On the Use of Antler Axes

The last half year or so, I have only used antler axes, no metal whatsoever. During this time I have made quite a few observations on them. Compared to stone axes, antler axes have mainly two advantages:

• Ease of construction (softer material, "axe shaped")
• Ease of repair (softer material, can be repaired by scraping with flakes)
  

Their major disadvantage is that they dull more quickly. On a newly sharpened antler and a stone axe, there is however no difference in sharpness. If there is, I would say it goes in the favour of the antler axe. Below: Flattening a piece with a diagonal antler axe.














There are primarily two styles of edges on these axes, the diagonal edge, the elk(US: moose) axe and the hafted slab. As antler normally has a pith, the first and third options are normally the only ones possible. That especially accounts for red deer antler, which has a very extensive pith.

The diagonally edged axe is quite quick to make. The fixed direction on the edge makes it very suitable for wood working, but not for heavy duty chopping. For small trees it works fine, but if you have to lean into the blow, you risk splitting or chipping the antler towards it's weakest direction, making repair a monumental task.














The elk axe is a much more stable axe, it is ground to a centered bevel like a standard metal axe and is therefore good for heavy duty chopping. This axe is as a general rule only possible to make out of elk antler, due to it being solid and extremely hard near the base. The superior weight of the elk antler also adds into the equation. Due to it's hardness and the sheer amounts of materials that needs to be removed, making this type of axe is a major undertaking. My elk axe is under remake, I will try to remember to post the appropriate pictures when it is finished.

The slab type I have limited experience with, I just made a quick one this fall and it didn't hold up for too long. This type lacks the weight of the former ones, but the narrow blade offers even greater precision and better cutting ability.

Hitting rocks is total death on bits, whether it is antler or stone, though even more so with stone. A way to avoid this is to make high stumps, that keeps the edge as far away from the ground and the rocks as possible.

The good ratio between hardness and flexibility is what makes antler such a good material for axes. Flexibility is completely lacking in stone and makes chipping more likely. However flexible, red deer antler (or degraded reindeer and elk antler) is on the margins of what is usable, it is too soft I feel and the extensive pith makes it prone to splitting. Use top grade reindeer or elk antler if you can get it. It is most likely that I will continue to use antler axes in the future, they arn't as good as metal, but then again nothing is.

Ice Fishing

Fishing with lines through the ice is not a particulary effective means of catching fish. But as with traps, they take little effort to set and they can fish for you while you are not present.

To achive a reasonably steady supply of trout throughout the winter, you are likely to need at least 20 lines out. Some days you will have many, but you will at least be almost certain to catch one every day. This of course depends on how numerous the fish is in the area in question. In some places you may get by very well on 20 hooks, other places that is way to little. If you have to set more than 20 hooks to get fish every day, I would seriously consider moving to a better fishing location. It takes time to check all of those hooks and if the return on them is poor, you may be better off spending more time on setting traps. But as a general rule: Fish is a more dependable food source than game.

One of the main advantages of fishing through the ice is that you need comparatively less line than when fishing from the bank. This being of the simple reason that the ice helps you drop the line straight down on the fish.

Setting a line and hook:

First, of course, make a hole through the ice. Make it bigger than you expect the fish in the lake to be. Scoop out the ice bits and snow out with your hands.














Bait the hook with something you know the fish like. Trout likes worms and other small creepy things. But these are hard to come by in winter, so they have to be stored. The Saami use reindeer fat. I have tried elk/moose fat and have yet to have any success with this. Other, more aggressive fish like pike, seems to like pieces or whole fish. Old bait doesn't work very well. The bait should preferably be changed every day.














The fish usually stand just a little over the bottom of the lake. So that's where your bait should be. Use a sinker to get the hook down. I often find that the best fishing locations to be where there is little water under the ice, maybe just a metre or two. Especially in the spring. In mid-winter they often stand deeper. Below: A line with a baited hook.


















Tie it or wrap it securely around a stick at the desired depth. A few motions on the hook can often give you a fish right away.














Don't try to lift big fish directly out of the hole. Everything weighs less in the water. Grab it by the gills and lift it up. I have saved a lot of fish unhooking in the hole, by grabbing the confused, but freed fish down in the hole.

Make sure the line doesn't rest on one of the sides. Otherwise, when the hole freezes over you will have a lot more chopping on your hands, with the risk of cutting the string of course. Cover the hole with snow to reduce the freezing. Spruce boughs can be laid underneath, but I usually just showel a pile of snow over the whole thing. I have seen the Inuits make a small igloo over the hole, but I don't find it to give any advantages over the previous methods. If anything, it has to be less snow in the hole.














About safety. Check the ice on intervals to avoid falling through. Especially where there is fast flowing water. Carry a long stick if you are insecure about the ice. Then you can use it to climb back up on if your luck turns sour.

Walking Barefeet

Since there isn't much to report from skillswise, I thought I'd give the readers a simple treatise on walking barefooted. Walking barefooted, however looked down upon in our society it has numerous advantages over using shoes. I have done this for several years during the warm season and find it much more comfortable than using shoes.

First on the advantages of going barefeet:

Hygiene
Having your feet exposed to water, dirt (which sucks up fats and moisture) and the sun washes, dries and condition your feet automatically. Shoes on the other hand, locks in moisture and promotes bacterial and fungal growth. At first it only creates annoying smells, but in time it can develop into quite dangerous foot-rot. There is a reason why all the rainforest tribes around the world go barefeet. Shoes would never dry up.

Foot health
If you ever have heard of massaging your feet. That happens all the time when you walk barefeet. Being as close to the ground as practically possible, it almost eliminates the chance of stepping over. It also trains your feet and legs (very much in fact) and toughens up the skin. Blood circulation is increased and that reduces freezing on your feet in winter. Something which I have barely done after I started to walk barefeet almost all the time.

Silence
There are three reasons why you walk silently without shoes.

1. The pain of stepping on something sharp makes you take care when you step (effect is reduced as you toughen though).
2. Better contact with the ground, when you feel the sticks directly you can avoid breaking them much easier.
3. The sole of the foot is softer than that of the shoe.
   

Economy
Maybe not so relevant today, but in a time when you needed that leather for winter shoes you would want to save it by walking barefeet in summer. Modern shoes may not wear out so quickly, but moccasins, birch bark shoes and other natural shoes do. So, if you are going primitive for a longer period of time, you more than likely need to learn yourself to walk barefeet.

