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A picture taken at 2:13 pm, on a sunny day in the Canadaway Creek gorge. So what direction was my wife walking? Photograph by the Author.
This is another addition for the Oelslager Files, I
hope that you enjoy it – Author’s Note
In
our high-tech society today, many of us have become so dependent on our modern
tech and toys that we no longer remember, if we ever bothered to learn, how to find
our way from the clues that nature leaves for us.
Maybe
you are taking a daylight stroll down a city street, maybe you wandered out of
camp on a short daytime hike and now you find yourself “misplaced”, in
either case how do you tell north from south without a compass?
Why
by the position of the Sun of course!
You can use the Sun’s position in the sky and the time of day (the
approximate time, if you also don’t have a watch) to get a general idea of the
direction of north, south, east and west.
An excerpt from Bushcraft, Scouting & Woodcraft Notes, Volume I, page 210 to 211, by Dr. R. W. Oelslager, this volume can be found HERE.
A better version of “Figure 357 Position of the Sun at Equinox and Solstice”, from Outdoor Survival Skills: How to Survive on Land, Sea and Ice!, page 2-86, showing the Sun’s position on the equinoxes and the solstices. Author’s note, 23.4 degrees is the same as 23 degrees, 24 minutes.
The
Sun rises in the east and sets in the west, everyone knows that , right? Well sort of, the Sun only comes up exactly
in the east and sets exactly in the west twice a year, on the spring and fall
equinox. It is close enough to the truth
though, that you can use the travel of the Sun through the sky to get a general
sense of your direction. On every other day
but the equinoxes, the Sun rises either a little south or north of true east
and sets either a little north or south of true west, for more on this read “How
to Find Your Way Without A Compass, Part One, Orientation By The Sun ©”, HERE.
Adapted from Survival: Land, Sea, Jungle, Arctic, by The Infantry Journal, 1944, p. 41, Fig. 16, by the Author. Another way of looking at the Sun’s position on the equinoxes and solstices.
So,
if you know the time of day and the position of the Sun, you can get a general
direction of where north, south, east and west is. The Soldiers’ Own Note Book and Diary For
1918, has a great illustration which shows the general position of the Sun
in its journey through the sky and if you are towards the Sun, what direction
you are facing.
An excerpt from Soldiers’ Own Note Book and Diary For 1918, page 30, showing the position of the Sun at different times during the day in the northern temperate zone on the equinoxes.
In
the northern temperate zone, which is from 23.4 degrees north
latitude to the Arctic Circle, the Sun is always
south of you, rising in the east, traveling through the south, and then setting
in the west. So, if you are facing
south and it is between sunrise and an hour or so before noon the Sun will be
shining on the left side of your head, between 11:00 am to 1:00 pm the Sun will
be mostly overhead and ahead of you, and from around 1:00 pm to sunset the sun
will shine on the left side of your head.
All this reverses if you are facing north, so from morning to about
11:00 am the Sun will shine on your right side, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm the
sun will be mostly overhead and behind you, and from 1:00 pm until sunset the
Sun will shine on the right side of your head.
In
the southern temperate zone, from 23.4 degrees south
latitude to the Antarctic Circle the situation is reversed, with the Sun always
north of you, as it rises in the east, travels through the north, and then sets
in the west. So, if you are facing south
then the rising Sun will shine on your left side, around noon it will be mostly
overhead and behind you, and in the afternoon the Sun will be on your right
side. If you are facing north the Sun as
it rises will shine on your right side, around noon it will be overhead, and in
the afternoon, it will be on your left side.
In
the area from the equator to either 23.4 degrees north latitude or 23.4 degrees
south latitude, things are more confused with, of course, the Sun rising in the
east and setting in the west, however at noon the Sun can either be north or
south of you, depending on the time of the year, in these latitudes.
The arrow in this picture points towards the sun, photograph by the Author.
So
what direction was my wife walking when I took the picture of her in the Canadaway
Creek gorge? Do you know? I bet you can figure it out.
The
correct answer is my wife was walking north.
If you didn’t get the answer right, here is how you figure it out. Okay, the first thing that you need to know
is, that I took that picture on September 19th at 2:13 pm in the
northern temperate zone. The first
things you need to remember is that in September your watch is probably set to
daylight savings time, so subtract an hour from the time on your watch to get standard
time. So, in standard time the picture
was taken at 1:13 pm and the Sun is just a little past its zenith or highest
point in its daily travel across the sky (for more information read “Daylight
Savings Time in the Wilderness ©”, HERE).
When
you look at the picture, it is clear from the shadow that the Sun is directly above
and behind my wife’s head. In the
northern hemisphere, at noon if the Sun is above and behind you, then the Sun must
be close to its most southern point in the sky. From this you can tell that my wife was
walking north!
Just
to prove to you that this is the case, the red arrow on the map shows the
approximate location where the picture was taken, and the Canadaway creek at
this point flows mostly north. Since we were
walking downstream along the creek, when I took the picture, we were walking north.
This
method of determining north and south is not as exact as the shadow-tip method1
(for more information on this method , read “How To Find Your Way Without A
Compass, Part Three, The Shadow-tip Method©”, HERE)
and will only give you a general idea of your directions, but hey, a general
direction is better than no direction at all!
So,
if you ever find yourself “misplaced” or even simply curious as to where
north, south, east and west are you can simply look to the Sun. You should still, always carry a compass with
you, though, because it is hard to find the Sun on a cloudy day!
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
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announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at
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That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Notes
1 The
shadow-tip method was devised by Robert S. Owendoff in 1959. This method was adopted by the U.S. Army as a
field expedient way of finding your direction on January 26, 1962.
From a review of Better Ways of Pathfinding, by
Robert S. Owendoff, [Stackpole Company, Harrisburg, PA, 1964], by Major William
C. O’Connell on page 62 of the March-April 1965 Infantry
magazine (Vol. 55, No. 2)
Sources
Department
of the Airforce, Outdoor Survival Skills: How to Survive on Land, Sea and
Ice!, (originally published as Survival), [Info Books, Toronto,
Canada, 1980] p. 2-86
Gibson, J.; Soldiers’ Own Note Book and Diary For 1918,
[Charles Letts & Co., London, 1918], page 30, http://heritage.christchurchcitylibraries.com/Archives/OSullivan/Clutterbuck/Diary/PDF/0050.pdf,
accessed August 16, 2018
O’Connell, William C.,
Major; Infantry, March-April 1965, Vol. 55, No. 2, page 62 (page 147 on
the PDF), https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadY2HyR7rtXN-uioWEUpk97F9F0CgT4dSkl9SoxeL8m42Bjr5jqB3Fj046OBs3RGLuNRKqntX0fkTQXK5te9FhDV73UBmkafb_JeiRQerGrIjDndlcwiT2OKH21ZzH3WQ3H0zeapMh-VfXOnMF0tzd0bm2M_2uZjFawsNErdY64HlI9w2s8Ak1Cng9awgMN232ijuoAjvZz2ZsUpVA-wjqvtxQJ8a74P18We-KRSVDxyNdAN7U, accessed January 13, 2021
Oelslager,
R. W., Dr.; Bushcraft, Scouting & Woodcraft
Notes, Volume I, [privately published], https://ia801603.us.archive.org/27/items/BushcraftNotes/Bushcraft%20Notes.pdf,
accessed January 8, 2021
Airlines
War Training Institute, Survival: Land, Sea, Jungle, Arctic, [The
Infantry Journal, Washington, D.C., 1944] p. 41-42
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