What an animal trail really looks like... tracking a moose and a deer

One of the challenges of doing a blog on tracking is getting pictures of what a typical track really looks like. Usually only the most distinct tracks show up clear enough to make them "interesting" for a blog entry.  The problem is that most tracks don't really look like that and if you spend all your time looking for perfect tracks, it will be hard to improve.

For this entry I tried my best to take some pictures of "normal" tracks from just an average day of tracking with my kids.

Shortly after starting a hike down an old logging trail, my kids and I turned a bend and saw a beautiful white tail deer. It looked at us briefly and then ran off after catching a glimpse of my dog. Having seen the deer I knew right where it was standing and that the tracks were obviously fresh. This is what I found...

The deer had been scraping at the ground when we first spotted it. I assume that it was digging for some roots. You can see that although the deer was standing here, there are no clear tracks

Here you can see where the moss was turned up by one edge of the white tail deer's hoof. This track is no more than one minute old, but you can see that it's certainly not clear. It would be hard too know with 100% certainty that it belonged to a deer except for the fact that it was part of a trail of tracks.

Another example of a typical white tail deer track. You can see the basic form of the deer's hoof in the moss. This was the most clear track we found from following the trail for several hundred feet. As you progress as a tracker, you will spend most of your time working with tracks like these, not the perfectly formed imprints in mud.

When the deer trail reached a swamp we decided to head back to the logging trail... mostly because we were all wearing running shoes not rubber boots. The next trail we ran into belonged to a moose. The trail was probably about 1 day old. You could tell from how the frost effected the tracks that they had been left at some point the day before during the afternoon when the weather was warmer. This is also an example of a more typical trail that you would have to follow. Normally I wouldn't have tried to post pictures of this on the blog because they are not at all clear, but it's interesting to see how even an 800lb animal on soft spring soil doesn't leave as much of a trace as you would think.

A good moose track. You can see how the frost has made the track "pop up" showing that it was made sometime the day before. The shape of the moose's hoof is nice and clear here.

Just a few feet farther down from where the last picture was taken, you can see that the trail isn't so clear. There is a track directly to the left of each object... cell phone, pocket knife, son's glove, lighter, daughter's hat.

A close up of the first track left by the moose in this series of tracks. You can faintly see the outline of the enitre track and can see where the 2 tips of the hoof broke through the moss into the soil.

Snack break! After about 2 hours of tracking through the thick bush we realized that we were hungry and stopped for a rest and some food. The beavers made this convenient seat for us. Tracking is so good for the kids... not only is it fun and educational, it holds their attention so that they don't even realize that they are trekking through the woods for hours being eaten by bugs! 

So, be encouraged... if you aren't finding amazingly clear tracks all the time, that is perfectly normal. Be patient, get down on your hands and knees, use your tracking stick and soon your eyes will pick out trace tracks without any problem. Thanks for reading!

Bears on my front porch!

My first ever blog entry was titled mama bear and the three cubs ... well, they're back! I've been trying to find bear tracks all spring, and then yesterday I looked out my door and there was a bear cub staring right at me!

Yearling bear cub staring in my front door! 

For those who are interested in tracking, notice how the front feet turn in and are curved opposite human feet

The bears were eating the fresh dandelion flower buds off the lawn

2 of the 3 cubs just relaxing while the mother bear was searching for food

The mother bear. She was actually a lot smaller than she looks in this picture.

After about a minute of taking pictures, I gave them a good scare to make sure they weren't to comfortable in my back yard. They took off, but the one looking back climbed the tree briefly before joining the rest of the family

Pretty cute eh? There is some significant dangers with these bears though. There was a guy not from from where we live who was feeding the bears over the last 30 years. He had over 20 bears come to his house every night and he would feed them right out of his hand. This is a major problem because it gives them a taste for people food and takes away some of their fear. To make matters worse, the "bear man" died over the winter, so the bears woke up hungry and with no easy food. It is a fairly serious issue that is being addressed by the local MNR officers.

