We had a great family getaway last week up at the Great Lakes Primitives summer gathering on Bois Blanc Island in the Straits of Mackinac.
Really, we can’t think of a better family format than primitive skills. Great for all ages!
And this simply arranged Bois Blanc event, where everyone stays in their own tents and pitches in on chores, is just right as well—plus it’s half the price of other family camps. What a value in so many ways!
For more details on attending this event, check out: www.webjam.com/michiganatlatl and/or www.flight-toys.com/atlatl/GLP.html
Here’s a link to a Picasa album of 48 pics: picasaweb.google.com/JeffOYB/OutYourBackDoorAction
And here’s a link to several YouTube vids: youtube.com/jeffoyb.
So, I paddled the 10 miles to and from the event in my “Log Boat” woodstrip Seda Glider knockoff—fast and fun at 19 feet by 23″.
Here’s a quick report on some of the highlights. I would think that the Picasa album will tell you all you need to know. 1000 words and pictures, you know.
Martha really liked going on the George Hedgepeth outings. He’s a really dynamic teacher and he led walks and gave talks on various subjects, like Plants, Traps and Fire-making.
The kids liked several of the simpler, hands-on projects. Both of them learned a TON about safe knife handling—and they then ran around with knives the whole several days. (I mean WALKED around.) Lucy and her friend each had a fine Finnish woodcraft knife of mine in their neck-purses for days. All the kids whittled big moosewood walking sticks. Some of the kids made rattles. Mostly, the kids ran around in a pack and whacked sticks. One little boy was the darling of the pack, little Demetri—a 4-yr-old who held his own. The pics and little video tell the story. The leaders declared this year’s batch of kids to be fine ones, and indeed they mostly all got along, with no crying or injuries. Our Henry surprised some folks by assuming the strange identity of King Buckethead (see pics), a big hit with the kid posse.
I liked doing any of the “from scratch” hands-on projects. The first morning I felt a little of the usual “too much to choose from” paralysis. But I remembered my lesson from last year: it’s ALL GOOD. Every project or skill area is fascinating. And this is a lesson from primitive skills: they were all necessary, respected and refined and elaborated way back when. They were all useful, engrossing and artful. So pick anything.
It was nice to have meals together as a whole group twice a day. People also got together for lunches. The only restaurant on the island does the catering and brings out lunches on request (we brought sandwich fixins’). Now, it should perhaps be noted that the meals are the simplest institutional type of fare, but no one is going to starve.
There was a “trade blanket” on Day 2 where people could drop off things to trade of around a $15 value. If you leave something, you get a number. You then get to pick something in the order of the number drawn.
Other folks showed various wares for sale during the week in an informal way—such as Ben’s Outdoors, an OYB advertiser. Ben brought up some thrifty Mora knives and Wetterling’s hatchets and other incidentals.
On Day 3 there was a big auction for several hours of dozens of nifty primitive (or related) things. Proceeds were split among the teachers as their only pay for the session.
But the rest of the time we worked on projects or listened to teachers.
There’s a ton of talent at this event! And a lot to learn.
It was amazing watching Eric of BurntMud.com start a fire just with his hands and a REED snapped off from the shrubbery nearby. He’s supposedly one of the nation’s 10 best at doing this… He taught the earthen pottery project, among other things.
I particularly enjoyed exploring a huge rock that was 60 yards offshore under a few feet of water. Most of the nearby shoreline is fairly shallow but in this stretch it got about 10 feet deep right near shore. Crystal clear water. Amid this deeper area there is a car-sized boulder that comes to within 2 feet of the surface. So you swim out and stand on it then dive in and swim around looking at it thru your goggles. It makes the surrounding deeper water seem even more spooky. It was great fun showing this mystery to several other campers who hadn’t discovered it yet, even though some have been attending for years.
Three things that strike me about this region are its beauty and its history.
Its history inspired me to check out a good dozen books from the library after our session. Actually, after leaving the Island we visited the Fort Michilimackinac gift shop under the Bridge (LP side)—they have a splendid book section. I got several book ideas there. Then we went to St. Ignace and visited the Ojibwa Museum, where I got several more book tips. I wish I could afford to buy more, but patronizing the library creates an economic benefit as well. (We really appreciate the Michigan-wide branch network for inter-library loaning, let me tell you! Nearly all the books came from outside our immediate system.)