Limitiations
Like a heavily used horse, a human trekking for multiple days with a backpack over rough country and without rest will need some sort of shoe to avoid wearing down the sole underneath. The sole will regenerate, but you need to rest for that to happen. You will also need shoes on very hot sand, where there are a lot of thorns and in the snow. There are plenty of ethnographic examples that defy all of these, so it isn't written in stone.

Getting tough feet

Tough feet are unfortunately impossible to buy in a shop. Every spring I do this, as my feet has pretty much reverted by then. It will not revert all the way though, so it will not take as long as the first every time.

If you have extremely tender feet, start on grass and coarse sand. Walk around all day on this soft ground for several days, it should make your feet sore. Dont' bother resting after this small ordeal, but press on. On the days that come, start walking on very coarse asphalt and coarse gravel. That will be very painful and your feet will be very sore. When it gets so bad that you feel like tendons are pulling all over the place and blisters are forming. Take two days with shoes on.

After the rest, start walking everywhere without shoes. Especially in the forest, where the ling will whip the soft parts on top of the feet and toughen them too. Take two days with shoes whenever you feel blisters forming.

As you continue walking barefeet it will become second nature to you and you will loose your fear of stepping on something sharp and become able to run, even in the forest.

Splitting Wood

Due to visitors I don't have an opportunity to go into the forest whenever I want right now. This does halt the progress on most of my projects. To weigh up I have translated one of my former articles to English. It is partially overlapping with the "Elm Bow" project.

Splitting wood is a task often needed by the primitive, especially in the construction of bigger equipment like bows and skis. But it is also useful when making something as simple as a drill. The are are to my knowledge two methods for splitting a tree: Either by pounding in a wedge into the wood from one side or an end of the piece or by chopping into the wood and splitting the piece by breaking it out of the main piece. The last method is particulary useful when you are splitting off a smaller piece of a bigger tree or when you don't have an axe.

With a wedge

To split a bigger tree to get several pieces this is the only method. For a start, an antler wedge is pounded, usually in the end, to start the crack. If the tree is small one can usually continue the split by simply seperating the two sides. If the crack shows a tendency towards running of to one side, it can be corrected by directing pressure towards the thickest side. On thicker trees this is harder to accomplish, but the problem itself is usually rarer too. By using a fork in a standing tree you can easily put leverage over on the thicker side. It does of course not work on overly large trees, but instead of just small trees you can with the aid of a fork also do the medium sized ones. If one wedge wasn't enough to make the crack go completely through the tree, pound in one from the opposite side. To make sure you get an even split, pound wedges into both sides of the crack. To save strain on your antler wedges, use wooden wedges for anything but the initial split. Below: Starting a crack from one end of the piece.

If one's plan is to split the log into even smaller pieces, one can halve the pieces the number of times needed to reach the desired size. It does however become progressively harder for every time you halve them, to keep the crack from running off to one side. Sectors are harder to halve than pieces square in cross-section. Because of this, it can be very advantageous to carve the sectors to squares to make the results more reliable. Below: The principle of guiding the crack. The thicker arrow indicates where the majority of the force should be excerted.

The same principle in practise: By using the forked tree additional force can be laid on the thicker left part.

Without wedges

This metod is difficult to explain by text only, but it is, as mentioned, very useful if you have few tools available to you. Especially if you don't have an axe. Start by sawing (with a biface for instance) halfway through the tree or branch while it's standing. When you are finished sawing you use your hand and pulls or pushes in the direction of the notch you have made. This should make the wood split in the deepest portion of the notch and you can guide the split up the tree/branch like described above. If you have no tools you can still do this if you very carefully break the sapling into the middle of it and continue as above.

If you don't need the whole tree, but you need a broad and flat piece, you can take the more ecological approach by splitting out a piece of the trunk without cutting down the whole tree. I rarely use this method, and it does require quite good tools. Make a cut into the tree in the upper and lower end of the piece you want to split and hammer an antler wedge into either or both of the notches to pop it free from the main trunk. It is an excellent method for splitting bowblanks out of large trees (for low crowns) and will often not kill the trees themselves, especially if the trees are conifers.

To most purposes you want as straight grained wood as you can get, I will because of that mentioned a few guidelines for seeing whether the grain is straight before you cut down the tree itself. Some species are generally more straight grained than others. Examples of these are spruce and pine. A wood notorious for it's twistedness is rowan and I have to this date yet to find a piece that was perfectly straight grained. It is easier to find straight grained wood growing on flat ground and in dense stands.

There are in general three signs, on which you can see whether the tree has straight grain or not:

• Is the trunk straight and even? If not, chances are the grain itself isn't either.
• Do the fissures in the bark go vertically towards the ground rather than spirally? That is a good sign as the bark usually has the same direction as the wood behind it.
• Are the branches aligned vertically on top of each other. If the wood is twisted, the branches are often placed in a slight spiral on the trunk.

Illustrations will be posted tomorrow. Happy New Year!

Wild Food

Fish

Fish is and was, contrary to common belief, a staple for most primitive people, often more so than the big ungulates. Especially lake fish is confined to a limited environment and is because of that a much more reliable food source than for instance the reindeer, whose pattern of travel may vary to a great degree year over year. Getting close enough to catch them is also an issue, while the fish is easy to lure into your traps and nets by exploiting their quite limited intelligence.

In my area there are very few fish species. Mainly trout (Salmo trutta), but also arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) and/or the common whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) in some lakes. These are some of the most widely distributed anyway, so even if my experience is to a great deal limited to these species, the knowledge will be useful in a lot of places. Many of the methods can also be used for other species as well, maybe even in the sea for all I know.

The Trout

Fishing for trout in substantial quantities is difficult because of their solitary nature. At one time of they year, they are however exceptionally easy. When the trout runs on the rivers or streams to spawn in the autumn they can easily be caught, even with the hands. Photo shows lots of small trout caught in a few hours. The dark skin comes from living in a lake heavily influenced by bog water.

The most common method of hand fishing is called “tickeling”. Being rather basic animals, the trout believes that it is hidden whenever it can't see anything. Consequently, you can quite often spot the tail of the trout under a log or a rock. But anyway, chances are that you will see where the fish swims away from you and into hiding. By gently stroking the trout from the tail and forwards it will stand still, because it actually likes it. That affection is likely to come to an abrupt halt when you suddenly grab it by the gills and throws it ashore. Fish in hiding can also be speared, by for example probing under a bank.

You can also use spears, clubs or whatever to take out the fish. The club works best with a run and hit tactic. By running into a river and bashing at everything that moves you can kill or stun a few fish. Leave the river alone for a few hours and repeat the procedure.

