- Joined
- Feb 28, 2007
- Messages
- 9,786
Came back last night from the Great Lakes Primitive Gathering on Bois Blanc Island off of Cheboygan Michigan. I'll be writing a detailed article elsewhere covering the event, but I thought it would be nice to cover some of the highlights.
The gathering is an annual event held on private property. This year the dates were Aug 12-15. Up to 100 participants plus instructors are allowed each year. My guess was there were around 65 or so participants. You camp on-site but breakfast and dinner is catered in and part of the registration fee. This makes the day go much smoother and allows you more time to concentrate on learning from the various instructional activities going on.
There were all kinds of workshops happening. Here are a few, but not a comprehensive list of activities: flint knapping, primitive pottery, knife sharpening, knife-kit making (taught by Abe Elias of Diving Sparrow knives, he demonstrated how to put on handles on Green River blades), carving, atlatl making, archery, cordage, birch and cedar bark baskets, making slings, flute making, fire management, making rawhide rattles, pipe carving, plant medicines (teas, poultices, salves, tinctures), bow strings, beading, plant walk (George Hedgepeth), fire techniques, net bags, debris huts, natural dyes, wool felting, leather stitching and more.
The camp sites were nice and private and you could choose a site right on the lake or tucked into the bush. No fires were allowed to keep fire hazards low, but a communal fire was held each day and night in the main activity area. It is a great family event. Many kids literally grew up with this event, coming every year they can remember. According to Mitzi, the coordinator, they used to try to plan kid-specific activities, but then they found out that kids can have a ball just following the adult work shops or running around in packs. Parents took turns taking kids to the beach for swimming and all in all the kids had a blast but were not annoying to adults.
Personally, I learned quite a bit. I interacted a great deal with George Hedgepeth who founded the Great Lakes Primitives more than 15 years ago. George also runs Briar Patch Outdoors, his survival school, to which I'm signing up for a week long course next July. He is a really down to earth guy, great story teller, and no-none sense instructor who comes at things using both scientific and primitive perspectives. I really like how he blends in practicality of modern and primitive methods mixed in with some good old fashioned "Hilly Billy" logic (his own words). George has a profound knowledge of plant medicinals and edibles. It would be amazing to get him and Doc Canada in the same meadow together. I'll try to work on that in the years to come!
Abe Elias, known to many of us for his knives - Diving Sparrow Kniveworks, gave some very nice seminars on building knife kits using green river pattern knife blanks and knife sharpening. He also did a couple of sessions on spoon carving. Unfortunately, I didn't get to attend his classes because there was so much going on. However, it was nice to interact with him during the evenings and I will try to attend his kit-knife course next year if he offers it again. Cool thing is that Abe lives 40 minutes away from me and I never knew it. So, I'm sure we'll hook up at another time. Maybe Abe will bring some of his knives next years so that we can all play with them a bit!
A few shots of the trip. My wife giving me - 'why did we bring so much crap?' look as we hauled our 70 L packs full to the brim over the ferry. Yeah, it was a bit of comfort camping and we hauled back a tonne more stuff than we came with.
We slept in our MEC-Tarn-3 tent. Comfortable and it was especially great on the Saturday night where conditions allowed us to sleep with the fly off and look at the stars above through the no-seeum mesh.
A few others had more traditional sleeping arrangements. One of the instructors, Keith, brought the materials and assembled an authentic birch bark covered teepee. To our shagrine, he had that teepee up in about the same time it took my wife and I to set up camp! A few traditional canvas tents were up as well.
Some examples of bone hooks displayed by the flintknapper instructor
Our little beech walk to the main activity area.
Students learning how to braid their own slings. I took shots, but didn't get a chance to sit this full class. Next year! BTW DocCanada, the instructor, Dale Lappointe, was really intrigued by your sling I had brought. He looked at it for about 10 minutes and you could tell he was trying to figure out exactly how you constructed it. He thanked me for showing me your item and said he would love to talk to you about net making methods sometime!
