There are three weeks left before I head out to Lynx Vilden’s prehistoric immersion program. I delved into a few deer hides this week and started “bucking” them. This involves soaking the hides in an alkaline solution. I bought a bag of hydrated lime from the local hardware store. I didn’t want to use lye because of the toxic quality and I don’t have time to burn/gather enough wood ash. After braining another hide and having it come out stiff again, I’m getting pretty frustrated. I staggered bucking the hides over a couple days so they would be ready one after the other. I did not anticipate how hard it would be to scrape the grain off the hide. The weather has been ridiculously hot and in spite of chugging water all day, my sore throat from a week ago came back and put me out for a couple days. At this point I have one stiff hide that needs to be dressed and stretched again and one that is ready to be acidified or just dressed and then stretched. There are three more hides bucking right now. I need to scrape them before they soak in the alkaline solution for too long. My hands are covered in blisters from too much drawknife pressure. Tomorrow I will wrap them up before graining the next hide.

In “Deerskins Into Buckskins” Matt Richards says that when done bucking the hide will appear brown and tawny. While the hide was bloated and rubbery (as apposed to stretchy) it was bluish white. I let it sit for longer than I thought I needed to for this reason. After a couple days in the heat, it still looked bluish white. So I threw it on the fleshing beam anyway. After scraping a bit of the grain away, the placed I scraped were brown and tawny as he described. Tomorrow I’ll be able to compare a scraped and rinsed hide with a bloated bucked hide and note the differences for future reference.

I don’t really know what I would do without five gallon buckets. I’d like to know what the primitive equivolent is.

All five raccoon hides are in the hemlock bark solution. I’m realizing now that I need to make sure that the oils are out of the hides before I tan them. I thought most of the oils were out of them, but one in particular I knew it was full of oil. I kind of wanted to see what would happen to the hide, how it would take the tannins. Well, of course, it didn’t. I also noticed a few of the hides had whitish blue spots on them where the tannins were not absorbing. The rest were a light reddish brown. I took all five hides out and put them on the fleshing beam. I used the dull draw knife to squeegee out the oils. I put them back in and an hour later checked and they were already sucking up the tannins really nicely. Tomorrow I make another batch of stronger tea and squeegee the hides some more.

My girlfriend came over and mentioned a video about Lynx’s program that I hadn’t seen before. I thought it would be cool to share the videos here for you to see. They are very inspirational and are making me feel more and more excited about it. It’s also making me more and more nervous that I may not be ready with all the hides by the time I head up there.

Preparation Week 2 Laundry List:

- Find 10lbs of raw wool for felting
- Grain 3 hides/Rinse 3 hides/Membrane 3 hides
- Acidify 2 hides, dress 2 hides, freeze the other 2
- Start bucking last two hides
- Make stronger batch of hemlock tannins, squeegee hides again
- Foraging (garlic mustard, etc.)
- Coastal foraging trip
- Trade for Meat (Some elk meat acquired)
- Rinse and soften bark-tanned mystery hide for canteen
- Process beach clay
- Write a blog about concerns for the project

Braining a deerskin.

I’ve got only 4 weeks left until I head out to Lynx Vilden’s stone age immersion program. I have to show up there with a minimum of 6 brain-tanned deer hides in order to make an entire outfit to wear during the program. Tanning hides is not something I have done too much of. I’ve done some brain-tanning before – I made brain-tanned shorts – and thought I understood the process pretty well. I’ve been working a hide the last couple of days trying to get it soft and it’s come to my attention that I’m pretty fucking clueless when it comes to hide-tanning.

“Primitive” or ancestral skills have never been my main focus in rewilding. In fact, they’ve generally taken a back-burner to the mental, philosophical, spiritual and social aspects of rewilding. I enjoy natural crafts and love the self-reliance aspect of ancestral skills but I’ve never been that into them, particularly hide-tanning and stone tools. Mostly because, well, I just don’t think they matter as much. This has changed quite a bit this year, as I finally am looking for a synthesis of all the aspects of rewilding. While I’m not a primitive purist, I enjoy the aesthetic magic of buckskin clothes and stone and bone tools. Looking at the pictures on Lynx’s website creates a kind of inspiration and desire that would not be there were all her students wearing colorful, synthetic REI clothes and using expensive steel tools and backpacks. There is a strange magic in the purity of ancestral technology. A magic that motivates me.

So I’ve delved deeper into the world of “primitive living” and that means hide-tanning. It is a complex series of steps and phases and is all about timing. Brain-tanning is different and yet similar to bark-tanning. I’ll be brain-tanning about 7 deer hides in the next couple weeks, and bark-tanning 5 raccoon hides, with the fur on, in the next few weeks and couple months. I have a thick mystery hide that has been in a hemlock bark solution as a tester for bark tanning the raccoons. I plan to make a canteen with the mystery hide, inspired by my friend Miles canteen pictured in his amazing bark-tanning tutorial.