Spearing with a torch is very, very efficient. The light calms and attracts the fish. But the torch has to burn brightly, without being made with either fat, birch bark, pitch or fat wood as a component, chances are the fish will not be mesmerised. When spearing fish, aiming at the neck makes for the surest kill, but be aware of that the light bends in the water. Sneak the spear slowly towards the aiming point of the fish (through water if needed) and thrust in an explosive movement. The spear is usually held in the right hand while you hold the torch with the left. Put your hand far up the spear to get most control and force. Pin the fish to the bottom until you manage to grab it with your hand to bring it on shore. With this method you can easily spear dozens in a short time.

If you have a net, chasing (by throwing rocks) the fish into the net or seine-netting a pool can give you hundreds at a time. Alternatively, block the passage of the water with a wall, leaving only a little opening where you set your landing net you can get quite a few fish too. Then start scaring the fish from above and into the only available exit, which is your net. Where the fish run on the exit river of a lake this can be used as a permanent installation, emptied every day. A related method is the fish basket, where the funnel inside guides the fish into the basket, but their limited intelligence make them unable to find the exit. This trap can be used in conjunction with a wall in an upstream run. Below is a crude basket trap.

Not all trout spawn in rivers or streams, some spawn in the lakes and all the fish in a lake doesn't spawn each year, particularly in lakes with bigger fish. Because of that, setting nets on strategic locations around the lake can bring a good catch. Such locations are usually inlets, outside of peninsulas or river out or intakes.

The same goes for spring. But particularly newly ice-cleared river intakes are sought by the winter-lean trout, seeking food brought by the flooding rivers or streams. Setting a net there overnight will often yield a good catch.

Summer is a poor season for fishing. The water is too hot for much movement and the brightness reveal your nets to the fish. Instead of using nets at this time of year, this is the time when the hook and line represents the best available alternative. For a more industrious approach; baited long-lines.

The fish move less in winter, but can still be caught with hook and line. In the winter the fish is found in deeper portions of the lake, but as spring approaches they move closer to shore. Netting under the ice is somewhat efficient on trout, but far more so on the next species described.

Arctic Char

Of these three species, the one I have the least experience with. It is a social fish, running in shoals. It is mostly pelagic and quite hard to catch in summer time, especially on lower altitude lakes where it goes deeper than the trout. Below: Small arctic char caught in ice fishing.

In late autumn (November approximately) the char goes into shore to spawn and is then to be found in very large shoals and is easily caught with nets. If there is ice you can either put nets under the ice, fish with bait or spear the fish like the Inuits sometimes do. The char is quite easy to catch under the whole period with ice.

Common Whitefish

This fish also moves about in shoals and due to a small mouth almost impossible to use hook and line on. Nets are about the only good option for this specie. A few places it runs in slow flowing rivers, but for a great part it spawns in the lake itself. In summer it is usually found in the deeper portions of the lake, but some can be caught in the shallows too. The fish spawns in late October and November, by setting nets outside peninsulas at that time you can catch lots and lots of this fat fish. If the ice is firm, you can also set nets under the ice, which can provide you with whitefish throughout the winter. How to set nets under the ice will be described in a seperate article as the procedure is quite complicated. The spring is also a reasonably good time to catch this fish in nets, but the fish is, as everything else, leaner then.

Dressing the Fish (illustrations will be edited in as they become available)

Start the cut by inserting the tip of the knife in the anus. Cut up all the way until you reach a harder structure almost at the throat. Rip up the tongue and gills from underneath the gill cover. Stick a finger into the throat and rip the pectoral fins off and the entire digestive system with it. Optionally you can scrape out the “kidneys”, a blackish substance sticking to the back from the inside commonly believed to be blood. If you are to fry the fish, skinning or scaling the whitefish is recommended. Of the organs, all can be eaten, including the roe and sperm. Photo is of me, dressing a few trout in front of the lavvo.

Cooking fish will be handled in a later article. This article series will be temporarily discontinued until I have enough photographic material to post the remaining articles (Mammals, cooking, shellfish, seaweeds, lichens etc...).

Wild Food

Fungi

Hardly a big nutritive element in the primitivist's diet, the fungi still is interesting because of it's flavour and it's value as a variation. Some can be eaten raw, but mostly they are eaten cooked in stews due to their bulk qualities. They can level out a little of either bland or slightly foul taste. Most fungi preserve well after drying in thin slices on a string as long as they are stored in a dry environment. Far from all types of edible fungi will be covered here. Only the most easily recognisable and those who are frequently found in the Norwegian wilds are included. Do consult a good mushroom manual before picking and eating fungi. Don't trust my information blindly.

Boletus

This family has very meaty mushrooms, excellent for stews with their bulk and texture. They a network of tubes under the cap, which is the certain identification of the Boletus genus. Only a few species are poisonous and they can be identified by their red stems. The young specimens are usually the best ones. Older ones become limp and highly insect infested. On the photo are several species of edible boletus.














Chantarells

The “true” chantarelle is the most easily identifiable one, but some of the less conspicuous ones are far more common. Their taste is quite sharp and slightly peppery. They don't get as infested with insects and usually have a longer season than the Boletus. Photo: A day's catch, the ptarmigan is my brother's. In the plastic box are two species of chantarelle.














Russula

Members of the Russula genus are usually brightly toned, but the colours differ from specie to specie. Some of the edible ones can look a little like fluesopp. One of the clear differences are however lack of a ring on the stem. To test whether it is an edible Russula, take a small bit of the cap and taste it. If it tastes good and mild the specie is edible. If foul or sharp in taste, spit it out as it is either poisonous or non-edible.

Lactarius

Some species of this genus are easily identifiable due to the orange “sap”, which become green about an hour after making a cut in the mushroom. They taste sharply, but good. Not tried them myself yet, but they abound in the forests.

Hydnum repandum

This mushroom has an even stronger taste than the chantarell, but I wouldn't describe the taste as peppery. It is easily identifiable by it's bleak cap with spikes underneath.

Albatrellus ovinus

Though this specie isn't said to be much in the kitchen (have yet to test this), it is easily identifiable with it's off-white cap and pores underneath. They are often quite large and grow in great quantity amongst spruce.

Used Norwegian books for detailed information, but was cross-referenced with information from MushroomExpert.Com.

Next Wednesday: Fish

Coracle

The coracle is probably one of the most ancient and widely used vessels around. Although it may not have the grace, manoeuvrability and speed of the canoe, it is very quick and easy to build. Where I come from a small coracle is much more useful than a canoe. The place is hilly, with lots of small shallow streams and small to medium sized lakes. Using a canoe outside the main valleys would involve a lot of portaging. A coracle on the other hand could easily be carried around from lake to lake and you would still be able to carry your basic survival and fishing gear at the same time.

