White privilege.
86
Even I'll agree with this one. And I'm no fan of this new eternal calling of anything like normal living "White privilege."
1
@B. I remember reading an article about a Somalian refugee who was doing very well here in the U.S. and this "camping" thing really baffled him.
2
1) The average lifespan for this primitive way of living was ---what? 30 years?
2) Should all the knowledge developed over 5000 years of civilization be discarded?
3) Circa 12,000 years ago, the native Americans started out at the same level as the people of the Middle East and Europe.
Yet the Europeans crossed the Atlantic and arrived with steel swords and guns -- whereas the Native Americans were still in the Stone Age. At a level of technology that could only support a very small population on the vast North American continent.
4) And in the competiton for land and other resources, we know who the losers were and will be.
5) Our problems are not due to technology and science -- it is due to people in foreign lands having far more children than what their land can support. The days America stops feeding them is the day those foreigners begin dying.
6) It was our own elite billionaires who stabbed us in the back and caused the population of Asia to explode from 1 billion to over 4 billion in a few decade -- while US population remained almost flat absent immigration.
6
@Don Williams
You've read well the history of the conquerors. Which leaves out colonialism, slavery, genocide, and the fact that much of that 'progress' has been built on fossil fuels. Yes, it was historic to go from 1 billion to 7 billion in the span of two centuries. But we now know what it was doing to our atmosphere, and subsequently, our climate and living systems.
Every claim you make can be, and should be, roundly dismissed and corrected for the misinformation it yields. The US, with 4.5% of the world's people, consumes 25% of the world's resources. It's not birth rates, it's per capita consumption rates. And Asian population growth? You clearly have no idea how traditional cultures, resourceful to a fault, figured out how to produce so much food via labor-intensive production strategies.
If there is a problem here, it's the ugly American attitude that the US somehow keeps the world afloat, rather than industrialized societies free riding on scarce resources, cleverly insulated and disconnected from the consequences of their overconsumption.
9
I think it's easy to go from "wild" to civilized.
I think it's next to impossible to reverse the process!
How wonderfully ironic that this article was accompanied by Prada ad!
8
About her first deer kill...I hope she got better at it. Hunters I know, (and they don’t all use guns), talk about the kill shot. One shot to kill. No injured animals.
6
Wonderful story brought to life through Ruth Fremson's photographs, the selection of images and the attractive layout in print. Aces across the board!
What a great read, thank you. As a child my father surfed in remote places. One such place we went to every summer, and occasionally in winter. It was Completely off-grid with no phone, power or mains water supply. These are my happiest childhood memories. We did have tank water and a wet back heating system so hot water was always available when we needed it. I couldn’t help but worry about food poisoning and general well being. I imagine in primitive times people knew the healing properties of the plants around them. It would have been nice to get an insight of how the residents of the community manage these things, including personal hygiene.
2
The brilliant writer, T.C. Boyle has a wonderful novel, "Drop City" about a back to nature commune that moves from California to Alaska. It is a hoot and highly recommended. His other novels are very entertaining too. (link)
https://www.amazon.com/Drop-City-T-C-Boyle-ebook/dp/B000PC0SHI
3
It is an escape into to the before or the present day unreal; a game only rich kids can play! What conceptual framework would drive someone to do this experiment? If I answer my question my comment won’t get accepted!
1
Actually, all you need is a cute, gray striped kitty cat.
4
Lynx has a blind spot. She's no environmentalist. She's pictured in your paper with a domesticated pet cat clearly outdoors. Introducing a domesticated (non-native) cat into the wild is detrimental to the environment. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
"free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually."
7
@cali 1.3-4.0 Billion birds! Wow that little cat is amazing! All by itself! Quite the over-achiever!
Put down the drink and step away from the bar sir.
3
I appreciate people doing what they think is right, and there is no doubt that consumption capitalism is ruining the planet upon which we depend for our existence. However, why go backwards and live like humans did in the Stone Age? A better solution, it seems to me, is to go forward. We have progressed tremendously in science and medicine. Let's not throw that away. Let's continue the good progress and learn more and focus on the good and hopeful. Solar and wind plus storage can provide the electricity. Moving to a circular economy that takes into account not just humans but the other species as well is something to fight for. And remember, as a wise man once said, peace will be humanity's greatest achievement. This is all possible, not guaranteed certainly, but possible. Take peace, for instance. It is possible because it is personal. The world doesn't need peace, people do. I do. Finding it within myself is not only possible, but the only way, because that's where it lies.
14
I'm truly saddened reading this. The increasing shrinking wilderness that I grew up experiencing and loving is being increasingly trashed in the name of "rewilding" and "living of the land". If only a fractional increase of urbanites, suburbanites, even rural people adopted this lifestyle, within a very few short years there will be little to no animal populations left to sustain any type of lifestyle, and empty burned out forests.
8
@Karlos not really, the humans would most likely die. Watch 'Into The Wild' for a more likely outcome for humans wandering out into the woods. Even that romanticizes what is basically an unprepared urbanite foolishly deciding to 'get back to nature'. There is a reason humans have put so much energy into modern conveniences. Off the land living is unforgiving.
4
Oh well there we go again.
We will be saved by the modern day delivery economy that keeps us from touching a dozen mucus laden door handles and carts to meet our basic food supply needs. Our economy will be saved by the awe inspiring digital infrastructure we have created in, what, 20 years, that now allows the service industry to not have to touch the same mucus laden door handles to be productive.
But nah, that's not exciting enough. That in fact gets in the way of reflexively demonizing the Googles and Amazons that make much of this possible.
Hunt a deer if that moves your chain. Just don't tell me survival has something to do with it.
7
I’ve lived in big cities and won’t anymore. There’s nothing inevitable about them at this stage in our history. We might have to redraw that map in the future. But living like we did in the Stone Age will always seem like just an intriguing hobby to most humans. Total civilization collapse makes a great premise for Hollywood movies, and maybe it appeals to some, but it ain’t ever going to happen. Not that way. I’d rather live out my life in a Buddhist temple sangha. A simple life within a cooperative community, but without the continual and central emphasis on survival. How exhausting.
5
Hunter-gatherers succeeded for many thousands of years because there were so few people on Earth, so much wild habitat to roam in. Today's remaining wild habitat could support....how many people??? Not so many, likely.
Plant foraging was by far the main staple of life, with animal foods as supplements.
And, most important, it takes the apparatus of an entire historically refined culture to socialize children into the skills and social attitudes needed to make this economy work. Not a short term deal with strangers.
10
I'm simply reminded of the line in City Slickers said by Curly when he was watching his tourist charges in rather complete disarray, "City Folk!". The end times are not upon us and local communities are quite resilient. Your best protection for any pandemic besides basic middle school sanitary practices is to know your neighbors and the people you buy from each day. Too much The Walking Dead people.
6
If a few individuals want to live this way, that is their choice, but in reality Mother Earth could not sustain billions of people in this fashion. For long-term survival of our species, societies need to start focusing on how to restore some of the habitat and biodiversity we have destroyed and to promote worldwide population reduction in a big way. Very few want to be the ones to give up having kids, and thus new and ever larger generations of consumers, but Mother Earth cannot sustain infinite reproduction of Homo Sapiens, Nature's greatest mistake. This is a little off the topic of the article, but relates to some of the questions it raises.
5
I do not believe that 7+ billion people can "live in the wild." However, I do believe that every one of us should remember where our food and resources come from, and should always try to use less.
10
I honestly don’t see a big difference in this “stone-age” lifestyle choice and our ancestors, pioneers, or hippie communes that became a trend in the 1960’s lived. It’s nothing new, different or radical. The only difference is how people are reacting to the experience of living without the conveniences of modern society that they are accustomed to. And paying $600 for “lessons” is absolutely a modern spin on what used to be free life skills handed down and taught by our parents and grandparents. Most of the allure of this is within the branding “stone age” and “post apocalyptic scenario” survival which hits one of our biggest vulnerabilities- fear.
3
How many acres in the Washington State wilds would support one person indefinitely? It’s called carrying capacity, and it applies to humans, deer and foraged plants. Ultimately these neo-stone-agers will reach the carrying capacity of their land. They then will confront the same problems faced by animals (including humans) and plants throughout this planet—changing habitats and overconsumption.
Now to these neo-stone-agers, please come out of the wilderness and work to control human-caused climate change. The Earth needs your help, your spirit and your commitment to make the changes we all need to survive.
7
As the spouse of a Type 1 diabetic living with coronary artery disease, this article is extremely depressing. There is no place for my husband in this brave new Stone Age World. Some of us hope society continues, because our lives (or the lives of our loved ones) depends on it.
3
What these folks can’t escape is jurisdiction. They aren’t immune from state or federal law. If children are on this compound, they’re welfare is in danger. I wouldn’t be surprised if this commune expands and while “off the grid” welfare requests rise too. We’ve seen it in other cult communities. While I applaud their chutzpah, these folks just seem selfish and entitled because they know they have the safety net of our system when their “fantasy on the prairie” takes a bad turn.
7
Envious! Always wanted to experience this and learn the skills, just in case. Just in case may be here now!
This article gave me a laughing fit. I’m proud of my soft hands and quite willing to concede that the Stone Age is no place for me. What poetic brilliance that the class happened to assemble a vegan, a paleo, a gluten free and someone with allergies. I’m still laughing.
9
If thinking about a complete collapse of society, it is important to think through what will really happen. Those with weapons and no qualms about using them, will become warlords and take what they want.
4
Where humans go, destruction follows. Just a bad species near the end of its run. Perhaps a few will survive and get aligned to a sustainable ecosystem.
3
Humanity could exist like this if it consised of a few million at most. Otherwise we have to be crammed into huge cities with crime, disease, art galleries, operas, cathedrals and other such horrors and leave much of the rest of the globe alone.
1
I moved to Oregon in 1970. The feeling of imminent societal collapse was in the air. Consider songs such as Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills and Nash or After The Gold Rush by Neil Young. Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones captures the raw emotions of the times back then.
These feelings seem to be in the air again, for some good reasons, as there were good reasons circa 1970.
However, I knew many people who followed this path in the late 60s and early 70s. It almost always lasted for a year or two at most.
Also, does the course prepare its students for brutal human competition and attacks in a time of true survival, a time of kill or be killed?
2
Recreational apocalypse training? How quaint.
Maybe a class on simple living would be more pragmatic and actionable.
7
Asheville NC is full of people like this.
Upper-middle class "traveler" kids slumming it. A "critical mass" of "Herbologists" taking courses from questionable sources. White people dressing in feathers and furs and adopting "Spirit Animals" while listening to Appalachia Rising (a group of two white girls from Pacific NW who do just that) - i.e. co-opting Native American culture.
I'm all for people living simple, knowing where their food comes from, understanding natural medicine (I hunt edible wild mushrooms)... but I know these people, and they usually bug me.
It's probably because I grew up more working class. Upper class privilege is the usual common denominator with these types.
8
What these folks can’t escape is jurisdiction. They aren’t immune from state or federal law. If children are on this compound, their welfare is in danger. I wouldn’t be surprised if this commune expands and “off the grid” welfare requests rise too. We’ve seen it in other cult communities. While I applaud their chutzpah, these folks just seem selfish and entitled because they know they have the safety net of our system when their “fantasy on the prairie” takes a bad turn
1
Hate to burst bubbles, but where these dreamers are is not wilderness. But, hey, if they are happy, more power to them. And all the deer...brings to mind poaching.
2
Mark Twain would sit back in his favorite chair on the veranda and point out that, "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."
When the balloon goes up and the curtain comes down it will be gradual...we will never go back to starting fires with a bow drill.
We will be living off the millions of tons of material currently stored in land fills around the world for centuries.
3
There is no mention at all of medical care. There will be illness and injuries both minor and serious living in the wild. Broken bones? Dental care? Just pull out an infected tooth? What about appendicitis? Just let that person die? How do you handle that, Lynx?
5
2 comments:
It is hard for me to believe that people of Paleolithic times really ate only meat, even given that they ate all the innards. There are edible plants, grass seeds and fruits which would have been part of their diet. Of course edible wild plants are smaller and less succulent than the ones we are used to.
Also re the stink- there are sponge baths with a little water you heat up on that fire you made and even a basic soap from ashes that the meat fat.
4
Many of us have become soft and stupid. Nothing wrong with living with the comforts of central heating and running water but why don't more of us know how to do things like cook, sew, grow food, make clothing, build things, fix things? I think of my grandfather who came to the United States at the turn of the last century. He and my grandmother built their own house, grew their own food, raised chickens, pigs and cows for meat and eggs and dairy, made their own wine made and mended most of their own clothes. They had a community of self-sufficient friends and neighbors and everyone pitched in.
We are so isolated now in our city and suburban communities and without important and necessary living skills leaving us dependent on stores and commerce. Hello Amazon Prime!
With so many financial limitations in the public school system many courses that were once taken for granted: cooking, wood shop, metal shop and agricultural classes have now been relegated to the scrap heap as non-essential. Pity. Maybe we don't need to abandon our current lives but to be sure we prioritize learning essential skills for independent living...if not for ourselves but certainly for our children.
3
@Nemesis "Essential skills for independent living" these days would also include personal economics (credit, housing, retirement, etc.) and how to discern fact from fiction on the internet. Probably more relevant than wood shop.
3
Seriously, what is it with the moss? If you are trying to attune yourself with nature wouldn’t you pick something for toilet paper that takes less time to flourish if you need it 1-2 times a day? Mosses take between 6 weeks to 2 years to grow sustainably. If you are using moss consistently, isn’t that just replicating the worst parts of our destructive nature? The author conveniently left this information out of the article.
7
One of the worst experiences I had teaching college students outside of Philadlephia is that almost all of them learned to fear the woods. Grown men- terrified of walking into the forest for fear of a tick or some others just getting dirty- and for many- laziness.
Parents teach your children better. We are animals. It doesn’t matter what your religion says- this is the reality. When the animal knows more corporate logos than species of plants and animals that live around them, the animal is doomed.
1
Lynx's gut health must be very diverse, as society we are cleaning ourselves to deaths.
I loved this article!
While housing everyone is a problem now, it likely will not be after the collapse. So it seems unlikely you will have to resort to building yurts in the wilderness. Burning trees for warmth and cooking on a large scale seems similarly foolish in the face of global warming. And we have produced enough fast fashion to clothe whole worlds already. I doubt we need to skin deer for clothing in the foreseeable future.
By all means learn some survival skills: learn to grow and cook your own food, milk a goat, spin yarn, patch your jeans, etc. Just don’t imagine the future will look like the past or this crackpot fantasy.
7
The fact that “students” — I don’t know what else to call them — pay Lynx $600 belies all the hooey surrounding this. She’s a business person, period, otherwise she’d accept payment in deer toes or whatever. And the students seem privileged and spoiled. They’ll try on this survivalist persona to annoy Mom and Dad, a spouse, whomever, until they get tired of skinning deer, boiling bones and/or smelling — or get really sick — and go back to civilization and their own safety net, whatever that is.
8
As someone who grew up hunting and fishing in Washington State and Alaska, and working in wilderness regions as a biologist for many years, I can certainly say that having groups of moneyed folks crawling through the Okanogan poaching wildlife en-mass because they want to play stone age for awhile does not sound like living with Nature-- more like assaulting her for an ego boost. Nevertheless, I hope they learn a few good things, and leave the forest-- and its beleaguered wildlife-- as they found it.
6
Reminds me of articles in the late 60s about hippie communes.
1
@Catherine Except that (I'm 70), nobody I knew or heard about at the time would have paid hundreds of dollars for the "experience". However, sometimes they paid with their souls (i.e. becoming involved with various cults).
1
going backwards to falsely recreate a past is not a sane or even logical method of dealing with the present. lets go back to these groups in a few years and see who stayed and who left. and why. it wont be comforting stories round a well tended camp fire.
What is it about the Pacific Northwest that engenders separatism, survivalism, makeshift utopian societies, etc.?
Maybe the endless overcast and a vague, all-pervading sensation of dampness?
2
Having grown up a hunter, fisherman and outdoorsman-I can relate to the "living off the land" mindset.
It's kind of funny and naive that they don't bother with farming or agriculture. You can live a nice, beautiful life on a self-sustaining farm that has zero connection to the modern world, especially in a community of other farmers providing complementary products and skills. Why does their ideology skip over things like biodynamics? Or ignore the Amish or similar societies? Those people have real skills. Why the decision to live like a nut job in a crisis when you could live in a way that still uses higher levels of thinking and planning for a higher quality of life. This article is a testament to how separated from nature urban people really are - their idea of living in nature as a community is hilariously naive. Or is the assumption that in a crisis you lose not only modern tech but your own prefrontal cortex as well?
6
I read the entire story and will honestly say that I admire folks who want to give living off the wild a try. Some of what they are doing I learned in the Boy Scouts over 50 years ago. Other skills I learned in the Army. Something else I have learned, from a Biblical perspective, is that when the END comes, the saved will be gone and Satan will be running the show. According to the Bible, 1/3 of everything will be destroyed. Having said all that, and even though I thoroughly enjoyed reading the story, I totally lost it early into the read when I read this:
“If you’re willing to be cut down, will you give a yes?” she asked. She tugged the tree. She calls it a muscle test. Apparently the tree said yes. “We have to kill to live,” she said.
After that, nothing else mattered.
If the world is going to end, there’s nothing to prepare for.
5
Who remembers the book My Side of the Mountain?
2
Life in the 21st century may have its faults, but I will say this: freedom from want has made people a lot nicer than they used to be. Slavery is considered an abomination. Gruesome public executions? Definitely declasse nowadays. We're learning to tolerate, even celebrate our differences. One of our biggest problems is having too much to eat.
I doubt that rejecting modern technology--by which I mean anything invented after the Pleistocene--and reintroducing vile smells would do much for the human condition. When your only tool is a rock, the solution to all your problems begins to look like Lord of the Flies.
3
With 7.8 billion people around the planet, this article is moot. A hunter-gatherer society would only be able to support millions, not billions. Any fall of civilization would lead to chaos....very undefined chaos.
2
As an urban dweller, even I know using an ax with a loose head and carelessly felling a tree 1 foot away from someone’s tent is complete foolishness. What a great way to get someone killed.
The real experts in survivalist living are the people of the First Nations. Before the Europeans showed up, they were not just surviving but thriving in this country.