Hemlock Bark Tea

Since bark-tanning takes a lot longer, I’ll need to make the bark tea this week and get those hides in fast. They probably won’t be ready until during the immersion program. That shouldn’t be a big deal, I’ll be able to finish tanning them while I am there. Making a tea a once a week for the next couple weeks will be pretty easy compared to the scraping, graining, membraning and softening that I’m going to have to do with these 7 deer skins. Luckily I’ve got Tamara Wilder’s Buckskin: the ancient art of braintanning and Matt Richard’s Deerskins into Buckskins. These two books are phenomenal resources. I only wish I had ordered Matt Richard’s video guide to go with the book. But alas, these two books along with my friends who have tanned a lot are enough to get me going and do the job. I’m going to get pretty fluent in hide-tanning in the next couple weeks.

Aside from the hides, I need a bunch of other stuff, as I  mentioned  in a previous post. This last weekend I went to the beach to harvest seaweed as part of my 5lbs of dehydrated wild plant food that I am required to bring with me. My lady friend took me on one of John Kallas’s coastal foraging Wild Food Adventures for my birthday last month, and I learned a lot about foraging seaweed. With last month’s, last weekend’s and one more planned trip later this month, I should have a large amount of seaweed. I’m hoping to trade it for some other greens or perhaps roots with some of the other students – or just share it all.

Seaweed drying in the sun.

Right now the Garlic Mustard is off the hook and is one of the most nutritious invasive plants in the NW. So, I’m planning on tackling some of that this week. I know a few spots in the Molalla River Corridor that have an over growth of it and could use a good weeding. I’m also thinking of doing a stealthy, evening neighborhood forage through SE Portland for Lemon Balm (for salve and tea), peppermint (for tea and seasoning), Fennel, and whatever else I may come across.

I’m looking for find a source of wild meat that I can trade for. I need 5lbs of dehydrated wild meat and 1lb of tallow. These are not things I will be able to get myself: I will have to trade for them. I’ve promised one of my fellow students that I will make her a bow-drill set and bone awl for the course. Fire is second nature to me and I can whip one of those up in no time. Bone tools are my favorite; I love them more than stone. They are simple, elegant, durable and easy to create: grind them against a rock. I’ve got loads of bones from collecting them over the years and making an awl will be a fun way to pass some time.

Last week at the beach not only did I get a ton of seaweed but I also found an amazing layer of clay in the cliffs on the beach. I’ve found clay out there before, but it got mixed with some not-so-pure clay and didn’t end up working that well. This time I made sure to gather only the most pure-seeming clay; a reddish color of thick, elastic earth. I’m going to make a bowl out of it this week, a bowl I plan to eat from during the program.

I’m sure I’ll be able to get everything done, but I don’t have a moment to lose. I’d like to write up all of my concerns for the project to see what really happens there; which concerns came true and what unseen problems arose? This will be a great exercise to write about.

Preparation Week 1 Laundry List:

- Hemlock Bark Tea batch #1
- Braintan 2 deer skins
- Foraging (garlic mustard, etc.)
- Trade for Meat
- Rinse and soften bark-tanned mystery hide for canteen
- Make a clay pot
- Fire kit & Awl for fellow student
- Write a blog about concerns for the project

Portland paper the SE Examiner wrote a story about the work I do. Check out the article here:

Here is the video of my recent talk at Washington College’s Locavore Lit Fest.

Today my friend Eric and I went to the third grade class at Shining Star Waldorf school in Portland. They are learning about the Chinook Indians and since my friend who works there knew that I know Chinuk Wawa, she called me to see about coming in and teaching the kids a little bit about Chinook Culture, past and present. I brought my friend Eric, who is a Chinook, to talk with the children about what being a Chinook was like in the past and what it is like today. He shared stories and his persepctive on things. I was there to show the kids a little bit about ancestral technology in general. I demonstrated how to make a friction fire using my cottonwood bow-drill set that I have made to take with me on Lynx Vilden’s summer immersion program. Then I showed the kids how to make cordage while Eric told a few more stories. We had a great time!

“As part of the second annual Locavore Lit Fest at Washington College, Rewild Portland Executive Director Peter Bauer (Urban Scout) demonstrates how to use makeshift materials to create a bow drill for starting a fire. His work examines assumptions about civilized culture and stresses the importance of our relation to food in an industrialized society.”

