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Dog Appeasing Pheromone

 

Last year my wife and I adopted a dog from someone that was moving and could no longer keep him.  In the past I had always had a dog and it had been a number of years since I had been in a situation where I could have one, and we both looked forward to Lincoln arriving in our home.  Every animal has its peculiar quirks and it was immediately apparent to us that he had not had the best life up until the point he entered ours.  Although he had a very loving and cuddling personality, there was also fear and anxiety – and he had apparently not been out in the world much.   My thought at the time was he would snap out of both of those with encouragement, patience and time.  We worked with the dog and bonded quickly.  Although a mix his appearance was predominantly yellow lab and when I first took him to water it was apparent that it was his first encounter, and he was scared of it.  After a few weeks he would drink out of open water – but he was sure to keep all of his feet on dry land and do a long stretch to get his drink.  Being summer with some encouragement from getting in myself we got him to enter the water – it was funny that he actually tried to walk on it by lifting his feet up out of the water with each step and within a couple of months he took his first swim – I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he seemed to “get it” and with a leap of faith pushed off the safety of the rock to swim to me.

We assumed he had been around someone with a temper – any swear word or dropped object would send him into another room.  He also had what I would call a mild case of separation anxiety which waxed and waned some.  At first, he would pull out our winter gloves and hats and leave them around the house, and when I moved those to a location he couldn’t reach he began targeting books and magazines to chew.  I closed off his access to the books, and left an old magazine out each days for him to chew – there were days he would opt to chew it and days that he wouldn’t.   Over the past year he has made improvements in getting his self esteem and being bolder.

Then, about a month ago we had a big setback.  The dog had been active most of the day with a couple of walks and a long ride in the car and when we got in he went to his bed for a nap.  We had the oven on for supper and unfortunately it touched off the smoke alarm.  It had gone off before without inducing any problems in the dog but this particular time was different and it scared him badly – for about an hour afterwards he had symptoms of panic – visible shaking, drooling, and panting and not consolable.  After that incident things changed – instead of sitting with us on the couch at night like he used to he would pick one of his two beds to lie in.  He would come out to eat but warily and eyeing the ceiling as he did so.  We have neighbors that like to shoot off fireworks, and while they never bothered him before, they began to visibly bother him.  I was worried as all the gains we had seen were rapidly deteriorating and the days where he didn’t opt to chew the magazine I’d leave out for him were becoming few and far between.  I was looking at the web for suggestions and a path to resolution when I came across dog appeasing pheromone.   I was very skeptical of the product, especially with some people claiming it was great, and some claiming it was not.  I read a few studies of the product, one of which you can find here.    Essentially what DAP does is mimics the pheromone given off by a lactating mother and has a calming and securing  affect on the dog.  Studies have shown it to be effective in separation anxiety, fear of thunder and lightning, and excessive barking problems.  I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot – it’s available in diffusers, collars, and sprays.  I purchased a room diffuser and put it in the room he spends the most time in.   After several hours I took him out for his afternoon walk and upon returning home he made his usual beeline to his bed while I made supper.  After we ate something unusual happened – he slowly came out of his room and joined us on the couch – something he hadn’t done since the “incident”.  He was happier, less anxious, more playful..in short we had our old dog back.  Over the next few days the separation anxiety stopped as well.  It seems by reviews I’ve read online that DAP works for some and not so well for others – I gave it a shot and it worked for us.

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How Beaver Stole Fire

Once, before there were any people in the world, the different animals and trees, lived and moved about and talked together just like human beings. The pine trees had the secret of fire and guarded it jealously, so that no matter how cold it was, they alone could warm themselves. At length an unusually cold winter came and all the animals were in danger of freezing to death. But all their attempts to discover the pines’ secret were in vain, until Beaver at last hit upon a plan.

At a certain place on Grande Ronde River in Idaho, the pines were about to hold a great council. They had built a large fire to warm themselves after bathing in the icy water, and sentinels were posted to prevent intruders from stealing their fire secret. But Beaver had hidden under the bank near the fire before the sentries had taken their places and when a live coal rolled down the bank, he seized it, hid it in his breast and ran away as fast as he could.

The pines immediately raised a hue and cry and started after him. Whenever he was pressed, Beaver darted from side to side to dodge his pursuers, and when he had a good start, he kept a straight course. The Grande Ronde River preserves the direction Beaver took in his flight, and this is why it is tortuous in some parts of its course and straight in others.

After running for a long time, the pines grew tired. So most of them halted in a body on the river banks, where they remain in great numbers to this day, forming a growth so dense that hunters can hardly get through. A few pines kept chasing Beaver, but they finally gave out one after another, and they remain scattered at intervals along the banks of the river in the places where they stopped.