4
The only point in this is if society around you has descended to the Stone Age. If you can get parts for your wind generator, police protection from those who would take, new solar panels, antibiotics, gas for a generator, you are living rough unnecessarily. At the end of Scott Nearing’s “Good Life”, he acknowledges that it was only possible with his 4x4 pickup. So without an operating auto industry....
I'm guessing there is not much moss left around these people's camp.
4
Hi, Bonjour, Alles, Tutti... This is simply a team building effort. But let's get over the pessimism. Let's disconnect you and your country from the end of the world. Pick one of the 193 countries and move. You don't have to put up with the abuse. There are wonderful people everywhere with running water.
So, I hate resorts, I even hate hotels, and every vacation I do is either backpacking, backcountry skiing, or other outdoor pursuit. The worst thing someone could do for me is invite me on a cruise (though I would do an antarctic cruise given the opportunity).
I miss visiting the farms of relatives where I grew up. I despise the light-polluted, trash strewn, and noisy city I live in (which has made me a bit misanthropic due to the ever present stupidity and inconsiderateness I witness daily).
That said, I think if I saw Lynx on the street, I'd probably cross the road assuming she was just crawling out from one of the "unhoused" encampments.
3
A closet with coat hangers? Not very stone age.
I don't think Bear Grylls would approve.
2
This line of the article pretty much says it all: "Before being in the wild, they were addicted to video games and loved social media; very soon, Joan said, they were going to smash their smartphone." This "rewilding" movement is just a bipolar response from people who weren't really living in the first place. Instead of doing something a little more normal, like say spending a week with the Sierra Club and helping to improve the world, they become survivalists and imagine the end...and imagine that somehow they're the only thing (or one of the only things) left. No thanks. I'd rather help make things better for society, even if my contribution isn't noticed writ large.
4
One wonders really how much they know about what they are doing as they play at being primitive. Even that horse enclosure with thin wire strands and metal T-posts is an accident waiting to happen.
5
The average life span in the stone age was something like 30. Most of these people would be already dead.
2
This, and the article on the Dirtbag Left last week, are a couple of the most interesting, perceptive pieces I ever read in the NYT. Both are by the same journalist....who somehow finds, then gets intimately involved, with some very telling and overlooked groups in today's world. I appreciate her open minded and nonjudgemental approach, her sharp observations, and the tellin phenomena she has brought to light.
1
When you decide to live in the wild don’t forget to bring brackets to install a bar in your “closet” and hangers for your animal hide clothing. And string lights for some cheer. How civilized.
3
I live in the Great Basin desert. I’ve spent well over a thousand nights slept right in the dirt with a ground cloth over me.
My Stone Age ancestors didn’t have north face tents.
If you want to go feral out in the bush I recommend planning now by stocking up on items Stone Age humans would have done anything to get.
Find yourself some land with access to water and set up a preserve. You can go there and practice for the end on your own with a few friends or family if you wish.
You don’t need Lynx. Not her real name Lynx.
Otherwise, keep working on improving where everyone else lives.
That’s real survival.
2
The 1960s called. They want their movement back.
5
It takes an extraordinary amount of cooperation to build and maintain a city.
Many of these people sound like they're great at parties.
This is all very nice, but it takes a lot of resources and trust to live this way. For example, if the US economy collapses every yahoo with a gun is going to be out there killing every animal in sight, and shooting each other in the process. It is a fantasy to think that the vast majority of people will be able to live like this in a post-industrial society. The US, which is still relatively rich in natural resources, will only be able to support a small fraction of its present inhabitants. I'll likely be dead before such a collapse occurs, but this should greatly concern younger people.
So, let's all work toward avoiding that collapse. It may be inevitable, but we can try.
4
It's heartwarming when white people get together and help each other and pretend to be Native American. There are societies that have been doing this successfully for thousands of years in the Americas. The fact is that these methods could only sustain the population of the US if at least 99% of the population died.
1
“It’s going be these feral rewilded people. I’m thinking in two to three generations there could be real wild children.”
This is idealistic and pie-in-the-sky. Really. And how can she take these poor creatures’ lives?
3
Every photo shows at least one petroleum product/by-product. Just, you know, sayin'.
3
Only in California could someone sell this fantasy to gullible folks who search for what they're sure will be so superior to what civilization has produced over the last 5 or 6 thousand years. So many questions pop up, like what will they all eat when they kill off all the deer?
On the other hand, with so many Californians defecating in the streets with needles in their veins, perhaps running away to the woods may actually be preferable.
2
This is complete insanity. These people will not last at most 1 to 2 weeks in the wild, if that. They have no idea how difficult it is. Living hand to mouth in the urban area is challenging enough. In the wild, it is impossible. No, a better solution is to take the tools you have and build from there. Why would you re create the wheel? Living off the grid is a fine way to go. But I assure you, you can still buy bullets, toilet paper and bottled water. And having several years of supply is not insurmountable. These people in the article lack common sense. Another dumb article for a dumbed down population.
1
From one who chooses to live far away from cities, who knows the country where these people are hanging out in; I am inclined to say to these folks, “Go away!”
So, it is back to the medieval days of new superstitions and pseudo-religions emerging after epidemics, big earthquakes or comets appearing in the sky. Don't forget to pack you gun ...
1
Imagine, as a prescription for the millions (North America)/billions (world). Well of course, not enough carrying capacity. Requires a MASSIVE dieback. Useful only for the “other” 0.0001%, i.e. “course-qualified” and still alive. So will you be one of the “lucky” survivors? A Stone Age credentialed elitist?
Great article!
I bet the horse enjoys eating hay produced by a mechanical baler. Guess not the living is stone age
1
Hunter-gathers would quickly hunt and forage to extinction. They would also be outcompeted by farmers. A more scientific look at living and rebuilding after an apocalypse is in a fantastic book, “The Knowledge”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge:_How_to_Rebuild_Our_World_from_Scratch
They will be cannibals using stone tools. Whomever finds my dead tree copy of, “the knowledge” (statistically I would be dead too), will be doing modern chemistry, using nitrogen fertilizer, advanced agriculture techniques, smelting ore and even making their own ink, paper and printing presses! It is a fun read and a great primer on the technology that made human civilization. If we go back to subsistence farming that is likely a tech trap we may never escape from again without appropriate guides.
There are a few other doomsday libraries like polar shift and the appropriate technology library:
http://www.ps-survival.com/
https://www.villageearth.org/home-2/resources/appropriate-technology-library/
It has been an honor to $ h i t post with this community. Good luck!
Without industrial agriculture, Earth’s carrying capacity for Homo sapiens would be a small fraction of what it is now. So by betting on a New Stone Age, these neo-primitives are betting on the death by famine of perhaps 90% of people now alive.
If we are to be charitable to them, we might allow that they are deluded, adults playing pretend like children. The alternative is to believe that they are evil, as bad as Nazis. The Nazis also were into nature and the fetishisation of pre-industrial ways of life. The Nazis also fantasized about a landscape wiped clean of supposedly decadent, bourgeois, cosmopolitans so that they could flex their Aryan muscles in the forest.
3
Human nature hasn't changed in the last several thousand years. People are never going to choose to stay primitive. Someone will want to build a bridge and then a dam and then a paddle wheel. Forces of good and evil will start vying for power and they will eventually end up right where we are now.
Frankly, when the end of the world happens, one should pray for a quick, and as painless as possible, death.
Survival is not a game except on the TV show. Survival in a post-apocalyptic world will be a horror show that is unimaginable.
7
I predict this movement will last until someone needs some serious health care or other accoutrements of civilization. No snark intended. As someone who lives in a rural area, I get the attraction to living in the wild. But I doubt most (all?) of them are truly ready for it.
4
I applaud anyone learning basic skills. But I also think it's probably better to learn things like basic vehicle mechanics and how to change a tire, how to grow and make your own food. How to put up food. How to sew. Basic carpentry. How to do basic plumbing or electrical. Washing cloths without machines. While an apocalypse may happen, all these skills are useful right now and will give them a solid sense of independence and meaning right now. It doesn't have to be this extreme.
3
Having lived in rural Africa, where reciprocity is an organizing societal principle, it's interesting to watch how some of the people in the article discuss interdependence. You don't have to love your neighbor, but you each may at some point now or in the future depend on each other for survival. How the nations of the country have convinced their subjects this is arcane, quaint.
And no cell phones. OMG. Imagine Americans having to re-acquire the art of language and conversation, because there are few other sources of entertainment for regular people. Music, dance, theatre, they are appreciated luxuries in a world where labor-intensive work is front and center.
There are some elements of this that the movement will need to resolve--one is simply real estate (and carrying capacity). I've always been a fan of underground plumbing. Life expectancy will drop, so 'elders' maybe be those of Lynx's age, relatively young in an age of modern health care and science. Maybe if there is a die off of humans, that won't be the issue that it would be now. But there is the gene pool. And hardy genes are one of the key determinants of surviving childhood in many parts of the world (I wonder occasionally about efforts to bring some cultures into 'modernity,' and whether in the long run it is a tragic, misguided enterprise).
Thank you for a thoughtful piece. The snarky commenters may learn the hard way, sooner or later.
1
Hmmm...Interesting article nonetheless. Between being a Boy Scout and having served in the military, I've had my share of "survivalist training" and much enjoy the accouterments of modern life thank you.
3
Hippie stuff. Again. Been there, in SF and the Sierra foothills. And it was fun for a while. But how are those children going to grow up and reach any kind of potential? Maybe they won’t want to live in the woods. Do what you want for yourself, but don’t drag innocent little kids along with you. I can’t help but think this is an extension of social media togetherness, without the technology.
1
Two points: (1) This way of living is extremely anti-intellectual. (2) Those of us living in rural areas are actually very connected to the land and knowledgeable about our local wildlife and environment.
Process (Stone Age) and living in the dark ages doesn’t make you more enlightened or prepared for disaster. Simplify your life but let’s not get cultish about it.
7
Totally impractical if the training doesn't address the issue of how one can keep the supply of bottled Fiji water from continuing.
5
It does not appear that the people who are taking this course are eschewing civilization altogether, but are hoping for the best but are preparing for the worse,
I know people who would run out food after 3 days without a functioning grocery store or restaurant nearby. At one time, the average stock of food in households would about 8 days, versus 3 today.
1
I think we need to understand that if our society collapses (and with it law and order because there will not be any police or justice system) then the people who, for whatever reason, have something that is wanted by others, food, shelter, transport even water, will be preyed on almost everyone.
When people are desperately hungry most of them are not too concerned with the moral niceties that are taken for granted in our modern day societies. Read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy or "The Memoirs of a Survivor" by Doris Lessing.
The only food to eat will be whatever you can grow yourself
if you are lucky enough to harvest it before it is stolen. As for hunting for game, there will not be any animals left.
5
@RHR
For a less literary treatment, try James Howard Kunstler's 'The Long Emergency.' He discusses regional geography and culture and what kinds of de facto political systems one might expect to emerge.
1
It was only 90 years ago that my grandparents lived much like this in northern Canada. While I doubt I would convert willingly to a life like that of Lynx, we all could benefit from a deep consideration of lost arts and skills.
I wonder if I would be willing to give up how I live now for a different kind of difficult.
As a nurse, it would be interesting to help people with organic illness and injury; instead of all those created by our current society.
1
I'm fascinated and impressed by the accomplishment of this woman and some of her disciples. I understand, too, the critique I'm reading in some of the comments. I suspect the truth about societal collapse is more grim. When fossil fuel runs out, when the storms and floods of rampant global warming decimate cities, when the fertile band of the earth moves toward the poles, when the ecosystem loses its balance due to mass extinctions, the greater likelihood is a massive die-off of the human species. The remnant, then, might well need to adopt the ancient ways of migratory hunter/gatherers. That said, I also think certain modern sustainable technologies will survive, specifically those that complement the lifestyle. Thanks for the article and the interesting discussion!
6
This stuff described here is just a version of Renaissance Fair that lasts longer than one weekend...
Dress up - or down in this case - and play around...
3
I grew up in the west (not west coast) in a very rural environment. While we had many modern conveniences, some of the things this article describes were part of everyday life. I was raised with the centrality and importance of the earth, and it's power over you, which creates an interdependence among people. Not the sort of kumbaya that is described in this article, but a communal survival mentality where you always lend a hand because you may be the next person that needs it. I think people should learn survival skills even if they are not for surviving the "apocalypse." It engenders a greater appreciation and respect for the environment, which (for me) reminds me what is important in life.
5
@A. Blair
You are spot on. I lived in rural Montana for a few years when I was young. A few houses scattered here and there. "Town" was a general store (that also served as the post office), a few other odd, quirky businesses, a health clinic that a nurse came to a couple of times a week, and a bar/restaurant that was the sort of social hub ... east coast laws didn't mean much - the place was open to families and dogs.
Almost everyone hunted. Every house pretty much had several guns, but there was rarely any "gun violence". There was absolutely no dependence on the government. You didn't bother calling the police - as there was one sheriff for every 50 square miles or so. You called your neighbor.
My life has taken a far different path since those days. But the one thing that I remember most about that far simpler time in a very isolated place was that everyone - to the person - took care of each other.
It was never stated, it was just assumed. Every family got, and gave support. People certainly had the same variety of political and religious opinions that people in large populations do, but somehow they ranked far below just being human beings.
This article was infused with that spirit. It is common to speak the word "community", but I feel blessed that I actually got to live in one.
3
I would prefer saving this world. It can be done. If not, a reset to 1800s technology is a more feasible outcome than what these folk practice.
What did Sir Kenneth Clark say about those who celebrate barbarism? They have not given it long enough a try.
For medicine alone, give me 1900, rather than 19,000 BCE.
7
Of course, but this is also an extended therapy session, a much needed one. People are so disconnected and depressed. People are dependent on their phones for social contact- for meaning. This is not just a skills training for future scenarios, it’s a re grounding.
If we didn’t have advancement in science that enabled us to kill off basic infections, the natural world would not be collapsing bc of us.
2
I would prefer saving this world. It can be done. If not, a reset to 1800s technology is a more feasible outcome than what these folk practice.
What did Sir Kenneth Clark say about those who celebrate barbarism? They have not given it long enough a try.
For medicine alone, give me 1900, rather than 19,000 BCE.
1
I was reading about the salt bag, and noticed how much they still depend on civilization. How would they ever be able to harvest their own salt? And without salt, how would they be able to preserve meat? How “wild” can they go without the support of civilization?
9
Harvest salt from sea weed/ ocean .
Maybe this article is meant to be reassuring. We can get back to nature with a workshop, lifestyle change, dedication and the help of others...maybe. But if there is a collapse of civilization, skills are going to matter a lot less than guns, brute force and sheer luck. The article isn't comforting. The fact that survival schools are cropping up in wealthy countries points to the reality that we need an alternative to our current society. But, seriously, does moving back to the Stone Age seem like a realistic one? The people who can pull it off are young, wealthy, and working in tandem and getting the aid of grocery stores and cash.
5
climate refuge- amen. a collapse would mean chaos on a scale we can not imagine. and the wilderness spots would be overwhelmed by people fleeing urban and suburban areas. starting a fire with a stick and some tinder would be the least of everyone's worries. tanning hides would not be the skill people would be seeking...
So what do they do when they get sick, get toothaches, need a doctor, need prescriptions? They are all playing at being "wild". A life that is just about survival is mostly a life without greater purpose. Maybe the reason everyone in the wild is young is because they don't yet need doctors and dentists and medications and more of a purpose or meaning to their lives.
14
@Shelly Thomas who are you to say that they do or don't have meaning or purpose?
1
@ Shelly Thomas
Exactly! Spot on. They are all just playing and avoiding.
Such an absolutely adorable and sweet looking cat.
My favorite pictures in this unique article are the ones with him in it, especially the one where he is calmly cleaning his paw while folks are trying to start a fire.
15
@Marge Keller Cat looks comfortable
2
Yeah the cat is the silent narrator.
3
@Marge Keller In an article about going back to the wild, I assumed the kitty was lunch.
1
People in the Stone Age were our ancestors. Our ancestors wanted things to be better for themselves, so they (eventually) invented all the things we have today. It took thousands of years and hundreds of generations, but that’s really the gist of it. In short, they invented everything we enjoy, because it was less pleasing to live the way they lived. They would tell you if you could ask them.
8
I agree with you. My grandmother didn’t live in the Stone Age, but she had a lot to say about “the good old times”. She told me that people who were responsible for starting the fire in a wood stove every morning or had to do the laundry in a river would never miss those times.
7
Starting a wood stove every morning is a great way to begin the day. I’ve lived this way. I’ve lived without hot water and phone. In New Mexico I lived in a homestead house for a year . Before that in an Adobe house w solar gain.
The house built to use the sun to warm it in winter was amazing ! By noon on most days in the winter, unless it was snowing, it would warm up to 70.
The homestead house never got warm in the winter. We don’t have to go back to stone age but we could go back to common sense.
This sounds like a wonderful experience, fellowship and learning about nature and what can be derived from a truly close relationship with it, such as the things that can be gotten from a deer leg, rather than, say, just the hope of getting an antlered head for a trophy (the antlers can be used as a hoe come spring planting time). I treasure time I've spent backpacking in the Maine woods. I can't help reflecting, though, that when people really lived with stone-age resources and skills, North America sustained a population of a couple of million, and even that many apparently hunted many of the large animals to extinction.
6
Yes. Aboriginals cultivated and affected the environment. We- myself included- idealize people of a different time, thinking only modern colonizing Europeans are the evil that destroyed the balance.
We are also just organisms and we can grow beyond sustainable populations- and depending on how we live- take the natural world w us.
We are a bizarre species- humans.
I live on a mountain in the middle of nowhere in a comfortable modern home. Nature is unforgiving here. Frigid cold, loads of snow, mud, rocks, poor soil for growing food, dry summers when creeks and wells run low. You have to be ready to be stranded for a week or two in winter or run for your life in case of wildfire. It’s impractical and hard and miserable to be an outdoor survivalist. Plus there isn’t enough wild game to go around - and do these folks get hunting licenses and comply with the laws? I am thankful for electricity, heat, grocery stores, and mod cons. You can’t turn back the clock. It’s a fun hobby to re-enact the past but it’s hard to live that way on a full time basis. You can’t escape the world no matter where you live.