I should have scared them off right away, but I couldn't resist taking some pictures first. One of the great things about being able to observe animals and take pictures of them is that you can then compare their movements to the tracks, which helps you to read the details of the tracks with greater confidence.

Compare the three pictures below...

Here is the mother bear. Notice how her front right foot steps right beside my sons trucks! Compare it below.

You can see from the trucks that this is the exact spot that the bear stepped. Can you see the track?

You can see the bear paw track a bit better in the photo with the knife for perspective. If you look carefully you can make out the 5 toes and few nail marks as well as part of the heel pad. Knowing that this track is only about 2 minutes old, it is a good lesson that not all tracks will jump out at you. You need to take the time to read the details in the ground.

Here are a few more pictures of clearer tracks. Not far from my house is a small brook which provided perfect conditions to get some really good tracks.

You can see some of the details of the black bear paw in this track. I'm not exactly sure which paw left this track, because you can only make out the 3 middle toes and some of the heel pad.

This is a front left black bear paw. The outer left toe is smudged into the mud, but you can see the nail mark registered

A beautiful black bear track! A front right paw I believe.

Close up of the black bear track.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures. It was great to see this bear family again... but I hope next time it's not in my backyard!

Basic Winter Survival Part 5: Finding food

Finding food my be the lowest of the survival priorities, but it is still important! It is the most difficult of the survival priorities to address, especially in the Canadian winter.

For those who are new to the conversation, here is a brief recap of the first 4 parts...

• Part 1 discussed survival mentality and described a basic emergency survival kit that I use
• Part 2.1 reviewed the concepts behind shelter making, including choosing clothing and finding natural shelters
• Part 2.2 went into the details necessary to build 2 different types of shelters in the winter
• Part 3 gave some thought on how to light a fire in damp winter conditions
• Part 4 went over some tips to help you get water from snow and ice, either using a kit or from scratch

The winter brings some unique challenges to finding and harvesting food sources. The first challenge is the lack of wild edible plants in the winter. So much of what you would use to sustain you in the other 3 seasons is either dead or frozen under the ground. The second challenge is that many of the animals that you would typically hunt have either migrated south, are hibernating or are trapped under the ice, lowering your chances of finding a source of meat.

In a long term survival situation you would want to concentrate on large game like deer or moose, but in an emergency survival situation where you wouldn't likely have a bow or a gun with you, you will need to focus on small game like snow shoe hare, squirrels (when they are out on a warm day), birds, etc. Based on the survival kit discussed in Part 1, I would suggest focusing your efforts on setting snares and hunting with a sling shot.

Sling shots are highly under rated for use in hunting. People have become so used to hunting with large guns with large scopes that they have forgotten that hunting can be much simpler. A sling shot can be easily carried in  your kit. If you want to reduce weight and size you can just carry the band and some 1/3" shot, then modify the sling shot while in the field.

It is possible to hunt small animals with a sling shot. Because it is so small, you can carry it with you while you are on the move in case you encounter a potential meal!

Shooting a sling shot is mostly common sense. Here are a few tips that might make it go a little easier if you haven't had much practice before...

• Always touch your cheek in the same place when you are drawing back the band. This will help you to develop a consistent shot that will allow you to increase your accuracy.
• I personally like to hold the sling shot tilted sideways so that the two sides of the band are lined up vertically. This will provide you with increased accuracy in the horizontal plane.
• When releasing the band it is important to just "relax" your grip in contrast to mechanically opening your grip. It should feel as though the band almost slips out of your hand.
• Finally, because it takes some strength to pull back the band, it is important to aim and shoot quickly before your arm starts shaking. It is best to gently exhale as you raise your front arm and draw back the band and then shoot as soon as your arms are in position... all in one smooth motion

An example of one correct way to shoot a sling shot. Note that the pouch is touching my cheek, the sling shot is tilted so that you can line up the bands vertically and my left arm is straight. All of these things add to the consistency of your shot.