(Left) Dehydrated hide chips in a clay pot: take pieces of deer hide and simmer them in water for like 24-36 hours and they will dissolve. The water boils off and you are left with this glue. Pour it on a flat pan and let it dry out. It breaks up into these pieces. To use again, put in pot and add water to the viscosity that you prefer. It is water soluble so it will not hold up if it gets very wet. (Right) Pine pitch and charcoal glue in a wooden burn bowl. Place pine pitch and charcoal in a pot, add water, dissolve pitch and stir. Add manure to make this even better. Stir/simmer at low heat until desired viscosity or dry out for later use. It does not hold up under very hot conditions as the pine pitch will melt. The horse manure helps prevent this, but not entirely.

I’ve been learning and teaching primitive skills, animal tracking, nature awareness, community building, and all aspects of rewilding for a long time now. I have yet to see a cohesion of these skills in application. That is all going to change this summer. I have signed up for Lynx Vilden’s summer immersion program. Lynx is one of the only people that I could find who is really striving to push the envelope of rewilding. I’ve known about her for years, but haven’t had the time or energy or funds to attend her classes. This summer is different. Maybe it’s because I’m turning 30 in April and am looking back at my twenties wishing I had done this sooner. A rewilders biological clock of sorts. Maybe it’s because it’s 2012 and I’m subconsciously preparing for the apocalypse. Or maybe, it’s just the right time for me.

Lynx’s summer immersion is not a beginners course. I have to arrive prepared, with a large inventory of the following:

• MINIMUM 6 LARGE BRAIN TANNED DEER HIDES (OR BUCKSKIN CLOTHES)
• STONE AGE TOOL KIT INCLUDING; FIRE KIT, BONE AWL, STONE KNIFE
• PACK BASKET
• 5LBS DRIED WILD PLANT FOODS
• 5LBS DRIED WILD MEAT OR FISH
• 1LB RENDERED FAT
• WATER CONTAINER
• GATHERING BASKET
• EATING BOWL AND UTENSILS
• RAWHIDE OR BUCKSKIN FOOD CONTAINERS.
• SELF BOW AND ARROWS (OPTIONAL)
• BRING A RAW/DRY SALTED WINTER KILL COW BUFFALO HIDE OR 10LBS OF GOOD FELTING SHEEP WOOL FOR THE BEDDING CLASS.

At first glance this list looked pretty daunting to me. The most labor intense parts will be the hide tanning. It’s a shame that I accidentally destroyed my buckskin shorts. Those would have come in handy. I already have the stone age tool kit, with a lot more bone and stone tools than this list requires, should I need them. I have willows for a pack basket but haven’t made it yet. I’m going early to Lynx’s basket workshop the week before the immersion starts, so I’m hoping to make the pack basket and gathering basket there. I have lots of baskets, and even a willow back pack but I think that it’s too small. I’ve started gathering wild foods. I’ve got lots of nettles. I’m going to gather and dry a variety of spring greens as they come. For starch I’ll head to the desert and gather some roots to dry and powder for cakes. I’m bark-tanning an old piece of goat rawhide I was saving for a drum, but I’m turning it into a canteen inspired by my friend Miles (who has a book on rewilding coming out soon!). I’m carving a bowl with cedar and I’m going to make a burn bowl as well. I have a clay pot that I need to fire. Not sure what I’m going to do for food containers yet. I do not have a self bow or arrows. All the bows I have made have broken. I hope that maybe Lynx will give me some tips on bow-making while I’m out there. I’ve found a couple places that have a buffalo hide for me to tan. That covers the list for the most part.

I’ve added my own list of stuff that I want to bring, which is:

• 5 RACCOON HIDES (BARK-TANNED)
• NETTLE CORDAGE ROLL
• CEDAR CORDAGE ROLL
• HIDE GLUE, PINE PITCH GLUE
• WILD FIRST AID KIT (DRIED YARROW, COTTONWOOD SALVE, ETC)

I’m setting aside most of the next two months to get all of this done. I’ll be posting here more about my preparations as I work on them. Looking forward to doing more active rewilding and writing a bit more after spending most of last year stuck in a cubicle!

Hey Folks, I’m doing a fundraiser for my non-profit Rewild Portland. Check out the video and please donate!

DONATE HERE

Hey Folks,

It’s been quiet around my site over the last year. I’ve been working a lot, but also building my non-profit Rewild Portland. To see all the cool stuff we’ve done, follow our blog here:

http://www.rewildportland.com/blog/

Hey folks,

Our awesome forum www.rewild.info is moving and getting a face lift. All the content is still there, so don’t worry. Check out the new site:

www.rewildportland.com/Conversations

I have had little time to do much these days with the amount of time that I work. Three raccoon hides have sat in my garage for months and months waiting for the membrane-scraping step in the hide tanning process. I noticed them in the garage the other day and saw something amazing.

