The Woodsman's Journal Online: July 2020

Sunday, July 26, 2020

How To Make A Survival Tripod ©

An illustration from the Arctic Survival Guide, by Alan Innes-Taylor, page 55.

For my readers who are Boy Scouts in the United States, this article can help you with First Class requirement 3d, “Use lashings to make a useful camp gadget or structure” – Author’s Note.

“It will be dark in an hour, it looks like rain and I am lost”, you think, as you start to panic! “No, stop, wait a second, remember that post on The Woodsman’s Journal Online, it said that you are only as lost as you think you are”, you say to yourself, as you try to calm yourself down. “It’s going to rain ... first things first, I need a shelter ... I have a poncho, but how do I make a survival tripod”, you wonder as you begin to list your survival priorities?

If you are lucky, the easiest way to build a quick shelter is to find one or two pieces of forked ground wood that are right length and thickness, to serve as spars or legs, which you can prop up against the trunk of tree or against each other and another length of wood to make a tripod. I say “do you feel lucky” because, if you are in an emergency-situation or you are injured it might be difficult to find ready-made, naturally forked lengths of wood of the size that you need¹.

You should never trust to luck in an emergency because, that is when luck will desert you, and that is why you should know how to build a survival tripod, which you can build by lashing three spars together with string².

With a tripod you can either build a tepee-style shelter, a long lean-to shelter (Fig. 1, below), or a 3-pole lean-to (Fig. 2, below), depending on your needs and what you have to go over it.

Illustrations from the Arctic Survival Guide, by Alan Innes-Taylor, page 54.

The easiest and simplest way that I have found over the years to rig up a quick, easy, and sturdy tripod is with the “tripod lashing for light structures” as taught by the Boy Scouts of America.

An illustration from Knots And How To Tie Them, page 30.

Step One of tying a tripod lashing for a light structure, using a 55 inch (140 cm) long shoelace, photograph by the author.

While holding the spars or legs of your tripod together, place the beginning of the rope in the groove between two of the legs and then wrap over the rope end and down towards the base of the legs a couple of times, until you are near the end of your rope.

Step Two of tying a tripod lashing for a light structure, pushing the end of the shoelace up the groove that contains the beginning of the shoelace, photograph by the author.

Push the end of your rope, up the groove that contains the beginning of your rope and then tie the two ends in a square knot, right over left, and then left over right.

Step Two of tying a tripod lashing for a light structure, tying the square knot in the shoelace, photograph by the author.

Step Three of tying a tripod lashing for a light structure, opening the legs of the tripod into a tepee-style shelter, photograph by the author.

Step Three of tying a tripod lashing for a light structure, opening the legs of the tripod into a 3-pole lean-to, photograph by the author.

Open the legs of your tripod into whatever shape your shelter calls for.

Step Four of building the tepee-style shelter, putting extra supports onto the tripod, photograph by the author.

Step Four of building the tepee-style shelter, putting the author’s Swiss-made rain cape onto the tripod to make a shelter, photograph by the author.

“Okay, I have a shelter to wait out the rain, now all I have to do sit tight until morning”, you say to yourself, “I think I should be alright...”

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site. I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Notes

¹ If you remembered to bring a hatchet or a belt knife with you, you could always cut saplings and branches to fit, but if not, you are going to have to depend on luck to find the right size piece of ready-made, naturally forked wood for the spars or legs of your shelter.

^{2

Examples of string that you might have with you in an emergency in the
wilderness, A) a finger-looped line 108 inches (approximately 274 cm) long,
that might be included in your emergency supplies; B) two shoe-laces, each 55
inches (140 cm) long; and C) a BanadanaMan Emergency Bracelet, that contains
174 inches (442 cm) of string.}

That is, provided of course, that you have some string or rope, which is one of the rarest of items in a survival situation and you should always, always carry some with you. However, unless you are Cody Lundin, you are probably wearing shoes and that means you do have some string with you, your shoelaces. You should still always have some around your wrist, around your Nalgene bottle, in your survival kit or pocket, just in case you need to use your shoes and make a shelter, at the same time.