If you just bring the sling shot band, you could make something like this in the field. I have tried just tying the band to the "Y" branch and it worked well once I had taken the time to make the distances equal on both sides of the band. You could also drill 2 holes through the "Y" branch using something like a bow drill or a multi-tool and then use small sticks to plug the band and secure it in place.

Another helpful method is to set a snare. This is where your tracking skills will come in handy, because without bait you will need to place the snare on a well used animal trail (you will probably want to focus on snow shoe hare).

There are lots of different snare type traps that you could use, but I'm going to talk about the "L 7" spring snare. In the survival kit you should have some snare wire, but for these pictures I decided to try and use an old shoe lace to demonstrate what you could do if you weren't prepared. The process is the same, the shoe lace just makes it more challenging. I'll walk you through the process using the pictures below.

Some sign that a snow shoe hare has been through here. There is a lot of over head cover in the area and lots of similar browsing sign. The snow just fell this morning, so there was no clear tracks.

Here is what you will need... Some type of rope (shoe lace, braided fabric, wire, etc.) A stake that you can drive into the ground with a "7" carved into it at the top.   A smaller peg with an "L" carved into. A sapling that can be used as a spring. The "L" and the "7" will hook together.

Here is a sapling right next to the rabbit run. I have cleared off the extra branches so that they won't snag or slow down the spring when it is triggered

Here is the noose and the "L" peg attached to the sapling.  Other than the "L" notch, I carve a ring around the peg where the rope is attached to it to help it stay secure. 

How it works... The noose is on the rabbit run and held open with some twigs. The shoe lace is then tied to the "L" peg which is attached to the sapling which is bent over close to the ground. The "L" peg is then hooked onto the "7" peg which is driven into the ground, which then holds the whole snare in place. When the snow shoe hare runs through, the noose tightens and pulls the pegs apart, triggering the spring which will jerk the noose upwards with significant force. The trick is making the "L7" connection solid enough to hold down the spring, but precarious enough that it can be easily triggered. If it doesn't take you awhile to get them to hook, then it's not enough of a hair trigger.

Well, it took me 3 months, but the basic winter survival series is done! I hope that taken all together the 5 parts to this series will give you some increased confidence as you head out tracking in the back country. All that has been discussed serves as a good base to get you going, but could be built on significantly as you gain experience and are ready to absorb more information. Remember that survival isn't all about "doom and gloom" scenarios... it is also about living closer to nature and in a more self sufficient way.  It can also be used to help you camp without so much gear and to provide some fun learning activities to do with your kids.
Thanks for reading!

Basic Winter Survival Part 4: Melting snow and ice for water

Finding water in the Canadian winter can be easy and straight forward, or incredibly difficult... it all depends on if you have been able to make a fire or not!

Without fire you are stuck in a situation where all the water around you is frozen. It is possible to eat small amounts of snow at a time to gain some moisture, but from what I've been told if you have too much it can cause problems. You can imagine that if you don't have fire and you are eating snow, it would cool you down much faster! In addition, the major problem is how much energy it takes for you body to melt the snow. In some cases your body may reject large quantities of snow and you would end up loosing more water than you gained. This is one of the reasons why fire is such a high survival priority.

Assuming you've been able to successfully create a fire following the steps described in Part 3 , then your next issue will be deciding what type of container you will use to melt the snow in. In Part 1 I described a good minimal survival kit that included the stainless steel Backpacker water bottle by Nalgene. This isn't the most user friendly container for working with on a fire, but because you would likely want to bring a water bottle with you when you are out in the woods anyway, it has multiple uses and doesn't take up any more space.

The Backpacker by Nalgene. It is stainless steel (fairly thick) and one of the great features is that the lid can be either attached or removed. If you let the fire burn down to coals, place the water bottle in the coals and then build the fire up again around it, it will boil very quickly. You will want to have your multi-tool on hand to remove it!