There was one cedar running in the forefront of the pines, and although he despaired of capturing Beaver, he said to the few trees who were still in the chase, “We can’t catch him, but I’ll go to the top of the hill yonder and see how far ahead he is.” So he ran to the top of the hill and saw Beaver just diving into Big Snake River where the Grande Ronde enters it. Further pursuit was out of the question. The cedar stood and watched Beaver dart across Big Snake River and give fire to some willows on the opposite bank, and recross farther on and give fire to the birches and so on to several other kinds of trees. Since then, all who have wanted fire have got it from these particular trees because they have fire in them and give it up readily when their wood is rubbed together in the ancient way.

Cedar still stands alone on the tip of the hill where he stopped, near the junction of Grande Ronde and Big Snake rivers. He is very old, so old that his top is dead, but he still stands as a testament to the story’s truth. That the chase was a very long one is shown by the fact that there are no cedars within a hundred miles upstream from him. The old people point him out to the children as they pass by. “See,” the say, “here is old Cedar standing in the very spot where he stopped chasing Beaver.”

Based on an account in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, 1890.

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Why Dog Stays with Man

One of my first experiences with a dog was my neighbor’s dog taffy – when I was five  I followed him into the woods and I got lost.  I managed to find my way out, but not before giving my parents some considerable grief as to my whereabouts.   My grandfather always had a beagle, and the beagle was always named Bullet after the dog in the Snuffie Smith comic strip in the paper which was his favorite.  I wasn’t allowed to have a dog as a kid but when I was old enough I got a beagle and named him Bullet – actually his full name was HEF Bullets Legacy after my grandfather and his dogs.  I wanted to hunt rabbits with him and I joined a Beagle club here in Maine.  The club had two 50 acre enclosures where they had field trials and you could take your dog in to train.  Bullet quickly learned the art of running a snowshoe hare, and I love to watch and hear him do it.  You could tell by his visual clues and sound how “hot” (close) the scent was.  We’d begin by me telling him to “hunt ‘em up, where’s the rabbit” and he’d circle in and out of the thickets with his nose loudly searching for scent (if you’ve had a scent dog you know what I’m talking about) Suddenly he’d find something interesting and would pause tail erect and take it all in and then in quick steps search around for more scent until he picked up a trail.  The would go on in fits and starts until suddenly the tail would go from erect to a wag – the faster the wag the hotter the scent until it got hot enough for that first bay – a high barrooo — beagles are pack dogs and are judged by how they hark in to that first bark.  The bays would continue as long as the scent was good, increasing to a chop (or almost a scream)  in intensity if the rabbit got into sight or was really close.  I used to get out ahead and watch for the rabbit – it was funny some of them seemed to love the chase as much as the dog by seeming to tease them – the rabbit would sit with it’s ears twitching until the last possible moment, in sight of the dog, before running way ahead of it.  Others stayed on the move at an easy pace.  Being the youngest member of the club I was selected to be the guy during the field trials that picked up the dogs that had been selected by the judges to be picked out of the final “pack”.  Each dog had a number on it and I would have to go running along with the pack in the thickets to find the right dog and bring him back to his owner.  Participants in the trial are allowed to sit in a gallery and not allowed to talk to their dog or leave the gallery.  I can remember one field trial when the rabbit ran almost right through the gallery and we were all waiting to see our dog and who was the first dog out of the woods?  Ole Bullet popped out, let out a tremendous bay and ran through us quickly followed by the pack.  One of my proudest moments.  But I digress – this story is about dogs, not beagle field trials.

I’ve had the privilege over the years of having several breeds of dogs each with their own quirks and mannerisms.  I remember one particular winter years ago of sliding down parts of a mountain with Spencer the Great Dane who got a tremendous thrill out of the activity and would run up to slide again, or “fishing” with Tucker the Dogue de Bordeau who loved to chase leeches and fish, although he never did catch one.

Years ago I was in a situation where I had to give away my dog.  It was heartbreaking for me and I have never fully forgiven myself for having to do it, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a dog. Though I’ve often thought of having another I began to give it serious thought a while back.  It was very important to me to adopt one from someone that was in a similar situation as I had found myself years ago.  I’ve read that dogs have a way of “finding” their owners and Lincoln found us via an afterthought checking ads one day and reading of someone that had to give their dog up.

He’s fit in wonderfully and is smart, playful, and quick to learn.  He’s shy/timid in new situations but gains confidence with encouragement quickly.  I suspect that’s because he wasn’t exposed to a lot when he was a puppy -on our first trip to water he didn’t dare to get his paws wet stretching his neck out over the water to get a drink – but since then with lots of trips to water and lots of encouragement it was so much fun to watch him “get it” and take his first swim instead of trying to walk on the water.  He has a particular and singular hatred for red squirrels – I’m not sure what one ever did to him other that run away, but he is rather obsessive about sniffing them out and trying to get them…he’s taught himself well too, he’s pretty efficient at finding them.  In the video below towards the end he gets distracted from chasing a bone to sniff out a squirrel.