Being a purist, there is no other road for me than using stone age tools only. To accomplish that I found that the Welsh coracles were too complicated without adding a lot of work to it. As one of the great advantages with the coracle is the simplicity I decided to settle for an Irish type called the “Boyne currach”, with one modification: Making a seat seat would involve a lot of chopping with a stone axe or a long time searching for a suitable, wind broken tree. Because I left out that detail, it ended up resembling the Native American bull boat in that manner.

The construction begins with putting an equal number of thumb-thick saplings in the ground, opposite of each other on two of the sides. For easier penetration of the ground it is a big advantage if the saplings have already been broken to a point while harvesting. After all of them has been placed in the way they are supposed to, all of them are bent over into the hole of the sapling stuck on the opposite side, creating a number of arches. Since it is desirable to maintain a reasonable stability to the coracle, you need to weigh down these arches to flatten the bottom.

The same process is repeated on the other two sides, but here it will be a little more messy, since the saplings has to be stuck underneath afterwards. Now you are probably thinking: Why weigh down the arches before making the second ones? Actually, I have tried both. I finished a frame that became far too big for the hide I managed to obtain. On that one I made all the arches before weighing it down. It worked, but it was quite a puzzle to manage all of those rods at the same time. If you weigh down from one side first, you can just press the next ones underneath the first ones and get the correct depth at once. On tip when making the frame: The longer between the rods, the more likely that the frame will lose it's shape later. The corners are especially important in that respect.

After the frame is weighed down and the depth is approximately the same all around (and even if it isn't, that can be adjusted in the end) you can start weaving. Since the frame consists of an equal number of rods, you need to weave in layers upwards instead of a continuous weave. Use smaller saplings than on the frame and substantial overlap when adding a new sapling. The further up the frame you weave, the less likely it is that the frame will loose it's shape when you take the frame out of the ground.

The first frame I made I let dry for about a month in the ground. When I pulled it up it kept shape reasonably well, but scraping on the bark revealed that it was still quite green. The second one I started and finished in the same day and it spread out quite badly. So instead of having steep sides, it resembled a river Severn bowl coracle in shape. Nothing wrong with that really, except a loss of stability. Next time I will build the frame months in advance, in dry and sandy soil so the frame will stay exactly the same when I pull it out.

Anyway, after you have finished the frame, pull it out and break off the ends of the rods that has been stuck in the ground. The only thing that is left then is to attach the skin.

The elk (moose) skin I got from a local slaughterhouse. No one uses the skins any more, so I got it for free. To make the coracle as light as possible, the hide was soaked and the hairs removed. After having measured the a proper fit on the frame I cut the hide with a freshly made flint flake. Here is a couple of lessons to be learned. Use a flake with a long working edge, otherwise it takes A LOT of time. Also, the hide is very thick, so the edge dulls quickly. Make a new one as soon as it starts to dull, a sharp flake is a pleasure and the used flakes can be remade into arrow points or whatever.

Finally you need to cut some long strips of the leftover hide pieces to tie it to the frame. Make a hole at least for every rod that stuck in the ground and tighten it down over the weave and behind the arch. Hard to explain, it is better to have a look on the picture. There was a bullet hole in the skin. To remedy that problem I simply stuck a small, dry piece of wood into it. When the hide dried up it kept tight in the hole. The photos are of the drying coracle in the tree and the dried coracle.

Testing the coracle was somewhat scary. The ice was starting to freeze over the pond I planned to test it on. Because of that I had to choose a spot where it was deeper close to shore. Hardly an ideal spot to practise using this craft. Despite being a little low and unstable, consequences of the frame not keeping it's shape perfectly after pulling it out of the ground, it seemed to handle well. I didn't have a paddle yet, so I don' really know though. But I got to experience that it requires a lot of effort in the way of keeping it stable. To remedy the drawback with instability and making it usable for crossing bigger lakes, further experimentation with temporarily building it into a very simple raft will be carried out. But as pointed out earlier, making the coracle a little bigger, and making the bottom totally flat would make it more stable in the first place.

Spruce Bark Canoe

After reading in the Bulletin of Primitive Technology about spruce and elm bark canoes I decided to give it a go. Though I have little doubt that you could find at least marginally usable bark for a canoe around where I come from, good spruce bark is much more abundant.

I searched for an afternoon and found several decent canditates, but there was one in particular. It wasn't an excellent tree by any measure, but it was damaged on one side, easing my conscience for taking such a big tree.

Skinning an upright tree isn't easy, but with stone tools you would definately have no choice. This canoe wasn't done with stone tools, of the simple reason that I didn't have time and because of that needed to take some shortcuts. This tree had another tree fallen against it a couple of metres from the ground, making it possible to skin without making a ladder. The sheet came off around 4m long and should preferably have been 2m longer. Because of the injury, the sheet also was a little narrow.

A few lessons to be learned in the skinning process:
- Make the ladder longer than the sheet, it will make it easier to remove the sheet without injuring it.
- Be at least two persons (we were two, my brother Arne and myself).
- Cut the outlines of the sheet completely so you can see that the bark is cut through all the way. This is to decrease the chance of ripping the bark. Lenghtwise cracks is a much greater issue than holes from dead branches.
- Make a spud to help prying off the bark.
- Have one person hold the top (think safety though) while making the final separating strokes from the tree.
- Transport the bark as short a distance as possible, it will obviously make the chances of cracking the bark smaller.

Try to choose a shady location for building your canoe. Otherwise the bark will dry too fast. Again it is from my own errors I say this. Also, the ground should be absolutely level to avoid that the canoe become twisted. Spend some time scraping down the bark, especially where you want the bark to be crimped to achieve a rocker and in the ends. All of these places will experience severe stress and if you don't do this properly, the bark will crack.

I cut the gores and tried to sew them shut. Forget such an idea. It works well on birch bark, since it shrinks a lot less, but on spruce you will just give yourself an enormous task in sewing and pitching the seams.

Make two frames (the inner gunwhales x2) and weigh one of them down with some rocks. Make sure there is enough bark on each side of the frame to make the sides of the canoe. Stake up the sides, fold the crimps and clamp the second innergunwhale to the top. Do the same on the ends. I sewed the canoe up at once. And that is ok if you want it only to use for a while, if you keep it wet, but after that it will become loose from the bark drying and everything will have to be resewed and repitched. More than likely without great results.