If you want to bring something that is a little easier to use on the fire, but is still small and compact, I would suggest the Zebra Billy Can. It is ideal for using to cook over the fire because of it's handle and lid. It comes in different sizes, but mine is 1 1/2 litres which has always worked well for me. It is strong and well made and won't let you down. I wouldn't usually bring it with me unless I was going somewhere very remote or I was planning ahead of time to be out over night... just because of the extra weight and room it would take up, but if you know you are going to be cooking over a fire and you want something light weight you can go wrong with this (And to save space you can pack other gear inside of it).

The Zebra Billy Can (1 1/2 litre).This is a great little pot... it is made of very thick stainless steel and has a solid handle and lid. They are hard to find, but well worth it.  You can see in behind an example of a natural shelter... In the Canadian Shield it is very common for trees to uproot like this and then get caught on other trees, making a natural lean-to. The pot is suspended by a green balsam fir branch with a "Y" wedged into the "Y" of the supporting pole (which is being weighted down by a rock and held up by a log on the far end).

You can see that they are fairly similar in size. The Billy Can is easier to use on the fire and you can pack other gear or food in it. The Backpacker is more convenient if you just want a minimal kit to take with you for emergencies because you would probably want to bring some sort of a water bottle anyways.

What happens if you weren't prepared with a survival kit? If you had no kit, but managed to make a fire using friction then you would need to make your own container. You would do this by using coals from a fire to burn out a depression in a log and then by placing rocks heated in the fire into the container to melt the snow. The real trick to this process is finding the right piece of wood. Because you would only do this if you had no container, it is probably safe to assume that you also wouldn't have a hatchet or saw with you either, which makes harvesting the perfect piece of wood big enough for a good container very difficult.  In this case I would recommend making the container directly into a fallen tree near your shelter and fire. The process of making the container is simple, but takes some time... place hot coals on the wood and then gently blow on or fan them... then take a stick or pocket knife and scrape off the charred wood... then repeat until it is the size and shape that you want.

Due to time constraints, I borrowed this picture from  http://belfastbushcraftblog.blogspot.ca/ ... but it should give you an idea of the process. You can imagine in a real survival situation when you are really cold, thirsty and just spent a significant amount of time getting fire using friction how frustrating this could be. Not to mention the process of finding rocks under all the snow! A good reason to be prepared instead... but this is fun to do as a project when you have some time on your hands.

A few last tips! Snow is mostly air and ice is mostly water, so you will save yourself from having to continually add more snow to the container by melting ice instead. Also, staying hydrated helps you to stay warm, so it is worth the energy in the evening to keep making hot water and drinking as much as you can before you go to sleep (not to mention the heating effect on your core from the hot water being in your stomach). Finally if you have a stainless steel water bottle, filling it with boiling water and then keeping it close to your core will help to keep you warm as you sleep.

I hope this helps! Thanks for reading.

Basic Winter Survival Part 3: How to make a fire in wet winter conditions

After shelter, fire is the next survival priority if you are ever out in the Canadian winter.  You need fire to stay warm, to melt ice/snow for water, to cook the meat you've hunted, to make containers and to help you feel secure.
We are going to continue following the scenario and to assume that you have the basic survival kit described in Part 1 of this series.

Today was probably the worst possible conditions for building a fire... In the last 2 weeks several feet of snow have melted leaving everything soaked, then last night it was covered again in a few centimeters of snow and finally at the moment I went out to light the fire there was freezing rain. If you can build a fire in conditions like these, you can build a fire any time!

The difference between lighting a fire in bad weather and good weather is all in the little details. Other than those details all the basics of making a fire still apply... You need dry wood for fuel, you need to make sure that oxygen can get to the fire, you start smaller pieces of wood and work towards larger ones and you need a way to light it... sounds easy, but unfortunately the times when you need the fire the most are also the times when it's hardest to get.

The first thing that you need to do is find a good location that is as dry as possible and out of the wind (See Part 2 ). In addition you are going to want to make sure that all of the materials you need are going to be close by. In my case I wanted to make sure that there were some cedar, birch, a grove of spruce or balsam fir and lots of standing dead wood.

I'll let the pictures walk you through the rest!

