By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, May 22, 1943.
“The more primitive we become now,” summed up Jimmie Frise, “the better our chance of survival.”
“You would hardly call the modern war machine primitive,” I objected.
“I refer to the human factor,” stated Jim. “True, our aircraft, our new ships, our latest tanks and fighting machines of every kind are increasingly complicated and technical. But the men who operate them have to become more primitive as human beings exactly in proportion as the machines become more complex. To fly the very latest bombers at great heights the crews have to become primitive as Eskimos or prehistoric men so as to stand the intense cold. The crews of our newest fighting ships on the sea have to have, not the qualities of Nelson’s sailors, but of the Vikings and Phoenicians who sailed their long ships recklessly into the unknown. The British Navy hasn’t been in habit of fighting its battles alone in the Arctic circle and in the jungle seas of the south.”
“All you mean by primitive,” I scoffed, “is physically tough.”
“I mean primitive,” declared Jimmie. “The dictionary says primitive means early, ancient, old-fashioned, simple, rude and original. What’s the use of being physically tough on board a destroyer that gets wrecked off Greenland? Your toughness won’t do much for you, unless you have also developed the primitive qualities of your mind and spirit. It’s the guy with the primitive mind among the crew who will steer the lifeboat to land without, a compass and make a camp out of nothing. Have you seen that movie, ‘Desert Victory’?1“
“Who hasn’t?” I retorted.
“The men who are winning those battles,” asserted Jim, “are not merely tough. They are not merely skilful in using the tanks, machines and technical weapons. The ones who drive through are the ones who have developed the primitive characteristics of the human race. When the tank quits and the gun jams and the machine breaks down, it is a primitive fighter who keeps right on going. And wins.
“I suppose you are right,” I mused.
Too Much Civilization
“There are certain primitive characteristics of the human race,” insisted Jim, “that should never have been weeded out of us. Civilization got so carried away by its own rush, this past hundred years, that it seemed bent on depriving us of every primitive virtue. The whole aim and object of civilization in recent times appears to be to convert humanity away from the primitive. Every invention, every new device, from kitchen utensils to social laws, has been to make men act, look and be as unlike primitive men as possible. If we find a band of Indians in some a remote and impenetrable jungle, a department of the government rears up and goes crazy until it can capture the primitives and load them up with electric toasters, portable radios and vitamin pills.”
“You are confusing primitive,” I said, “with underprivileged.”
“I suppose,” said Jim, “you would say those soldiers in ‘Desert Victory’ were underprivileged? I tell you the very qualities that modern society has tried to eliminate from mankind in the past century are the qualities now that will win the war for us.”
“Toughness?” I repeated.
“No,” said Jim. “The ability to go on living, acting and carrying out your plans even after all ordinary means have been taken from you. The Germans figured we were so dependent on the means of modern life, the conveniences, tools, gadgets, comforts and equipment of modern life, that we would be helpless without them. In France, they proved right. The minute the Germans smashed the cities and drove the city dwellers out of their towns, the French were helpless. They were unable to live without roofs, taps, windows, kitchens and feather beds. So they surrendered. Then the Germans attacked the British under the same delusion. They tried to smash the cities. But they didn’t quite succeed. They didn’t smash enough houses. So they attacked the Russians. But the Russians were primitive.”
“Hmm, I see,” I admitted.
“The Russians could still live without cities and towns,” went on Jim. “They could live in the woods, in the fields, in root cellars, in scooped out holes in hillsides. They did not feel helpless. So they fought. And they won. Suddenly the shoe was on the other foot. The primitiveness of the Russians proved greater than the primitiveness of the Germans. The Germans had to have shelter against the Russian winter. So the Russians deprived them of that shelter; and they were ruined.”
To Study Woodcraft
“You are getting at something,” I stated shrewdly. “Something is cooking.”
“Yes,” confessed Jim. “I have a plan. A scheme. A project.”
“To make me primitive?” I inquired.
“No,” proceeded Jim eagerly. “I am going to start a little neighborhood group around here to study woodcraft.”
“Boy scouts?” I suggested sweetly.
“If we were attacked,” declared Jim, warmly, “and driven out into the fields and woods, it would be the Boy Scouts among us who would show us how to survive. What I propose is to organize a little group of a dozen or so of our neighbors into a class. And each weekend, we will hike for the out-of-doors, with nothing more than we can carry of bedding, food and utensils, and study how to live in primitive fashion.”
