Part II
Traveling in the Pathless Woods —
To travel in a straight line by compass, and to keep your bearings regardless of how or where you go, is easy, if the rules I have given are followed; but people do not always know these rules, or for one reason or another they do not observe them. As a result they get lost. What to do in such a case I can’t tell; but one thing that should not be done is to get frightened and travel desperately first in one direction, then in another, always more or less in circles, as men do when they wander aimlessly.
I am a firm believer in that “ounce of prevention” adage, for prevention is better than cure every time. This policy has carried me through hundreds of miles of wilderness without once getting lost. I have never been lost, although many times I have lost my bearings for awhile when traveling in company with somebody who was leading the way, or when trying to travel in unfamiliar country without using the methods I have been describing. I have never gone astray when using a compass, or when traveling by any of the other ways I have mentioned.
A short time ago I was talking about bush travel with a friend and after he had listened to my chatter for awhile he asked, “What would you do if you were to get lost?” “I wouldn’t get lost,” I answered, “for the rules I have been explaining to you are to prevent that and will always do so if followed. I always follow them.” “That sounds all right,” he argued, “but you know people do get lost sometimes and I want to know what a man should do if he gets lost. You say that you first get acquainted with the country near camp, then explore farther, etc., but here now is something different. I go into the woods to hunt deer, with a few fellows. We know nothing of the country and are dependent on our guides. They have led us into camp and we scarcely know how we came. Well, the next day, I set out to look for game, alone, intending to hunt close to camp. I go first this way and then that way, looking at the likely places, and after awhile it dawns on me that I don’t know which direction to go to reach camp. In other words, I am lost. Now what should I do?” I will confess that the question was too much for me. Having never been lost, I had no experience of this kind from which to draw. I recalled stories of people who were lost but couldn’t think of anything that would help a lost man find his way. There are many ways to find the compass points, but when a man doesn’t know what direction he wants to travel, what good is there in knowing which is north and east?
I suggested to my friend that a man would surely always have some point in mind with which he was acquainted and would know approximately which direction this place lay. “If he does he isn’t lost,” he replied. “And even if he knows that the railroad runs north and that he is east of it, the railroad may be fifty or a hundred miles away, while he may be only a mile or two from camp.”
The only practical thing I could suggest was this: When a man suddenly discovers that he has lost his bearings and doesn’t know which way to go to reach camp or familiar ground, he should above all things avoid getting excited and “losing his head.” It is not at all a serious matter and if he will keep cool and use judgment he will come out all right. First let him note carefully his surroundings so he will know the place when he sees it again. Then he can set out in what seems to be the most probable direction to familiar ground, but he must travel in a straight line by the method I described in the last chapter. After traveling a reasonable distance, if no familiar ground is reached he should return to the starting point and try another direction. If all this fails, the various points of the compass having been tried, he should come back to the starting point and camp there until his friends find him. I am presuming that he has lost his bearings under the conditions named by my friend and that he has companions some where not many miles distant. The campfire may help his friends find him and if he fires his gun it may also do some good. It is a very good plan to agree on some sort of a signal to use in case some member of the party loses his way but I know this is seldom done, for nobody cares to let his friends know that he feels the remotest possibility of getting lost. I never leave camp without having with me a good quantity of matches. I always carry a light ax and if the weather is cold I put a blanket in my packsack. Thus, if anything happens to prevent my getting back to camp I am reasonably outfitted for camping out a night.
In my talk about travel by compass I have spoken of keeping direction by the sun and thus doing away to a great extent with frequent reference to the compass. Doubtless the reader has been wondering what he should do on days when the sun is invisible. Fortunately there are few such days unless it is during a rain when of course very little traveling is done. But there are days when fog or clouds obscure the sun for hours and then travel is slow because one must make frequent reference to the compass. The only safe way is to select some conspicuous object in the line of travel each time a compass bearing is taken and to take a new bearing when this object is reached. A dense fog is the worst possible condition for then not only is the sun invisible but one cannot see far enough to choose objective points. I seldom attempt to travel under such conditions but when I do, if I make a half or three-quarters of a mile an hour, providing I have no stream, lake shore or trail to follow, I consider that I am getting along very well. Blinding rain or snow storms also make travel very difficult. I have traveled in a heavy snowstorm by making use of the wind as a guide, in conjunction with the compass. The wind seldom changes during a steady rain or snow storm, and anyway the compass would apprise the wayfarer of a change in the wind before he had gone far out of his course.
There are ways of learning the directions without a compass which may be used in case of emergency. First there is the sun. In theory it rises in the east and sets in the west; but in reality it only behaves so on or very near the equator. As we are in the northern hemisphere the sun is of course south of the east and west line all the time, and in winter it is farther south than in summer, because the earth wabbles back and forth throughout the seasons and the northern portion leans away from the path of the sun in winter. As a consequence the sun rises somewhat south of the east in summer and sets a little south of west. In winter it rises still farther south and its path across the sky is always to the south of us. At noon it is straight south. Thus it will be seen that if one knows approximately the time of day he can easily figure out the compass points. Directions by the sun can be learned with much greater accuracy if one has a watch, for knowing the time of day exactly he should know just how far the sun is from the zenith at that time and thus easily locate the true south. Having found it he has but to face in that direction and the north will then be behind him, the east on his left and the west on his right side.