Timothy Kent is a profilic historic writer about this location and the 1700’s period of early encounter—I checked out several of his titles.
I’ve really been enjoying Schoolcraft’s Memoir—available as free text at Gutenberg.org.
The art of Robert Griffing is amazing.
The Primitive Technology series is engaging if a bit intimidating.
The first “Buckskinning” volume is quaintly dated—a nice look at the 70’s rustic scene when the current incarnation of this scene all started in the USA.
Alexander Henry’s “Travels and Adventures in Canada” is the full-length version of the wonderfully edited “Attack on Michilimackinac” that I posted about elsewhere here.
Todish’s tale of Pontiac’s rebellion is astounding.
A friend at the Gathering put me on to Ransome’s “Big Six” work of children’s British adventure stories—wonderful! —Including a BBC TV special on the same. It’s about these friends, 3 are visitors from town and 3 are local orphans. They all love boats and birds. The 3 orphans live on a little boat together—the Blood’n’Glory Boys. They all go out sailing and adventuring together. Swallows and Amazons Forever! “Coots Forever!” Great kids stuff!
He also told me about “3 Men and a Boat on the Bummel” but that hasn’t shown up yet.
But I digress…
As regards the beauty… The Straits are so fresh and clean in so many ways. And they attract open-hearted, energetic people. I’ve enjoyed meeting people from this area SO MUCH over the years. …And you can basically drink the water.
Here’s an observation on the water and the culture around it. The Straits seem to be so pure. Yet as a result perhaps they’re somewhat empty. The culture in the area is very rich—but very thin. You can get to know a sizeable chunk of it just as one person. Really, it’s still a wilderness in many ways.
I contrast this in such a huge way to the water type in the Atlantic Ocean, which we also visited this summer, for the first time in decades. We drove out to Maine and stayed with friends. (Photo album here, if you care: picasaweb.google.com/JeffOYB/NYMaineTrip2008) Now, ocean water, in contrast to the Great Lakes, is SO RICH AND TEEMING WITH LIFE! It’s thick with salt. You float far more easily in it. And along the shore there are thousands of robust life forms duking it out for survival in a myriad colorful ways. Contrast this with the Great Lakes which are, really, empty in comparison. One you can drink. The other you can grow most anything in, it seems. Now, I’ve also heard that away from shore the metaphor for the oceans becomes THE DESERT. Amazing. Then there’s the human culture: along the seashore, in harbor towns, the oceans offer the richest imaginable human culture the world around. Anything goes and has gone! Today connects directly back to forever in an ocean harbor town.
Thinking about culture again: primitive skills has its own cultural scene that I probably mentioned in last year’s report but I’ll bring up again. The Bois Blanc event handles it all in a neat way. OK, primitive skills seems to have several scenes that relate to it. In fact, the term you use to label it might identify your scene to an extent. I’m not THAT up on it. Basically, it seems like there are leftwing, rightwing and anarchist sectors of this field. They don’t all always get along. There are survivalists (who verge into militia territory); there are spiritualists—who go both toward the Indian and/or toward the Bible; there are historic re-enactors; there are actual historians; there are actual Native Americans who are keeping their own actual personal family traditions alive; there are martial arts aspects and some folks who bring a dojo-like mindset somehow; then there’s a “no holds barred” MMA approach; there’s a Green approach with sustainability and permaculture; there’s a disaster conspiracy approach; a Peak Oil approach; a Pagan approach; there’s a Burning Man cosmic approach; there’s a lower-tech Rainbow Gathering approach; there’s a weapons approach and a vegan approach—healing herbs and feminism—and traps and deadfalls—and feminism—and healing herbs all over again. I’m probably mixing them all up. But they’re all mixed up themselves! It’s amazing when you think about it.
The Bois Blanc Gathering knits all these groups together. No overt politics or religion. No proseletyzing. No nudity, alcohol or drugs. It’s a simple approach. Everyone gets along and learns together!