“It’s just a scheme,” I accused, “to go fishing. It’s just a way you’ve thought up of making respectable, in wartime, your own desire to get into the country on week-ends.”
“I’m serious,” declared Jim firmly. “Over in Buffalo, the natural history museum has organized classes to teach the people how to live in the open. It’s a war measure. At Cornell university, they also have organized classes to study woodcraft, to teach people how to survive without the aid of organized towns and cities. Our boys are all gone to war and have learned how to fight. But we are snuggled down here at home, unprepared to fight at all. If our cities are smashed, we quit. Mark my words.”
“Would woodcraft save us?” I snorted.
“Do you know how to make bread in a frying pan?” cried Jim indignantly. “Well, there isn’t a prospector, a lumber jack or a trapper who doesn’t know how to make bread in a frying pan. Do you know how to make a shelter out of boughs so that you can sleep dry and warm on a rainy night? No. Well, every living man, woman and child in Canada ought to know.”
“Can’t we take tents?” I inquired.
“How many people, in Toronto,” demanded Jim, “have a tent handy that they could pick up and take with them if they were bombed out? Don’t be silly. If we are going to fight, as Canadians, we have to know how to survive on what we can carry on our backs. The greatest woodsmen in America say that a pack of 40 pounds is a burden for anything more than a short portage. Thirty pounds is plenty. And the more you can get your pack below 30, the better off you will be for a long journey.”
With What You Can Carry
“In France, in the retreat to Dunkirk,” I admitted, “I saw people trying to get away with loads in wheelbarrows, baby carriages and hand wagons – that is, after their cars gave out for want of gas.”
“All you can take is what you can carry,” announced Jim. “And first comes an axe, then a frying pan and a pail, then blankets. Make a bundle of that alone, without any extra clothes, spare boots, weapons, first aid kit, fishing tackle, rubber sheet or any precious possessions you can’t abandon, and see how far you would like to carry it. I tell you, about the best way the people of Canada can spend their week-ends this summer is going out as families, and living in the open on what they can carry on their backs. It will show them how helpless they are, if nothing else.”
“To tell you the truth, Jim,” I confessed, “I think it is a swell idea. Not that I think the day will ever come when we Canadians will ever have to take to the woods. But at least a little experience living in the open with only what we can carry on our backs will make us a little less snooty towards the French people. There are a lot of us who feel quite high and haughty about the French. They think they should have stuck it out longer. Well, a few days in the open with nothing but a blanket, a frying pan and a pail might develop a little more sympathetic attitude in the hearts of some of our cockiest citizenry.””
“As a matter of fact,” said Jim, “seven of the neighbors have already expressed themselves as being interested in my scheme. I have spent the last couple of evenings chatting with whoever I saw out raking his garden…”
“Good for you,” I cried. “Are there any young men among them?”
“No, they’re mostly our age,” said Jim. “I think maybe seven is enough for the first party. If we get too many in the first lot, it might prove a flop. We’ll pioneer the scheme and work out a practical system for teaching woodcraft. For example, we’ll each carry our blankets, rubber ground sheet, spare shoes, extra socks, sweaters, etc. Then we’ll divide the community items, such as axe, pails, fry pans, and the food we take, among the lot of us equally.”
“That sounds good,” I agreed.
“We’ll go by street car to the city limits,” outlined Jim expansively, “and then hike for the country, taking back roads, until we come to some wild bit of country where we can make camp. We will construct brush lean-to shelters. We will study fire-making. How to build fire under difficulties. How to make camp bread. Camp cookery, without canned goods. The first week-end, we will study the rudiments. On successive week-ends, we can go into the refinements of making shelters, cooking, and getting the utmost out of living off the land through the art of woodcraft…”
“When do we start the program?” I inquired.
“All seven,” announced Jim triumphantly, “are set for this week-end.”
“I make eight,” I announced heartily.
“You make nine,” corrected Jim, who stated that he was going to be the captain.
The Pioneers Assemble
Friday night, at Jim’s house, there was a meeting of the neighbors to discuss the plans for the morrow. Three of them could not come on account of engagements, which left the six of us. Without exception, we were all, to some extent, woodsmen. Each of us had been fishing, or shooting or had been in the old war or laid some similar claim to knowing a thing or two about how to look after ourselves in difficult circumstances.
One of them wanted to bring a tent. Another had a patent charcoal camp broiler he would like to bring along, and we could take sirloin steaks for the party.