I’ve read that in the afterlife you will see/interact with the dogs you have had in your life.  I suspect it is based on an old Metis legend of why dogs stay with man, which you can read here;

Why Dog Stays with Man

I trust my log will be steady.  These old legends have been told/lasted a long time.  You never know if they’re indeed true.

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Panic

 

Like the brake and the accelerator being floored at the same time.

That’s the best definition I’ve ever seen for what panic is like.  Although the duration of a panic attack can vary greatly, it typically lasts for more than 10 minutes, is one of the most distressing conditions that a person can experience, and its symptoms can closely mimic those of a heart attack. Typically, most people who have one attack will have others, and when someone has repeated attacks with no other apparent physical or emotional cause, or feels severe anxiety about having another attack, he or she is said to have panic disorder.  The Ancient Greeks blamed the woodland sprite, Pan, for panic. He would follow people through the forest, causing frightening rustling noises in the bushes until the travelers would be running blindly in fear, resulting in cuts, scrapes, and contusions.  Today, we know panic as “ a discrete period of intense fear or discomfort that is accompanied by at least 4 of 13 somatic or cognitive symptoms… often accompanied by a sense of imminent danger or impending doom and an urge to escape…or desire to flee from wherever the attack is occurring.”  These symptoms include;

  1. palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate
  2. sweating
  3. trembling or shaking
  4. sensations of shortness of breath or smothering
  5. feeling of choking
  6. chest pain or discomfort
  7. nausea or abdominal distress
  8. feeling dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded, or faint
  9. derealization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself)
  10. fear of losing control or going crazy
  11. fear of dying
  12. paresthesias (numbness or tingling sensations.
  13. chills or hot flushes

Typically what happens is you have a distressing panic attack and it scares you so much that you begin consciously or unconsciously “monitoring” for all or one of the above symptoms, and whether real or imagined you are so afraid of having another that the symptoms manifest themselves, your monitoring brain picks up on and your off to another episode of panic.

I know this because I have panic disorder.  They say that we all have something to live/deal with in life and panic happens to be mine.  I’ve felt what its like to die hundreds of times.  Interestingly while jotting down notes to talk to the doctor about I apparently have a pattern of attacks every 5 or 6 years.   I remember my first one vividly but thinking back through the years it really wasn’t the first – it was just the first one without a specific reason.  For example I can remember meeting the Dean of Forestry in the University I went to while I was still in high school and I remember being so anxious and nervous during that meeting that I was unable to really listen to what he was saying to me.  But, it went away when I left, which for me is the key difference to actual panic – you have a primary need to escape what situation you’re in and yet when you do the panic tells you to escape the new situation – in affect there is no escape.

My first panic attack was August of 1989.  It happened the day after I rushed a friend to the hospital who had cut themselves with a razor blade and there was blood everywhere.  When the Dr. asked me if I wanted to watch it get sewn up I said sure – and immediately fainted when he spread the cut open.  Panic arrived the next day without any warning while I was a passenger in a car and was acute, severe, and debilitating.  I remember sitting up and saying “WTF is going on!!”  It felt like the brake and the accelerator inside me were being floored at the same time.  It left me debilitated and worried, and I soon had another, and then another and quickly spiraled out of control.  I finally sought help and through a combination of drugs and therapy I was able to recover.

For me it was particularly confusing because I usually listen to what my body and brain are telling me – for example I was once camping on the upper Allagash River in Maine with a couple of friends.  The trip we had planned down the river to the take out at Allagash Village had taken a lot longer than we had planned and when we arrived it was nearly dark and spitting rain.  We decided to stash the canoes there, drive back to camp, and pick them up in the morning.  While walking the canoe into the underbrush I had a clear image of a wasp nest appear in my mind with the feeling of worry and upon stopping noticed that had I taken one more step forward I would have stepped on a very large wasp nest.  I think these sort of things happen to us more that we think of or are conscious of and for me it was very confusing to have my brain tell me there was danger when there wasn’t any.   One of the things I learned over the years was for those who suffer panic at one time in your life, usually when you were young, panic helped you in some way.  I thought about that for a long time, and one night it popped into my head when it was that panic helped.  I was about 5 or 6 and my parents had let me walk downtown from our house alone for the first time, a freedom that I relished and did not want to lose.  Halfway through the ~ 1/2 mile walk somebody’s loose dog ran to me and began barking loudly behind me.   I was terrified as the dog and I were about the same height, and I panicked.  I turned around looked that dog in the eye and drawing from the primeval force within all of us I began barking at the dog and advancing towards him…the dog began to back up and I intensified my vocal tirade until he turned tail and ran, with me chasing him.  Psychologically speaking I suspect that was the seed that grew into later episodes in life. The disorder also runs in families, and my maternal grandmother had it.

