Salamander Efts Fire up the Bow Drill at Lake Padden

Meeting at Lake Padden on an early March morning, we arrived in the presence of light rain and snow. However, even in these mixed conditions, the first signs of spring were apparent. Skunk Cabbage poked its head out of the depths, Indian Plum was leafing out, and a group of robins squabbled over some territorial dispute. In contrast, the last time we were here was in the torrential downpours of early October. As this group grows older we as mentors like to hand more of the group process and decision making over to the boys, and, with only four Salamander Efts on this outing, group decision making went quickly. We discussed our options and decided to head southeast along the trail for some tracking and exploration, meanwhile looking for a place to settle down and work on skills.

Heading out for the day

We took a circuitous path through the woods, clambering over and across logs. We climbed down giant root balls and circumnavigated a swamp. Along the way we encountered a great diversity of sign as well as bird life. We encountered the sign of almost every woodpecker species native to our region, and were surprised to have close encounters with three of those species: Hairy, Downy, and Pileated. It is a great joy as a mentor to see these boys progress and how well they can make their way through the woods on their own when compared to some of our younger groups. After about an hour of exploration we decided it was about time to find somewhere flat and dry to settle in and practice our skills.

Red-breasted Sapsucker sign. These are rows of sap wells the bird has drilled into a living tree.

Sign of a Pileated Woodpecker. Notice the rectangular shape of the holes.

Beginning with our last outing, the Salamander Efts have begun working on the Art of Fire by Friction. This skill is an almost perfect incarnation of our seasonal focus, the Art of Thriving, in that it is built upon a foundation of many other skills, and symbolic of their mastery. From awareness of fire conditions, to harvesting and carving the components, to coaxing the coal into life and blowing it into flame, the boys must draw upon almost every other skill we have previously practiced in Explorer's Club. It is also a skill that requires a great deal of patience, perseverance, and self-motivation for success. The Bow Drill challenges even those most skilled and experienced in the outdoors.

Setting up shop.

We found someplace as dry and clear as we could and set up base camp. Our conditions were somewhat challenging to say the least. With a full night of rain and snow the forest was dripping wet and after just a few minutes of sitting down it started to feel rather cold. Starting a fire even by traditional methods would be difficult. However, something we know from the past is that when we need fire the most, conditions are often are often also the most challenging, even more so with Fire by Friction. These challenges were taken in stride as we moved out to collect materials. The Bow Drill has four major components: bow, spindle, fireboard, and handhold. We all collected these components and began shaping them to our basic needs.

Firing up the Bow Drill in the rain.

Once our sets were crafted we started putting them to use, burning the spindle into the handhold and fireboard. After learning the proper form, dealing with loose strings, wobbly spindles, and cracked fireboards, we realized this skill might not be as simple as it initially looks. Although none of us created a coal this day, we learned a lot about the physics and mechanics of the Bow Drill, which is the foundation of future success. We learned that this is a skill that very much relies on form over force, and that a well crafted and smoothly operated kit is the key to success. Our goal is for every one of the Salamander Efts to succesfully make fire with the Bow Drill by the end of this season and we will continue working on this skill each time we go out.

Crafting kits and working on form.

We rounded out the day with a sit spot, spending around 15 minutes in silence and solitude contemplating our day and our time with Explorers Club. As this is the Salamander Efts last season with Boys Explorers Club we wanted the boys to think about what their time here and their experience with the natural world means to them, and what lies in store for them in the future. For our next outing we will be traversing Chuckanut Ridge and hopefully delving deeper into these subjects as well as continuing to perfect our Bow Drill technique.

Hairy Woodpecker lets us get a good look at him.

Check out the rest of the photos from this outing here.

 

Salamander Efts ford Deming Homestead Eagle Park to track along the banks of the Nooksack's North Fork

Our exploration began in the belly of Explorers Club’s new bus Moose, which saw us safely to Eagle Rock Park in Deming. There we circled up in the grass beside an eddy of the North Fork which, swelled by rain had submerged our crossing on the alluvial flood plain which stretched before us to the banks of the Nooksack’s North Fork, the sight of which was occluded by young alders scattered amidst tall bracken and shrubbery.

After catching up with each other’s different winter season’s goings on, the boys set to dividing jobs, discussing logistics and this season’s skill focus – Tracking and bird language – with alacrity. We were all excited at the prospect of tracking on the alluvium of the flood plain, and seeing what animals had been about since the rain from the night before had washed a fresh layer of sediment over the ground – perfect for tracking!

The winds were calm, and we waded across onto the flood plain, where we set off through the slightly stirring scrub in search of tracks and a path to the river. We found the substrate remarkably undisturbed by the passing of other animals, yet how much do we miss the tracks of robins and mice?

Once we broke through the underbrush to the sand and stones of the riverbed, we broke for snacks and water. Heading south along the riverbank, the boys broke up into bands, always within eyesight and crow-call, to explore for tracks, dig into the sand, build forts, and establish a base camp for fire and shelter along the breach. Tracks of deer and dog from before the rains could still be made out, though mostly obscured from weathering, and a few deer and what may have been a fox or young coyote could be seen by their trail signs left behind that morning.

The weather was generous to us, with the clouds staying light gray and refusing to drop more than the occasional sprinkle of precipitation, and the winds stayed bedded down, offering us only soft breezes as gusts. The boys wanted to start a fire, and along with the mentors used their camping and art of fire-making skills to start a fire with a spark starter and a nest of damp grass, dried with friction, while others built a windbreak to shield the ember while it caught. We were working with the driest of damp materials available, and all felt pretty proud of the group’s accomplishment once we were fanning the flame of our fire!

After lunch eaten around the fire on in a wooden fort, the winds and rain began to pick up just enough that we were worried for our fire. The boys then conceived a tarp shelter over the fire, and cut four dead limbs for posts, digging holes deep in the ground to anchor them; securing these finally with rocks and sand before securing the tarp to the posts. The Salamander Efts had a vision for this outing, and executed it with passion and confidence! It was a shelter entirely isolated from natural windbreaks of driftwood stacks, yet it was a warm place to weather the brunt of wind and rain that came our way towards the end of the outing, and a source of gratitude during our closing circle around the embers left to die from our fire.

The weather once again blessed us with calm and dry as we broke camp and scattered all sign it was ever there, packed our bags and headed back to the park – the richer for the experience and for a few plaster castings of tracks. Crossing back to the bus, the water that has been so painfully cold at our journey’s beginning now was a joy that our explorers splashed back into with abandon. An auspicious end to our first out of spring.