When the hull is dried, you can start the sewing. Try to reconstitute so you can carefully puncture the bark to sew the on the gunwhale with spruce roots. The method is the same as sewing a birch bark basket, a method that will be described in a later article. The ends are stiched around two pieces of wood, to make sure the seam doesn't split the bark. Pitch the seams before sheathing.

For a sturdy and lasting canoe you need sheathing and ribs. Sheathing is somewhat less imperative and can be replaced with a floor laid ontop of the ribs. Be very carful when fitting the ribs, dry spruce bark is absolutely inelastic and can not be fitted as tightly as on birch bark canoes. Of the same reason, I would be very careful of using a spruce bark canoe in a rocky river.

The spruce bark canoe I made was in service for only a very short time. The cracks required an enormous effort in pitching it, when it dried and cracked even more horrendously I simply gave up and retired it. I am not certain if I will make another attempt. Either I will scrape together enough good birch bark to make a decent birch bark canoe or I will make a currach from elk hides.

Below is a sad photo of the retired canoe, twisted and cracked the bark has now been stripped off and utilized as flooring in my brother Laje's hunting blind.

Wild Food

Birds

Getting a bird

All birds are edible, catching them is another matter. You can deadfalls, snares, nets etc. The key of catching them is to establish their habits. Waterfowl is always close to water, ptarmigan feeds on birch in the winter, the capercaillie love juniper berries etc... Although all birds have habits, some has less easily identifiable and predictable habits. And not all habits are particulary useful, especially with primitive traps and weapons. For instance: The wood cock migrate on certain age old patterns, but they fly so fast and are so small that they are practically impossible to hit with anything but a shotgun.

Attracting the birds is also an option. Waterfowl, often being vegetarian, can be attracted with something as simple as common bread, while scavengers can be attracted by carrion. But invite them on places they feel safe, which for birds in general is in open spaces, opposite of most mammals. Ducks need to be presented with things in the water, as they are reluctant to move out of the water. Scavenger birds, like ravens, can more easily spot the carcass if it is in the open and they will feel more safe there, from hungry mammals lurking in the forest.

Hunting birds with primitive weapon is a challenge. More than mammals, birds are not so conserned with being spotted as they have an easy escape route: The air. Locating the birds is often the easy part, getting close enough to put an arrow through their heart is far more difficult. Everything from sneaking to attracting them or simply sit down and wait along a known migratory rout can be tried.

When birds fly up they often exspose them self totally and the speed as at the minimum at this time. By moving around in a relatively open landscape, preferably with flocking birds like the ptarmigan, if you throw a throwing stick just above the birds right after they have taken off the chances are pretty good that you may bag one or two. Compared to losing an arrow, losing a stick isn't of much consern anyway as they are readily replacable.

Ducks and geese molt in a period of the summer. Then they are unable to fly and can be caught easily on the ground. They are however much harder to find at this time, as they are very well aware of their vulnerability.

Dressing the bird

Fish eating birds and geese should be dressed right away, they will go rancid and sour quite quickly after being killed. Other birds can hang for a few days, but it is no requirement. Black grouse, capercaillie and particulary ptarmigan can, in cold weather, hang literally for months without taking damage.

The bird used as an example here was an omnivorous duck (shot by my brother) and thereby had to be dressed right away.














The initial cuts are done encircling the anus to get out the guts without spilling stommach contents on the flesh. If you spill any, wash the inside well afterwards. To get your hands properly into the bird, you may have to cut a little further up the soft part of the belly.














Photo (below): Pulling out the guts.














I usually pull out the guts, heart, stommach and liver and whatever else I grab hold of. The rest I leave in the bird. Everything but the guts and the contents of the stommach is eaten. Though, if you are brave enough, I suppose that isn't out of the question either.














Plucking the bird is eased by the aid of warm water. Pull with the feather direction. Don't take too many feathers at once or you will more than likely rip the skin. Small birds are easier to skin, but you will lose much of the fat sticking to the skin, a resource that may be imperative to your survival.














After the bird is properly plucked, dry it properly off on the outside and singe off the remaining feathers and down over hot coals.














I don't eat birds raw, I do not however know of any reasons not to. Cooking will be addressed in a later article.

Remember that the bones and feathers of birds have many uses too.

Next Wednesday: Fungi

Legalities in regards to primitive living in Norway.

Fishing

The primitive in Norway seems hardly able to thrive on hunting and trapping (legally that is). Fishing however is another story. If we first have a look away from the legalities, there are literally thousands on thousands of lakes in Norway with way too much fish. It is more than likely that you will be able to secure rights to use a net or two along all the way of your migration line. ;-)

Fishing in the sea is open to everybody, including with nets and long line, as long as it is for non-commersial purposes only. The exception is equipment specifically aimed at catching salmon, sea trout and sea char. Here the landowner has exclusive rights. That does not include hook and line however. There are no fees for fishing in the sea.

In freshwater, nets are for the land owner's exclusive use. Where a fishing license is required, you that is the only fee required. The exception is where there are salmon, sea trout or sea char in the water. There there is an additional fee to the government. Where no fishing licences are sold, fishing is off-limits. However, persons up to 16 years are allowed to fish wherever they like for free, except where there is anadromous fish.

Fishing spears are illegal to use. Very few care though, and I claim my right to do it as everyone has done it where I come from in times immemorial. In fact, I didn't know it was illegal until I checked it now! Bowfishing is legal for pike only. I have found no exception for tickeling trout and I therefore consider that to be legal.

That's all for now. I may not have covered it all. If I discover that I have left something out, I will post it.

Antler axes

Antler axes have several advantages over stone axes. Ground stone axes take a lot of time to make, not to mention the time involved in finding a river cobble that doesn't require an enormous effort to shape. Any type of good flaking rock is hard to find in Norway, so I wouldn't waste a good piece on a flaxed axe. Antler is unlike stone, a renewable resource and is relatively easy to find and shape.

There are several options when making these kind of axes. You can make one with a "diagonal" edge or use the centre of the rosette close to the base. I have made both, but have yet to test the last type. Adzes are also possible to make with antler, but is still on my "to make" list.

When choosing type of antler:
- Roe deer antler is generally too small.
- Red deer is a little weak, but will work for the diagonally edged type.
- Reindeer (caribou) is excellent for the diagonally edged type, but could possibly be used in the ordinary way too.
- Elk (moose) is the best for the one with an ordinary central bit and would be too big for much else.

To make the axes, score and split everything to as close dimensions as you can, that will save you a lot of work grinding. On the big elk axe head I have spent extremely much time grinding the end to a bevel, I would have saved myself a lot of work by scoring and cutting a little more. But anyway, the base end of elk antler, is extremely hard! Even drilling the holes will take a lot of time. Bone is said to be usable too, but isn't nearly as flexible as antler and is consequently much more likely to chip.

