I can't seem to remember how the wilderness obsession started. When I try to think back, my brain insists on replaying the time youngest son, Typhon, then three, was hiking with me at Rogers Environmental Center. We were separated from the others, alone in the woods for a moment. He slipped his little hand in mine and told me, a short curly-headed prophet, "When you move us all to the woods, I will be happiest."
However it began, it began as Typhon thing, I am sure of that.
I remember also an outing to the woods on the shore of the Normans Kill (a creek that connects with the Hudson in our region) when he asked if we could come back some time and "be real adventurers." With a hundred or so questions I thought I had determined that he wanted to go backpacking and I began to look into what that would entail. Since a lot of equipment, and a car, seemed necessary, and because it was winter, I put the thought out of my mind.
But when Bullar took a class in winter wilderness survival skills, which I put him in just to get him out of the city once in a while, Typhon was totally jealous. Everything one boy came home knowing about, he had to learn about too. He wanted to build a shelter from sticks. He wanted to make fire. He wanted to learn to twist plants into rope. I promised he could take the spring wilderness class, thinking the winter one was too tough for him, and I checked out My Side of the Mountain for Typhon to read in the mean time.
Jean Craighead George's tale of a boy who ditches his apartment full of siblings and goes off to really live in the woods by himself was perfect. It was gasoline on Typhon's little fire. Suddenly the kiddo had a Life Plan. He already knew he wanted lots of children and that he would mostly take care of them but sometimes earn money by busking, playing his fiddle on the city sidewalks. Now he also knew he would move to the wilderness and build a house himself and teach them all to survive like Sam Gribley did. He painted lovely images of his children dancing to his fiddle outside their wilderness hut and I easily pictured all my grandchildren as barefoot Appalachians.
However it began, it began as Typhon thing, I am sure of that.
I remember also an outing to the woods on the shore of the Normans Kill (a creek that connects with the Hudson in our region) when he asked if we could come back some time and "be real adventurers." With a hundred or so questions I thought I had determined that he wanted to go backpacking and I began to look into what that would entail. Since a lot of equipment, and a car, seemed necessary, and because it was winter, I put the thought out of my mind.
But when Bullar took a class in winter wilderness survival skills, which I put him in just to get him out of the city once in a while, Typhon was totally jealous. Everything one boy came home knowing about, he had to learn about too. He wanted to build a shelter from sticks. He wanted to make fire. He wanted to learn to twist plants into rope. I promised he could take the spring wilderness class, thinking the winter one was too tough for him, and I checked out My Side of the Mountain for Typhon to read in the mean time.
Jean Craighead George's tale of a boy who ditches his apartment full of siblings and goes off to really live in the woods by himself was perfect. It was gasoline on Typhon's little fire. Suddenly the kiddo had a Life Plan. He already knew he wanted lots of children and that he would mostly take care of them but sometimes earn money by busking, playing his fiddle on the city sidewalks. Now he also knew he would move to the wilderness and build a house himself and teach them all to survive like Sam Gribley did. He painted lovely images of his children dancing to his fiddle outside their wilderness hut and I easily pictured all my grandchildren as barefoot Appalachians.
Around this time we began reading through the Herb Fairies book series and Typhon started asking me to identify every weed we saw. After four months of being drilled by my eight-year-old, I can now identify about half of what I see on the sidewalks in the city. Typhon can, too. Here he is pictured on a city street killing time while Naga is dropped off at school by pursuing some weeds to supplement his breakfast.
At Typhon's spring wilderness class graduation, the kids camped out in shelters of their own design. I sent tofu along as well as fruit and water, but when we arrived to pick him up the next day he'd eaten none. He said, "I found a giant meadow of chickweed and just stuffed myself on that and violets." He also reported that his shelter kept him dry in the rain but he went to a weaker one because he was lonely in there. That's my boy.
Having successfully built a shelter, he was able to impress the kids at home with his skill, such that now eight-year-old Naga and eleven-year-old Bullar have decided to join Typhon's wilderness lifestyle. They plan to bring cat along at least one cat, too, after reading this article about a mountaineering pet kitty.
So for the past week or so all three middle kids have been planning their new life in the wilderness, complete with lists of gear and designated duties. Naga will hunt, Typhon will forage, and Bullar will sew. They each want a pocketknife and a Life Straw, and they are debating the virtue of bringing along rope and flint or just using what they find. They have begged for field guides that focus on edibles and are cultivating in buckets good medicinal plants that go wild and take over, candidates to transfer to a self-maintaining edible forest garden.
I don't know if they'll ever make the grownup-free trip they are lobbying for or have their wilderness home but I hope we'll figure out a way to at least give them a weekend. This has been the most exciting science year Typhon's had and, like with Vishap's obsession with mechatronics, it's fruitfully sucking the other kids in so the whole household is getting an education. Hobby-based, project-based science FTW!