Sources

Boy Scouts of America; Knots And How To Tie Them, [Boy Scouts of America, 2002 printing of the 1978 Edition], page 30

Innes-Taylor, Alan; Arctic Survival Guide, Scandinavian Airlines Systems, Stockholm, Sweden, 1961], page 54-58

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Three Saw-toothed Leaves, Thorns...Not Poison Ivy ©

Black raspberries, photograph by the author.

It’s Summer and the schools are closed, so Boy Scout Troops can’t meet, and so for my readers who are Boy Scouts in the United States, this article can help you with the plant identification requirements for your First Class rank. For other plant identification articles go HERE, HERE and HERE– Author’s Note

One of the questions that I get all of the time, when I take people who are new to the woods, out during late spring and early summer, and they see raspberry plants is, “is that poison ivy”?

A black raspberry plant, photograph by the author.

Many people confuse black raspberries and blackberries with eastern poison ivy, at least initially, because both plants have compound leaves made up of three leaflets. And while black raspberries and blackberries do have some similarities to eastern poison ivy, in that they have a similar range and just like poison ivy they like to grow in moist shady spots on the edge of woodlands, although just like poison ivy, they can grow in full sunlight; what sets it apart from poison ivy is its three saw-toothed leaves without thumbs, its thorn covered canes and its blue-black berries.

An old saying that can help you identify poison ivy, graphics by the author.

While the old saying says “Leaves of three, let it be”, and while black raspberries and blackberries do have compound leaves made up of three leaflets, which are about four inches (10 cm) long, the leaves are saw-toothed and the stems have thorns: poison ivy NEVER has thorns or leaves with saw-teeth or scalloped edges. Also, black raspberries and blackberries have ¼ to ½ inch (64 to 128 mm) in diameter bluish-black berries, and unlike poison ivy, which grow on a vine with hairy roots, black raspberries and blackberries grow on woody canes.

A black raspberry plant, note the saw-teeth leaf edges and the thorns on the cane, photograph by the author.

Graphic by the author.

Black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis L.) are a wild berry that is native to North America and is found throughout northeastern, southeastern, and the north-central United States and throughout eastern Canada¹. In the western parts of the United States and Canada, the whitebark raspberry (Rubus leucodermis) is the most common variety black raspberry found². Black raspberries are also known as blackcaps, or thimbleberries³.

The range of Rubus occidentalis L, an excerpt from United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service, “Rubus occidentalis L. black raspberry”.

The range of Rubus leucodermis, an excerpt from United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service, “Rubus leucodermis Douglas ex Torr. & A. Gray var. leucodermis whitebark raspberry”.

Blackberries are another member of the Rubus subfamily or genus and are related to black raspberries.

Both black raspberries and blackberries are sometimes also called caneberries. And despite their names, neither is a true berry, botanically speaking, they are both aggregate fruits that are composed of drupelets, or individual fruits, each containing a seed⁴.

A black raspberry, note how the inside of the berry is hollow, photograph by the author.

Black raspberries and blackberries are both very similar, in fact the only easy way to tell them apart is to look at the part of the fruit that was attached to the stem, after you pick it, if it is a black raspberry it will have left a piece of the fruit attached to the stem and the berry will look hollow. If it is a blackberry, the entire fruit will come off the stem and the berry will have a white or green spot where it was attached to the stem.

Black raspberries, photograph by the author.

So if it is summer and you come upon a plant with a woody cane, thorns and compound leaves made up of three saw-toothed leaflets, stop and see if you can find some of the delicious and nutritious blue-black berries and if you do, eat them up!

Fresh black raspberries, enjoy! Photograph by the author.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Notes

¹ United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service, “Rubus occidentalis L. black raspberry”

² United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service, “Rubus leucodermis Douglas ex Torr. & A. Gray var. leucodermis whitebark raspberry”

³ United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Plant Germplasm System, “Rubus occidentalis L.”

