This is the tenth in a series of eleven articles on
the top ten wilderness survival skills, things you should know before you go
into the wilderness. To read the
previous article go HERE
– Author’s Note
The Number Ten,
Top Ten Wilderness Survival Skill: Having a Map and Compass and Knowing How to Use
Them
having a map and compass and knowing how to use them.
If
you don’t have a map and compass, or you don’t know how to use them, when you
are travelling in the wilderness, then you are already in a survival situation
-- you are just waiting for a time and place for it to happen. And it will happen!
You don’t
have a built-in sense of direction!
Colonel Meir’s sense of direction was wrong, Thom was right, and the compass wasn’t the problem. From The Hesperian, 1839, by John Gallagher.
First
off, let’s be clear, you don’t have a built-in sense of direction or a sixth
sense that will allow you to navigate un-aided through the wilderness! Often, people who believe that they have one
of these, point to famous hunters and Native Americans of the past, who were
apparently able to travel long distances through the wilderness without a
compass and still reach their destination, to prove that they can too. The people that they point to were
experienced woodsmen, who were consciously or unconsciously navigating by using
nature’s clues, like the location of the Sun, the stars, or the Moon. And let’s face it, none of us moderns are as
wood-wise as Daniel Boone or a Native American hunter of the late 18th
and early 19th centuries was.
And besides, even Daniel Boone when he was eighty-four, admitted to painter
Chester Harding that "I have never been lost, but I was once bewildered
for three days"1.
The “Unfinished Portrait of Daniel Boone”, by Chester Harding, the only portrait of Daniel Boone, painted from life, in June 1820, from Wikimedia, HERE.
So, do you
have a map and a compass?
Maps and compasses, photograph by the Author.
Whenever
you are out in the wilderness, you should always have a compass and a map of
the area that you are going to be traveling through, and when it comes to compasses,
two are better than one!
Emerson
Hough’s wrote in his 1915 book, Out Of Doors, you should always have two
compasses, not only because you have a spare if one is lost or broken, but more
importantly because often when person is “misplaced” they panic. And when a panicky, misplaced person begins
to bend their mental map to fit their preconceived notion of where they think they
are, they might not believe one compass if it doesn’t agree with their built-in
sense of direction, thinking instead that the compass is broken. However, while they may believe that one of their
compasses is broken, likely they won’t believe that TWO compasses are both
broken, especially when they both point in the same way.
It is a good idea to always have a spare compass. Excerpt from Out of Doors, by Emerson Hough, page 278 to 279.
A
compass and map are like peanut butter and jelly, you can have one without the
other, but they just aren’t just the same alone. Make sure you always have both with you whenever
you go out into the woods, even if it just for a day hike in an area that you
know well. Once, in an area that I know
like the back of my hand and have visited often for the last 40 years, I had to
break out my map and compass to help someone else navigate their way back to
the trailhead!
Now,
a map is simply a drawing of the actual wilderness that you are travelling through
and shows more or less detail, depending on the scale that the map is drawn to
(for more on map scales read “Map Scales...Say What! ©”, HERE). And before you venture out into the
wilderness, and every morning before you begin your travels, you should study
your map and fix the location of prominent landmarks in your mind, creating a
mental map in your head, so that you can successfully navigate through the
wilderness that the map is picturing. Also,
sometimes it is helpful to print out and use Google Maps’ satellite photos to
get an eagle’s eye view on the area that you are going to be travelling in (for
more on this read “Being Bewildered and Bending the Map ©, HERE).
You need to have a map! Excerpt from Out of Doors, by Emerson Hough, page 279.
Remember
a compass just points north, it is not a magic device that will bring you home
and a map is not a magical scroll that you simply take out and wave and it will
show you your way to your destination. You
must learn how to use both of them!
How do I
learn to use a compass and map?
Some books on how to use a map and compass, photograph by the Author.
There
are a lot of great books out there on how to use a compass and a map. My two favorites are, Better Ways Of
Pathfinding by Robert S. Owendoff, and Staying Found by June Fleming,
both are clear and easy to read, with helpful illustrations, although they are
older books, and you will have to find them in a library or a used bookstore. Whichever book or books you pick, read them,
study them and then, and this is the only way of getting really good at any
skill, practice, practice, practice!
My two favorite books on how to use a compass and a map, photograph by the Author.
Another
way of practicing your skills is to join an orienteering club near you and get
out in the field. No matter what though,
you should learn and practice how to navigate around obstacles and how to fix
your location on your map, compared to the landmarks that your see around you.
Things you should know how to do with a compass, an excerpt from “How to use a compass II”, in Field & Stream, April 1973, page 188-191 & 195, by Steve Netherby, HERE; part one is HERE.
And
remember you don’t have a built-in sense of direction, but your compass does,
so trust it!
Always trust your compass, it has a built-in sense of direction, you don’t! An excerpt from “How to use a compass II”, in Field & Stream, April 1973, page 188-191 & 195, by Steve Netherby.
Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Naismith’s Rule ©”,
where we will talk about estimating time and distance when travelling in the
wilderness.
Rough winter terrain, how long will it take you to walk a mile? Photograph by Kathleen Reynolds, used with permission.
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 Margaret E. White,
Editor, A Sketch of Chester Harding, Artist Drawn By His Own Hand, page
47 to 48.
Sources
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John; The Hesperian, Vol. III, July 1839, published by John D. Nichols,
Cincinnati, OH, 1839, page 114,
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accessed February 3, 2017
Hough,
Emerson; Out Of Doors, (D. Appleton and Company, New York, New York
[1915]) p. 269 - 282, reprinted in https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadnZNQ1xrsbkS3T4VJlC_uZQ8t4yj2UNH5POGbNio-1SDyFM8TAqUfl7ciDY5CuNZxvnnE0Pcxf1j6Thu_zOs5kz8rgR9MOtsbTxVgRVa3bwaKo0-D5YX2T4JaBO_z6G8vgwFNgLiJ9XCfBVnn9K4qR7ZFa0faNe3zmvfWDfmEo049sqXQlw697XIHDWNblRJj9niiabZoBB7aQHl82tf4y03cpU2hMdLVADF-7P2pvJKsZbLDnJN8ncLZ9IftMudapmn8E,
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Netherby, Steve; “How to
use a compass”, Field & Stream, March 1973, page 180-182 & 220, https://books.google.com/books?id=IGTXx0TNr_cC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false,
accessed February 19, 2022
Netherby, Steve; “How to
use a compass II”, Field & Stream, April 1973, page 188-191 &
195, https://books.google.com/books?id=e6tsV53NNgAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false,
accessed February 19, 2022
Wikimedia,
“Unfinished Portrait of Daniel Boone”, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Unfinished_portrait_of_Daniel_Boone_by_Chester_Harding_1820.jpg,
accessed September 21, 2018.
White,
Margaret E., Editor; A Sketch of Chester Harding, Artist Drawn By His Own
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accessed September 21, 2018
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