8
I was thinking about their impact on the ecosystem. How much destruction does a single family cause to the environment?
1
These things are purely fantasy camps for adults. Which can be a lot of fun but they have no relationship to any actual real world social collapses. If you want to sell it as a fun time learning to live off the land that sounds great but anyone pretending its preparing them for some kind of social collapse is really just deluding themselves. Even when humans lived without electricity and indoor plumbing the guys living off the land up in the mountains were considered strange and weird.
7
Gotta love it. Freaked out urbanites kneeling before a woman in skins who promises a nature nourished lifestyle in the “wilderness”. What wilderness is that? The pockets of semi-wild land encircled by interstates and decimated by climate change and the creep of far flung suburbs? Into which she’s going flush all these gullible city slickers to kill and forage like the days of yore with fur on their backs and bows and arrows in hand? Pass the snake oil “Lynx”.
14
@POV
Take a chill pill please. The internet is full of Preppers, Bushcrafters, Survivalists, Backpackers, Hikers and a range of other outdoor enthusiasts. Their vlogs are entertaining, well authored and often beautifully photographed. Compared to competitive stadium sports, noxious streamed tv shows and wretched news media.
1
These young people are hungry for community and for deeper connections with other human beings in the face of the loneliness, isolation and depression rampant in our post-modern world that deconstructs all institutional and community ties as only flawed and exploitive:
“Really coming back to nature means responding to the social responsibility too. Someone says you have this personality flaw, you can’t just avoid them. You have to respond. You adapt,” Epona said. “Rugged individualism is a lie. Rugged individualism cannot survive.”
“There’s a social skill set of working in a community,” Luke Utah said.”
3
Can I take my iPad?
3
Nothing wrong with this article... except......
.....Living in the stone age when "the end comes" does not mean what is being presented here.
Why?
Because it will be heavily armed urban nomads roaming everywhere looking for resources that will quickly overwhelm anyone doing the "back to the stone age" gig. The wilderness simply lacks the depth to support many people in an area in the methods presented here... hence hunter gatherers will perish under the crush of the armed urban nomads.
6
Beautifully written. Haven’t been this amused in a long time.
6
Only problem is, current population is 7,500 times what it was 10,000 years ago.
6
"Notes on a lost flute". Read it.
The population density the land can support in this way is low. I hope people carving out their space in this way can preserve it.
1
These tools and places don't define us - the smartphone, the urban environment. The reality is, if you are aware and interested, you can use your smartphone as a survival tool and put it down when it's not necessary. Anyone who chooses doesn't have to be addicted to video games, electronics, etc.
In the same way, if you want community in a large urban environment, you can create it. You don't need to go into the woods to find people who care. There are plenty of groups of individuals and organizations that offer ways to better the world.
I love nature, but I also enjoy the buzz of humans. I turn them off and close the door when I need to. I also travel out into the wilderness and understand why they are drawn to it. If these young people need to move out to nature to find themselves and meaning, go for it. My sense in reading this is that many of these folks have deeper issues that they could not solve in the midst of humanity. Best wishes that they solve them out there.
2
Bored in the maintenance shop, I decided to test if I could start a fire by spinning a small wooden dowel on a block of wood with shavings using a cordless drill. After 5 minutes at about 1500 rpm I did get a whisp of smoke out of the drill motor windings, and thus concluded it is possible to start a fire by spinning a piece of wood on another, but not at all practical except in the direest emergencies.
@Zippo which is why people historically tended and banked the fire at night to keep it going. A live coal is easy to restart.
I know crazy when I see it...and Lynx has the exact look. There were several hints of it in this piece. Just because someone has loosely "mastered" a certain set of survival skills does not mean they are fit to be teachers and/or leaders. especially those who are by default novices. learn some American history and see how many trusting settlers followed a "pro" into the wilderness of N.America and how many died or suffered as result. all we hear about in our upside down mythology are the stories about the rugged survivors...rare do we learn about the many more who died, and died very soon into their journey. there are tons of those journals in the disparate, and under-researched American archives. we only want to hear about the winners...because we're an insecure culture. nervous and paranoid. afraid of taking a collective grip on our problems and means to solve them. preferring instead to run, self medicate, seek gurus, and charasmatic cult leaders, or like many in this partisan culture, a blatantly lying political leader who actively plunders for his and his family's own gains. running into the woods is not a fix...maybe shortterm, and for a very few number of peopl...but it wont fix the bigger issues.
6
The estimated population of “native” Californians prior to settlement by Europeans was about 300,000 people. I consider that the carrying capacity of California ecosystem for “stone-age” humans. If there is a collapse, those will be the 1%-ers, considering that California’s populations is over 30 million. Until about 99% of the current population dies, you will see a lot of starvation or death by fighting over resources.
6
Although I agree the future looks dark, I firmly believe "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee".
So I will not mince my words.
I despise preppers, survivalists, etc etc
Rather than striving to avoid the end of the world, by getting involved, doing things to change mentalities, to protect the environment, by simply voting, they embrace the apocalypse with their "Told you so" arrogance.
The world is imperfect. Yes. So go out and do something about it.
If the world is to end in my lifetime, I hope to heaven I do not survive and get trapped with this lot.
13
Wait until Twisp burns up with wildfires, which happen each year and are getting worse. Good luck foraging for food.
3
Interesting pics - a lot of knitted clothes (no mention of clothes other than skins), some boots (not hand made). No mention of real medical problems. I assume all the dear killed had state of Washington tags.
Many good comments below.
5
give me a break! I live in Oregon. I know what the winters are like in the north west and they were even wetter in Washington this year. Where is all the rain in the pictures! No Cortex out in them woods!
2
We seem to need about 5 sq. miles of wildlife-populated land, per person, to even have a shot at survival. Neanderthals had this and did not survive, apparently because they lacked the social groups needed to compete with modern humans, for limited resources.
2
Good luck dealing with Lyme disease.
1
"...I think in two or three generations there could be real wild children." She should come and stay with my sister's family and brood of six under 10 for a week. Sheesh.
8
I wasn't exactly impressed by this, but I was greatly relieved to find that it wasn't some christian 'end of days' malarkey. That would have ruined what is left of my day.
5
About 20 years ago I participated in Survival Camp in Africa. Group of 20 people were hiking for a week from place A to B through bush and rugged coastline, eating what we could find, catch, fish out, sleeping under open skies without a tent. I established some friendship there, acquired exploding diarrhea, lasting for about a week, lost 16 pounds and yeah.... I survived.Now I live comfortably in California and just came back from Whole Foods where I got my groceries and I can write to NYT about it.
6
You lost me here:
"There was an old ax they used instead. Its head periodically flung off, each time narrowly missing someone. "
Survival skill - NOT!
15
@TechMaven : indeed. A moment or two to repair the axe (drive a nail or two to hold the axe head on or just replace the axe handle might have shown some common sense
3
I personally am not concerned about finding food and staying warm if society actually does collapse, by some combination of ecological, economic, and political catastrophe. If the "end times" are nearly here, as some of the folks mentioned in the article seem to think, then eeking out a hard scrabble existence in the midst of lawlessness, strife, and the inevitable violence such a collapse will bring, is not my idea of a world I want to live in.
On another note, I wonder what Lynx and her followers would do if one of them had a serious, life threatening injury? Or showed signs of a stroke? Head to the emergency room, where the harm could be greatly mitigated or prevented by timely treatment? Or would they provide medical intervention themselves? Or would they simply do nothing, treating such an event as part of the price of "wild" or "feral" living?
5
Two things stick out for me:
First, "There was an old ax they used instead. Its head periodically flung off, each time narrowly missing someone."
There is a simple solution for this. I would not take this kind of instruction from someone who does not know how to care for their tools and allows them to endanger others.
Second, starting a fire with a stick and your bare hands is a nice party trick to show city-slickers, but it is really, really inefficient. One should use a bow drill and two blocks of wood. So much faster than the macho-man nonsense illustrated here.
Oh, one more thing-- leaving your hides to rot because you were obviously not prepared to tan them is not only stinky, it is downright unhygienic. Wonder how many of her "students" get ill from this sort of cavalier attitude. Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much, because most of them can (and will) return home to reap the curative benefits of modern, scientific medicine.
14
I just adore the cat depicted in these photos! Wonderful!
2
Nellie Bowles brought Linx and her cohorts to life.
I can understand some of the desires that underlie this experiment. And I believe there is a lot to be gained when you understand how difficult it is to secure the basics of life, unaided by modern conveniences. AND yes, they may acquire skills that allow them to live through a major collapse of the environment and economic systems.
But it also reminds me of the communes of the 70's, with an even stronger sense of mysticism. What they are entering requires hard work, constant hard work and cooperation, the sort of cooperation and agreement upon sustaining values which can be difficult to sustain.
And - what they are doing is not a solution for our problems of overconsumption and destruction, not a path that millions or billions of humans would willingly take - - and requires land and forest and water sources set aside . .
2
I would much prefer working to adjust the unsustainable consumption that marks our lives. I like being warm in the winter, having a home that is comfortable, clothing that suits the climate where I live, a reliable means of transportation to the stores where I can purchase things that sustain my life, a way to communicate over long distances with people I love and care about, and work that is meaningful beyond mere survival. I would like to see my children and grandchildren in a world where they feel safe, and do not live in fear that everything around them is collapsing back into the Stone Age.
In short, I do not understand the sense of desperation in this article. Is there no choice between 6000 square foot houses, $2 gasoline pumped into gigantic SUV's, 40% of our food thrown away, Costco grocery carts that hold 5 pound bags of potato chips, 500 channels on cable tv, $1000 smartphones, $600 a night hotel rooms, restaurant meals with enough calories to feed a family of five... and the Stone Age?
I understand that these people are convinced we're past the tipping point. I simply disagree. In the same way they depend on one another to run down a deer in the woods (because I guarantee you can't do it alone), we have the same ability to depend on one another to build a sane, sustainable society that doesn't require us to form tribes in the woods. That seems far more challenging, and worthwhile, than learning to play a bone flute.
14
Generational angst fueled by too much debt, low self-esteem, high self-absorption, and growing frustration with how difficult it is to earn the kind of money that will provide a lifestyle similar to what they grew up in. Underlying all of this is a sense of social isolation due to the always on, 1500 friends on FaceBook web-based society these people inhabit, creating a lack of true social connection and integration.
9
This is a really well-written article. I loved it. The threads from one paragraph to the next kept me surprised and really opened the piece up to be a genuinely interesting mix of reporting and personal observation by someone with a great ear for concise sentences and a great dry sense of humor.
Currently going back to read Nellie Bowles' articles I had missed. So nice.
4
As someone who has camped out throughout most of my 50 years on earth and lives in a rural area, I can appreciate the lure of this lifestyle. My children grew up very self sufficient partly due to our camping vacations. Both children travel the world as backpackers and global visitors. Sidebar-both of my children now live in cities and love it! However, the reality of wilderness living is hardly a panacea. Most of the time you are planning out getting food, building or repairing a shelter. And it is stressful. We once camped in California during an El Niño year. Another time in New Hampshire my feet were raw from blisters due to an improper boot-I hiked barefoot on rocks which was just as tough. The wilderness experience is great but I’m doing air B &B’s now!
5
My in-laws have property adjacent to this place. It’s like a homeless Encampment moved in. I don’t really care what they do or how they want to live their lives. I just don’t want to see it when I want to get away. Hopefully this article doesn’t cause an influx of trustafarians trying to find their next thing.
16
Interesting. But I think most of us would be better off learning how to survive what is more likely to happen than some great apocalyptic civilization destroying event: a hurricane, earthquake, fire, flood, or tornado
3
This is a good exercise for wildness appreciation. Their experiences are suggestive of though not as immersive as Thoreau's "The Maine Woods", where he realized both wilderness and wildness must be sustained if humans are to also live sustainably in an industrial civilization.
3
I live near a large 400 family Amish community that manages to take a step back from current society with the use of horses and the raising of most of their food. They depend on outside society though for me to drive them sometimes and construction jobs 50 miles away building houses in the suburbs and with many businesses that sell to non Amish, bakeries, cabinet and other furniture making. They don’t use birth control so in their persuit to live separately they depend on their many children to help with labor. I do admire some aspects of that life, such as the closeness of the community, But of coarse there are many flaws also. One of the harshest is the difficulty of moving out of that society if one chooses.
5
Yeah, living like a cave man sounds entrancing to many. However, how are you going to like it when you a systemic Strep infection for a simple cut? Or you break a leg, arm, or some other appendage????
14
Where could they go to see Don Giovanni? Where is the closest collection of Shakespeare kept?
8
The quality of modern life is declining rapidly. It should be improving rapidly. Because it’s not, many people want out. Some of them hope for a disaster because their quality of life might improve.
It’s time to get on a reasonable course such that modern life is good for everyone. Bernie is the person to start us on a better course. His green energy plan is what we should be shooting for. If we get just 1/4 of what he’s asking, it will transform the lives of everyone on the planet.
There will always be some people discontented with things, but as long as we keep improving instead of regressing as we’ve been doing, most people will like the results.
On the other hand, we could wind up with Reagan the 2nd with Biden. Realistically, I think Trump can beat Biden but not Bernie.
1
I have nothing to fear because after watching The Walking Dead for the last 10 years, I know how to survive in a zombie apocalypse. No zombies, even better!
1
The irony with this article is that it was interspersed with Prada ads.
No matter who you are or where you live, learning skills is a good thing. Good on them.
4
These people all sound like they are trying to escape their problems or find themselves. It’s interesting the article mentioned deer bones and buffalo pieces more than once - I mean can’t they grow food? It sounds like the group just wants to escape and kill things and this is an excuse for them. In reality they could have lived off of plants.
6
The assumption is that if civilization as we know it ends it will be some version of the present experience only with almost no people and no invasive technology and nature’s abundance to sustain those who relearned the old ways of hunter gatherers. But civilization is most likely to end in an environmental collapse in which there are still lots of people, no technological support systems and vastly impoverished natural systems which will rapidly become even more impoverished as the desperate survivors pillage them.
For example, I often hear people saying that when the world ends they want to be on a good clam beach at a creek with a salmon run. After all, that sustained rich societies in the Pacific Northwest. That was then. Alas, in the present, climate change is already ravaging intertidal zones, the kelp forests that sustained coastal abundance are dwindling, ocean acidification is rendering once rich shellfish habitats uninhabitable and some of the greatest salmon-producing watersheds in the world — in particular in the interiors of Washington and British Columbia, are already seeing summer water temperatures in rivers at the edge of the lethal zone for anadromous fish. What we need are not romantic, escapist illusions about how the self-chosen few might return to Eden but clear-eyed analysis and hard-headed decisions about what’s really coming — both because of us and in spite of our magical thinking about it.
17
When I was a kid my parents sent me to a YMCA camp where we would go on 10 day canoe trips in the UP (upper MI). We had supplies and tools, but we lived out of our canoes and in tarp shelters stretched over 2 canoes tipped on their sides. We endured rain, floods, mosquito swarms and rapids, but we had a great time and learned a few things about living out in the woods on a river, the Ontonagon. These were adventures I'll never forget,and I learned a few things about myself and being resourceful that still apply to the demands of being 69 years young at heart.
11
They're all rich kids! Why isn't that foregrounded more? I think this is what Murray Bookchin would've called "lifestyle anarchism," only here it's lifestyle primitivism.
12
Better to read your Wendell Berry, and aspire to change the culture so that we begin to regard agriculture as the basis of civilization. Better to learn to grow and preserve family-sized crops of staples. Better to establish the taking of wild animals as an absolute taboo, because if 7.8 billion people all start hunting for their meat, the web of life will be annihilated in a very short time.
11
Seriously? My friends and I were more realistic when we went outside and played war in 3rd grade.
You want to prepare for a world post-civilization, expect to be very very dead because it won't be very people friendly.
11
We all want to live in a life free from turmoil,but we need a realistic method to achieve our goal,knowing Survival Skills will surely help,my hubby looks forward to hunting season, always enjoyed different venison recipes, we have a veggie patch,some fruit trees, eggs from the chicken coop, wood from the back yard helps with heat,canning and preserving veggies and fruits from harvest, moved an hour away from the City to be able to do all of these "country living lifestyle"
we love being out here but not ready to give up the comforts of a home with all the amenities, I pray we don't have to endure the HARSHNESS of the wilderness when the time comes
2
I was born in 1936 when the world population was something like 2.4 million and life was much simpler. We lived in a very rural area without electricity, running water and indoor plumbing. My parents grew a lot of food, had dairy cows and beef cows, pigs and chickens. World War II led to scarcity of many consumer items. We picked berries, canned them along with other fruits and vegetables, burned wood to keep warm in winter. My dad butchered animals and my mother canned meat. My mother washed clothes with a gas-powered washing machine and made butter in a churn. We burned wood to keep warm and cook. know how to do all that but would not have the energy to recreate and survive even that "advanced" lifestyle.
I have no illusions about what it takes to survive without the conveniences of modern life.
19
Juanita,
I enjoyed reading about your lifestyle growing up. However, the world population in 1936 was most definitely not 2.3 million. Perhaps you meant 2.3 billion. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
3
@Juanita
You had family connections in all that shared toil and a greater sense of satisfaction of everyone pulling together. That kind of connection with each other and the rhythms of Nature is absent in a world where everyone retreats into a cell phone world social media and teens go into hermetically sealed rooms playing video games.
3
@Kane Kyle yes. I realized my mistake later but didn't correct it.
2
An important message can be derived from this story... being together and relying on each other to survive they are able to work past their differences. When they couldn't get past their differences, instead of going away, they sat down, had a beer and learned more about each other. I see this same attitude in the military. We come together with a common goal and because we're forced to work together, we learn and accept each other for our strengths and individuality. Why can't our society do with one another.... perhaps something we could learn.
9
It takes me 4 days to get home from one of the most wild places on Earth. I know, got home yesterday from Achuar Territory (Ecuador, rainforest) and my 67 year old bones are telling me all about it. have been going there for 4 years, and I just returned from 5 weeks working on the school I dreamed of building for my indigenous friends in a village that was so remote that my husband thought that I could forget about it. I couldn’t.
The Achuar have welcomed me, a retired elementary school teacher, a white woman who doesn’t speak Spanish or their native language into their homes, allowed me to start a school in their community, and taught me much about their culture, beliefs, love of Earth and nature. They are my Rainforest family.