⁴ Anne Danahy, MS, RDN, “How Do Black Raspberries and Blackberries Differ?”,

Sources

Danahy, Anne, MS, RDN, (medically reviewed by Butler, Natalie, R.D., L.D.) “How Do Black Raspberries and Blackberries Differ?”, March 18, 2020, [© 2005-2020 Healthline Media a Red Ventures Company], https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/black-raspberry-vs-blackberry#nutrition, accessed July 14, 2020

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Plant Germplasm System, “Rubus occidentalis L.”, [2020, Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN-Taxonomy), National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland], https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxonomydetail.aspx?id=32401, accessed July 14, 2020

United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service, “Rubus leucodermis Douglas ex Torr. & A. Gray var. leucodermis whitebark raspberry”, https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=RULEL, accessed July 14, 2020

United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service, “Rubus occidentalis L. black raspberry”, https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=RUOC, accessed July 14, 2020

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Individual Aid and Survival Kit, Circa 1963, Part Two ©

An excerpt from the Youngstown Vindicator, March 28, 1964, Saturday, “Yanks in Viet Nam Get New Survival Kit”, page 17.

Fred S. Hoffman, in his article “Yanks in Viet Nam Get New Survival Kit”, published in the March 28^th, 1964, edition of the Youngstown Vindicator (found HERE), described how the “special forces troopers bound for South Viet Nam are being given new one-pound survival kit”, which, apparently, is the “Individual Aid and Survival Kit”, that the United States Army developed for the Special Forces, starting in 1963.¹ For more information the “Individual Aid and Survival Kit”, read “Individual Aid and Survival Kit, Circa 1963, Part One ©”, HERE.

An excerpt from “Yanks in Viet Nam Get New Survival Kit” in the Youngstown Vindicator, March 28, 1964, Saturday, page 17.

What was interesting about his article was his emphasis on the importance of the survival kit containing a “do it yourself” pamphlet, which he described as an “...important part of the kit”.

For the same reason that it is important to have an easy to follow, basic first-aid manual, or instruction booklet, in your first-aid kit², the United States Army felt that “a durable survival pamphlet must be included in the”³ in “Individual Aid and Survival Kit”, because during an emergency, you never know what you will recall and what will go “out the window”, so to speak, and disappear from your memory.

“So, what survival instructions were in this durable survival pamphlet that was included in the “Individual Aid and Survival Kit”, that the 5^th Special Forces Group evaluated”, you ask?

An excerpt from page 9, of the sample survival pamphlet, from “AD 401819, Department of Army Approved Small Development Requirement for Individual Aid and Survival Kit for Special Warfare”.

That is a good question, and I am glad that you asked it, because when I originally did the research for “Individual Aid and Survival Kit, Circa 1963, Part One ©”, I found an example survival pamphlet that the developers had included with their requirements for the “Individual Aid and Survival Kit”. The full pamphlet can be found HERE, starting on page 18. But, since I thought you might like a little something to whet your appetite, I have included a couple of pages, below.

Excerpts from the sample survival pamphlet, from “AD 401819, Department of Army Approved Small Development Requirement for Individual Aid and Survival Kit for Special Warfare”.

So, because you never know what you will remember in an emergency and what you won’t, just like with the “Individual Aid and Survival Kit”, find a small survival pamphlet or book and include it in your survival kit.

A picture of the survival booklet, "You Alone In the Maine Woods", published by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife Information & Education, photograph by the author.

A good survival manual that you could include in your survival kit is the, "You Alone In the Maine Woods" pamphlet, published by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife Information & Education. I wrote a review of the "You Alone In the Maine Woods" survival booklet, which is a survival pamphlet that I recommended highly, and the review can be found HERE.

You could either print a copy of the PDF, found HERE, or request your own copy from Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife Information & Education, by emailing them at their “Contact Us” page, HERE, and put it in a plastic bag, or you could print only selected portions of the PDF and laminate them as survival cards before putting them into in your survival kit.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Notes

¹ Interestingly, the date of Mr. Hoffman’s article lies between the date when the “Individual Aid and Survival Kit” was developed by the United States Army in April 17, 1963 and when the 5^th Special Forces Group prepared it’s evaluation of kit, on April 20, 1966.

