I recently finished Ellsworth Jaeger's book: Wildwood Wisdom (ISBN 0-936070-12-9 from Shelter Publications http://www.shelterpub.com ). The richly illustrated book is 491 pages (!) and was first published in 1945. It is heavily influenced by Native American and pioneer observations and is more like a wilderness guide than a survival encyclopedia. Since I have only seen it in one bookstore, it does not seem to be a frequent bookstore item.
Chapters are:
Outdoor clothing (banket coats, home made parka, buckskin shirt, rawhide buttons, rawhide, fur, tanning)
Packs and packing (improvised packs, packing, horse packs, horse packing, pack saddles)
Blankets and beds
Shelters
Fire making
Ax and knife
Sanitation and health
Camp cookery equipment(tin-can, flat stone cookery, hot stone cookery, wooden utensils, cooling food)
Camp cookery (bread, pies, corn cookin', fish, meats, soups, beverages)
Food animals and birds (fresh and salt water, game birds, small and larfge game, unusualfood)
Edible, poisones and useful plants and trees (besides the usual things: wild beverages, sugars and syrups, seasoning, starvation food, chewing gum, medicinal plants, soap plants, cordage, brushes and brooms)
Barkcraft (birchbark gathering, preparing, use)
Canoeing (canoe, paddle, repair, shelter, portaging)
Trailcraft (animal signs, tracks)
Stalking and calling animals (decoys, artifical calling aids, scent lures)
Map, compass, weather
Indian lore (spears, fish hooks, bolas, throwing stick, drills, flint chipping, stone ax, blow gun, saw, pipes, awls, warclubs, knives)
Camp furnishing
Winter in the woods (shelters, robe and sleeping bag, sleds and sledges, dog teams, snowshoes)
Obviously, the book cannot get into all the technical details of all these topics but gives a good general overview.
Things that caught my interest:
Moose-hock moccasins from freshly skinned pieces.
How to make different moccasins, wooden clogs, mittens, fur caps?
How to make blanket roll packs? How to pack a freshly skinned and butchered deer? Birchbark pack. Wooden backpack frame. How to make Adirondack pack from split ash (and any basket)? Horse packing and travois.
What is the Indian woven rabbit skin blanket?
How to make adobe hut or oven, Seminola shack?
How to use horn to make waterproof 'tinder horn'? How to construct mud oven, flat stone griddle? How to make gourd canteen and Iroquois shellspoon and noggins?
Frontiersman cooking, corn cooking.
Cowpunchers wooden frame for roasting half animals.
Tea and coffee substitutes. Sugars and syrups. What plant to use for salt?
Wild quinine plant???! Natural soap plants. Bark cordage and rope.
Spoon, bowl, dish, basin, pot (!!??), torch, quiver, poncho, toboggan from birchbark. Canoeing, repair.
How to make snowshoes and sledges?
I hope I was not uselessly extensive and rather helped than made everybody bored.
Best,
HM
Chapters are:
Outdoor clothing (banket coats, home made parka, buckskin shirt, rawhide buttons, rawhide, fur, tanning)
Packs and packing (improvised packs, packing, horse packs, horse packing, pack saddles)
Blankets and beds
Shelters
Fire making
Ax and knife
Sanitation and health
Camp cookery equipment(tin-can, flat stone cookery, hot stone cookery, wooden utensils, cooling food)
Camp cookery (bread, pies, corn cookin', fish, meats, soups, beverages)
Food animals and birds (fresh and salt water, game birds, small and larfge game, unusualfood)
Edible, poisones and useful plants and trees (besides the usual things: wild beverages, sugars and syrups, seasoning, starvation food, chewing gum, medicinal plants, soap plants, cordage, brushes and brooms)
Barkcraft (birchbark gathering, preparing, use)
Canoeing (canoe, paddle, repair, shelter, portaging)
Trailcraft (animal signs, tracks)
Stalking and calling animals (decoys, artifical calling aids, scent lures)
Map, compass, weather
Indian lore (spears, fish hooks, bolas, throwing stick, drills, flint chipping, stone ax, blow gun, saw, pipes, awls, warclubs, knives)
Camp furnishing
Winter in the woods (shelters, robe and sleeping bag, sleds and sledges, dog teams, snowshoes)
Obviously, the book cannot get into all the technical details of all these topics but gives a good general overview.
Things that caught my interest:
Moose-hock moccasins from freshly skinned pieces.
How to make different moccasins, wooden clogs, mittens, fur caps?
How to make blanket roll packs? How to pack a freshly skinned and butchered deer? Birchbark pack. Wooden backpack frame. How to make Adirondack pack from split ash (and any basket)? Horse packing and travois.
What is the Indian woven rabbit skin blanket?
How to make adobe hut or oven, Seminola shack?
How to use horn to make waterproof 'tinder horn'? How to construct mud oven, flat stone griddle? How to make gourd canteen and Iroquois shellspoon and noggins?
Frontiersman cooking, corn cooking.
Cowpunchers wooden frame for roasting half animals.
Tea and coffee substitutes. Sugars and syrups. What plant to use for salt?
Wild quinine plant???! Natural soap plants. Bark cordage and rope.
Spoon, bowl, dish, basin, pot (!!??), torch, quiver, poncho, toboggan from birchbark. Canoeing, repair.
How to make snowshoes and sledges?
I hope I was not uselessly extensive and rather helped than made everybody bored.
Best,
HM