On one of my axes (middle) I took advantage of a limb on the antler (from a big stag) and used that as the handle. The elk axe is yet unhafted and the lower one is also of red deer.














Don't use an antler axe on hard, dry wood. Or for limbing spruce. The one with the seemingly thin shaft (which works great by the way) has been severly damaged from using it for that purpose and will need a lot of grinding to become usable again. On spruce limbs: Use a heavy batton to break them off. Spruce limbs are just as easy to break that way as by chopping them.

Antler axes and beaver tooth knives are natural choices for the abo living in a stone-poor environment (like Norway). Conserve most of the stone you have for working antler, bone and butchering. I have managed for 6 years or so with less than a kilogram of flint. That is achived by using all available edges on even small pieces and not reducing them into bifaces and finally drill-bits or arrowheads until these edges are worn out.

Cordage

Making good cordage is, like most primitive skills; easy, but practise is required. It can be made from virtually anything fibrous, from paper to rawhide. But as any economist would tell you: Don't have the money in the bank, when you can make more on stocks. In other words, there is no reason to use the inferior fibres of rosebay willowherb, when the nettle is equally abundant and gives a better result.

There are several types of cordage. There is the single strand cordage. This is the fastest method, but usually only usable for static tasks, such as wrappings. Roots are usually used this way. Rawhide is an exception to this rule, internally it is really consisting of multible fibres and a very strong glue, making it behave like regular cord even if it is single stranded. Single stranded cordage have to be spliced with knots, while twisted and braided cordage can and should have fibres added continously.

Twisted cordage is the second fastest to make. It is stronger than single stranded due to internal friction and the alignment of the fibres gives an artificial stretch to the fibres. Useful in bowstrings to absorb excessive shock, but often not desirable in fishing lines as it reduces the feeling with the fish. It can have two plies or more, but making more than two is messy and I almost never do it.

It is done by either thigh rolling or by holding the other end firm (in the mouth or in an other way) and twisting with both hands. Thigh rolling is way faster, but the results are less even and thight, at least for me. Also, it is hard to thigh roll more than two strands and if the get too thick. But for long lenghts of cordage, for instance for fishing nets there is really no other way. To achive sufficient friction surface to roll on, either wear no trousers or wet the area you roll on first.














Working with the fibres wet is sometimes advantageous, regardless of method. The animal fibres I feel however become too limp. Some people like it, but I don't. Experiment on your own to find what you prefer. To make sure the twisting doesn't cause the finished cordage to untwist further down you have to have some means of relieving the twist. No problem with short bowstrings, but with longer cords a something is needed to wind it up on. A spindle with a wheel is excellent for this and very high on my "to make" list.

Every girl and most boys knows how to braid a simple three stranded braid. Braiding is stretchless and thus good for fishing lines. It is extremely slow to do however, and the thinner you make them the slower it is. It is also possible to braid with four strands, but I have yet to learn that. Below is an illustration of twisting and braiding.







Knowing how to make strong cordage is essential for the primitive. I have just started thigh rolling some 1000 metres of nettle cordage for a new fishing net. We'll see how much I end up making, but for now my goal is 1000m. To the left on the photo is braided fishing line and to the right is thigh rolled cordage for nets. For scale: The fishing line is approximately 1,5mm thick.

Wild Food

Important food plants

The plants I have included here have been chosen for their potential of a great return on the investment it poses to harvest them. An other requirement is that they are fairly common in the northern temperate-subarctic region of Norway. Even within these criteria, this is far from an exhaustive list, but it is meant to give you an idea of where to start.

Vegetables

Subsisting on vegetables in the boreal forest is virtually impossible. At times it can provide a good variation in the diet however. So it is worth exploring, but not as crucial to survival as meat.

Reedmace/Cattail (Typha latifolia)
This plant is found over a rather limited area in Norway, even if it more than likely could thrive in most of the lowlands and lower highlands all over the country. The reason of it's limited range is probably that it haven't had enough time since the ice age to spread. Where it is found however, it is often in large stands and has a starch production per area quite close to potato! Needless to say, this is probably one of the most interesting food plants found in the northern region and whole tribes of Native Americans depended on it. I haven't tried all of these plants yet. Those I have not I mostly take my information from pfaf.org. All soft parts of this plant is edible and delicious, even the green cobs. The leaves are also very strong and good for cordage, but that is a different story.

The rhizomes are fibrous with a slightly fire proof skin on. To cook them, just throw them on the coals and leave them for some minutes and the starch will be very sweet and can be sucked out of the fibres it sticks too.

Same goes with the stem base, but it must lay on the coals substantially longer. The texture is almost like Chinese Water Chestnut and the taste even better I would say. It can also be cleaned and cooked in a pot.

I have yet to try the cobs, shoots and the pollen, but they are all said to be good and exceptionally nutritious.

Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris)
Many references I have seen states that the root of this plant must be cooked several times to remove it's bitterness. If you are intent on eating all of the root, then you have to. But I am not interested in eating the bitter, fibrous outer shell. This shell is very thick on cow parsley, but if you remove it before cooking you have a soft and palatable vegetable. Considere

d the sheer abundance of this plant at times, I have no problem being this picky. The leaves are very foul tasting, I think. But some people mix slight amounts of it in salads.

Nettle (Urtica sp.)
Nettle is very common, but as most vegetables, primarily in places disturbed by humans. It is extremely nutritious and very tasty. The young leaves can be eaten almost raw, but as they get older they need more cooking to remove the bitter taste. The calorie value is, despite appearances, quite high.

Dandelion (Taraxacum offenciale)
The leaves of the dandelion is a quite good in salads. I only eat the young ones though. Older leaves are too bitter for my taste. I am quite ashamed of not yet having tried the root yet, mostly due to being scared of the alleged bitterness. But this is definitely a root worth trying, considering it's extreme abundance and quite sizeable root.

Orpine (Sedum telephium)

The leaves are edible, either raw or cooked. Haven't tried them personally though. What I have tried is to eat the raw root. Quite good, like raw potato, but it is probably even better cooked. Cooking vegetables help you take advantage of starches that would otherwise be indigestible.

Silverweed (Potentilla anserina)
Common root vegetable, which I of some reason have yet to try.

Alpine bistort (Polygonum viviparum)
I have personally eaten the seeds and the root raw. The seeds are small, but easy to gather and high in calories. The root is small, but tastes very good and is probably even better when cooked.

Common plantain (Plantago major)
The seeds are small, but nutritious and easy to gather.