10
It's an insult to indigenous and peasant cultures that these dilettantes think they have any real capacity to "survive" long-term in an environment not undergirded by modernity.
28
I largely agree with your comment, it is probably insulting to indigenous people. However, a benefit may be that the people doing this may be open to understanding of the beauty of our home and increased respect for those who believe in Arutam, Pachamama, Mother Earth ... or your name of our creator ...and our ancestors. Maybe after so many thousands of years perhaps our beliefs will be connected to a lifestyle that is directly interacting with our creator.
1
(Sigh) What a nostalgic flash back to the "Back To The Land Movement of the 1970's!"
I feel very fortunate for having had that experience. Were we a bunch of misguided misfits with unrealistic idealistic aspirations? Possibly. Would we have been better off grinding away in our urban/suburban origins? Not hardly!
Should we/they be faulted for adapting incrementally, still having 20th Century tools, financial interdependence and other artifacts of the rejected contemporary culture? We're faulted for being idealistic, at the same time being faulted for being realistic. like none of this great social experiment should've taken place, right?
Communal living is a bitch, partly because of the strong personalities of the people drawn to it, and then adding the stress of having to learn a whole new skill set makes for a volatile environment. Was/Is it "successful"? As a maintainable lifestyle, no. As an enriching educational experience, yes.
You're not going to learn much in a week. A year is a better investment. Grocery store meat will never look the same. Square walls, after living in a geodesic dome will seem unnatural. Urban noise and pollution will be startling You'll miss the sound of goats and guinea hens and the smoke of a campfire when you move on.
12
Some comments I see in response to this article make it sound like people are choosing "wilding" as a vanity choice. As if the climate crisis is not real and their choice is for vanity, not survival. It is not a frivolous choice at this point. The climate crisis is underway, the 6th mass extinction in process. All around the world, localities and communities are working on resilience and sustainability. This article is about people choosing to create "intentional communities" that can survive as climate disasters overwhelm civilization in parts of the world. I am gladdened to see people choosing to survive.
3
Dear Trent Batson,
The thing is, these stone-age communities can't survive if civilization collapses. The hunter/gatherer lifestyle can't be lived by more than about 100 million people worldwide, so 99.8% of everyone would have to die before this lifestyle would be possible. Real survivalism would be training to kill as many people as possible without getting killed oneself.
Anyway, far better to try to do something about the onrushing climate disaster, rather than just bailing out and hoping everything works out somehow.
19
I don't want to rag on Lynx too much (although I have the urge to, for sure!) It sounds like she has learned some interesting skills that might be useful in some circumstances but they don't seem all that relevant at this moment in time. We are facing existential threats but I don't think the solution is to try to revert back a way of life that was possible in a time when there were very few humans and much wildlife and vegetation to support them. Today we're facing completely different challenges and we need to figure out a way to address them. To me the question is: How can we preserve and restore our eco-systems and still enjoy a great life with healthy food, natural and human created beauty (nature and art), science, intellectual pursuits and close connections with other people and animals? Maybe it's time we find new definitions of what constitutes economic "health." I appreciate science and technology when it's used to increase the quality of our lives. But we need to think more deeply about what it means to "adapt" to our current reality and the emerging one in ways that increase human happiness.
15
There’s no such thing as bad publicity. If our friend Lynx gets even one student because of this article, it will be worth a thousand snarky comments. I suspect she’ll get more than one.
We’re having a lot of fun reading these comments, many of them are very inciteful!
9
I know others have mentioned this; but, I just want to jump in and say it again. If we were in a global collapse/apocalyptic horror show, it would take more than skinning a deer and using moss for toilet to survive -- one would have to be ready for marauders of all shapes and sizes. And, those marauders would do more than steal dried meat. Bands of people would have to develop ancient military skills....sad to say..
9
@bobbydanang
There will always be those few who choose the path of murderous violence. That human capacity is sadly in all of us. However, the way of peaceful communal living in harmony with Nature is very possible. Many monasteries have existed for over a thousand years and some many thousands. These young people hunger for deeper connections and simpler living.
1
All I want to know is how I can buy that cat.
11
@Lauren This cat is in every humane society pound. We had a brother and sister for 17 years and Stan and Fran were amazing smart cats. Called Domestic it is common. Find yours there, but plan to care for it for a long time.
5
There is not enough attention paid to the beautiful cat in this article!
16
@Chris I wondered about that, too. Why didn't the author mention the havoc that domestic cats wreak on the small mammal and bird population? Which in turn means greater competition for food for other, native wildlife such as birds of prey, fox, weasels, etc. I guess eschewing the accoutrements of modern life doesn't include cute little pets.
The one thing I understand about this movement is the satisfaction that can come from group effort. Last year I went on a grueling 6-day trip on horseback, eight hours in the saddle every day, camping out every night. We got hurt. We got hungry and tired and cold. Some of us had the wrong supplies. And we helped each other out, because, frankly, we were all we had.
Now, back in the city, that open hand offering help--taken for granted on the trail--seems like a rare gift.
246
@K Yates An experience like you had can certainly make one more appreciative of the things we take for granted and dismiss without a thought.
14
@K Yates If 8 hours in the saddle is grueling for you, imagine how it feels for the horse.
29
Try it sometime. Then be the judge.
12
How precious.
Hmmm ... lots of metal and industry-made goods in those pictures.
Wild ... but not too wild?
7
So many commenters here have responded snarkily. Do they ever stop to wonder why?
87
@David
Unfortunately, it’s because Lynx is charging money to teach people what they will need to do when money no longer exists.
56
Dear David,
Sure I'll stop to wonder why. It hits me that this play-acting at stone age life is ridiculous, a dead-end, and truly living in the stone age would result in brutal, short, unpleasant lives, and rule by force rather than law. So yes, snark is called for here.
72
@David For me, it's because this "world" they've created is so pretentious. It is not sustainable to have deer be your primary source of food and clothing, even when there is an overpopulation of deer. It seems to me like this is more about the "romance" of killing stuff than anything. Lynx gets mad because someone left her camp to go see someone else. Good grief.
66
I hate to psychoanalyze, but you have to wonder why so many of the attendees have lost jobs or divorced recently. Mustn't there be something there? (I don't know what.)
I love the description of the community, the interdependence. But then some parts have me scratching my head--the vegan? The pure carnivore? What are these people playing at? What do they think life in the natural world is like?
5
“Most of us are in our 20s and early 30s,” Epona said. “You start to see where the holes in society are, and our holes now are elders.”
What Epona fails to realize is that in Stone Age cultures of the past, people in their 30s were the elders.
306
@Robert One of the strengths of human society, over evolutionary time, is that grandmothers help with chid rearing, a rare occurrence in nature. Humans have had societies for millions of years; people in their 30s were never the elders.
20
@Robert I can't see us sliding all the way back to the Stone Age, even if technological society collapses. More like the Bronze Age, maybe. And then, if you're lucky, and don't die of the flu or a cut that gets infected, you might see the "threescore and ten" of the Psalms.
17
@Robert It seems to me that these people are in need of some purpose. My advice to them is read a book, become a Big Brother or Sister, study a topic you know nothing about or sundry other things to enliven your life.
You'll feel better for it in ways you probably never could have anticipated - but do something.
26
We need to prune ourselves back by 75% to get back to the sustainable carrying capacity of this planet. There are many ways to do that.
The best way is just one child for two parents. Then that child has only one child.
Problem solved.
We'll need an authoritarian government to make that happen, but species survival is far more important than democracy and freedom. We need to start thinking like that, those that can't (Biden voters) are a threat to our survival.
8
@14 Fourteen. Human survival is more important than democracy and freedom? Why? What’s worth living for without democracy and freedom? Live free or die.
9
@Fourteen14 They tried this in China, remember? Which left them with many more young men than women, since, when they could only have one child, they usually wanted males. So, social unrest from generations of young men with no one to mate with. So, China lets them have more kids now--only many don't for various social and economic reasons.
6
@Fourteen14, if you go Neolithic you need more children not less because infant mortality will be far higher and you need a few grown children to take care of you when you are old. Typical strategy in poor or primitive societies.
5
Those taking this course actually have no idea of the difficulty of living this way for a sustained period, from the frigid winter in Twisp to the psychological effects of a very limited diet. For a couple of weeks I'm sure it's a blast, those who think it would be good for years at a time need to read the abridged journals of Lewis and Clark for a reality check.
I worked for a couple not far from Twisp who built a large survival compound in 1999 out fear of Y2K, and I saw how absurd people can be when faced with that possibility, most notably in their refusal to possess weapons. They had hundreds of pounds of protein powder and a tennis court, but in a true survival crisis, their type will be the first to succumb to those who have no compunction about taking another's resources.
In reality, almost nobody is prepared mentally to do this, in any circumstance. I have been off grid for 30 years and most folks I know could not even tolerate that.
I do agree completely with two things: Smash that smart phone ( I never had one), and wipe with moss..(if you get the right kind, very pleasant).
153
@joel strayer I came here at the age of 8, grew up without running water or electricity -I am totally unprepared if something were to happen, my parents would really do well in survival mode except they are in their late 80s so all bets are off. I agree with you for a couple of weeks most would think it's a blast but past that talk to my parents- growing the food, washing clothes in the sea, fear of disease even a slight cold most people today can't even see the bone on the chicken imagine have to kill it for food or god forbid the cute rabbit.
28
@joel strayer
Just curious: if you've "been off grid for 30 years," how do you have a computer and internet access and a NYT subscription?
87
@joel strayer If you're "off the grid," how did you send this message or view the article? Second, how do you afford to not have a smartphone? Most jobs require it. I need one for my job. I think that people who can afford to do this type of thing must have a lot of family money, like "Lynx."
47
As an archaeologist working throughout North America with a concentration on ‘stone-age’ cultures I applaud the desire and, perhaps necessity, to learn these skills. I have learned many of them myself through interaction with indigenous groups that still practice them as well as through a rural upbringing in northern Alberta.
It is always interesting to see how panicked some of my junior assistants get when we lose cell reception as we go deeper into the bush. It is refreshing to work at times in the high arctic where the technology most of us depend on is simply not available. The people there are different. They are aware of the way things work to the south, but rely largely on traditional subsistence methods and philosophies (with a few modern twists).
Great skills to learn, but pretty hard to effectively teach in a workshop. It’s hard to teach a way of thinking and doing unless you’ve either grown up with it or been immersed in it for a long period of time.
227
@Dorado
I grew up immersed in single malt scotch. I would recommend it before reading this article or any like it which are always best taken with a grain of alcohol. These people living "raw" about as much as a sushi roll. But I do respect their high sense of self delusion as well as the author's lunch choice of Chicken Little.
34
@Dorado
Very interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing. There is something enlivening about working with others to ensure our survival and doing it in a way that balances the needs of the group over the individual. There's a strange kind of thrill about it. I've been in a number of different "panic" situations like earthquakes (LA), tsunamis (southern India) , next to a terrorist bombing (Israel), robberies (LA and St. Thomas), fires (LA) and felt a kind of excitement that was as much about the adrenalin as it was about the sudden way people work together to survive. Suddenly all the barrieres, age, economic class, ethnicity evaporated. Maybe it's a version of the way a nation comes together when it's under attack. I think earlier human social structures were much more integrated and communal because we had to band together to survive. I think that's what we're missing the most in today's individualistic isolated lifestyle. And in some ways it seems that's what the author most appreciated about her weeks in the "wilderness."
17
@MBF so beautifully stated, thank you!
10
I've met Lynx - she is the real deal. As someone who has lived in a sod house in the Arctic and homesteaded in Alaska without electricity or running water I can tell you that she knows what she is doing. That said I do enjoy my central heat and hot running water.
341
@Michele re: central heat and hot running water: Amen!
2
Seems okay and quaint until old age and infirmities. Does one then opt out and return to live with relatives or does a prearranged pact between Stonies mean a “friendly” drops a boulder onto your head?
2
Where do the wild people go when the axe slips and buries itself in someone's foot? When a child is badly injured? When a cough turns into pneumonia?
I understand the fascination with paleo-living, but our ancient ancestors busted their butts to make life easier and better for their families. That's why there are so many of us alive today – we're not dying from the same diseases, injuries and ordinary misfortunes that killed our relatives.
They may have lived close to the earth, but they knew grief and loss in a way we should hope we never experience.
11
Yeah, it does appear it would make a great deal more sense to simply go camping. Jeez.
8
Kris,
This perspective is spot on. Our ancestors were well versed in death. It surrounded them. The child mortality rate was sky high, women would commonly die during child birth, a simple cut getting infected could cause death, lifespans were significantly shorter.
Our ancestors worked so hard to make life easier for us. It is our responsibility to sustain this lifestyle for as long as possible, not to go back in time and live like cavemen.
4
When the collapse truly happens the rich will just take what they want including these peoples land.
6
It's always about the money. In this case $600.
How did the barbed wire fence and posts appear? And how does moss feel when it is winter and minus 10?
What happens if the children get sick? Heck, the axe blade almost hit the author. What would have happened if it had?
8
Curiously all euro Americans.
6
Great idea, for maybe 1 million people. The other 6 billion will be dead. And even for that 1 million: "nasty, brutish and short."
8
The modern world is soooo much better in. Every way than they Seth pool from which we came.
I’m staying here. You guys can chew on bark over there.
3
It's all fun and games.....until winter comes.....or someone gets really sick.
5
Let’s all devolve and throw away the ideas, the science, the intellectual development, the arts that distinguish humanity from this barely alive subsistence culture. This middle finger in the eye of civilization cult would disappear in a real ecological disaster or man-made apocalypse. They are one anthrax infection away from annihilation and an object lesson that stupidity and civilization are independent of one another.
6
ignore the haters, this is a beautiful artilce
1
Oh the article is beautifully written for sure. The lifestyle is ridiculous and without any future.
7
@Dan Stackhouse
Remember your youth? They will learn from this and hopefully become better human beings and far more respectful of Nature’s beauty and its life threatening challenges. I applaud them.
I understand that this level of back-to-the-land enlightenment is indicative of a coming around the circle of evolution. I definitely absolutely acknowledge and respect that. But it also screams of clueless white privilege in a most disgusting way.
7
Ditto.
And yeah just go friggin’ camping.
2
We have a joking pack with family - hunters, engineers, law enforcement types about where we are going to meet-up in the event of some calamity and who is in charge of what. But out of the box there is going to be fuel, guns, ammo and generators involved to at least get us over the hump. None of this woo woo stuff.
1
It just shouldn't be an either-or decision but a both solution. It's the chicken and the egg, darn it!
Back to the land still exists! Hoots to that. We communards of the summers of love were dependent on “town” for money and technology like common metal objects. Are these folks going to smelt metal or just stick with stones and bones? The great lessons of the woods need to be brought back to town to keep it respectful of our roots, but voluntary, post-apocalyptic devolution is a very hard sell even for a mere $600.
1
Lynx was described as dressing 'like a Native American' but I disagree--she dresses like all of us used to dress, long enough ago. We used to live this way--all of us. No need to romanticize the old times; it was hard and at 43 I'd be dead or on my way. But we can't solely look ahead. Looking behind, what was left behind? My home is in the forest, perched above a river at the edge of the mountains. I have a basic composting toilet, a few solar panels, flashlights, a cabin and geodesic dome. I also have a smart phone, love Netflix, and follow politics daily. Yes, I pee outside in the woods and watch the moon! I also scroll through Facebook and drive my car too much. I'm not 'making a statement,' but just living in a way that works for me.
7
And they will have all the same problems we have, but with less bathing.
8
This is interesting, but would be only for a certain niche of people. A 'hole' in their group is mentioned: a lack of old people. I'm old and very much appreciate my comfortable bed, a doctor or dentist when needed, easily obtained drinking water, etc., and I still have time to worry about the terrifying future facing the grandkids: increasing population, declining and degraded resources, time bomb nuclear waste with still no solution, new viruses, and the gun lovers with loaded AK-15s slung over their shoulders. This stone age alternative does not give me comfort.
Wondering
Where do they get all their salt?
Drinking water?
How do they handle a toothache?
Assuming burials will be green?
How will their survival hold up against the gun horde?
Once again, I cry for the grandkids' future, now peacefully going to school but acclimated to active shooter drills, enjoying sports, camping and hobbies, reading books, but slowly waking up to the realities of climate chaos...
6
ah 'silly season' itself has been thrown off-kilter by rapid climate change
1
After people are give the nuclear reactors will melt and excise causing a nuclear Holocaust of sorts. Also the dams will bust further disrupting the environment. Life will change irrevocably after we leave and not for the better necessarily
2
Don’t know how to tighten the bolts in a [wooden] chair? Don’t know where eggplants come from? These people don’t need a “rewilding” experience. They need common sense. And they’ll be defenseless when mean, nasty people with firearms come to take over their yurts.
p.s. We’re not going to be eating cats or rats during the apocalypse.
6
Having survived the halcyon hippie days of my youth in the 60s, this ain't no thang. Still a bunch of grifters tryin to make a dime offa somebody else.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
12
Honestly, this article is a bit embarrassing. A course that teaches people how to stay warm while sleeping outside and cut down a tree?? Are there people that actually don’t know how to do these things? Try checking in with most of the people in the middle of the country and you’ll find a different story.
5
Go! Please, all of you who like this idea, get on out there! Quick as you can. Don’t leave a forwarding address, no last post cards from your edge...just go! And stay there! For Pete’s sake, stay there!
3
Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast.
2
Timely!
1
If society collapses you'll never make it out of Queens much less to your horrific 1970s commune in the Catskills. At least you won't have to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.
4
Latter-day hippy daze.
1
This article is proof there are things worse than death.
7
Was the really written by Paul Rudnick under an alias?
If this is what it takes to survive the apocalypse, just shoot me.
3
I’ll bet this Times article increases Lynx’s cash flow for at least the next year. Quite a score! Maybe a career in marketing awaits, if the charms of Stone Age living ever wear off.
6
I seriously doubt Epona’s yurt is 16 feet around!
3
No problem as long as you can brew your own beer and grow your own weed, both of which will give you the ability to fish and grab other critters.
1
When 100 million Americans try to live in the Stone Age, it's going to be a very short experiment.
11
So, no Starbucks?
3
Deer legs are even more useful to deer.
