Wildwood  Trackers

September 29, 2002
 Study Group: Tracking
(Photos and report by Walter Muma)
 

On Sunday Sept 29, six people met at Walter & Julie's to do some tracking exercises.

For more information about Tracking, please visit the Wildwood Survival website.

  

The tracking box was raked out the day before in the morning, and half was re-raked the evening before our meeting.

The re-raked portion is in the foreground.

We spent the first part of the morning examining what had gone on in the box during the preceding day and night.

  

Then we spent some time examining our own human tracks, as various people walked through the tracking box under different scenarios.

Here we are comparing the tracks of one person who walked through the box unburdened (left) and then carrying a weight (right).

 

 

  

We then watched a movie over lunch: The Great Dance. This is an excellent movie about the bushmen trackers of the Kalahari. These trackers can actually run down the Kudu -- an antelope-like animal of the plains -- running for as long as four hours without stopping!

From The Great Dance...

"You think how hard Kudu is working. You feel it in your own body. You see it in the footprints. She is with you and your legs are not so heavy. When you feel Kudu is with you, you are now controlling its mind. Its eyes are no longer wild. You have taken Kudu into your mind. As it tires you become strong. You take its energy. Your legs become free. You run fast like yesterday."

"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."

  

Then we went out to a nearby wild area to find some tracks, trails, and possibly do some cordage.

  

We found a nice meadow of grown over grass, with a myriad of vole tunnels running through it.

Here we also did some trail analysis - analyzing why a trail takes the route that it does.

  

Examining rabbit trails, lay areas, and so on under a white pine on the edge of the meadow.

  

We did some work with cordage. However, it was a bit early in the season for this. 

We were able to make some decent cordage from last year's burdock stalks, and a little bit from this year's dogbane and milkweed.

 

A beautiful fall day. Balmy and breezy, with the fall colours just starting.
 
For more information about Tracking, please visit the Wildwood Survival website.

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