² Incidentally, I keep A Comprehensive Guide To Wilderness & Travel Medicine, 3^rd Edition, by Eric A Weiss, MD, in my personal first aid kit.

³ “AD 401819, Department of Army Approved Small Development Requirement for Individual Aid and Survival Kit for Special Warfare”, page 8

⁴ Ibid., page 18

Sources

“AD 401819, Department of Army Approved Small Development Requirement for Individual Aid and Survival Kit for Special Warfare”, [Reproduced by Defense Documentation Center for Scientific and Technical Information, Cameron Station, Alexandria, Virginia, Originally by the Headquarters United States Army Combat Developments Command, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, April 17, 1963], https://ia902804.us.archive.org/19/items/DTIC_AD0401819/DTIC_AD0401819.pdf, accessed September 14, 2018

Hoffman, Fred S.; “Yanks in Viet Nam Get New Survival Kit”, Youngstown Vindicator, March 28, 1964, page 17, https://books.google.com/books?id=ii1AAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA12&dq=survival+kit&article_id=609,3475678&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDxcfa7urpAhXNVs0KHZ7sDNs4oAEQ6AEwBnoECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=survival%20kit&f=false, Accessed June 5, 2020

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Helping Turtles Cross The Road

An out-take from “The Elusive Cazenovia Bank Beaver, Part Two”, from BandanaMan Productions, HERE.

Sometimes it is easy to find evidence that there is a beaver in the area, particularly if they have built a lodge or a dam, or gnawed a tree or two, but what if they are the ever-elusive bank beaver, what should you look for then? And how do you know when you have found a den site?

“Bank beaver”, you ask “what type of beaver is that”?

That is a good question, and you aren’t the first person to ask it. After I posted the video, “The Elusive Cazenovia Park Bank Beaver, Part One” on my YouTube channel, BandanaMan Productions, HERE, I had several people ask what kind of beaver a bank beaver was. So, maybe I should first explain what a bank beaver is.

Simply put, a bank beaver is any beaver that lives in rivers or streams that are prone to flooding¹. Beavers in these areas don’t build dams or lodges in the center of a pond, and just like beavers living on large lakes, they live in a den that they have dug into the bank.

Beavers are prodigious diggers and will build several burrows in the banks of the waterways that they call home, so that they are never far from a resting place or a refuge. They also sometimes dig tunnels far inland from the body of water that they call home, and where these tunnels come up to the surface, a “plunge-hole” is created².

Evidence of the ever-elusive Cazenovia Park bank beaver, photograph by the author.

“So, how do I know that there is a bank beaver living in my favorite creek or river”, you might ask?

The first bit of evidence that you might see would be trees with fresh beaver-chews on their trunks. You might also see a beaver swimming up or down the waterway. But finding evidence of their burrows is a bit harder.

A beaver lodge built on the shore of a Cazenovia Creek, evidence of the ever-elusive Cazenovia Park bank beaver, photograph by the author.

Sometimes, bank beavers build a lodge, over their burrow and against the bank or shore of the lake, creek or river that they are living on, and then it is easy to find where they live, but sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, you have to look for the vent-hole to find their burrow or follow them as they swim and disappear into the bank, good luck on that!

A bank-burrow built under a tree and using the roots to support the roof, from the The Wise One, by Frank Conibear and J. L. Blundell, page 113.

What to look for to find a burrow entrance, during times of low water, from Fur Bearing Mammals Of California: Their Natural History, Systematic Status, and Relations to Man, by Joseph Grinell, Joseph S. Dixon, Jean M. Linsdale, page 644.

The burrow leading to this den was 18 feet (5.5 meters) long, from Fur Bearing Mammals Of California: Their Natural History, Systematic Status, and Relations to Man, by Joseph Grinell, Joseph S. Dixon, Jean M. Linsdale, page 673.