Common reed (Phragmites australis)

Never tried it, as it is doesn't exist in the region where I come from. The roots and shoots and seeds are edible and rich in calories. The green stems can be ground up and the sugar extracted by boiling or melting. Definitely a plant worth closer attention it seems.

Burdock (Arctium sp.)
This specie doesn't grow anywhere I have ventured, but the root is said to be very good eating.

Berries

In the autumn there is an abundance of berries in the boreal forest and the mountains. Despite appearances, it may provide quite a large portion of the daily calorie intake at that time of year. Some berries are more worthwhile than others, but for the sake of variation I snack on them all.

Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus)
Very good tasting berry, maybe not very rich in calories, but it has at least 10 times the vitamin C of orange.

Cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea)
Not a personal favourite of mine, opposite of many of my countrymen. When it has been dried, the peculiar taste milden if dried. It is said to have bigger calorie percentage than most berries.

Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus)
One of the most tasty of berries. And since the bear loves it that much, it is more than likely one of the most calorie rich ones as well.

Bog bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum)
Quite tasty, but in my opinion not as tasty as the common bilberry. Probably has a reasonable calorie content.

Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)

Tastes a little like cowberry. It grows in the mountains.

Alpine bearberry (Arctostaphylos alpina)
Less substantial than bearberry, but of similar taste. Grows in the mountains.

Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum)
More than likely not much nutrition in these berries. But they are very juicy. When in the mountains I often grab a handful, chew out the liquid and spit out the tart skins. They grow in the forest as well as in the mountains.

Cranberries (Oxycoccus sp.)
Good after the frost and all the way until spring. Hard to gather a lot of them, so it is mostly for the taste of it.

Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
This is a berry I can't stand eating more than one or two of. Nothing more to say about it really.

Wild rose (Rosa sp.)
Fleshy, good tasting fruit. But you need to remove the irritating hairs inside the fruit prior to eating it. A messy process that make this berry hardly worthwhile.

Blackberries (Rubus fruticosus)

These berries are only found in the very south of the boreal region. They are very good, but in my opinion raspberries are better.

Raspberries (Rubus idaeus)
My favourite berry. Very sweet, but gathering any quantity takes considerably long time.

Wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca)
A very sweet berry, but also hard to gather in worthwhile quantity.

Nuts

Hazel (Corylus Avellana)
These are the most widespread of the nuts, but are still confined to the warmer areas. The crops can be heavy and the tasty fruits are definitely worth harvesting.

Oak (Quercus sp.)

I have not tried these nuts as oak is only found on the very edge of the zone written about here. The nuts have to be leached to be edible because of the great amounts of tannin found in them naturally.

Digging stick

The digging stick is the primitive gatherer's primary tool. It doesn't need to be much, any stout and pointed stick will do. While a shovel has two functions, breaking up the soil and hauling it out of the hole, the digging stick only breaks up the soil. The hands serve for hauling out the broken soil. The advantages of the digging stick is in it's simplicity and precision. While digging a ditch is easier with a shovel, digging up a single root is more easily accomplished with a digging stick. On the photo below I am digging up cow parsley.

Next Wednesday: Birds

Legalities in regards to primitive living in Norway.

Hunting and trapping

Hunting is the more of a dark chapter when it comes to primitive living here in Norway. Hunting with anything except a gunpowder driven gun is illegal.

Trapping is slightly better, but the restrictions are numerous. Any trap is illegal unless else is stated. Using a snare is only legal on ptarmigan and only in some municipals. Deadfalls are legal on pine marten, mink and weasel. For anything else you need modern traps. And all traps have to be marked with ownership (probably so you can be prosecuted when you catch someone's dog...).

And of course, you need the landowner's permission to trap. And that can easily be expensive, except if he has virmin he wants to rid himself of. Any hunter/trapper also has to take a test first to be allowed to hunt. The permit lasts for life, but you need to pay a fee to the government each year and you are obliged to report once a year on whatever you have caught.

To sum it up. You are in Norway allowed to catch four species of game with primitive equipment: Ptarmigan, pine marten, mink and weasel.

Next Monday: Fishing

Wild Food

Nutrition

The body does, in addition to energy, require a lot of different other substances to function. Though this may initially seem like a deal breaker for living a life in the wild, it isn't. After all, that is what the body is designed for. If avoid the nutritional faults outlined here, chances are you will have an a lot healthier diet than most people today do.

Water

Though this isn't normally considered as nutrition, it is a major element of the body's composition and need to be given some attention as well. Drinking a lot of water is important to keep healthy. And that is equally true in winter, opposite common belief. How much you need to drink is variable to activity. Many say that drinking when you are thirsty too late and that your body is heavily dehydrated already. That may be so, but I trust that the body tells me when I need to drink more. To compensate , I drink a little more than I feel like when I drink.

If the water is likely to have a lot bacteria, which it rarely does in Norway, you should boil the water before drinking it. To this date, I have yet to boil water for drinking. Charcoal can supposedly filter out heavy metals and other dangerous substances, but do not take my word for it as I have never done it myself.

Vitamin C

To stay healthy, you need vitamin C. Lack of vitamin C, when well progressed, will ultimately result in scurvy. A condition causing loss of teeth and various other unfortunate consequences. Vitamin C is fortunately quite common in nature. It is found in many green plants, such as nettle and in great quantities in many berries, such as cloudberry. But what do you do in winter? Luckily, the organs of animals carry a lot of this vitamin. Not only mammals, but fish and fowl too. (Johansson 1991)

It is worth noticing that vitamin C is very intolerant of heat. That means that the food needs to be eaten raw, including meats and organs. Some people would rather drink pine needle tea, which also contains this vitamin. But if there are no pine, or you don't like pine tea (like me), then you don't have a choice in wintertime.

The trichina worm and other parasites

Getting parasites is a very serious matter. To a hunter-gatherer, life will often be sustained at the margins of energy surplus. A parasite will literally zap your energy and also deprive you of important trace elements. Tapeworms and other common internal parasites can be expelled by ingesting tansy (Chrysanthemum vulgare). Do however use this plant with caution, it is toxic to a degree. (Mabey 2001)

The trichina worm is a particularly dangerous parasite. It is harboured in muscular tissue of carnivores and omnivores. Of that reason: Never eat raw or poorly cooked meat of an animal that occasionally eats other animals. To be safe the meat needs to be heated to the temperature of 62C or until clear juices run from the meat. (Wikipedia)

Rodents (including hares) should not be consumed raw, because of the danger of tularaemia. If a hare looks ill, leave it alone. Better safe than sorry.