Just wanted to show how wet everything is

Freezing rain falling off the trees

The location I chose for the fire before being fixed up.  Note the thick Balsam Fir grove between me and the wind and how little snow is under it. If you clear away the lower branches and make a bit of a "cave" on the edge of the grove, you will have a natural shelter with little risk of fire danger at this time of year.

Part way through the prep. You can see the naturally dry and snow free area that will be where my fire goes. The green branches that I need to trim will be used to make a mat that keeps me off the ground and the dead ones will go in the fire.

You will want to collect the materials for your tinder bundle (the materials that you will ignite first) before everything else. By doing this you can then keep it dry and close to your body heat.
This is a Cedar tree and it's bark makes ideal tinder for any ignition source.

You can identify a cedar by the flat scaly needles in addition to the wispy vertical bark

Find the driest part of the tree (On the under side if it's on an angle or opposite the side of the wind) and after a few initial scrapes to clear away any moisture, continue to scrape and collect the bark until you have a handfull

Birch bark has a lot of uses, but in this case we want it for our tinder bundle because it lights easily and makes a large flame. You can often peel off the outer layer that may be wet and just keep the inner layers.

Here is the cedar bark scrapings and shredded birch bark

Combine it by tearing and rolling it repeatedly and you will get your tinder bundle, which should resemble a birds nest. Then put it in your pocket to keep it warm and dry.

Next we need a base to keep the fire off the ground and dry and to reflect the heat upwards. For this find some wet slightly rotted wood that is on the ground. Use your folding saw (I use a Bahco Laplander) to cut a few big pieces. You want the wood wet so it doesn't burn easily and just serves as a base. Put the most dry side facing up when you are at your fire site. This method also allows extra air to get to the fire from underneath

Next you will need very small fine pieces of dry wood. Using the dead undergrowth of these balsam fir trees is ideal. You will divide it up into 2 or 3 sizes ranging from dainty to pencil thick. Just clearing my fire area gave me enough of this.

For the fire to actually catch, you need some larger harder wood to ignite. The best wood for this is "standing dead wood", which is essentially broken branches or fallen trees that have remained up off of the ground. Here is a small maple that was pushed over and killed by a larger tree that fell... it is ideal because it is very dry.

Here are the parts for the fire (not counting the on going wood you will need once it is lit). At the bottom you have the wet/rotten wood for the base. In the middle is the dry maple from the previous picture. At top is the fine balsam fir branches. To the left is a large amount of birch bark. Finally you have your tinder bundle in your pocket.

To prep the bigger pieces of wood, I used my hatchet (The backpaxe by Gerber) to remove the wet outer bark and expose the dry inner wood. You can just scrape it off if you have the hatchet at the correct angle, but I chopped it off at slight angles so that not only do you remove the wet bark, you increase the surface area of the wood.  

Here is the base which will keep the fire off the wet ground and the pile of birch bark.

For the smaller kindling, if you take a bundle and then snap it in half all together it will form a natural tee-pee that will hold together better when you build the fire in comparison to placing on one little branch at a time

Here is the whole thing. The base of larger wet logs. The pile of birch bark. The small kindling. The larger dry wood that has been "feathered"... all placed together in layers in a tee-pee shape. In the middle I just placed the tinder that I had lit just to the side of the fire.

About a minute later here is the finished product. You can see here the "cave" made in the balsam fir grove and how sheltered it is. This fire would burn down in a few minutes and would need to be continually fed for about 20 minutes with small to mid sized wood before it fully takes. At this point it was pouring rain and the fire still lit and caught right away with no problem!

You could light the tinder bundle in a variety of ways. If you have matches or a lighter it is straight forward. If you are going to use a fire steel (which works even when wet and is often good for 1000 fires!) it is a little harder, but with the tinder bundle that I explained it actually isn't that hard. The only real trick to using a fire steel is to not go to fast. It is best to scrape the fire steel (with the back of your knife or some come with a small metal tab to use) slowly and with a lot of pressure.

If you weren't prepared at all you will need to use something like a bow drill to create friction to light the fire... but I'll save that for another time! Thanks for reading!