“And boys,” he said enthusiastically, “I’ll serve you up the swellest charcoal broiled steaks you ever…”
“No, no, gentlemen,” cried Jimmie. “This isn’t a camping party we are going on. This is research. This is a study group, to see how men, suddenly deprived of all the civilized means of subsistence, can carry on their lives with vigor, purpose and health.”
When we came to the grub list, we ran into other difficulties. Jimmie insisted that no canned goods should go.
“This isn’t a canoe trip,” he explained. “What we have, we carry on our backs. For miles. Canned goods are too heavy. We aren’t even taking bread. We are taking corn meal, flour and baking soda, and I am going to make bread in the frying pan, propped up before the camp fire…”
“How often have you made it?” inquired the neighbor who owned the charcoal camp grill.
“I have a recipe,” retorted Jim, “certified by Dillon Wallace, Horace Kephart, Dan Beard and all the greatest woodsmen of America2.”
In the end, two of the party said they would have to drop out. The man who owned the tent said he had been troubled with sciatica the last four years. And the man who owned the charcoal camp grill said his doctor had only last week warned him about his stomach. But, not counting the three members unavoidably absent, but in all likelihood coming with us tomorrow, that left a good company of us still in the scheme.
Saturday, as you recall, dawned dull and threatening. By noon, there could be no doubt in anybody’s mind but Jimmie’s that rain was imminent. At 1 p.m., after phone calls to all the pioneers, only Mr. Fresco, Jim and I were on Jim’s veranda for the departure. Mr. Fresco had never done anything in his life but work hard as an accountant, to save up enough money to retire and take a trip to Europe. Just when he got his fortune made, in 1939, the war broke. Mr. Fresco was coming with us in desperation.
Each of us had a pack made up of blankets, ground sheet some items of spare clothing. What little food we three required, Jim carried in his pack – bacon, flour, six eggs. one small tin of milk contributed by Mr. Fresco, and baking powder, a fistful of dried prunes, a packet of dehydrated soup, etc. I carried the frying pan and pails, Mr. Fresco, the axe. Each of us had our own cup, plate, eating utensils.
Life in the Open
Boldly disregarding the interest of neighbors, we headed for the street car and with two transfers, reached the end of the line. Though rain fairly hung in the air, ready to fall at a false word, we hiked north to the first country road, which we took eastward. About three-quarters of a mile along, the first drops of rain fell, and Jimmie cried:
“We camp in this gully ahead. First consideration, always, amongst woodsmen, a dry camp.”
Mr. Fresco and I admitted we were happy to halt, because our packs, though small, were like lead on our loins.
In a jiffy, Jim had the axe swinging. Half a dozen stout saplings made the tripods. Down came a sturdy evergreen tree, and with skilled strokes, Jim denuded it of its branches, skilfully hanging them and weaving them over the poles, so as to make a lean-to shelter. The rain came through it easily, but Jim explained he would thicken it up later with more brush.
“Next a fire,” he cried heartily.
And in no time, we had a pile of kindling, sticks, twigs and billets, which Jim expertly set alight.
It flared up brightly, and then, with little hissing sounds from the raindrops, died away. I knelt down and blew it. The rain started in earnest. Mr. Fresco, sitting under the brush shelter, began to shiver. Over the fence behind us came a loud voice:
“Hey, what are you tramps doing cutting down my evergreens? Don’t you know there’s a by-law in this township against lighting fires the roadside?”
He was a farmer and he came over and joined us. While I continued to blow the fire, without results, Jimmie outlined to the farmer the great enterprise we were engaged upon, the discovery of how men can survive and remain active, vigorous and full of purpose, after being deprived of all the normal means of living.
“Well,” said the farmer, “you picked a heck of a day for it. Mother has just made a batch of new bread. We’ve got fried chicken for supper and rhubarb pie. I think you had better come up to the house until the rain passes.”
Which we did. And as the rain did not pass, the farmer about 10 p.m. drove us back to the end of the street car line, which had us home about 11.30.
And all day Sunday, we lay low, for fear the neighbors might see we were home already.
It rained all Sunday, too. Remember?
Editor’s Notes:
- Desert Victory was a 1943 film produced by the British Ministry of Information, documenting the Allies’ North African campaign against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps. ↩︎
- Dillon Wallace, Horace Kephart, and Dan Beard were all famous outdoorsmen. ↩︎
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