11
I pray for the coming age of the bone flute if it means I no longer have to read a confusing length of copy using “They” as a singular pronoun.
7
Lynx and her prehistoric wannabes all sound like they come from money and can go back to money any time they choose. They have nothing on the urban homeless, whose survival skills in much more daunting circumstances are truly impressive, and heartbreaking.
658
@Luke Comment of the day. Thank you for mentioning the urban homeless, who really do need to learn survival skills. They'd probably consider these people in the woods with "Lynx" to be living the easy life.
47
@Luke I read today in the Guardian about a unhoused man who "built" himself an underground bunker in a unmanicured section of a pub;ic park in a nice part of London. THAT was amazing. He lived there for 2 - 3 years.
here it is:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/mar/05/invisible-city-how-homeless-man-built-life-underground-bunker-hampstead-heath
21
@Luke Also noticing -- shhhhh! that they are all caucasian and one guy is living off an inheritance. I just came back from motorcycling through Los Angeles and I was dumbstruck and appalled at 50 square blocks of ragged, filthy human beings - hundreds of them - on "Skid row." Is this another fad for white people of priviledge? Shhhhhhh.
15
Hmm. Interesting to be sure. But I noticed they still went to the grocery store. If/when there is full societal collapse, where will they get metal, for axes? You really want to give those up? And of course the childhood mortality rate will noticeably increase. Your kid gets type 1 diabetes? Prepare to bury them. Modern life is not all downsides.
676
@Joy Thompson The folks in this article are not unlike the hippies of the 70's in and around San Francisco, CA when I worked in the City. Many lived in the Redwoods and practiced these same techniques. There were communes and other groups living in the forests.
50
@Joy Thompson
And the cook in pans and dress in deer skins. How did they kill these deer? With guns? Bows? Or did they do it the old fashioned way and set snares, then wait a long, long, long time? Lynx came running up with a bundle of wild tinder she'd just managed to get lit? Ask anyone who's tried just how long it takes to get a fire started without a match or lighter. You can do that while you're waiting for Bambi to stumble into your snare. It takes a long, long, long time.
I tried this sort of thing, once, but quickly tired of mosquitoes. One night was quite long enough.
Nonetheless, this was a fun read. Fish hooks made from Bambi toes? It would take a long, long, long time to finish, and then a long, long, long time to land quarry. You might starve before you got a nibble. But then again, time is but the stream these folks go a'fishing in, smartphones notwithstanding.
38
@Jacquie
...and far more people left those communes than adopted that way of life indefinitely.
28
Love the writing.
Think the lifestyle is self indulgent and clearly dependent on the kindness of strangers, ie retailers. Hippie redux.
2
If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their condition, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation. - Eugene Debs
2
how would an emergency case of appendicitis be handled?
2
Technically, with either bailing on the stone age and calling an ambulance, or with a burial within a week.
1
It would be interesting to revisit these folks in another 20 years when they are no longer in their 20s and early 30s, and see whether they are still living this life. NY Times?
4
George Wildman Ball the former undersecretary of state once said in an article, "Nostalgia is a seductive liar..." That was true then and is still true today. I strongly suspect it'll be true tomorrow as well.
2
My family hails from the Okanogan, back when people lived off the land because they had no other choice. I grew up hunting, fishing, cutting firewood and living in the outdoors because it was a way of life for us. There was nothing glamorous about it and I left when I could to make a better life elsewhere.
Lynx is just a city girl playing a silly game in the woods. She styles herself a survivalist, but she cannot survive without vacuum-packed salmon and regular trips to the grocery store. No doubt she also makes regular visits to the dentist, doctor and pharmacy. She is a charlatan and her clients are foolish for giving her their money.
If the apocalypse comes and people really do have to live off the land again, millions will expire in very short order. The land simply cannot support so many people living a stone-age existence.
9
After all these years, the Missing Lynx, has been discovered. WOW
3
Go Stoneagers - theres nothing better for a technological person to do than go into the wild - to let their senses expand into reality. One thing they do have to work on is harvesting of wild veg for sustainance rather than opportunistic protein bonanzas. Thats where the masticated birchbark pitch hits the footpad.
1
Okay do whatever you want. But, what is the reason to shoot a deer and watch It try to drag itself away after you botch the shot?
8
I accept that I'm toast if the world ends. Fodder for the beasts to eat.
Too attached to my comfy bed, gorgeous gas cooktop, and bathtub.
5
I've worked hard to get this rent stabilized place in midtown, and now I'm told it's not enough and to be fulfilled I must live in a cave, skin a deer with people trading husbands for girlfriends and and use pine needles as a source of heat, oh and I must smile within a cauldron of human filth, stench, and regret and I should be thrilled to be part of a commune of people who I'd bet have some serious psychotropic issues far beyond what I see daily on the A train. It's just never enough! Ever! They keep moving the goal post.
12
I can’t say I’m terribly impressed. Hugging a tree and deciding it “agreed” to be cut down (with an axe that won’t stay together)? Torturing a deer because you can’t bring yourself to use modern (or effective) tools to kill it? There are ways to reconnect with nature and develop survival and other useful skills without all the pretension. I’ll keep my indoor plumbing, modern medicine, and hygiene.
8
I hope Lynx and her friends have valid hunting permits for all of the animals they are killing and eating. Poaching and out of season hunting is a crime.
7
Guess why there were no elderly people.
7
This article should be in the New York Times Extreme Styles section. It's still mostly about what to eat, what to wear & how to decorate.
7
Back to the Stone Age? These people benefit from everything people in the Stone Age had to learn by trial and error: tool making, plant safety, shelter building, textile manufacturing, cooking, agriculture, and the list goes on. You don't need to pay a new-age Stone Ager to learn how to live in the wilderness. Most of it is common sense, now embedded in our genes thanks to the original Stone Agers. There are many stories of people who have been lost while hiking in the wilderness for weeks who managed to survive without having to pay someone $600 to learn how.
2
When I was a young lad I spent many days in the East Texas woods with my Dad and his brothers living like they did during the Depression, sleeping on the ground, cooking what you gathered, caught or killed over an open fire, bathing in the river and not knowing what was going on in the outside world. But, we always wound up hiking back to our cars and trucks and returning to the modern world, them to their jobs, me to school. They had grown up as survivalists which to them was a natural thing and it was as easy as falling off a log (pun intended). But, they also knew that the world was changed and that kind of living could no longer be sustained. World War II had taught them that there was no real place to hide from life, and the best solution was to face it directly. Our forest trips were treated as vacations, and none of them would have seriously considered going back to that permanently. Global warming and climate change will alter the world in ways that our Stone Age ancestors could not have anticipated, so some of these skills will be useless to any future humans. How do you tan hides for clothing when all of the deer are extinct or it’s too hot for flax to grow? How do you sleep in the woods when they have all burned down? How do you find fresh water when the rain stops (or never does) and the sea floods all of the river valleys and arable land? Science and technology may be our only hope in the end, but some combination of the modern and the primitive would be best.
13
@HKS
You actually hit upon something very important, which is the need for us, as a world population, to be able to consider that there is much "primitive" and otherwise old knowledge that simply works (is relevant, viable, etc.), and that this primitive knowledge can work along with or support the modern, the "tech", the future(istic).
What gets in the way of that ability is profit, generally said. We insist not only on a linear view of all things, that nothing is good enough or cannot be improved upon, but that things must change or be changed* because profits must be kept to a certain level.
*"Be changed", as in cannot leave well enough alone or always fixing that which does not need fixing. Myriad examples and certainly, it is rarely a simple matter, e.g., is a new operating system truly to increase efficiency or is "efficiency" being defined as pleasing some minority population of user, incorporating some new (profitable) technology that is not really necessary but provides some groovy bells and whistles? Linear growth provides a hugely warped and thus biased long-term view of things. It only profits the short-term (pun intended) because it really cares little for the underlying reasoning of an action or idea, merely whether profitable.
4
This is hilarious. And not at all unusual. Come to the wilds of western MA and there are plenty of these people. I stay far, far away. Though her cat is adorable. Some trappings of civilization can't be shed it seems. ;)
4
Things were fine, albeit difficult by modern standards in some circumstances, until the Industrial Revolution. Turn back the clock to the 1840’s, not the Stone Age. Yes - chop wood, carry water. But there’s no need to eschew the development of metal or woven fabric or printing or other such technology. The distribution system needs to be reordered to a locally obtainable economy but even with that global trade can carry on; that’s what clipper ships and slower cargo vessels can accomplish. What we need for a descent non-brutish life has been done before. What we need to lose (and the loss will indeed be an apocalyptic collapse, I think) is the fossil fueled, electrified modernity that has thrust us too far too fast for our human brain’s evolution to deal with wisely and sustainably.
10
@Dave
Those are some wise words. I was glad to read them. It is something not considered by many, that we simply move too quickly to determine whether we are really on the best path. Your comment provides a high-point on which to stop reading these comments, this "new", shut my system down, and do something constructive.
My thanks.
2
I would rather take my chances than have to live like this. The popular shows about these types of societies do not paint this way of life as ideal, but rather equally as fragile, and scary.
6
I might have preferred an article about the Indigenous tribes of the Methow, Wenatchee, Pend Oreille and Columbia River valleys of Washington State. They are advocating passage around dams for ocean salmon, demonstrating that they have never lost their connection to the natural world, or their responsibility to its thriving. Their resilience and ethics haven't changed for thousands of years. I learn from them every single day.
25
Life in nature is nasty, brutish, and short, according to one philosopher. I'm inclined to agree. The reason that few people live primitive lives is that they primitive living is not as pleasurable as life in civilization.
6
"deeply wrinkled in a way that skin doesn’t usually get anymore."
What? Yes, this is how most people look her age if they don't use botox, fillers etc.
Interesting article about an interesting group of people. It's amazing to do this.
4
@Helen this is how people her age look if they don't use sun protection consistently, as well as moisturizers and the odd acid peel. I am her age, I've used these consistently - no botox, no filler, no laser or whathaveyou - and am pretty much wrinkle-free. As an aside, this lifestyle choice (which it is) requires sound health and a robust constitution. It's not as simple as that modern life 'weakens' us, and living in nature will 'heal' us...
9
At the risk of sounding coy...is there anything about “reinventing the wheel” that is at play here?
1
I'm impressed Facebook wasn't mentioned once.
3
Please get a grip people. This rewilding thing is bonkers. There’s a great world out there with amazing people and joys of life. Participate, make a difference, don’t squat in a tree trunk.
16
what do they do if they get sick? Call an ambulance?
3
Didn't we already do this on hippie communes back in the 60s?
4
Why are all these people middle class?
What happens when inevitably a community member commits a rape or murder? Do they stone them to death?
Also what about the hidden values imported into these intentional communities, latent western religious or political ideas. You can’t just reverse engineer the native Americans.
18
There are easier ways to make fire than with nests of seed fluff. Instead of giving $600 to Lynx, take that money and burn it. You'll get sufficient flame to get one twig going, then a bigger one, then a bigger one, then a bigger one...
13
I think headlines such as this are unnecessarily sensationalized. Perhaps a headline mentioning that it's a book review about survivalism would help keep it from inflaming sensitive readers right about now. Readers may appreciate headlines that don't push the panic button!
1
I couldn't stop looking at the nice boots.
6
The one true carnivore is upstaging everyone else in the accompanying photos: the cat.
25
Hilarious and ironic to read about this on the interwebs, with all comments from the interwebs. That's roughing it!
5
Now, if the County Tax Assessor would just let everyone know what their property tax is in Deer Flute, then this fantasy could have a chapter 2.
But, $600 for an as-real-as-it-gets vacation to the Stone Age for a wild taste of new perspective --- really a bargain, if your return flight remains viable.
3
What fun! Until you get a toothache.
6
The author was scared there was no cellphone reception. This is a sad state of affairs.
I threw my cellphone away years ago.
1
I am staying put in civilization for two very important reasons: toilet paper and antibiotics. No moss and leeches for me.
7
Preparedness is not a bad thing.
6
This is a truly bizarre notion — apocalyptic fetishists seeking pristine woodlands as theme parks for the doomed, if you’re into that sort of thing. I see ex-military and mercenary types, scavenging mountains and forests at gunpoint for barter goods. Campfire ugliness, slathered in trash and animal remains. Failed 4-by-4s, mounds of decomposing disposable diapers and instant, irrational death. You get the picture: mobs of first-time campers on an epic last stand, hoarding their last ramen, and no wi-fl. An AWOL billionaire’s class has disappeared, having purchased Micronesia years earlier. It’s humanity’s last stab at vanity for vanishing times, and species — us. Think those preserved Pompeiians had options?
4
I started writing something dismissive and sneering with sarcasm, then I remembered all the futile busy work, distant relationships, pandemic prepping, traffic jams, retirement savings angst, e-distraction, climate crises, and toxic people projecting their garbage and I choose not to.
10
Great article, but I wish it covered more of the financial logistics. How do they buy groceries or pay for cash expenses? Sure, some people have inheritances or Etsy businesses, but from my understanding, most fringe groups such as these (or FLDS) are counting on help from food stamps/SNAP and Medicaid. It’s fair to say they may be self-sufficient in a few areas, but certainly not all.
8
@Madeline Marie
Great question, Madeline. I, too, wish the author would've delved deeper into the truth about these folks.
Living in Twisp, I've come to observe and know some of them over the course of many years. The greatest irony here is the fact that on Thursdays, when our tiny local food bank is open to serve the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors, I sometimes see people from the Heathen community or Lynx's classes. This is incredibly frustrating to witness. To my knowledge, they are able bodied, middle class people who could grow their own food and/or work for wages in our service economy.
There is much more to this story.
28
Thoreau may not have run seminars, but his self hyped and much vaunted back to nature minimalism was also subsidized by friends with money and supplemented by walks into town for a hot meal and other benefits of civilization and society.
This is playacting by those who can afford to pick and chose hand crafted lifestyles. If they want to test themselves, then like Saint Francis, they could give away all they own to the poor and like them try to survive anyplace across America and the world.
7
So you want to live like a Stone Age person, AND you want to have a special diet (scratches head)?
6
None of this is new or interesting really, only it seems a little more odorous. I do think the urbanized yurts are a nice touch though.
2
@Mike
Indeed--replete with plastic swing for the kiddies. Meh.
Of course there is a Yurt involved.
7
I have lived 63 years and I have never read a hilarious sentence that beats “ Lynx demonstrated how to use a buffalo hump bone to process a deer hide.”
Do they know about this in Kips Bay?
4
I’m pretty sure I saw this on an episode of Portlandia.
16
Good luck with healthcare in your 70s.
14
A woman thriving in the wild.
A woman named Lynx.
I cannot wait to read this!
1
The yurt has a book shelf?
6
Since I was a child, nihilists everywhere have been savoring the end of the world. Many of them imagine that when it ends it will be they who seize control.
In American religious circles, Armageddon comes with the imagined bonus that all of those aggravating secular humanists will die in a flash of God's retribution. As a popular bumpersticker once warned, "In case of rapture this car will be unmanned." Or Falwell's assurance that hurricanes are for Democrats.
When I was a lot younger, the Holy Roller Oral Roberts, who made himself an empire of a business preaching on television, announced that "God would call him home" unless the faithful sent him $8 million within a few months. He retreated to his prayer tower, waiting for three identical fruits to line up on God's slot machine. In fact, God sent a dog track owner with a little over a million dollars, to save the day. Surprisingly God isn't ready for every relative who visits and sometimes slips out.
I've also lived in Washington for 60 years. Methow and places like it sure harbor a lot of people who insist "we have to get back to government based on the Constitution," and then promptly add that we "need to put God back in schools and the government." Many savor catastrophe and look forward to apocalypse like a special holiday. How many more steps is it to the mind of Eichmann or Jim Jones?
No one should look forward to disaster that extracts pain and suffering from anyone.
27
Interesting exercise but not a way of life. A sure indication of loss of perspective is the about face, from techie to paleo-man. Why not just make friends and develop a social circle in your current life? Get a gun and learn to hunt. Learn an instrument and form a band. Will the Times run a follow-up article on these folks in ten years?
16
This makes me feel like the apocalypse can't come fast enough -- and I hope it would take me with it! Better that than live in this phony parody of stone-age primitivism. Is it lost on people that this is yet another reboot of any number of fads based on a longing for a lost golden age of uncivilized wildness that never existed? And yet another excuse to sell an expensive bunch of programs and products based on same? The desire for a meaningful life may be understandable, but doing this is just silly.
16
When one 'rewilds,' do they make their own shoes? Socks? Underwear?
What if they lose their eyeglasses or have a toothache or a severe illness or injury?
14
When confronted with a firestorm, what would they do?
6
The good old days when life expectancy was half of what it is today..../s
12
Nothing has made me roll my eyes so many times in one sitting
18
It's great fun to romanticize the Paleolithic, especially if you know you've got access to flush toilets and antibiotics when the chips are really down.
13
haha....this will work great...for about 1%...well, at least we can take some satisfaction that it surely will not be the same 1% that is currently hoarding our resources (you know, money).
4
What about deer that have CWD? western Nebraska have a great number of deer with CWD. you are not supposed to eat any wild animals that have CWD. that is similar to mad cow disease.
4
If I'm not mistaken, the annual limit for deer tags in California is two. And you need how many tanned skins to attend one of her big shindigs? Hmmm.
12
One in Washington
2
2 weeks ago I had an appendectomy and it freaks me out to think I probably would have died in a slow painful way if there had not been a hospital nearby. Thank you civilization!
20
I don’t believe for a second that a Stone Age world is what we should expect from the “end” of this one. It will not be small tribes of buckskinned hunter gatherers wandering the temperate forests, looking for wild mushrooms and deer to bring down with slingshots. It is going to be crumbling cities and infrastructure and ugly anarchy. Colonies of anthropogenic technologists with solar fields and hydroponics that they will guard with heavy weaponry. It will be marauding bands of very hungry people with guns. It will be pockets of post-industrial toxicity. Oh, and how long will those deer herds last do you think? I just wish we could turn all this fatalist/survivalist energy into political energy now to stop the degradation of our global ecosystem, so that we don’t have to teach our kids to kill the hungry hordes at the gates.