It appears as though the ants in my garage are eating away the membrane layer and leaving behind the skin. Take a closer look:

Do you know what this means? It means I won’t have to do the work! Everyone hates trying to scrape the membrane off a raccoons back. If the ants do this, it will save me a tremendous amount of time. It also makes me wonder how the hide will turn out after I tan it. Looking at these ants do their thing, it appears they are taking off exactly the right amount of membrane and not getting into the skin at all. This may not be the case. They may eat their way through. But either way, I’ll learn a valuable lesson. Anyone else used ants or bugs or other living things to do this kind of work?

A while back my friend Maggie asked me to teach her a bit about the ins and outs of eatin’ roadkill. We went on a fun adventure and found a squirrel which she then skinned, gutted, cooked and ate. She wrote a very nice and funny article. Go out and pick up issue #15 of Meat Paper.

http://www.meatpaper.com/

Hey folks. It’s been a couple years since I updated my wordpress software. This site will be experiencing some tech problems for a little while please bear with me.

Windshield smashed. Tires slashed. “SNITCH” written on the side of the car. No insurance coverage. Had to get a rental car to make it to LA in time for my reading. If you feel inspired to help me out, please donate through paypal by clicking on the tip jar link to the right of this post. Thanks to all the generous people who have already contributed!

Hey there friends,

Thanks so much for all your help with the tour and making it possible. I may update this page if things shift around a bit, so please be patient and check back for changes. Here are the following stops that I plan to make:

Bellingham, WA

Monday June 20, 2011 from 7:30pm to 9pm
Fertile Ground is hosting my tour stop in Bellingham.
The Old Foundry
100 E. Maple St.
Bellingham, WA
Facebook Event Page (please share it!)

Seattle More Bellingham, WA!

TBA
Tuesday June 21st, 2011
I’ll be doing an English Ivy pull and basket making skill-share.

Olympia, WA

Wednesday June 22nd, 2011 3pm-5pm
Last Word Books
211 4th Avenue East
Olympia, WA 98501
Facebook Event Page (please share it!)

Eugene, OR

Friday, June 24th 6pm-9pm
Maitreya EcoVillage
1641 West Broadway
Eugene OR
Facebook Event Page (Stay Tuned!)

Oakland, CA

Saturday, June 25th
11am-5pm Skill Share
6pm-11pm Reading and Barnyard Dance
Place for Sustainable Living
1121 64th Street
Oakland CA, 94608
Facebook Event Page (please share it!)

Los Angeles, CA

Monday June 27th 5pm-7pm
Stories
1716 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90026-3225
Facebook Event Page (Stay tuned!)

Santa Barbara, CA

Tuesday June 28th, 3pm-6pm
Rocky Nook Park
610 Mission Canyon Road
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Facebook Event Page (please share it!)

Portland, OR

Saturday July 2nd
Rewild Camp
Join the Rewild Portland mailing list to find out where!
Facebook Page (please share it!)

Hey friends,

I will be going on my book tour in mid-late June and I need your help. I’ll be doing readings in:

Monday June 20th Bellingham

Tuesday June 21st Seattle

Wednesday June 22nd Olympia

Thursday June 23rd Portland

Friday June 24th Eugene

Saturday June 25th Arcata or Ashland (need help here!)

Sunday June 26th San Francisco

Monday June 27th Santa Cruz

Tuesday June 28th Los Angeles

Wednesday June 29th Santa Barbara?

I need help securing venues and with promotion. I have my travel expenses covered through the kickstarter, this includes food and gas. I’ll be staying with friends in each city. If you have any connections with local book shops or colleges, newspapers or radio shows or local groups that can help promote the event please let me know! Thanks for all your support!

Hey Friends,

Time is running out for my kickstarter. I’d love to go on a book tour, but unless I can raise enough, I won’t be able to go. Please help out by making a pledge. I have some awesome rewards for pledges, so you’ll be getting cool shit too. Thanks for all your help so far!

Click Here to Pledge

Scout

That’s how my friend Drew described his project to me, of interviewing people on his website. I loved the premise and so we had a conversation. Check out his interview with me here:

http://www.mohdi.com/2011/03/08/urban-scout-conversations/

Pledge $20 or more to my book tour

If you pledge this amount, you enter a raffle of which 3 winners will give me a topic to write a 400 word essay on “Whatever-you-want vs. Rewilding.” This will be published on my blog www.urbanscout.org AND will be printed in Rewild or Die volume II due out in 2012!

Hey there friends. In order for me to go on a west coast book tour I’ve got to raise $5,000. I’m using the Kickstarter online fundraising platform for artists. The way Kickstarter works is simple: offer rewards as incentives for people to pledge money to your project. If you don’t raise all of the money you set out to raise in the time frame you gave yourself, you don’t get funded.

This is important: if I don’t raise $5,000 by March 31st, I will not be going on a book tour any time soon. This is why I need your help! I’ve got some pretty amazing rewards so it’s not like you’re not getting some cool shit out of it yourself. Check it out here:

Check out this new blog I wrote over at www.rewildpdx.com.