an activity you can share with you young as
it gets you both outside doing things that doesn't require electricity, batteries, bait,
or even bullets, just a little time and a willingness
(20:27):
to learn. Knowing where north is it's the first step,
and knowing where to take your second. Thank y'all so
much for listening to all of us here on the
Bear Grease channel, as really is something for everyone here
at Mediator, from how to and trivia and music documentary,
(20:48):
kids and this calamity that drops every Friday morning until
next week. This is Brent Reeves. Sign it off, y'all,
be careful to be done. R.
Host
Clay Newcomb
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