32
I cut and split my firewood. I grow the vegetables we eat. I put meat and fish on the table in season. I've trapped and hunted and fished. I've slept in shelter caves in winter, warm on a thick bed of leaves. And I know enough about it to know that I want more than primitive skills in my world.
Until you are willing to watch a thorn scratch turn to septicemia, and see you child die an agonizing death, you are not prepared to live without civilization. These people are playing at the Stone Age. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you recognize that that is what you are doing.
40
The "way of life" is interesting, but just think of the environmental devastation if 8 billion people lived off the land like this.
I know Lynx personally and will avoid any additional comments because of that.
I found the story a bit of a fluff piece, no real thinking on different aspects that could have been explored.
9
I'm really amused how many of my criticisms were deleted. Y'all realize that none of these stone-age play-actors will read any of this, right? I won't be personally offending anyone. But their notions are ridiculous, they're not actually living without technology, and if they were their lifestyle and lifespans would be greatly reduced. Not sure why cranky criticism won't post, but hey, I guess if people want to believe in nonsense they're only hurting themselves.
6
Life was nasty, brutish, and short. People usually didn't live much past the age of 35 or so, and so healthcare generally not a problem. Medicare for None! A slogan the most hard-boiled conservative/libertarian could get behind. Although if you do need a root canal, that's where the "nasty" bit comes into play...
12
Human vs. earth
Earth always win
5
Yum.
Tiger cats make good eating!
Don't forget to bring your copy of Stalking The Wild Asparagus.
4
One can only assume this "living off the land," scenario comes after the mass riots driven by starvation, water, fuel. The strong will prey upon the weak. Tribes will form. Nothing glorified like "Mad Max". Just the human species at it's most cruel base.
That's the reality.
Hardly the glowing "joining hands with nature" these survivalist camps espouse.
There may be hope for you in the woods if civilization bottoms out, but you'll have to fight tooth and nail and spill real blood to get there.
Still, good luck with that first respiratory infection.
11
And do the Stone Age Projects include Stone Age medicine?
One would have been lucky to make 40 which was extreme old age.
6
So does Stone Age living include abstinence from immunization, anesthesia and antibiotics? Break a leg you die. Same goes for appendicitis. Nobody really living in that world was gluten free or vegan. You ate protein in whatever form was available whether it had fur, scales or feathers. And lots of grubs.
This sounds like a big joke for people with more money than sense.
8
This is post apocalyptic cosplay. Also, why does society revert to stone age living in all these scenarios? What happened to the many examples of integrated societies before our current moment in time?
The strict rules are so arbitrary too. Smell like dead animals to go shop at Joann Fabrics. Whittle bone flutes while living on land purchased with inherited money. It sounds like the worst example of bored white privilege.
9
If it ever comes to this, I intend to live the same way my ancestors did-Use What Is Available! If a steel knife is handy I'm not going to sharpen a stone. The purists, like the deniers, will all perish.
5
Give me a break, I'd like to see how you handle smallpox if you're never vaccinated or heart surgery if you are living a Stone Age life.
4
Back to the land still exists! Hoots to that. We communards of the summers of love were dependent on “town” for money and technology like common metal objects. Are these folks going to smelt metal or just stick with stones and bones? The great lessons of the woods need to be brought back to town to keep it respectful of our roots, but voluntary, post-apocalyptic devolution is a very hard sell.
3
What are these people going to do if they get into medical difficulties ?
Wait. What’s the dateline on this article? Was it salvaged from a 1969 issue of the Times? No. The clue to its authentic 2020ness is that one of its characters had apparently morphed into a group called “they” —very confusing at first. Otherwise I would have thought that I knew all these pretentiously dirty people from another time and place.
But it would be so interesting to talk to them when they were out of costume, had showered and changed, and were relaxing in their comfortable homes. I have so many questions: like, how did they “get the sauna going?” Did they come across some electricity or did they burn valuable logs for a bacchanalian get-together? Was there a cold pinot blanc?
One question that haunts me: had the time yet come—the “very soon” in which they were going to smash their smart phones? Or maybe no. Not yet. And what about that pet cat? Is it really a good idea to carry a creature that kills small animals for pleasure into the wilderness? So little time. So much to learn from these neo-hippies.
2
I met Lynx while she was with a couple people in the woods at the edge of a retreat property outside of Twisp I had rented for my wedding. I was in a wedding gown, she was in her skins. I would venture to guess anyone who lives in this way does so out of preference, just like my preference for living in a house, whether or not they think the apocalypse is near. Why isn't that enough?
4
I love the 21st century! I love air conditioning, refrigerators, epidurals and Amazon Prime. Why would I want to go back to the Stone Age?
2
I'm currently in Guatemala. I see lots of visitors here looking for something. But I see very few who want to put out the genuine effort to evolve... or should I say devolve?
It makes me think; ' be who you are and do good for others. Be kind to the planet.'
And that $600 ?? Give it to someone who needs it.
6
Another approach. Eat less meat (grass fed if you must), more plants, garden, and walk in the woods.
7
Does the wilderness have wifi?
Tough as things are in the world, some folks who study trends and change in society believe it's becoming a better place to live - not perfect, but better: fewer wars, less violence, more focus on the rights and needs of people of all kinds. That's what evolution has wrought. This lifestyle seems like a step in the wrong direction. reminds me of an album cover from years ago
Q: Are we not men?
A: We are Devo
1
A scam for all the reasons other commenters with high numbers of recommendations have already mentioned. Much much much much more useful would be urban/community survival skill instructions. Topics would include subjects such as, what are the best vehicles to own today in the event of deep economic downturns and/or you lose your home/job, etc, etc, etc. How to recognize and reduce risk of contaminated foodstuffs, etc, etc, etc. What items should one stockpile (hint: gold will be useless) so as to most likely gain admittance into viable community groups to minimize the deadly risk of being taken for an "other", etc, etc, etc. The "End" will be proceeded by a long gradual decline stretching over a generation or more before it gets to the point "wilderness" skills would be useful. For the foreseeable future wilderness skills are pretty much only useful for Unabombers and White Nationalists who are actively being hunted by the FBI, and maybe for those times you happen to be shot down while flying your fighter-jet behind enemy lines.
3
I'm not a survivalist, nor am interested in being one, and, if I was single I wouldn't want to "hook up" with a woman who reeks of rotting, rancid deer skin and animal fat. Especially one who in her survivalist fantasy, doesn't recognize that raiding tribes are ALSO part of the stone age fantasy.
And yes, I learned how to fell a tree with an ax when I was 8 or 9 years old, in the early 60's. As for the ax head flying off? Well, I learned how to set a hammer or ax head properly when I was a teenager. I still have a Stanley hammer that my grandfather bought, with the replacement hickory handle I solidly set back then.
While I've never been a Milton Friedman fan, yet when he held up a standard #2 pencil and pointed out that no single individual could make one, his point is EXACTLY what Lynx and her fellows don't get. A simple #2 pencil, of cedar, paint, graphite, metal, and rubber that costs just a few cents to buy, requires cooperation of people around the world.
And that cat looks like where HE would rather be is on a nice, comfy couch!
15
Sounds lovely, but how can the elderly or the disabled live in a community “in the wild”? Are they just left to die, because they cannot be self-supporting or contribute fully to the group ?
4
If Civilization goes down. I wouldn't like to choose keep living .
Not only because Civilization and its comfort gone.
The most important factor I wouldn't like to be around is Human itself.
The day food, gas, any necessary item disappears, Human will be human @1 enemy.
I prefer to be eaten by bear or wolf or racoon. But I wouldn't like to be hunted by Human , the most evil one. I know by heart the game will never be fair.
The best if it happens , end your life best possible decent way.
2
Wow...
"Nellie Bowles covers tech and internet culture from San Francisco.."
I guess now Nellie knows what new tech is all about.
Thank you, Nellie. Great article--well researched, well written. It goes beyond mere journalism.
1
Does Lynx really say 'learn how to live in the Stone Age'? Because, let's be realistic; there would have been many more animals hunting those same deer back in the Stone Age. Humans were not the masters of the universe then; life was dangerous and hard in ways we don't readily know or admit. Instead of killing deer, and other animals, in an attempt to think one is living like a Stone Age human, how about teaching modern humans how to live off road kill? Dead animals abound all over our roads and highways, much too much for the crows and vultures to eat. How about 'hunting' those carcasses and using the bones, hides, and meat to feed Stone Age fetishes?
2
Interesting article. To a midwesterner like me it is too silly to take any of this seriously, though. Several of the participants mention a false dichotomy of life as either partying in the city or reclusive forest dwelling. There is lots of room in between and around that.
Of course, my number one concern is what about coffee?
2
We have domesticated ourselves over the past millennia just as we have domesticated our pets and livestock. Just like them, we have lowered our bone mass. We have changed physically, especially in our brains. I’m not sure everyone is still built to live in the wild. I would have loved it but I would have died young from an asthma attack or infection. What is the policy when they have sick feral kids?
1
All fine and good until drought, pestilence, plague, barbarism, or any other of a multitude of the specters of old remind us as to why we left the Stone Age behind in the first place. Survival as a species free from the darkness of superstition and 24/7 survival is an all or nothing prospect predicated on saving what we have, not fantasies of “starting over”.
4
One of the benefits of trying some of these rather obvious and recurring ideas (I was reading Joseph Altsheler books about white children captured by Indians when I was eight) is that one soon realizes they are foolish and unrealistic.
I was there for the Hippies, and they formed failure-prone communes on much the same perceptions. Read Ken Kesey on why they failed, and will fail.
Post-collapse will not be fun. I'd guess more than half will die, and that is a polite assessment so as not to trigger anyone. Cheers.
1
This is THE BEST ARTICLE I have read anywhere in a very long time. In the first place it made me incredibly, blissfully overjoyed to be in my bed beneath my LLBean duvet with gas heat turned up.
In the second place it caused me to laugh so hysterically that I literally tumbled out of that same bed. I am now enjoying Chobani yogurt while pining for deer thigh...
Fabulous article, fantastic writing.
3
This is such a beautiful piece of writing. Thank you.
1
While I do believe it is valuable to learn skills on how to live without the "luxuries" of civilization that we all take very much for granted, I do not buy into this "man is just an animal" baloney! Animals are NEVER intentionally cruel like human beings are; animals NEVER kill just for the "fun" of it like human beings do. Animals are, to put it bluntly, victims of man, we are not victims of animals unless they are starving and desperate and feel endangered by us. So stop with this "man is just an animal" stuff - it's an insult to the very creatures who inherited the Earth first before we came along, and we are now engaged whole-heartedly in the process of destroying everything, including the animals, around us.
6
Do you have cats? I have watched them play with their prey at length before killing. Perhaps this just an animal honing its skills, but it sure looks sadistic.
2
I don't know if my earlier comment will be published; but, in the meantime I've re-read the article a couple of times and some red flags have come up. Let me say that the article grabs my attention because I can understand the appeal of this workshop for young people at a time when many of us feel disconnected from basic skills (survival or otherwise). It is also obvious that many of the participants crave community as well (my first comment speaks to this.)
But consider the following. Lynx asks the trees if they wish to be cut down. Apparently they are cut only if they are willing. OK, fine -- that's her prerogative. On the other hand, they are cut with an old ax of which "the head periodically flung off, each time narrowly missing someone. The tree eventually fell, a foot from my tent." Not okay!
I live close to the wild, and I can tell you stories about injuries incurred by the naive and inexperienced that would curl your hair. If you take such a workshop, be selective please. And if you find yourself in a potentially dangerous situation, speak up!
7
We have Amish folks who have adapted to living in a dual society. There are alternatives to living in the back woods.
6
Most states have limits and seasons on deer usually one. Per year so are they poaching to have that much meat. Also the military figures in the event of an EMP the casualties in the first week will be 100 million mostly in major metropolitan areas in la for example if the power is of so is the water and you cant walk far enough to get to any as for those who plan on running to the countryside what makes you think your wanted fyi most folks are armed and the roads in and through are easily controlled the scenario that they are talking about would be horrific at best . And one I hope never comes about
2
It’s a pick-and-choose survivalism, isn’t it? Use metal tools you haven’t forged, benefit from prior vaccinations you haven’t created, leave care of the elderly to those in the cities. Tho I respect learning the skills, the mindset seems inconsistent.
Wondering about how a wild community will handle a rotted tooth, a complicated labor and birth, a drought that affects the deer population’s ability to reproduce, a forest fire’s robbing coniferous trees of their needles.
4
No point in rewinding when the wild is gone. Climate change is creating habitats few species can live with.
1
So how come people who don’t have a choice, because they are homeless, don’t head for the woods and try to just live off the land instead of sitting on an urban sidewalk begging for change? Maybe because Prehistoric living is not that appealing or easy?
1
@Agmnw Because I seriously doubt they have the necessary skills not only to survive , but to thrive in that environment. Not to mention mental and physical health issues. As a former Army Ranger and Boy Scout who hunted and still backpacks and fish I am experienced enough to know that one doesn't just walk into an alien natural environment without certain wilderness skills. It would only take one venomous snake bite, a fall, or hypothermia to put an end to that kind of misadventure. Having said that, if I were ever down on my luck to the point of being homeless I'd head straight to a national forest alone and probably do just fine. So you do have a point.
1
Not much different than squatting in the lower east side during the late 80's early 90's.
1
Yeah, I don’t know. I think I am thinking I am more of a Renaissance man. Woven cloth, a little lentil soup, bread, overall a more planty and less animally life.
3
"Alex grew up in Montclair, N.J., and inherited some money"..
1
I grew up on a Southern farm and we had kerosene to fill our lamps, an outhouse with an old Sears catalog for toilet paper, wood stoves to cook and keep warm with, a well to draw water from, cows to get milk from, a house garden to grow food and never ending canning in a hot kitchen with the temperature outside at 95 degrees, and a mule to plow our acreage.
Now I have electricity and running hot and cold water, flush toilet, and a grocery store within walking distance.
Sorry, but on this I feel I've been there, done that and no thanks.
4
Part of me wants to do this experience. The other part of me knows that I can learn about hunting, gathering, chopping wood and making things from any number of my Southern relatives who've been doing it for years.
Honestly, stuff like this is why white liberals get mocked - it's just such a cliche. When poor Southern country folk live like this, it's called backwards or less fortunate. But when rich white liberals from Northeastern suburbs do it, it's the cool, future-forward thing to do. (Not at all saying that the mocking is an appropriate response, just saying this is exactly WHY it happens.)
It's also funny that Lynx is full of knowledge until there's something she doesn't know and then suddenly she's all "knowledge is a construct."
Still, I'm tempted to sign up. Or maybe I'll just call one of my uncles or aunts.
4
Pretty extreme reaction from Millennials who are tired of being addicted to their phones. Love the Toy-R-Us child swing out in the wild.
6
Why is it always a dichotomy of complete disconnect from nature to living like a wild animal? Anyone who joins a side is missing out on some amazing benefits. I personally believe our collective future lies in the reconciliation ecology movement.
3
How did they kill the deer? With a rifle? How many did they kill? Did they have Washington deer licenses? What about the marten? Did someone trap it? If so, did they have a Washington fur bearers license? I wonder if the local game warden knows what’s going on.
7
@Hal These folks are friends of ours. They run a deer skinning station during hunting season as a service to hunters and get dozens of hides that way. The game wardens are friendly, and sometimes bring them animals that were seized from actual offenders.
1
Thanks, Dave. I’m happy to know they’re not poaching.
1
Well, those are very important facts the article left out.
1
You can only be as prepared as your nearest neighbor is. This is a fun “awakening” undertaking, in this article, but not practical for actual survival, in my opinion.
1
"Our time makes social obligation largely unnecessary. When I moved apartments, I hired TaskRabbits." A somewhat reveling statement from the author of this piece as it tacitly assumes her experience to be a universal norm in contemporary culture. While it may speak accurately to experience of certain subcultural groups, it isn't universal. Many of us for better or worse, still form networks of shared obligations out of need or desire.
Certainly, take the workshop. It could be fun. But don't rule out other options for social engagement to re-establish norms of reciprocity. Though you have the $$$ and knowhow to outsource your needs, I assure you there are many others who don't. Avail yourself of any of the countless volunteer opportunities that exist in your community, for instance.
2
OK I would just call this survivalist cultism the flip side of the rich buying designer protection from real life. Fantastical comic relief.
Except they are just different forms of self indulgent play acting. While so many of our neighbors are in free fall with no safety net.
1
There is no hard, bright line between a flint knife and a stainless steel knife. They are both tools. Making tools is what we as a species excel at. Some tools work better than others. If the apocalypse comes, and, let’s say, the ammunition runs out, the right response is not “learn how to make a spear,” it’s “learn how to make ammunition.” Maybe Lynx won’t, but some folks will.
Based on what I’ve read in this piece, the American populace will shrink by 99% should hunting and gathering become necessary for survival once again.
3
Or you could build a wooden boat, no electronics, navigate by sexton and the stars. Learn to fish, grow small pots of veggies. Sail where you want, learn about survival on the high seas. Follow the routes of the Polynesians.
This would only work for a few people. The hunter/gatherer life style could not support many people. The human population was so much smaller in that age.
1
We all should cultivate skills to help ourselves survive as a group. Most of us already do. I’m a suburban housewife who can cook, sew, knit, crochet, weave, write, read, use a map, do math, gather wood, saw, nail, build fences, use ropes and and ties, fix broken things, identify local plants, grow things, comfort children, make stories, dance, ride a bike, drive a car, etc. I bet all of you also have a wide range of skills. Hey! We can even help each other when need arises!
Her wilderness survival program seems quite uninformed and inexpert. And no fun at all. I would instead personally collect and study a bunch of skill-teaching books (and, heck, maybe some you-tube video’s - while we still can, haha).
In the hippie 70’s, a popular resource was the “Whole Earth Catalog.” It was mostly a long, descriptive review of how-to topics and the books and tools to use to learn and where to get them. It also offered inspiration and reasons to make our world and lives thrive. We currently can use the internet to gather our own list, hard copy instructions, and tools. Why not, as a useful hobby?
3
I have dozens of people within 4 square blocks who can teach me how to live in the wild. They know, they have been doing it for very long time.
I’m not going back to a time before anesthesia for surgery, that’s that.