What to do if you have a panic attack?

Rational thought goes out the window when you are in the middle of an acute panic attack.  But try to tell yourself that it can’t hurt you.   Panic is characterized by racing thoughts that fuel the attack like a breeze to a forest fire and you’ll want to tell yourself that this isn’t panic – I’m dying, I’m having a stroke, call 911….but it’s panic, and it can’t hurt you.  Your  sympathetic nervous system, fueled by adrenaline has highjacked your parasympathetic nervous system…to get it back  – breath.  Concentrate — breath in (1234) hold it (1234), and let it out (1234).

Obviously if you’ve never had a panic attack before you need to get checked by a doctor to be sure that it isn’t a medical condition and be sure that you’re really not having a heart attack.

It never ceases to amaze me all the things that I do that would cause others anxiety and yet still have this disease.  How is it I can race down a Class III drop in a canoe and a month later perhaps not be able to drive a car?  It’s all in how you think I guess.  A large percentage of alcoholic are self medicating for anxiety….and for me, a couple of drinks at night shuts down my brain so I can sleep.   Benzodiazepines work well for me to get back on track when panic has thrown me off kilter.

I guess I’m writing about this because after a panic free 6 years,  I had a massive one last week.  I knew what it was, and that has helped me in recovering….I haven’t had a major second one..but I have had lots of little ones.  The last few episodes over the years a few days of benzodiazepines put me back on track and free from panic.  It’s like a reset – the panic happens and you’re off kilter…a few days on being back on kilter through the help of medication resets the brain into normalcy.

If you suffer from panic disorder know that you’re not alone – there are plenty of people that have it, and plenty of people that have it that won’t admit it. It happens to the best of us and you can recover from it and continue to do all the things you want to do.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Miracle of Vitamin D

 

It’s just part of getting older!  That was my answer for subtle issues that were going on in my life.   Several years ago I started to put on a few pounds…weight that I got serious about trying to shed last year and despite biking many miles a week and watching what I ate I never lost more than a pound.  But hey – just part of getting older, not smoking, and a slower metabolism right?  Other issues were elevated triglycerides, lower energy levels, and a whole host of other small things that you notice but don’t pay much attention to.  Then, this past winter, on New Years Day specifically, I had the pleasure of having a back spasm.  Interestingly during the day I would be fine, but a few hours after falling asleep at night it would spasm and wake me up.  I tried all the usual tricks of cold, heat, ibuprofen etc etc, but after 4 days of little sleep I ended up going to the Dr.  I had full range of movement without pain so I was sent home with muscle relaxants and pain meds and told to come back in a week if it still hurt.  Neither of the meds helped me and I continued on the waking up with pain schedule.  I found it interesting that ibuprofen worked better than the prescription meds telling me that there was some sort of swelling or inflammation going on.  After a week I went back and the advice I received this time was to take more pills and shop for a new bed.  This advice wasn’t satisfactory to me and I went to see a new Dr – a DO this time instead of an MD.  During the time frame the spasm stopped but the pain migrated to my lower back and surrounding across my hips to the point that after sitting for a while it was hard to stand up and I would have to walk hunched over.  I felt like I was in my eighties, and started to think about all the things that I wasn’t going to be able to do anymore.  When I finally got in to see the DO she knew exactly how to contort me to cause pain and diagnosed me as having sacroiliac (SI) joint pain.  I went through a battery of tests with an afterthought being checking my vitamin D levels.  Everything came back normal with the exception of the vitamin D which was extremely low…. Vitamin D??  What??  Me???  I’m outside in the sun all the time..I was extremely surprised.   I went on a ibuprofen and prescription vitamin D regimen and instantly saw results.  Amazingly the first positive result was my mood – turns out vitamin D can make you happy.   It’s also a possible cause in chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia patients.   I figured I had probably been deficient for years.    Now several months down the road I’ve dropped over 10 pounds, my SI joint pain is by and large gone, and my triglycerides are lower.  The miracle of vitamin D.   So, even if you’re in the sun a lot, if you live in a region that has diminished sunlight in the winter and you’re feeling that something isn’t quite right take the time to have your vitamin D levels checked – you may be surprised.

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The Mystique of the Woods

There is still a mystique associated with the deep woods today largely unchanged from those of our ancestors.  I had the thought after reading a recent newspaper article that a fugitive that remains at large in a city or town is by and large reviled, and yet should they instead run for the woods and be successful in not getting caught for their crime they often attain support instead of criticism, and are usually the subject of large scale interest.

Take the case of Eric Rudolph for instance – remember him?  Wanted for abortion clinic bombings and the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta he ran for the woods – outfoxing a 24 million dollar manhunt and a 1 million dollar bounty for several years and described as a latter day version of North Carolinas legendary hermits and hunters.    And yet instead of being seen as the criminal he was you could buy t-shirts and coffee mugs at the time that said “run Rudolph run”.