But there is a much better way of getting the compass directions by means of a watch and it is done in this way. Holding the watch so that the hour hand points to a line perpendicular to the sun, count half way from this hour to twelve and this will be south; in other words half way between the hour hand and the figure twelve is south. Count forward from the hour hand to twelve in the forenoon, but in the afternoon the south is half way between the hour hand and twelve, counting back towards twelve. While I may not have made my point clear I believe that the drawing will convey the idea more distinctly. The time shown is 8 p. m. and with the hour hand pointed towards the sun, south would be midway between 8 and 12 or in line with the figure 10.
When the sun is invisible and no compass or other ordinary means of locating directions is available it is advisable to stay in camp if possible. But it is well to know means of finding directions under such conditions for one never knows what may happen and a little knowledge along this line can do no harm even if it is never used. We sometimes read or hear from woodsmen of such means and usually they are given as safe and reliable methods. But they should never be taken too seriously. For instance we are told that moss grows only on the north side of trees, while the larger branches are on the south side. This is true in a general way but conditions have their effect and the shelter of the other trees or nearby hills may reverse the order more or less. But the fact that the sun’s rays never directly reach the north side of a tree encourages the growth of moss on that side, while the almost constant sunshine by day, on the south side, causes the sap to flow there more vigorously and thus gives a greater growth to the branches on the south side. In prairie country the prevailing wind, usually from the north, will give a permanent incline to the grass, which may help one to locate directions.
It is seldom necessary to travel at night unless in the north when the snow is soft during the day and travel is better at night. But then the traveler usually has a snowshoe trail to follow or he will have some other way of keeping his directions. If not he can travel by the north star in the same way that he keeps his bearings by the sun during the day. The difference is that the north star does not move across the sky as does the sun, and it is always in the north. To find this star first locate the group which constitute what is commonly known as the dipper. The two stars forming the side of the bowl farthest from the handle are in line with the north star and it is above the open side or top of the dipper bowl.
I have remarked that a man traveling without guidance of any kind always moves in a circle and I think the readers are all well acquainted with this fact. I don’t know why we do so, but one theory is that one leg is longer than the other and naturally takes a longer step. Others think the trouble is caused by one leg being stronger than the other. But whatever the cause it is a fact that a man wandering aimlessly in the woods will in a short time cross his own trail. This fact was never brought home to me so forcibly as one time when I tried to travel without a compass on a cloudy day. It was early spring and I was traveling on snowshoes, so there was no danger of getting lost, for I had my trail to follow back to camp. I was trying to travel south and was setting a line of traps. I had traveled quite a distance straight south as I supposed when I saw before me a fresh snowshoe trail. I thought at once that some Indian trapper must have invaded my trapping ground. I stepped into the trail and was surprised to find that my snowshoes fitted perfectly into the tracks; then the truth dawned upon me — I had been traveling in a circle. Feeling very foolish I started forward again, resolved to keep a straight course. I found the place where I had made the first turn to the right and here I left the trail and started south again. After traveling perhaps a half mile I again saw a fresh trail ahead and knew at once that I had made another circle. Once more I attempted to strike a straight course south and I traveled the remainder of the way without completing a circle. When the time came to return to camp I had just one trap left and I set it at the end of the trail in a ravine which led down from a hillside. A few days later when I went to look at the traps I climbed to the top of the hill where I had set the last trap, a distance of about 100 yards, and was very much surprised to see below me the lake on which my camp was situated, and the cabin itself not more than a mile away.
To travel straight by that questionable sense known as instinct is absolutely impossible, notwithstanding the stories we hear of Indians, foresters and others who habitually travel this way. Instinct is a very unreliable guide and something more tangible is needed. So when you hear stories of a man who can go anywhere and find his way without failure from one part of the woods to another, it may be wise to pretend credulity, but you may be sure that the story teller is either elaborating or his hero has a very thorough knowledge of the woods and a very reliable, altogether scientific method of keeping his bearings.
The surest way to get lost is to try to travel on strange ground without any guidance whatever, and this is perhaps most easily accomplished by letting some other person lead the way until you have completely lost your bearings. It is a strange fact that few people pay any attention to where they are going if somebody else leads the way and this probably results in more cases of people losing their bearings than all other things combined. I have lost all sense of direction in a very short time by letting some other person lead the way, and this in a farming community. Another easy way to get lost is to follow a game trail, for in such cases the trail and the probability of sighting the game so interests and completely fill one’s thoughts that he seldom gives any thought to directions or distance traveled.
To sum up the whole matter of bush travel, one thing stands out as being of the utmost importance and that is to keep the compass points constantly in mind and at the same time have familiar ground from which to start operations. With these two essentials there will be no worry about getting lost to mar one’s pleasure and he can travel anywhere he chooses in the big woods.