1
Furthermore, it's nonsense to consider that the coronavirus or any similar pandemic would do anything major to society. People are sure panicked about it now, but next year it'll be as fearful as the flu, which kills over half a million of us every year without noticeable effect. The bubonic plague would regularly slay almost a third of societies, and the societies would wind up prospering and advancing due to sudden surplus of resources.
1
Fact is there are precious few people in any advanced society tough enough to go a day in the wild, much less a lifetime. This is harmless fantasizing, but if you don't know what collapse looks like how can you possibly prepare? Change may just happen too constantly for any natural system to adapt to the rate.
I am hopeful, but not optimistic.
In stone-age mode, the Earth can accommodate maybe a few millions of us, but not billions. This means 99.9% of us must die (quickly) for this lifestyle to become sustainable at the planet level. It could happen of course but the difference between a 99.9% and a 100% extinction event is pretty darn thin. Still, it is useful for these skills not to be forgotten.
1
Oh yea. A month "immersion" in wilderness survival, playing with supermarket salmon skins, making flutes and asking a tree if you can cut it down. Good to go!
1
I don’t think humans will have to go back to Stone Age— but a pre-industrialization model was safer.
However, all of this maybe moot in the long run since the issue is not just machines, smart phones, satellite, robots, drugs, alcohol and social media... the real issue is “TOO” may humans.
There is a critical mass earth can support, but we are a voracious parasite.
Nature has innate checks and Covid-19 is an example of placing a check on human population!
I understand this “going wild” point of view but to me, in olden Times, there were communities where each did a specific function in their reliance on nature and via this interdependence, folks survived.
We don’t have that anymore.
It all boils down to money still.
However, that doesn’t mean one can’t have a closer connection to nature or not learn these old trades— they only add to who we are as humans. And there’s joy in doing things with your own hands, in silence, among trees and forest, that nothing else can match.
5
Regarding the last paragraph in which the writer glorifies the "use" of a deer for human purposes.
Yes, this was okay in the past, when it was NECESSARY, but today it is not NECESSARY to kill and make USE of animals.
They can play "Stone Age," but they're really living in the 21st century, re chopping up animals for what amounts to fun.
2
No elders? I live nearby and there are plenty of elders in the local community and they will be there to help these folks out of a bind when they need it - to provide that ambulance ride, staffing the clinic, wizened fire fighters, maintainers of trails to access beloved wilderness, help finding a lost horse, providing rides to town, or working the cash register in town as a few examples. These folks really are not all that alone but actually quite dependent on the larger community. They will need our help when the deer run out. Its all good and a good laugh - like the day we saw one of these hardy souls at the cash machine in a loin cloth - gotta love it.
5
If everyone, particularly those of us in the first world, would live more responsibly, less selfishly and gluttonously, we wouldn't be staring down environmental catastrophe, and possibly collapse, in the way we are most certainly are right now. There are so many ways to lessen our impact on the planet, starting of course with ceasing to procreate like rabbits, but most of us are simply unwilling to make even modest sacrifices, preferring instead to indulge our base desires with abandon, while expecting the solutions to come from somewhere else.
We will have no one to blame but ourselves when it all comes crashing down. Nature bats last.
2
The changes coming will be dramatic. No place will be safe, no matter how you prep.
The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years.
The last time CO2 went from 180-280ppm global temperature increased by around 5 degrees C and sea level rose 130 meters.
Here’s a graph of the last 400,000 years of global temperature, CO2 and sea level http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/impacts/slr-co2-temp-400000yrs.jpg
2
I want indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water. Central air and heat and walls and windows and a roof that doesn’t leak. Thankfully I have all that. Roughing it is highly overrated.
I've watched every season of "Alone," and all the contestants have the skills to survive with nothing in the wilderness. But, the main thing that gets them every time is starvation. No matter how good they are at foraging, trapping, hunting and fishing and no matter the environment they're in, they cannot get enough food to sustain them. They have eaten the bark off trees, rodents, insects, the contents of fish bellies. One contestant killed a moose, but because the meat is so high in protein and an animal stole the fat he was storing from the moose, he is still starving. You cannot survive just on animals and fish high in protein. Your body must have fat, and it's in short supply in the wild.
The other thing that gets them is the isolation. People do need people, it turns out and it's difficult to survive on your own.
There are few people who could actually survive in this primitive environment for very long. If you think back to thousands of years ago to the hunter/gatherer societies their life expectancy was maybe 30-35 years.
2
Maybe the Republicans (the cult of Trump) who do not take climate threats seriously (a hoax, they claim) and do not prepare adequately for pandemics---maybe they will lose power in the coming November election. Then all this preparation for the apocalyptic dystopia which Lynx is preparing for--where mankind will have to flee the fallen cities into the surrounding wilderness will not be necessary. Maybe---with Trump gone---civilization will survive and all these new skills (e.g., making fire) will not be needed.
It seems very nice to play at wilderness when you don't really have to.
1
What fascinated me was the social bonding they felt. they needed and wanted one another. How beautiful is that? In our insular world, it's a lesson worth learning again.
1
I'm fond of minimalist hiking and camping, but for short durations. Frankly, if we have the luxury of being aware that the end is coming, I'm getting high as a kite and sitting outside to enjoy my last views of nature before the asteroid or bomb hits.
Some things just aren't worth surviving.
284
@JB - It’s highly unlikely that the end would be so sudden and dramatic as that. At least not for you nice folks out in the Midwest. Seattle on the other hand is 20 miles from the largest stockpile of nukes in the world, and also home to Boeing. Our chances are much better!
7
@Alex
But you forget about the smoking Cascades--Mt Rainier right under your feet! You need only look down the river aways to see Mt St Helen's with her head cut off(1980).
3
@Alex
Don't forget the impending, not if but when, very much overdue, giant earthquake in our future!
9
If you need to teach $600 classes and visit the grocery store to live in the wild, you’re not living in the wild. It’s called camping. Plenty of school children do it every summer, for about $600 a week.
445
@NYC Yep learned to make fire with a bow drill, and shoot an arrow (at a target), sail, swim, canoe, and Kayak. I would rather pay $600 to go to an adult version of my boyhood camp than hang out with Lynx in the dirt smelling of rotting deer skin. Just my 2 cents
35
@Dubious The smell of the rotting deer skin is almost masked by the ubiquitous patchouli oil. I can smell it from here. It's embedded in the money.
13
@NYC I wondered about the string of electric lights to the right in the picture of Lynx's closet--what's with that?! So I guess the $$ also pay the electric bills, or for fuel for a generator, or some such thing.
14
May I add a measure of realism to the discussion? The populations of the animals we humans like to hunt, such as deer and turkeys, are currently well-controlled with only a small fraction of our population hunting, and within hunting seasons limited to a few weeks out of the year. Imagine what will happen to animal populations when many millions of new hunters suddenly start hunting year-round. It's hard to know just how quickly the ecosystem will collapse and leave the land barren of any creature we want to eat. However, we can assume with some certainty that it will. If you want to eat in a post-apocalyptic future, you better know something about plant-based agriculture.
1030
@Bill Kowalski
Actually, we do know what would happen. Look at Africa. The demand for bush meat is eradicating the animals in the forest
49
@Bill Kowalski Hunting is in steep decline all over the United States compared to a generation or two ago.
11
@Bill Kowalski
Plant-based agriculture is what brought us to this stage of civilization.
Consider James Scott's "Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States."
This article focuses on a small perspective of how some people might be able to live.
It reflects their some of their concerns. It is not intended--as I read--as a solution for everyone.
However, consider also the author's closing lines...
19
Some of us should know how to live in the wild, and everybody should know what it means to live in the wild. As a species we once knew to do this, but knowledge is lost unless it’s practiced.
I’m glad the Settlement folks make grocery run once in a while. I hope anyone seriously ill will be evacuated to a hospital. Ideology is not a survival trait. There will be time to look back with longing if civilization in fact collapses; no need to embrace all privations before they are imposed.
I imagine a future in which humans from the wild interact with other cultures, including descendants of the technological culture which enables me to send this message. How can such different strands of humanity deal with each other as equals? The historical record is not encouraging, but mutual respect between individuals and between cultures seems like a starting point.
2
Seems more likely that George Miller has had a far more realistic vision, at least of the nuts and bolts aspect of things, of what life would be like after some societal collapse — scavenging, refurbishing, repurposing objects that already exist in the billions. These things are going away and will outlast us.
Check out the film “ Alone in the Wilderness” about Dick Proenneke living in the true wilderness deep in the Brooks Range for about 3o years. Well worth the search.
4
My prediction, Corona virus reduces in number by mid summer and is nearly long forgotten by fall 2020. And we are all commenting on and reading about the next great fear story of the day... whatever that may be. I guess fear sells digital ads.
5
Before signing up for the course, read the book! "Lord of the Flies", William Golding.
A generally accepted cure for Rousseauian romanticism in all its guises.
15
I find it ironic that Lynx asks the tree in this article if it is willing to be cut down; however, the participants cut said tree with an old ax with an " ax head [that] periodically flung off, each time narrowly missing someone. The tree eventually fell, a foot from my tent."
The metaphysics of tree cutting is her business. But to allow participants to use a potentially dangerous tool in such an irresponsible manner is cause for concern.
I live in the country near wilderness and have seen many naive and enthusiastic people sustain serious injury or worse in the woods.
23
I assume these pics were taken in the warmer months. The Methow valley is cold and snow filled in the winter. In the spring it is slushy snow in the forests. Feeding yourself in the winter months can be a challenge and running through the snow in the middle of the night to the outhouse would get old. I have great admiration for those who can really return to the raw land, especially knowing that all those modern conveniences are nearby and readily available.
9
Pretty sure those kids are not vaccinated.
I love the woods more than most, but science sure is great too.
21
It's true that the more modernized a society becomes, the more individualized it gets. However, I don't think it's necessary to go as far as becoming hunter-gatherer again. I mean, I can't help thinking about deer ticks and allergens while reading this article.
15
This article brings up the fact that lots of people in our culture feel sad, empty, impotent and overwhelmed. I feel that a lot. I’m also glad I was able to get a c-section when I needed one. It would be nice to find a new mode of society where we can bring back the things the people in this article enjoyed while not sacrificing all the progress we have made.
56
What happens to those who turn 60 or 70 and become less able bodied and cannot keep up with the rest to contribute? We will see if the children want to stay on in that world. I kept waiting to read what they do in all the rain that comes in Washington state. There was no rain mentioned. What about illnesses, etc.? So many topics were not addressed in this article. And the meat in the diet can cause problems for a vegetarian/vegan. Nothing mentioned re the problems. There were plenty of communes in the 70s and back to nature. A lot of them did not last. We will see. Hope the writer does a follow-up in a few years.
42
@DLN The Methow valley gets snow and wild fire, not the rain found west of the Cascades.
Young people can ease into the wild by learning basic skills in scouting or at cross-country backpacking camps such as offered at Cottonwood Gulch for decades, or attending Outward Bound programs and the like. Native American organizations such as Ganondagan offer courses like "Uses of the Whitetail Deer". All of this seems timely and mentally healthy for dealing with the anxiety of our current situation, working from "what if X happens" scenarios to possible "what I/we can do" solutions.
I think that understanding native area plants and seed saving will be a skillset that will be just as useful as knowing how to hunt and skin animals. Rope-making from hemp will also be handy as will knot-tying and macrame. Where's my Whole Earth Catalog, I'm getting deja vu all over again.
19
@IronFireman
I have read stories about outward bound. the outward bound leaders use discipline rather harshly. also, CWD (similar to mad cow disease)is in many wild animals. great number of deer in western NE have it, other wild animals have it as well.
3
We don't have to go "wild" to find a sense of community. We know the people on our suburban street by name, wave at everybody and they wave back, talk at the garden fence with the ones who hike and walk their dogs on the trail that goes past our house, drink wine with one neighbor and go texmex every Thursday with another neighbor, help the woman across the way who has cancer and enjoy the treats she bakes for us, let the next-door neighbor's dogs out for a wee when that neighbor is running late at work. As active members of two local Democratic groups, we meet with people who share our values and work with a common purpose--to get people registered to vote and informed. As precinct chair, we've block-walked--actually walked--every one of the 70 streets in our larger community and talked with many of the people on those streets.
As for old-timey ways, we grew up poor in the 40s in ranching/farming areas, and between us we have many of the skills these people are learning. We had good parents and siblings and look back with nostalgia on our upbringing.
But when our daughter had acute myelogenous leukemia, we were thankful to have access to the most advanced medical care in the world. We didn't have to go to the woods to find Xerocomus nigromaculatus mushrooms, culture Streptomyces peucetius in a puddle, or harvest guano in a cave; thanks to modern medicine, we had Ara-C, daunorubicin, and thioguanine. Nika is alive and well with a daughter of her own.
113
At the end of the last ice age, the world's human population is estimated to have been on the order of one to ten million, as opposed to the estimated 7 BILLION humans alive today. We humans survive today because of the fossil fuel economy, in which fossil fuels are transformed into the food we eat, and transported where it is needed. If people were to try to live like these people say they want to, the world would not support even a fraction of us. Soon, people would be eating each other.
28
@danny70000 Technology in general of which fossil fuels are part, but not actually essential to technology. Just saying technology is really why we have so many people and live as we do. We still breed like the hunters and gatherers who would have most of their children die typically from disease.
The population might go down in the next year or two.
5
@danny70000
Indeed. Soylent Green is People!
1
"Earth Abides" by George Stewart (1949) is a terrific book about the collapse of civilization and how a new stone age arose in its place. For the first few generations the handful of survivors were entirely dependent on leftovers from modern times, mostly the metals, but gradually developed a hunter-gatherer economy based on natural materials. Reading it as a kid made me a lifelong catastrophist, convinced that the end could come at any time. My kids always thought I was crazy, of course, but between climate change, coronavirus and this Republican administration, they are beginning to understand.
32
The "twig tooth brush'' isn't getting it done, Lynx.
And "cat" = "lunch" about two days post-apocalypse.
Four hoots means you can keep the golden torch light spindle.
21
This article brings back memories of the years in the late 70's and early 80's that I spent living in cabins, fire lookouts and a yurt near Twisp. The area has attracted "back to the landers" for years. It was a largely positive experience. It's a shame that we humans have to increasingly concentrate in cities for practical reasons when rural life has so much to offer. The film "Back to the Garden: Flower Power comes Full Circle" covers a slightly later period from the late 80's into the 90's in this same area.
11
@Linda
It won't be rural anymore when people move out of the cities and occupy.
Lynx's life is an interesting "art project." Good for her for living the way she wants and making a living at it.
On the other hand, how these "back-to-Earthers" are going to survive when the deer are gone, and ecosystem collapse is real? Or when city folks with guns come into "their" forests or their property because society really did collapse.
Like many, I am concerned about societal collapse as we continue to depend on global systems that are more fragile than we know. A coronal mass ejection that hits Earth directly (like the "Carrington Event" in 1857) has the potential to ruin electrical systems around the world. Imagine what would happen to food distribution, fuel systems and other elements of modern life without electricity!
Planning to head for the hills and survive by oneself is a prescription for failure, though. Your six-month food supply may work, or someone more ruthless and with better weapons will take it away. The only solution to preserving life and civilization (and the opportunity to go back to the land) is to anticipate problems and take action to deal with them. That requires collective action and more foresight from our leaders.
58
In our "facility" in the woods when I was growing up in Montana we had two baskets full of corn cobs; red ones and white ones. Our procedure was a red one first then a white one to see if another red one was needed. I sure wish we had thought of the moss. That's the advantage of the woods in the Pacific Northwest.
12
Wandering bemused around a Reno mall trying to find the perfect gift for my stepmom on a Christmas eve, I found myself locked up inside after closing hours. Had to bivouac for the night between a Mrs. Fields cookies and an ear piercing pagoda. Truely the most terrifying night in the wilderness that I ever spent.
73
It's about the emptiness of our culture. What does being a barista or a desk jockey offer beyond subsistence? It doesn't matter whether billions of people can or want to do this. It's a search for aliveness, urgency, contact.
28
It may be helpful to look at hunting and gathering societies who currently or recently live around the world. They did way more gathering and a lot less hunting. In fact a fair amount of their protein was acquired by opportunistic means. Just saying!
16
@Jean Very true. And my Anishinaabe ancestors also cared for their hair and washed their hands.
2
If/when the climate-change apocalypse comes, the breadbaskets of the world will be dust bowls, and the natural environment will not provide nearly enough animals for the planet's current population.
Once the ensuing food riots wind down, I'm guessing that people will have to resort to a much more mundane form of survival. Like foraging for insects and rodents, whatever scraps are out there.
Even so, the competition among the billions of human beings for such "food" will be fierce.
16
@Dan88
It will strongly resemble the zombie apocalypse movies when it occurs. Desperate hoards willing to kill to gain a few calories to survive for another day. Scary thoughts. Any number of agents could bring this about - virus/disease agent, solar flare, asteroid/comet strike, etc. What we're living in now for the last 12 thousand years has been miraculously calm.
Plant your garden and food forest now and learn some skills of primitive survival. It's fun and someday may be useful.
10
@Donna V I don't think any external agent is required -- we are well down the road to destroying the environment we need to survive by continuing to pump out hydrocarbons. IMO this won't require a "big event," just that we keep doing what we are doing. Even if we stopped today, it may well be too late.
As one fictional cybernetic organism said, "it's in your nature to destroy yourselves."
8
"This looks like an interesting Outward Bound camp-for-adults experience," I thought as I scrolled through the piece. But when I came to the photo of the kids, my stomach turned. I was raised in the 70's and remember well the children whose parents, by choice, eschewed the "constraints" of society - things like school, consistent meals and basic hygiene. Life didn't turn out well for many of them. When they hit their teens, they sought desperately needed attention often by self-destructing and they latched onto overly controlling - often predatory - people in the hopes of finding Family. Perhaps we've evolved. I hope the Children of the Wild featured here are taught and loved well. They'll certainly know a lot about survival in a harsh world.
68
I feel sorry for the Kitty on her shoulders - hope it’s not another meal - her gum lines speak volumes about her overall health- not good - best to her and her approach to life - but I’m praying for that kitty.
30
@Guido Mele
good point. also she is 53 but looks 63. she looks wayyyyyyy older than I am and I am 65. also I have been hit by a car as a pedestrian. good luck to her. also, there are many things you can do now if you live a city. my sister and I got our electric bill down to 49 dollars a month. we put blankets down at our door in our apt building. put old blankets down at our single paned windows.
we don't use any paper towels. I cut up old tshirts for rags and rewash them in hot water in the machines downstairs. we only use Kleenex. no dryer sheets. we make our own detergent for our laundry. smells way better and much cheaper.