Salt and ionide

Two composites that are often of limited availability, especially in areas far from the sea, are salt and iodine. Plants contain little salt. Too little to sustain humans with enough without input of pure salt. If you have a high degree of vegetables in your diet you will need to have a way of getting salt. Salt is usually unevenly spread out. This is the reason why salt was a major trade commodity in southern areas already a long time ago. Herbivores accumulate salt through their diet. Consequently, by eating a lot of meat, you are probably getting enough salt. (Tulloch 2004)

There are many areas of this world with deficiency of iodine. Iodine is found in sea water, so the deficiencies are rarer there. How well this need is covered by eating meat I don't know, but I have heard nothing about inland Inuits and Siberian reindeer herders having goitre. A disease commonly caused by iodine deficiency. Icelandic lichens contains iodine, but in very small amounts according to unconfirmed rumours. In a primitive lifeway, especially if your diet is high in vegetables, it is probably wise to spend a longer period foraging and fishing by the sea.

Carbohydrates and fat

Except from the stomach contents of herbivores, there are little easily available carbohydrates in the northern areas. The further south you get, the more you have available to you. But no matter where you are in the temperate zone, there will not be much to find in winter. A consideration in this regard is protein poisoning, you need to eat quite a lot of either fat or carbohydrates or you will in essence starve. (Goring 2006, Kochanski 1988) The only solution left then, is fat. There is no point in even consuming lean animals as your energy level will still go down. Hares and other rodents are particularly lean as a rule. To avoid poisoning when subsisting primarily on these animals you need to boil the whole animal, intestines and all. (Kochanski 1988) Whether it is really necessary to throw away the skin, I am not sure of. I would assume though, that if you take off the skin but throw the little fat there is on the skin into the pot you would be fine.

Next Wednesday: Important food plants

Litterature:

Kochanski, M. (1988), Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival. Edmonton, Lone Pine Publishing.
Johansson, T. (1994), Mat. Forntida Teknik. Issue 2, 2006, pp. 41-47.
Mabey, R. (2001), Food for Free. London, Collins.
Tulloch, A. (2004), Salt. Bulletin of Primitive Technology. Issue #28, Fall 2004.
Goring, S. (2006) The Reality of Food in the Bush (Part 2). Bushcraft. Issue 2, Summer 2006, pp. 18-21.

Legalities in regards to primitive living in Norway.

Gathering things

The legalities around gathering wild plants and fungi aren't very complicated in Norway. The general rule is that you can pick whatever berries and nuts you want as long as they are wild. The same goes with fungi and herbs. Herbs can be uprooted, but protected species are of course not to be touched. There are two moderators of this freedom:

• Nuts can only be gathered in quantities to be eaten on the spot without permission from the landowner.

• In Troms and Finnmark counties cloudberries are only to be gathered in quantities to be eaten on the spot without permission from the landowner.

• Unripe cloudberries are illegal to pick.

In practise, very few gather nuts today. I strongly doubt that anyone will object against you harvesting as much as you like of that resource.

Cockles, mussels and sea weeds are to my knowledge legal to gather, but I was unable to verify this.

Rocks, antlers, bone are illegal to gather. It is however commonly accepted that gathering small amounts of such worthless materials, without the permission of the landowner, is legal.

Next Monday: Hunting

Hygiene

Hygiene

A topic greatly neglected by most primitivists, including me. Most outdoors people seems to look upon being dirty as a proof of masculinity. I am now of another opinion. If you were living permanently in the wild, especially along with several other people, it might have gotten rather uncomfortable, not to say hazardous to your health. It is amazing how good it feels to clean up properly in the wilds, I'll say it is even better than showering at home

Bathing

The most obvious consideration when it comes to staying clean is washing the body. Washing the genitals and anus should preferably be done every day. Either with a wet piece of cloth or with your hands. Soap isn't really necessary to become clean. If you wash every day, you will never get so dirty that you need more radical means. That is however an utopia. Most people don't have the discipline to wash every day. To clean properly up you then need to sweat it out and plunge into either water or snow to remove it before it sets back into the pores. This can either be done by exercise or a sweat lodge. In winter, sweating in your clothes can be dangerous, so the only alternative used should be the sweat lodge.

I have built and used a sweat lodge a couple of times and I love the way you feel after a sweat-bath. Slightly prickly on your skin, but glowing.

When cleaning it is no point in heating any water,except for comfort. You become cleaner with cold water. Most bacteria thrive in normal bath-temperature. Warm water is however more fat-soluble, so there you have another reason to use the sweat lodge. How to build a sweat lodge will be covered in a later article.

Toilet hygiene

When I was saying that bathing is the most obvious task with hygiene in the wilds there is an subject that really deserve that position. However, from experience I can tell you that this is not the case for a great number of people. Washing your hands after going to the “bathroom” is very important to prevent stomach upsets etc...

When it comes to wiping, there is usually an order of preference. I prefer sphagnum moss, with other mosses coming second and grasses and leaves third. In winter, none of these are usually available. As rather uncomfortable substitutes I use pine or spruce branches (with the needles!). To clean up properly afterwards I resort to snow. Sometimes, if there is nothing else around, I will use snow all the way. It is a good thing that the diet offered in the wild usually is full of fibre....

Nails and hair

That the hair gets all fatty is quite annoying. Personally I have never gone without soap long enough for this effect to disappear, but from what I have heard it disappears after a few months. To avoid the hair becoming like a cake of dreadlocks, you should comb it every day. Making a simple comb isn't all that hard. You just need some pointy sticks tied together. Alternatively the hair can be braided. When the hair needs trimming (I wear mine long), you can either use a flake or a glowing coal. I have tried neither, but I assume that with some training the results can be satisfying. Especially if someone else does it on you. Beard can be cut or burned, but both seem too hazardous for me. I would rather braid mine.

The nails can be cut in one end and carefully ripped off. I have tried this and the results are a little too unpredictable for me, but it may be all due to lack of skill. Alternatively they can be abraded down on a stone. A slow task I'd assume, but if done every day it may not be so bad.

Mouth hygiene

Tooth rot that goes too far can actually be lethal. Because of that, preventing this problem is essential to long term survival. As long as you eat wild food only, it will probably not be much of a problem, but to be on the safe side I would suggest to brush your teeth with a chewed twig or a finger with wood ash on. Especially if you have eaten lots of carbohydrates. Pitch is sometimes recommended is pine/spruce pitch, but keep in mind that the taste will linger on for the rest of the day and ruin the experience of that fine venison you have for dinner.... Fine fibres, and sinew in particular, are suitable for flossing the teeth.