Think about it – what book would you be interested in reading more – the story of Ted Kaczynski or Tim McVeigh?

In more recent news a survivalist living in the woods of Utah has been breaking into remote cabins during the winter months and stealing alcohol, coffee, and other items for the past five years.  What garnered the news story was a motion activated camera that caught the one and only picture known of the perpetrator, and generating lots of interest and speculation as to what his story is -Mountain Man invades camps.

And yet if he was doing that in a suburban neighborhood think about how different the story would be…when you look at the comments on the news reports about the guy some of them amount to – what’s the big deal?  It’s a tax for being able to have a cabin there.  As one commenter put it “A guy robs a house in a suburb and he’s a criminal…a guy robs a house on a mountain and some people in this forum act like he’s a folk hero. Such bizarre logic.”

It will be interesting to find out what his story is when he eventually gets caught.

Update -Mountain Man caught

On the positive side of the spectrum look at the interest still generated by Thoreau today for going in to the woods to “live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

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The River Why

Do not believe anything
because it is said by an authority,
or if it is said to come from angels,
or from Gods,
or from an inspired source.

Believe it only if you have explored it
in your own heart
and mind and body
and found it to be true.

Guatama Buddha

Years ago I read a book called The River Why and I was instantly struck by several paragraphs in the book that I have remembered to this day.   It’s not a casual read, although on the surface it is book about fly fishing, over time the reader discovers that although the story is about fly fishing,  the book is not about fly fishing at all, rather fishing  is a metaphor for a much deeper story.  It’s a fascinating book, and now that I am thinking about it again (and knowing I now have to re-read it) I realize I have at moments throughout my life reflected on the stories in the book.  It’s a book about the discovery of life itself, and that is what makes it powerful.

What struck me about the book is when Gus, the protagonist, is looking for self discovery and compares and contrasts his attempt to achieve a “vision” with that of a Native American Tillamook becoming a man.  They are quite moving words..take your time to read them..I have actually  used them when I was tired..when I was cold…you can substitute any situation you need to overcome in your life similar to the name game song from the 50′s..

When a young Tillamook was ready for manhood, he was led to the fire by the elders.  He was made naked.  His boyhood name was taken and burned.  The people of his village then closed around him like trees round a clearing.  He was given a blanket, a knife, and a pine knot.  The pine knot was lit.  He took the knot and departed; his people sang him away.  The nameless boy carried his knot into the mountains.  He walked slowly, protecting the flame from wind or rain as if it were his soul, shielding it with the blanket, moving inland for as long as it burned.  The knot burned long; he had to walk far.  When the knot burned low he found the nearest stream.  He made a camp, gathered wood, lit a fire before the knot could die….

The Tillamook lit his fire and huddled down beside it.  Then he waited. The night came on.  He paid it no heed.  He knew he’d be waiting a long time.  He’d nothing to eat.  He’d no clothes but a blanket.  He felt the cold, the hunger, the loneliness.  He knew he’d be feeling these things. These things were not so important now.  He had come to meet them, to journey past them.  So, as each came in turn,  the Tillamook greeted them;  Ah; Hunger!  You have come.  Good.  Sit down by the fire.  Sit down in my belly.  Twist and writhe, make awful faces.  Good!  But how my belly growls at you.  How it complains!  Go ahead belly, go ahead hunger; fight!  To fight each other is your work.  Me, I am not hungry.  To fight with you is not my work.  You will both grow tired.  You will leave me in peace….

The Tillamook stayed by his fire.  Cold sneaked up behind him and gnawed his back and legs, so he turned them  to the fire; then cold gnawed his face and knees.  He turned first one way, and then the other, but it gnawed his shadowed side.  Ah cold! You are here. Good. Sit down by the fire.  Sit down in my shadow and make awful faces. Gnaw at my skin and bones.  But how my skin and bones fight you! Go ahead cold, go ahead bones; fight! You will grow tired.  But I am not cold; I am not bones or skin; I am not tired and to fight you is not my work. You will leave me in peace….You will leave me in peace….

If you’ve ever been in The Boy Scouts, and been inducted into the Order of the Arrow, you can see at least some of the similarities to the story of the young Tillamook, and the three honors of the Order of the Arrow.

The book is also very humorous, and it does help if you are familiar with fishing and some of the long standing arguments in fishing – for example, Gus’s Mother only uses bait, and his Dad only uses flies. The story of how they met, and how Gus meets his love are also very funny.  The book is a story about fishing, love, philosophy, self discovery, and life.  It’s amazing to me that the author can relate through Gus fishing on a stream  everything in life.