My wife rolling out her pot in the primitive pottery class. This was no sculpting clay. The artisian harvested this clay from S. Indiana and added in stabilizer components. The clay was sculpted in the traditional method and then fired using a brush fire.
More coming.....
The gathering is an annual event held on private property. This year the dates were Aug 12-15. Up to 100 participants plus instructors are allowed each year. My guess was there were around 65 or so participants. You camp on-site but breakfast and dinner is catered in and part of the registration fee. This makes the day go much smoother and allows you more time to concentrate on learning from the various instructional activities going on.
There were all kinds of workshops happening. Here are a few, but not a comprehensive list of activities: flint knapping, primitive pottery, knife sharpening, knife-kit making (taught by Abe Elias of Diving Sparrow knives, he demonstrated how to put on handles on Green River blades), carving, atlatl making, archery, cordage, birch and cedar bark baskets, making slings, flute making, fire management, making rawhide rattles, pipe carving, plant medicines (teas, poultices, salves, tinctures), bow strings, beading, plant walk (George Hedgepeth), fire techniques, net bags, debris huts, natural dyes, wool felting, leather stitching and more.
The camp sites were nice and private and you could choose a site right on the lake or tucked into the bush. No fires were allowed to keep fire hazards low, but a communal fire was held each day and night in the main activity area. It is a great family event. Many kids literally grew up with this event, coming every year they can remember. According to Mitzi, the coordinator, they used to try to plan kid-specific activities, but then they found out that kids can have a ball just following the adult work shops or running around in packs. Parents took turns taking kids to the beach for swimming and all in all the kids had a blast but were not annoying to adults.
Personally, I learned quite a bit. I interacted a great deal with George Hedgepeth who founded the Great Lakes Primitives more than 15 years ago. George also runs Briar Patch Outdoors, his survival school, to which I'm signing up for a week long course next July. He is a really down to earth guy, great story teller, and no-none sense instructor who comes at things using both scientific and primitive perspectives. I really like how he blends in practicality of modern and primitive methods mixed in with some good old fashioned "Hilly Billy" logic (his own words). George has a profound knowledge of plant medicinals and edibles. It would be amazing to get him and Doc Canada in the same meadow together. I'll try to work on that in the years to come!
Abe Elias, known to many of us for his knives - Diving Sparrow Kniveworks, gave some very nice seminars on building knife kits using green river pattern knife blanks and knife sharpening. He also did a couple of sessions on spoon carving. Unfortunately, I didn't get to attend his classes because there was so much going on. However, it was nice to interact with him during the evenings and I will try to attend his kit-knife course next year if he offers it again. Cool thing is that Abe lives 40 minutes away from me and I never knew it. So, I'm sure we'll hook up at another time. Maybe Abe will bring some of his knives next years so that we can all play with them a bit!
A few shots of the trip. My wife giving me - 'why did we bring so much crap?' look as we hauled our 70 L packs full to the brim over the ferry. Yeah, it was a bit of comfort camping and we hauled back a tonne more stuff than we came with.
We slept in our MEC-Tarn-3 tent. Comfortable and it was especially great on the Saturday night where conditions allowed us to sleep with the fly off and look at the stars above through the no-seeum mesh.
A few others had more traditional sleeping arrangements. One of the instructors, Keith, brought the materials and assembled an authentic birch bark covered teepee. To our shagrine, he had that teepee up in about the same time it took my wife and I to set up camp! A few traditional canvas tents were up as well.
Some examples of bone hooks displayed by the flintknapper instructor
Our little beech walk to the main activity area.
Students learning how to braid their own slings. I took shots, but didn't get a chance to sit this full class. Next year! BTW DocCanada, the instructor, Dale Lappointe, was really intrigued by your sling I had brought. He looked at it for about 10 minutes and you could tell he was trying to figure out exactly how you constructed it. He thanked me for showing me your item and said he would love to talk to you about net making methods sometime!
My wife rolling out her pot in the primitive pottery class. This was no sculpting clay. The artisian harvested this clay from S. Indiana and added in stabilizer components. The clay was sculpted in the traditional method and then fired using a brush fire.
More coming.....
