Michael Wolfe, Primitive Experience

Mike Wolfe

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We are learning all the time, but don’t have the brain capacity to remember everything we are learning during all of that time. Half of our learning takes place in school, the other half in the outside world, yes on the contrary it could be more in one than the other. Today I am writing on something that I learned on the Grand Canyon expedition, and how it has affected me, which is quite coincidental. I love the woods and love the west for the desert even with all the trees, rocks, and animals. I loved primitive skills the most out of the things that I loved. I especially loved it when I started a fire with a bow drill, which is a VERY primitive way of making a fire with all wooden utensils, a rock, and last but definitely not least, the “P-Cord” or Para cord to attach to a bow, and to wrap around the spindle. The rock goes on top to keep pressure on the rest of the set. It is very fun to use and not as much fun to learn because it is very annoying when you get “Spindle-whipped” or get hit with the spindle. It really hurts, but besides that it’s a really versatile tool to have at your disposal, and I loved it even more because it was my first actual bow drill fire rather than just having the fire made with a lighter. Ergo, it took me almost a year to fully learn this, but as it is the same with learning new things, it was worth it. When I say it was worth it, I don’t just mean that making the fire was worth it, but also the experience of it all was worth it. In all truthfulness I really wish that I could have had even more bow drill fires rather than just only being able to make only one single bow drill fire. It kind of irks me that I wasn’t able to make more than that one single fire.