 

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Alone in the Wilderness Dick Proenneke

 

DESTINATION-  BACK AND BEYOND

 

 

I have often thought about what I would do out here if I were stricken with a serious illness, if I broke a leg, cut myself badly, or had an attack of appendicitis. Almost as quickly as the thought came, I dismissed it. Why worry about something that isn’t? . . . I have thought briefly about getting caught in rock slides or falling from a rock face. If that happened, I would probably perish on the mountain in much the same way many of the big animals do. I would be long gone before anyone found me. My only wish is that folks wouldn’t spend a lot of time searching. When the time comes for a man to look his Maker in the eye, where better could the meeting be held than in the wilderness?

If you have never come across the name Richard Proenneke (May 4, 1916-April 28, 2003), and there is a part of you that listens to the Wilderness calling, if you yearn for the way life should be, and enjoy the comfort of a hearth in a cabin on a snowy night, then you will probably be interested in his story.

Dick was born in Iowa, and spent time as a carpenter in the Navy during which he contracted rheumatic fever, and was bedridden for almost 6 months, vowing after to spend the rest of his life working on the strength and health of his body.   After being discharged, he went to school and became a very adept diesel mechanic – his skill were well known and sought after in Kodiak Alaska where he had eventually moved.  Dick’s heart was captured by the wildness of Alaska.  In the spring of 1967, a contractor that Dick was working for was under pressure to hire only union men – Dick always felt he was his own man, and he did the job he had to do without worrying about the hours or conditions.  It was the excuse he needed to plan his retirement at Twin Lakes, and at 51 Dick headed into the Wild and never looked back.

I was here to test myself,  not that I had never done it before, but this time it was going to be a more thorough and lasting examination.

It would be a tough argument  to win to find a person on earth that was more hardcore than Dick Proenneke.  I can imagine one bit of his experience as I’ve built my own cabin from scratch using wood from the surrounding property, but I had the benefit of a chain saw. Dick did it all by hand, including a stone hearth and chimney.  One thing that I found amazing when reading the book is that not only did he use only hand tools, to save on weight he only packed in the axe heads and other steel items and built the handles after he got there.  Who does that????  It would be such a daunting task for me I would certainly quickly feel overwhelmed to think that I had to build my axe handle before starting to build my cabin.

Thankfully Dick kept a journal of all of his activities which is now a book “One Man’s Wilderness”  and shot lots and lots of film, which is now a movie ” Alone in the Wilderness”, both of which are available at the end of this post.  I am so thankful that he had the forethought to know that there are many of us that would relish and envy his life.

The book begins with one of my favorite poems by Robert Service – I’m Scared of it All;

I’m scared of it all, God’s truth! so I am;
It’s too big and brutal for me.
My nerve’s on the raw and I don’t give a damn
For all the “hoorah” that I see.
I’m pinned between subway and overhead train,
Where automobillies swoop down:
Oh, I want to go back to the timber again –
I’m scared of the terrible town.

I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains;
My rivers that flash into foam;
My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns;
My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome.
My forests packed full of mysterious gloom,
My ice-fields agrind and aglare:
The city is deadfalled with danger and doom –
I know that I’m safer up there.

I watch the wan faces that flash in the street;
All kinds and all classes I see.
Yet never a one in the million I meet,
Has the smile of a comrade for me.
Just jaded and panting like dogs in a pack;
Just tensed and intent on the goal:
O God! but I’m lonesome — I wish I was back,
Up there in the land of the Pole.

I wish I was back on the Hunger Plateaus,
And seeking the lost caribou;
I wish I was up where the Coppermine flows
To the kick of my little canoe.
I’d like to be far on some weariful shore,
In the Land of the Blizzard and Bear;
Oh, I wish I was snug in the Arctic once more,
For I know I am safer up there!

I prowl in the canyons of dismal unrest;
I cringe — I’m so weak and so small.
I can’t get my bearings, I’m crushed and oppressed
With the haste and the waste of it all.
The slaves and the madman, the lust and the sweat,
The fear in the faces I see;
The getting, the spending, the fever, the fret –
It’s too bleeding cruel for me.

I feel it’s all wrong, but I can’t tell you why –
The palace, the hovel next door;
The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky,
The crush and the rush and the roar.
I’m trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt;
I cower in the crash and the glare;
Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt,
For I know that it’s safer up there!

I’m scared of it all: Oh, afar I can hear
The voice of my solitudes call!
We’re nothing but brute with a little veneer,
And nature is best after all.
There’s tumult and terror abroad in the street;
There’s menace and doom in the air;
I’ve got to get back to my thousand-mile beat;
The trail where the cougar and silver-tip meet;
The snows and the camp-fire, with wolves at my feet;
Good-bye, for it’s safer up there.

To be forming good habits up there;
To be starving on rabbits up there;
In your hunger and woe,
Though it’s sixty below,
Oh, I know that it’s safer up there!