Bank beaver’s burrows frequently have chambers that are close to the surface of the ground, so that they can “breathe”. Many times, because the roofs of these burrows are thin, they will collapse. Because of this, bank beavers often build their burrows beneath the roots of a tree or a bush which will keep the top of the burrow from caving in and still allow for ventilation. When the tops of the chambers collapse, the beavers sometimes cover the collapsed area with a pile of logs and sticks, in effect making a lodge on top of the ground. The collapsed area and the pile of peeled logs and sticks become the vent-hole.

A roof of peeled willow poles covering the vent-hole of a den, from Fur Bearing Mammals Of California: Their Natural History, Systematic Status, and Relations to Man, by Joseph Grinell, Joseph S. Dixon, Jean M. Linsdale, page 666.

A roof of peeled willow poles covering the vent-hole of a den, this is a diagram of the picture above, from Fur Bearing Mammals Of California: Their Natural History, Systematic Status, and Relations to Man, by Joseph Grinell, Joseph S. Dixon, Jean M. Linsdale, page 667.

An abandoned bank beaver burrow, whose vent hole is covered with a sticks and logs, along Cazenovia Creek, in Buffalo, New York, photograph by the author.

So the next time you are walking along the bank of a creek or a river and you find a pile of beaver peeled logs and branches, perhaps you have found the home of the ever-elusive bank beaver.

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

Notes

¹ “...there are many beavers today that are living as bank beavers in places unsuited to the construction of ponds, especially along streams and rivers that are subject to floods.”

An excerpt from Earl L. Hilfiker’s, Beavers: Water, Wildlife and History, page 117

² “In many wooded areas of eastern Canada, New York and New England, there are ponds and small lakes where, over the years, vegetation has advanced far from the shore lines and covered considerable expanses of water with a thick layer of sphagnum moss, pitcher plants, sundew, and other types of acid-bog plants. These expanses of floating vegetation are referred to as quaking bogs. Foot progress across one of them is like walking on a mattress.

Beavers inhabiting some of these bodies of water swim under rather than walk across them, and they cut holes in them where they wish to come out. They may also tunnel considerable distances inland before digging out above ground. The absence of dirt piles around these holes indicates that the digging was done from below.

Except for the trails leading out from them, it is often difficult to detect their presence, and it is surprising to find how far some of them are from open water. These holes make it easy for beavers to leave and return to the pond, and when pursued by an enemy, a beaver can dive into one of these holes and seek safety. For that reason, it may be appropriate to refer to them as plunge holes.”

An excerpt from Earl L. Hilfiker’s, Beavers: Water, Wildlife and History, page 118

Sources

Conibear, Frank and Blundell, J. L.; The Wise One, [Petersen Engineering Co. Inc., Santa Clara, CA, 1959], p. 113

Grinell, Joseph, Dixon, Joseph S., Linsdale, Jean M.; Fur Bearing Mammals Of California: Their Natural History, Systematic Status, and Relations to Man, Vol. II, [The Museum Of Vertebrate Zoology, University Of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1937], https://martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/docs/Fur-bearing%20mammals%20of%20California_%20their%20natural%20history_%20systematic%20status_%20and%20relations%20to%20man%20Vol.%20II%20Beaver%20chapter%20Grinne.pdf, accessed June 27, 2020

Hilfiker, Earl L.; Beavers: Water, Wildlife and History, [Heart of the Lakes Publishing, Interlaken, NY, 1990], p. 117-118

About Me

I live near Buffalo, New York and have more than 25 years of experience in the outdoors. I enjoy being in the wilderness, paddling a canoe or exploring the woods, when I am not researching survival, woodcraft, camping skills or life on the Old Northwest Frontier of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I am a published author and I have been a guide for Birchbark Expeditions and an Outdoor Skills trainer for the Boy Scouts since 2014. I am also a martial artist, having studied several different combat arts over the past 30 years. Currently, I am the author of The Woodsman’s Journal Online and BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.

The Woodsman's Journal Online

Pages

Sunday, July 26, 2020

How To Make A Survival Tripod ©

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Three Saw-toothed Leaves, Thorns...Not Poison Ivy ©

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Individual Aid and Survival Kit, Circa 1963, Part Two ©

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Helping Turtles Cross The Road

The Ever-Elusive Bank Beaver ©

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