Willamette; The Valley of an 8,000 Year Old Culture

At a reading I was at a while ago, the author asked the crowd if they knew the name of the people who lived here before civilization. More than a few people responded that “no one lived here,” and that, “Willamette (as in the Willamette river that runs through Portland) means ‘the valley of sickness and death.'” I don’t remember the first time I heard this myth, but I can tell you that I never questioned it. In fact, I’ve even helped spread it. I never seemed to think twice about it, it simply made sense; white people do stupid things like move into mosquito infested valleys. But when the author asked, and I saw so many people respond with this claim, I really began to wonder just where the heck it came from!

Continue reading Willamette; The Valley of an 8,000 Year Old Culture

How Ragnar Convinced Me to Buy a Gun

Ragnar Benson has authored many books including; Do-It-Yourself Medicine, Eating Cheap, Live Off the Land in City and Country, Mantrapping, Modern Weapons Caching, Ragnar’s Guide to Interviews, Investigations and Interrogations, Ragnars Guide to the Underground Economy, Aquiring a New ID, and many more, all publsihed through the wack-job-military-nut publishing company Paladin Press. In my search for urban survival tips I found, ordered and read his books Ragnar’s Urban Survival: a Hard-Times Guide to Staying Alive in the City and Survival Poaching.

Continue reading How Ragnar Convinced Me to Buy a Gun

Giardia: Eat Shit and Die…

If you’ve traveled to another country or gone anywhere in the outdoors, you’ve probably heard of giardia. Supposedly Civilizations settlers brought this crap over from Europe or somewhere, since giardia seems to foster best in densely populated areas of domestic cows. Thanks to these assholes (the settlers, not the cows) this flagellated protozoan parasite known as Giardia lamblia, (AKA “the runs,” “the shits,” and my favorite; “Beaver Fever“), lives in almost every water source in the United States. It generally spreads by tricking someone into eating the poop of another infected creature… which leads me to think that giardia sounds like Mother Nature telling civilization to, and not in the figurative sense, “eat shit and die.”

Continue reading Giardia: Eat Shit and Die…

Introducing: REWILD.info

REWILDinfo: study, teach and converse. This brand new site has two parts, the first part contains a forum for rewilders to talk about rewilding, the second part contains a wiki serving as a free online field guide to rewilding. Come start a conversation at the forum and add your knowledge to the field guide today! Please tell all your friends to check it out too.

Show your support and appreciation for Urban Scout

Urban Scout on 400words.com

400words, the website and book, asks writers to tell their short-short non-fiction story in 400 words or less. The theme for the current issue revolves around “work.” My friend Lisa (a brilliant fucking writer) wrote a short story about working in a coffee shop (one of the ones we worked in together a time ago) and it got printed on their website a while back. She reccomended that I give it a shot, so I did. Low and behold, they put it up there! Read it here.

Show your support and appreciation for Urban Scout

More Kamana/Tracker Culture Stuff

Urban Scout’s LA story

Two years ago I moved to LA to work in the film industry. As you can see, it didn’t work out. LA chewed me up and spat me out… or Portland just couldn’t live without me. Either way, it was 3 months of hell. Here is a snippet of something I wrote back then…

Continue reading Urban Scout’s LA story

Oh Canada, Goose

A while back I sent out a call seeking urban hunting tips and an anonymous person suggested the Canada Goose as a potentially less polluted animal for the urban hunter. Since then I have begun to look deeper into the lives and ways of the Geese People. In my studies I found geese truly magnificent birds in more ways than I can count. To the urban hunter-gatherer, geese may serve a much deeper purpose than just another source of food.

Continue reading Oh Canada, Goose

Video Games Vs. Rewilding

The other day Willem and I began to clear out two very large entertainment centers that fill most of his room (don’t ask). We will plan to use the space as a library/study/internet station as we learn more about how to hunt and gather and for posting blogs. While cleaning it out Willem found an old USB universal game controller. Basically, it looks and works like a Playstation controller, but plugs into your computer. He said it used to belong to his brothers and asked if I wanted it. God help me I said, “Yes.”

Continue reading Video Games Vs. Rewilding

A Day in the Life 2/21/07

I woke up today to the sound of Sasha’s cell phone vibrating against her bedside table. She climbs over me and turns it off. We lie in bed for maybe a few minutes then she gets up to go to school. She comes back in the room and she sits by the heater and is eating breakfast. I wonder if she made me breakfast too, but she doesn’t bring me my breakfast so I figure she hasn’t. We make breakfast for each other often, but it looks like today won’t be one of those days.

Continue reading A Day in the Life 2/21/07

Kamana Two, Take Two

Well the first time I posted this over at naturetalk.net it dissappeared or was deleted. I have reposted it again, but in case for some reason it happens again, here it is…

Quick disclaimer for those who don’t know:

Kamana is an independent study naturalist training program created by Jon Young. Of all the schools I have been to, of all the classes I have taken, Kamana is the only one that I feel really set me up for success. It’s sounds funny to write that, seeing as how halfway through the program I destroyed all of the work I had done, trashed the workbooks, and sold my supplemental field guide library (that I spent over a thousand dollars acquiring) for mere pennies. Sounds dramatic and it was. At the time it felt like taking a huge shit after being constipated for years. I’m in a different place now and am seeking to rekindle that structure in a new/old way. This week I will begin to redo what I ritualistically burned so many years ago, having spent the last few year learning to get over or side step the hurdles of conformity.

Continue reading Kamana Two, Take Two

Nosferatus Need Nixtamal

I love chips. Anyone who knows me, knows I have an insatiable hunger for them. I can eat a whole bag without blinking an eye. Of course, afterwards I feel like crap but that has never seemed to stop me. On my current diet, I am only aloud to eat blue corn. Last week I ate two whole bags of blue corn chips. Immediately my dandruff, a symptom of candidiasis, returned. Most of the food I eat is unprocessed. I decided that if I should continue to eat blue corn chips, I should have to make them myself.

Continue reading Nosferatus Need Nixtamal