TRAVELING IN THE PATHLESS WOODS
Part II.
To travel in a straight line by compass, and to keep your bearings regardless of how or where you go, is easy, if the rules I have given are followed; but people do not always know these rules, or for one reason or another they do not observe them. As a result they get lost. What to do in such a case I can't tell; but one thing that should not be done is to get frightened and travel desperately first in one direction, then in another, always more or less in circles, as men do when they wander aimlessly.
I am a firm believer in that "ounce of prevention" adage, for prevention is better than cure every time. This policy has carried me through hundreds of miles of wilderness without once getting lost. I have never been lost, although many times I have lost my bearings for awhile when traveling in company with somebody who was leading the way, or when trying to travel in unfamiliar country without using the methods I have been describing. I have never gone astray when using a compass, or when traveling by any of the other ways I have mentioned.
A short time ago I was talking about bush travel with a friend and after he had listened to my chatter for awhile he asked, "What would you do if you were to get lost?" "I wouldn't get lost," I answered, "for the rules I have been explaining to you are to prevent that and will always do so if followed. I always follow them." "That sounds all right," he argued, "but you know people do get lost sometimes and I want to know what a man should do if he gets lost. You say that you first get acquainted with the country near camp, then explore farther, etc., but here now is something different. I go into the woods to hunt deer, with a few fellows. We know nothing of the country and are dependent on our guides. They have led us into camp and we scarcely know how we came. Well, the next day, I set out to look for game, alone, intending to hunt close to camp. I go first this way and then that way, looking at the likely places, and after awhile it dawns on me that I don't know which direction to go to reach camp. In other words, I am lost. Now what should I do?" I will confess that the question was too much for me. Having never been lost, I had no experience of this kind from which to draw. I recalled stories of people who were lost but couldn't think of anything that would help a lost man find his way. There are many ways to find the compass points, but when a man doesn't know what direction he wants to travel, what good is there in knowing which is north and east?
I suggested to my friend that a man would surely always have some point in mind with which he was acquainted and would know approximately which direction this place lay. "If he does he isn't lost," he replied. "And even if he knows that the railroad runs north and that he is east of it, the railroad may be fifty or a hundred miles away, while he may be only a mile or two from camp."
The only practical thing I could suggest was this: When a man suddenly discovers that he has lost his bearings and doesn't know which way to go to reach camp or familiar ground, he should above all things avoid getting excited and "losing his head." It is not at all a serious matter and if he will keep cool and use judgment he will come out all right. First let him note carefully his surroundings so he will know the place when he sees it again. Then he can set out in what seems to be the most probable direction to familiar ground, but he must travel in a straight line by the method I described in the last chapter. After traveling a reasonable distance, if no familiar ground is reached he should return to the starting point and try another direction. If all this fails, the various points of the compass having been tried, he should come back to the starting point and camp there until his friends find him. I am presuming that he has lost his bearings under the conditions named by my friend and that he has companions some where not many miles distant. The campfire may help his friends find him and if he fires his gun it may also do some good. It is a very good plan to agree on some sort of a signal to use in case some member of the party loses his way but I know this is seldom done, for nobody cares to let his friends know that he feels the remotest possibility of getting lost. I never leave camp without having with me a good quantity of matches. I always carry a light ax and if the weather is cold I put a blanket in my packsack. Thus, if anything happens to prevent my getting back to camp I am reasonably outfitted for camping out a night.
In my talk about travel by compass I have spoken of keeping direction by the sun and thus doing away to a great extent with frequent reference to the compass. Doubtless the reader has been wondering what he should do on days when the sun is invisible. Fortunately there are few such days unless it is during a rain when of course very little traveling is done. But there are days when fog or clouds obscure the sun for hours and then travel is slow because one must make frequent reference to the compass. The only safe way is to select some conspicuous object in the line of travel each time a compass bearing is taken and to take a new bearing when this object is reached. A dense fog is the worst possible condition for then not only is the sun invisible but one cannot see far enough to choose objective points. I seldom attempt to travel under such conditions but when I do, if I make a half or three-quarters of a mile an hour, providing I have no stream, lake shore or trail to follow, I consider that I am getting along very well. Blinding rain or snow storms also make travel very difficult. I have traveled in a heavy snowstorm by making use of the wind as a guide, in conjunction with the compass. The wind seldom changes during a steady rain or snow storm, and anyway the compass would apprise the wayfarer of a change in the wind before he had gone far out of his course.
There are ways of learning the directions without a compass which may be used in case of emergency. First there is the sun. In theory it rises in the east and sets in the west; but in reality it only behaves so on or very near the equator. As we are in the northern hemisphere the sun is of course south of the east and west line all the time, and in winter it is farther south than in summer, because the earth wabbles back and forth throughout the seasons and the northern portion leans away from the path of the sun in winter. As a consequence the sun rises somewhat south of the east in summer and sets a little south of west. In winter it rises still farther south and its path across the sky is always to the south of us. At noon it is straight south. Thus it will be seen that if one knows approximately the time of day he can easily figure out the compass points. Directions by the sun can be learned with much greater accuracy if one has a watch, for knowing the time of day exactly he should know just how far the sun is from the zenith at that time and thus easily locate the true south. Having found it he has but to face in that direction and the north will then be behind him, the east on his left and the west on his right side.