In 1998 Dick entrusted his cabin and cache to the Park Service, after spending some 30 years alone in the Alaskan Wilderness.  What an adventure it must have been.  The Park Service is maintaining it as a historic site, and there was an agreement that he could return to stay in his cabin anytime he wished.

Dick lived out the last years of his life with his brother in California, and passed on Easter Sunday 2oo3 at the age of 87, reportedly from a stroke.

An amazing man, and an amazing life…thankfully he allowed us to share some of it.


 

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The Story of Hugh Glass

 

Buried in the annals of American history is the amazing survival story of Hugh Glass.   For me, it ranks up in the top ten alongside stories like that of Ernest Shackleton,Touching the Void,and Beck Weathers.   Interestingly though  is that it doesn’t seem to be as famous as the other death defying  against all odds survival stories out there.

Not much is known about the early life of Hugh and is awash in lots of speculation.  Most accounts of his early life agree that he was born in Pennsylvania, sometime around 1783.  As a young man working as a seaman he was captured by the pirate Jean Lafitte and was forced into piracy, escaping by swimming to shore in 1818 near Galveston Texas.  He managed to avoid the hostile Karankawa Indians, but was finally captured by the Pawnee. They “adopted” him and taught him about living in the wilderness.

William Ashley of the newly formed Rocky Mountain Fur Company placed an ad looking for mountain men to journey up the Missouri River in the hope of establishing fur trade routes, and Hugh was one of the party in that venture .   One morning as Hugh was picking berries away from the main party he surprised a female grizzly bear with cubs, and was severely attacked.  He managed to fire point blank with his Hawken rifle, but the shot did not kill the bear and he had to repeatedly stab it with his knife as it continued to attack him.  Having finally killed the bear, Hugh lay there dying himself.  He had massive wounds and was bleeding profusely.  Some accounts have his ribs exposed in places, and his scalp mostly removed by the vicious attack.  The men sewed him up as best they could, but were convinced that he would succumb to his wounds within a day or two.  Jim Bridger and John Fitzgerald were assigned to stay with him until he died so they could give him a decent burial.   There was one problem however – Hugh wouldn’t die.  Fitzgerald became increasing stressed that hostile Indians would find them and after five days of waiting by the comatose Hugh, convinced Bridger that they had to leave immediately.   Convinced Hugh would die they took all of his possessions – rifle, powder, knife, and supplies.  Everything a man would need to survive.  Then, they left him beside a shallow dug grave. Hugh continued to lie in a coma for an unknown time period – but eventually he came to and upon realizing he had been abandoned for dead, he got really angry – and vowed to kill the two men that had left him.  He set his own broken leg, and began crawling to Fort Kiowa which was some 200 miles distant.  200 MILES.  He crawled near water as much as possible so that he could drink – ate berries, roots, and at one point feasted on fresh buffalo calf that had been killed by wolves.  Eventually regaining some of his strength he was able to with the aid of a crutch, get up to a standing position.   Maggots ate the diseased flesh off of his back, and he could feel them crawling there.

Accounts at this point differ and are various – but I believe this one is the true one, and the one that makes the most rational sense.

A party of traveling Sioux found him, and nursed him back to health, and with their assistance, he was able to return to Fort Kiowa on Oct 8 1823 and re-outfit himself on credit.  Bridger and Fitzgerald were not at the Fort at that time, he heard they were at Fort Henry.   Hugh departed on foot for Fort Henry, a month long journey, with the intention of killing Bridger and Fitzgerald.  He arrived  at the end of December in the evening  – walked into the Fort announcing himself as Hugh Glass and that he was there to kill Bridger and Fitzgerald.  Fitzgerald was not there at the time, but Bridger was, and the color drained from his face as he realized that it was indeed Hugh Glass, a man he had left for dead, standing before him.  He began apologizing profusely and explained that it was Fitzgerald that had convinced him to leave Hugh.  Hugh believed the account and forgave him.

After leaving Fort Henry Hugh learned that Fitzgerald had joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Atkinson.   Upon his arrival and announcing that he was there to kill Fitzgerald, the Captain at the Fort that he would see Hugh arrested and hanged if that happened.  After being assured that Hugh would not kill Fitzgerald, the Captain arranged a meeting between the two men, where purportedly Hugh demanded his gun back and warned Fitzgerald never to leave the Army.

Glass returned to the Rocky Mountains to trap and was once again wounded in 1825 by a Shoshone arrow, and transported 700 miles via river to get the arrowhead removed.  He was presumed killed in 1833 by the Arikara – Johnson Gardner captured several of the Arikara that were in possession of Hugh’s equipment, and he was never heard from again.

There is a monument for Hugh Glass in South Dakota, which you can see here.

An amazing story of life and survival, fit for the legends of history.   I find it ironic that Jim Bridger went on to be famous and the story of Hugh Glass is seemingly buried in history.  He was, in all senses of the phrase, a true American Bad Ass.

