Morning Sentinel
OUTDOORS: The first thing to remember if you get lost in the woods is don't panic
By TRAVIS BARRETT
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 04/05/2008

By TRAVIS BARRETT

Outdoors Writer

He walks through the woods like he would a house that’s on the open market. He sizes up the layout, thinks about where he could build walls, tries to feel out how comfortable he would be in a given spot.

But Joe Tynan’s not shopping for a lot of land. The registered Maine guide from Waldoboro is thinking about his survival.

“It’s all about having a home base,” Tynan said. “Psychologically, it feels good to have someplace you call home. You’ll start cleaning it up, start building a fire and you’ll start feeling better about everything. Then once you survive a night there, you start thinking that it’s not so bad — that you can make it.”

It’s the mindset of a survivalist.

Most of us, thank the high heavens, will never find ourselves lost in the wilderness, forced to spend several days and nights in the bitter cold of winter or the intense heat of summer. But what if we were? Would we even know where to begin?

Would we know what to do, how to keep ourselves alive, how to keep our wits about us? Would we know how to survive?

Tynan knows. And he wants everybody to know that it’s not as difficult as you might think. In fact, relying on our basic instincts and a few simple rules, wilderness survival can become like second nature.

The Sacred 4

There’s one thing that Joe Tynan wants you to remember: Don’t panic.

It’s the most important rule there is for survival situations, no matter what time of year it is.

“That’s the No. 1 thing,” Tynan said. “Stop. Freeze. Relax.

“Just take a breath. A lot of times, ego will get the best of you because people feel like idiots for getting lost. But there’s no place for ego when you’re trying to survive.”

The enemy of the lost hiker or hunter is darkness, and the first step is getting through the first night while lost. Winter or summer, inclement weather is always a threat — particularly in the mountains, where storms arrive quickly and forcefully — and a shelter is a must.

While Tynan walks the woods along his property, he points to spots that would be fine starting points for shelters.

A rock bursting up through the soil, standing several feet above the ground. A small, dense cluster of three or four fir trees. A valley cutting through either of those areas. All are excellent candidates for the shelter Tynan wants to build from debris — from the sticks, branches and leaves that scatter across the ground. Twigs and leaves not only make the shelter secure against rain and wind, but they also keep it insulated and trap body heat.

Once there’s shelter, it’s time to find water. Running water is the cleanest — and thus, it’s the safest to drink. Ponds can also provide a water source, and with fire that water can be boiled until it is safe to consume. Stagnant water should be avoided as an extreme last resort.

Fire is next on the list. Dry wood and birch bark, obviously, make for the best fires.

Positioning the fire should be carefully considered. It should be built where there’s a backdrop, one that faces your shelter. That way, the heat from the fire is not lost — and it keeps the area where you’ll be sleeping warm, too.

Armed with shelter, water and fire, food is the last item on the list.

“We eat so often now in our culture that typically, at the worst, it likely only would have been a few hours since someone last ate,” Tynan said. “Really, you just want to get through that first night and then you can start thinking about it.”

He points to rabbit tracks, ones that scamper off into the distance.

“See, that right there, if you’re all set up, you could follow those until you found that animal, kill it and have it for food,” Tynan said. Wild berries, edible plants and even the sap from fir trees are other food sources.

Innate ability

“From Stalking Wolf to Tom Brown to central Maine,” Tynan said. “The list goes: Shelter, water, fire and food. That’s the sacred four.”

Taught by Tom Brown Jr., a New Jersey native, Tynan believes that we already know everything we need to know about how to survive in the wilderness, that we are already instinctively aware of what plants can hurt us or harm us, that we understand how to keep ourselves warm and fed. Brown’s book, “Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival,” is widely accepted as the standard for wilderness survival, teaching everything from how to read the land and build fires, to how to build ropes and fashion tools from that which the land offers us. Brown couples common-sense survival practices with deeply spiritual ones.

Brown is also somewhat controversial, claiming to have learned about survival from Apache Indian Stalking Wolf, his purported grandfather — a person historians cannot confirm exists. Still, what Brown teaches has merit. And Tynan is steadfast in his agreement with Brown each of us already knows how to survive — despite the fact that somewhere along the road from primitive culture to modernization we lost that ability. “It’s all stuff that we knew at one time, and we just tossed it out,” Tynan said. “It’s really deep stuff. People think that it’s you against the elements in survival situations, but it’s not. No, it’s you with the elements.”

Packing up

A small pack, barely the size of a woman’s purse, is clunked down on the kitchen table in front of me.

“I’d never go out in the woods without a knife and some waterproof matches, no matter if I was going up a mountain or on a short hike around my property,” Tynan said.

And with that, he begins taking the essential items he carries from the pack. A knife with it’s own sharpener, and a bundle of plastic sandwich bags. A water purifier.

A stainless steel cup, so you can “boil pine needles for tea.”

Waterproof matches, wrapped in plastic and put in a small pill bottle, one sealed off with duct tape.

A compass and a whistle, because “you can hear a whistle farther away than a voice.”

Cards, bound by a metal string, each one outlining edible wild plants and the medicinal uses of them, too.

It all seems so simple that I can’t believe I’ve never taken the time to put it all together in a safety pack for myself. But that’s the effectiveness of it — small items you find around the house. Small items that, when used together, are effective enough to save your life should they ever be called upon.

Travis Barrett — 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

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