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Posted by fuck0500 in Hunting, Trapping, Uncategorized

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Anticipating Off Grid

I long to awake in the morning, and put on an old flannel shirt and corduroy pants that are mended and moccasins covered with dirt – I care not a cuss where the place is, nor how far away it may be, so long as its up in the open where I can unleash and be free.
Anon 1947

 

About 4am I woke up from the cold, the fire in the stove having gone out some hours before. The coals were not sufficient to get the big firewood going that I had there in the cabin, and I forced myself to go outside in the cold morning air to split a couple of sticks to get the fire going again. The headlamp lit the top of the stick as I hefted the maul and hit it. The noise split the silence of the morning, and immediately a coyote howled…it was really really close. And then another answered him slightly further away and off to my left. I shut off the headlamp and watched and listened. It was a quiet morning, and I could hear their footsteps on the hard snow just in the trees where I couldn’t see. They both howled to each other again, before their footsteps faded into the distance as they left.

This is part of what living off the grid means to me, being woken up by coyotes rather than large diesel trucks,neighbors, or commuters.  Watching the phoebe that nests in the same place in the rafters of camp each year to raise her young.  Calling in the whip-por-whil, an increasingly rare bird these days, while sitting by an outside fire last year was memorable.  Unfortunately I haven’t achieved it full time, but this blog is going to document my path there, from beginnings to actualization. I’m concerned about our economy, and the way things are in general. Typically, folks that worry about disasters and are prepared to survive are scoffed at. Some people believe (wrongly) that all will be forever taken care of in the case of disaster, economic or otherwise and that just simply isn’t true. I have the ways and the means to take care of myself, why shouldn’t I?   There is a great magazine geared toward taking care of yourself called Backwoods Home Magazine.

There are lots of things to be worried about. I’m confident in my building abilities, I harvested wood and built a log camp on my 30 acres in 2004-2006. You can read about that experience in my previous post here.   I’m not too worried about food. I have experience with keeping and harvesting chickens, and I am well acquainted with gardening and storing the harvest. I can keep myself warm, and I have 30 acres of woodland for the woodstove. Here in Maine, it takes 5 acres to sustainably harvest enough firewood. I’m sure I can figure out how to raise a cow and perhaps a pig for fall harvest. I have experience as a hunter, and game is plentiful in the area. I’m worried about two things, electricity and money. Having a camp off the grid has taught me that I’m a consumer of power. I have a small solar system there consisting of two 15 watt panels, a controller, inverter, and two deep cycle batteries. It’s enough to keep lights going for a weekend. The batteries aren’t the best, and I’ve had the lights go out when they were needed. Lighting candles at camp to see by to get through the night may be fun, but doing it at a place that is a home is not something I want to do on any kind of basis. When I contrast that with how I live at home, on the grid, I am a large consumer. Flat screen tv, computers (often left on for the night), refrigerators, stoves, printers, lights, the Wii system…the list goes on. It seems I would need an acre of solar panels, windmills, and generators to keep all of it going, and I’m not sure how I’m going to resolve that issue because I really don’t want to give any of it up. I know there are catalogs that have better bulbs, more efficient appliances, and other ways to work around things. I’m also not sure if I want to keep an inverter system, or move to a straight DC system, I know they make bulbs that run on DC as well. Any insight in that area from anyone reading this would be appreciated. My thought process at the moment is an array of solar panels, one or two small windmills, and a backup generator. Ideally a back-up diesel generator so I could potentially make my own fuel. I’ll have to research the wattage load, and calculate what I’ll need for a bank of batteries that will hold enough storage power. The other of course is money. This needs to be done as cheaply as possible, and I’ll be doing most of the labor myself. Possible thoughts are a chainsaw mill using raw material on the property. Lots of things to think about. For now, I’ll put a goal for this year on paper. The first is to decide on a doable design that combines adequate space, passive solar heat, and easy to build. Second, to decide where on the property to put it, and find a suitable place for a garden and animals. Finally, the ultimate goal for this year is water. The seasonal water table on the property is 4 feet. One of the neighbors down the road is living there full time off the grid, and he has a 6 foot tiled well that works for him. My property is downhill from a sizeable esker, and on the lower half of my land there are lots of cedar and standing water year round. So I know water is there, and I know it’s close. I previously tried using a drive-point well  but I hit a clay layer about three feet down, and ended up hitting the drive-point so hard that I broke the top of it. So, the plan is to take a drive bar to break through the clay layer, and the using the drive-point from there. I think with time and effort, it will work and then I’ll have to figure out how to pump it in such a way that it won’t freeze during the winter months. Everything takes time, if you look at it as one step at a time instead of being overwhelmed by the big picture, then before you know it everything is done.

 

Posted by fuck0500 in Maine Life, Uncategorized

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