@Guido Mele
good point. also she is 53 but looks 63. she looks wayyyyyyy older than I am and I am 65. also I have been hit by a car as a pedestrian. good luck to her.
@Guido Mele
"That kitty" is most definitely a pet. S/he is well-nourished, self-confident, and trusting. These traits don't always come easy to cats. The humans they hang with must be loving.
The article outlines many good skills to have, as many comments have attested to. Re: the future, If I had kids, I would encourage them to learn a craft- woodworking, weaving, leatherwork, metal work etc. these are all skills that are useful no matter the age one might find oneself in, and the concepts and skill set are adaptable to many different areas of life/work. Though working with your hands isn’t generally valued in our current culture, those that are adept in any such skills will be highly sought after as things really start going South..... if you can design and make something you need for yourself, you don’t need to run out and buy it. You can also make it to your own specifications, as needed.
9
@todd sf
Becoming a doctor, especially one with surgical knowledge and herbal knowledge will be quite a useful “hands on” addition to any group.
My other thought was that it shouldn’t take living in the woods with a very small group of people to realize that we all need to learn to get along and live and respect with each other, even if we disagree on whatever. Scale of the population doesn’t change that reality.
39
@Steve Verus Scale changes everything. In a very small group you all are fully interdependent, know each other intimately, and largely independent of other groups. In mass society, you are surrounded by millions of faceless and potentially threatening Other, while your small social group is scattered far and wide, today connected largely on line. Small group sociology does not translate into or bear much relevance to large group sociology.
3
@Steve Verus
Codfish baked in wine with squash and Korean black rice shared last weekend at the home of my neighbors was chummy enough.
I can't get too excited about this lifestyle, when - had I lived in this era - I'd likely be dead by now. And what about books? Not giving up my books for anything! Also, I'm a vegetarian. I'd cry over the dead deer. And I get cold pretty easily.
No, let's call the whole thing off. (And no Cole Porter? Unthinkable!)
50
@CC This lifestyle isn't for me, either. I like nitrous oxide when I go to the dentist.
1
In this age of automation, more and more jobs are disappearing. Thus far we have managed to keep on going, but I wonder for how much longer given the continual loss of jobs in all fields. Blame the computer, blame the internet, blame machinery, etc., etc. Andrew Yang has some ideas as to how to deal with that.
,
I am impressed that Lynx has found a way to make a buck, although I'm not sure how many.
My preference is for "the One Straw Revolution", which is the story of a Japanese man who quit his work in science to return
to a simple farm life. A big motivator for him was his nation's commitment to wars of aggression which he could not accept.
There is a parallel to that with the 'get back to the land' philosophy of many of the 'hippie' generation. Unfortunately, land speculation, the need for iadequate ncome and marijuana cultivation for profit became the new reality. Thus much of the original idealism of the hippie movement was apparntly forever lost.
Stone age living? Check out 'Mad Max'. At least that is more realistic.
12
As others have already commented, rewilding is not good preparation for the end of civilization, whatever that may mean. There are simply too many people on the planet for everyone, or even 10%, to live off the land as hunter-gatherers. Only large scale agriculture and mega-farming can sustain the lives of billions.
What needs to happen is not rewilding but the opposite. We need to figure out how to sustainably feed and power the lives of ever more people on the planet. This will require not a backward-looking approach, but rather a forward-looking one.
But rewilding is, of course, a lot more fun, and you can start living a new, primitive life tomorrow if you want. Plus you don't have to convince billions of people to go along with your plans.
So, rewilding really is just a new form of escapism. And that's fine. There is nothing wrong with escaping the demands of modern life. I do so myself on a regular basis. But I no longer think of it as a philosophy of life like I used to. Now, it's just what it is. An escape. And it feels good.
129
@Robert We haven't learned how to live in cities effectively, and now they want us to return to the wild?
5
@Robert Your right, there isn't room for everyone in the wilderness, there is hardly any wilderness left and it needs to be preserved for our own future. On an ecological level it is needed untouched. Our life style has to change way more than just bigger power plants to survive. People need to stop buying processed food in plastic. They need to stop consuming so much energy as well. And we need to stop paving over every square inch of fields left for roads and parking lots.
Face it the advent of cars is what is destoying us, all the by products refineries have learned to make. We just need to change and change fast.
11
@Robert The planet is dying under the current weight of humanity - how can it survive ever more? Especially when the means of production have broken down?
3
We may need these kinds of skills, soon enough - probably within my children's lifetimes, at the most, possibly still within mine (the data on potential methane release from the thawing arctic is pretty terrifying).
I'm glad there are people cultivating this kind of knowledge, these kinds of skills. I'm glad there are reversalists who live as simply as possible within cities. I'm glad there are indigenous peoples all over the world who still remember how to live off the land, despite how hard we colonizers and settlers tried to wipe out that knowledge.
I'm going to start learning as much of this as I can, if only to pass on to younger people. My daughter is in med school, and working hard to learn not only the newest and latest and most technologically advanced, but also the older ways; how to diagnose heart and lung diseases with just a stethoscope, how to treat with plants and simple medicines, and with diet and meditation and community support.
We're going to need all of this, and it won't be that long.
15
@Karen White If we don't fight to end the methane emissions, and get rid of carbon emissions-50 percent which turn into carbonic acid and are killing vast amounts of the ocean rapidly, we wont have any country to live off of. There are already people who are planning on lving underground when there is no plant life left, Can you imagine an uglier world or a more dismal future. People won't have to go to Mars to live under a dome.
Twenty years from now the children raised by these folks will start writing memoirs about their disadvantaged, undereducated childhoods. I get the desire for a simpler life, but being raised in this extreme an environment doesn't prepare a child for any possible alternative. But maybe that's the point?
54
@Linda Remember the communes of the 60's and 70's.
Education is relative. I feel vastly undereducated in the ways of the wild, feel deprived of having learned the basics of survival in my own childhood - how to start a fire, kill and eat your own meat, make your own clothes, etc. And to wit - I looked up the names of the young couple featured, and they have an Instagram and Etsy store where they sell these back-to-the-earth wares. The kids will probably be fine. They can literally survive.
2
@Linda Twenty years from now the children raised by these folks might be the ones leading the way in a new world.
Yes, the U.S.'s consumptive society is in crisis. And yes, it is morally, socially, and economically bankrupt. And I commend Lynx for seeking a way forward through the rubble, chaos, and propaganda of the present historical moment - toward sustainability, minimalism, and connectivity.
As for myself, I believe the teachings, and life, of Francis of Assisi offer a guide to a better future. We can't all become primitivists - our wildlands could not sustain such an influx of homo sapiens. But we can all live more simply, with less stuff, and with more concern for nature and one another.
94
@Robert Yes, I agree..This life would not work for 7.9 billion of us..In the mean time, I am studying permaculture..It seems a bit more sustainable for the masses and might actually help heal the Earth?
20
@Robert Well stated. I have no wish, none, to live like Lynx. But I'm glad she's found happiness with her way. Meantime, I live a rich and full life with - deliberately - very little. I can't give stuff away fast enough. And I'm privileged to live near the sea. I walk beside the waves daily, and I hear them at night. I can never feel ungrateful.
22
@Gaby Love the concept of permaculture! Small scale permaculture may not produce as much food as monocropping the same land, but it is definitely sustainable. Wouldn't it be great if people, neighborhoods wide, had permaculture gardens in their yards?
6
It would be a good idea at least to collect books on how to do stuff that we now take for granted. After electricity and the internet fails, etc, knowledge will be in high demand.
14
@Sherry I think the Foxfire books do a pretty good job of that. Super cool resource!
1
My house is in the woods. Deer, turkey, bear and mountain lions abound. I don't romanticize living in the woods. I have clothing that will last for quite some time come the end of days. Why waste time making your own clothing? or fish hooks. If needed, the county dump is there for raw materials although a bit of a commute on foot. Stone Age? Really unnecessary. All we would need to do is go back to the 20th century.
80
This is a very healthy exercise. Yes, it can be a tough balance living in the modern world. But life is tough. I feel a program in re-wilding is an essential right of passage, if one has the means to make it happen. I too have struggled with finding balance in the modern world. When I moved to Portland Oregon from Boston, I learned that I had a "nature deficit disorder". So, I jumped into leading nature walks at the local arboretum here (The Hoyt), after my initial inspiration from the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. I have learned a lot since my first introduction to the Dawn Redwood (common name), in Boston. I have learned so much about birds (thank you Audubon), and trees, and all of the exciting creatures rummaging through the soil. I led a nature walk today at a state park here in Oregon, for 2nd graders. That was fascinating to watch. All they needed was a magnifying glass, and they were enthralled by what they found in the moss and the soil. I feel we all need nature time, but it is very important to find that nature locally. This article highlights the value of learning about how to live in an pre-historic era. I think that is great! But it needs to be thought of as "outdoor school for adults". Going from one extreme to another can lead to a ton of heartache. Bravo to the instructor, but it should be balanced with the reality of living in the modern world. In the cities, we have many places to find that balance, it just requires effort to find it locally.
21
Unfortunately it is modern industrial society that provides what these people will need when they get serious illness or injury. One can understand the desire to escape modern impersonal industrial society, but many real undesirable problems only have modern 'industrial' or 'technical' solutions. Escapist communities are not new, as western literature clearly shows. Maybe the serious question is whether, or how, we can change modern, dense-population technical societies to incorporate our better selves.
35
This. If we were all young, able-bodied, without need for major medical intervention - sure, sounds appealing. But part of the reason we’ve built an infrastructure for advanced medicine and technology is simply to manage the undeniable fact of our own fragility.
34
"The class may have been there to go ancient, but they brought very modern food requests. In a group of seven, one student was a strict carnivore — Luke Utah, who likes a morning smoothie of raw milk, liver and egg yolk. Another was a vegan. One student said they were so sensitive to spice that even black pepper was overwhelming. One person was paleo, one was allergic to garlic, and one was gluten-free."
That's all I needed to read, to know that this is apparently the extreme hipster's version of How to Carve a Pig 101 class, in the Hudson Valley.
51
"Alex grew up in Montclair, N.J., and inherited some money".
Of course he did. It costs money to buy property and set up your yurts. A nice yurt can cost between $20,000 - $50,000.
And Lynx has a great schtick to be able to enjoy the outdoors and make a living from it. Dressing like a traditional Native American, oh please.
120
@CA
At least she didn’t take a quasi-indigenous name. Though I’m sure some of these people are happy to do so . . .
3
@Mathilda Lynx is a quasi-indigenous name.
I would never disparage someone’s interest in exploring this or even a commitment to living this way. More power right at ‘cha! I’m very happy to read all about it in my Lazy Boy, next to the fireplace, martini in hand.
59
In The Collapse of Complex Societies (the classic book explaining collapse) author Joseph Tainter argues that the marginal benefits of complex societies are gradually reduced with energy depletion until there is no benefit to living in a complex society...it's just debt, pollution, microplastics up the wazoo, a lonely cubicle, a one room apartment. So people who can (mostly young people) break free and choose another way.
9
When I moved to the country in Oregon more than 20 years ago, my neighbor, who makes obsidian knives by hand and is an advocate of this “Stone Age” survival lifestyle told me that when the revolution comes we will be family and we need these skills. I am still waiting for that revolution. Great to know these things, but it is not a practical lifestyle for most of the population.
30
@Karma dilly Especially at this high level of population. Hunter-gatherers have many few people per square mile.
This is a great experience for people who have never lived primitively. I have been there and done that in another situation, and it was a wonderful time, a time to discover what I really valued, a sort of retreat from society. Our son has also done this as a child in California, through the Mt. Shasta Wilderness School, at Trackers, and through his experience of days in nature at his past Waldorf schools. I must say such an experience gives confidence, strength, connection to life, and the desire to be true to oneself. I now enjoy comforts, but all those experiences have impacted my life and feeling about what is important and what is of value, and has given our son inner strength, joy in life, energy, and the pursuit of talents.
21
Interesting piece. I especially liked the photo of Lynx and Louis Pommier together, and a cat sitting between Louis's knees, insouciantly taking a bath.
I do hope some of the deer fat can go toward the production of soap at some point.
68
Unfortunately, this sweet ecotopian survivalist ethos won't work.
There are about 7 billion too many of us.
Back when human population was a fraction of today, some humans had the skills, strength, and open space needed to "live off the land."
These days, the biosphere has been plundered to the point where much of it, like the Great Barrier Reef, is dead or dying.
There's nothing much left for hunter/gatherer/foragers to find, and most of us are too weak and pampered to go back to a pre-industrial lifestyle.
I applaud anyone who wants to give up as much as possible of the consumerist technoindustrial grid and live with the lowest ecological impact possible.
43
@Steve Davies First, what all of us need to consider is that in the event of a true global societal collapse, there would be tremendous turmoil, famine, disease, probable violence in the competition for diminished food & water, and finally, mass death.
The surviving population would be a fraction of what exists today. As most of them will have no idea how to survive on their own...most of them would in time perish. Also, anyone with any kind of chronic medical condition of moderate severity might only live a few years before dying of lack of treatment. Not to mention how many deaths we would see due to the lack of basic medicines like antibiotics (though ever less useful).
So, the environment left to the remnants living in the wilderness would be more than sufficient.
7
@Jon B
Kind of like the aftermath of the Black Plague. One-third of Europe's population extinguished, and life goes on.
1
This reminds me of the Back to the Land movement in the late 60s and 70s. It took 50 years, but here we are again.
46
@Afi Actually, some of us have been here since the 60s.
@Afi yes, me too. Only 50 years ago, our ecosystem wasn't about to collapse.
Walker Percy called it
Rotation
4
This sounds absolutely sublime. Bring it on!!!
4
I've done a lot of things in the wild, but I've never slept under a mound of pine needles for warmth.
Seems like a worthwhile experience.
12
@TBernard Around here where I live it seems like a good way to get lyme disease.
3
Last year my girlfriend was holding my cat -- a friendly cat and in a manner not unlike that depicted -- when the cat freaked a little and, like lightening, scratched and bit my girlfriend before she even realized it.
Within 2 hours we were in the ER with her wrist and forearm swelling up like a balloon. A tetanus shot, a prescription of antibiotics and a 48 hour follow-up got it under control.
In casual conversation over the next weeks, I was surprised at how many people had similar stories.
Sometimes it's really good to be near an ER when you need it.
139
Indeed! my first thought after reading the piece was that a whole lot of herd-thinning is going to happen when people go off the grid like this.
7
I would have died at the age of 3 from a congenital defect, again at the age of 8 from an infectious disease and again at the age of 55 from an infection. And those are the incidents I know for sure, considering vaccinations and a safe environment! So in this dystopian neo-paleolithic world I would be just another dead child. Let’s get serious about the climate and ecological crisis! There is no going back.
8
Note the very fresh, clearly feline scratch on Lynx’s right hand in the first photo. Cat obviously is no poseur.
9
I live in Vancouver, a metropolitan area of over 2.5 million people where the wilderness so closely encroaches on the urban footprint that a chain of 3,000-foot mountains stand at the city's northern boundary, and where unwary and unprepared hikers -- often within sight of the city's skyline -- meet one of two ends. They are either found and led out of the woods by trained search and rescue squads, or they die. This happens regularly. North of those mountains are even taller mountains and a wilderness so limitless you can travel for hundreds of miles and never see another soul.
So I wonder how many Canadians, who have lived and camped and fished all their lives in this vast outback, are reading this article and wondering at the credulousness of the people in it.
83
@Pete I'm from Northern Ontario and yes, I was.
1
@Pete Me for one. I'm wondering.
1
It’s an interesting commentary on the solitude of life in a community, and the strong bonds people develop in small, self-isolating groups. I think there’s an abundance of things to learn, inside and out, but it also concerns me. Does it seem there may be an over-romanticizing of things there? I do think it’s a good idea for many reasons, and like most things, there will be room to improve. If it persists, maybe we’ll see a nature show in the future. It seems like Outward Bound, doesn’t it?
7
I lived like this for a few years in the 1970s. The group I was with firmly believed society was on the verge of collapse. As appealing as such a lifestyle may seem to others, it is not for everyone, and indeed the world’s dwindling natural habitats could not sustain but a paltry few. Whether one is on the locomotive end or in the caboose, we are all on this speeding train together.
61
If they really want elders to come there, that should be fairly easy, to find old people who have no families to take care of them, there are countless numbers of them. But what if it's not balanced? What if the elder needs more care, and is more dependent than they'd like?
One of our failed crimes against humanity is how we've been treating our elders~ dumping parents at a rest home is a horrid knife in the heart, when in fact, most old people have so much wisdom and grace to offer, but when those things are not listened to and respected, they can never be shared.
I do hope this lifestyle evolves enough so that these young folks come to respect the freely available wisdom of elders, enough to invite at least a few of them in, thereby recreating the all-age inclusive harmonious extended-family lifestyle of the Native Americans.
35
@Lolostar
In the journals of Lewis and Clark they noticed in native tribes that when the elderly could contribute to the community, like in those that fished for salmon, the community helped them survive; but those where the elderly could not contribute, like those that lived on buffalo, they left the elderly behind.
15
@Sherry~ Yes, I know that story, and I certainly hope that no one's going to use it as a rationale for abandoning their parents! Since we no longer depend on the buffalo roaming the plains for survival, and modern farming methods have expanded food production, that method of elder care should stay in the pages of history.
7
@Lolostar The plight of the elderly in the US was never more in my thoughts than on reading that elders in nursing homes are so vulnerable as the coronavirus comes ashore.
1
If all 7.5 billion people on the planet did this, there would have to be cannibalism, because the earth cannot sustain 7.5 billion without agriculture. It apparently could not sustain 10 million without agriculture, because that's the estimate population of the world in 3,500 BCE - and of that probably 2/3 were farmers, perhaps 1/3 hunter gatherers. To go from 7.5 billion to 10 million would require a global catastrophe of unheard of proportion.
57
@Eve Fisher
I was also thinking along these lines but had no grasp on the numbers. So thank you. Some decades ago my sister lived in a wild and communal situation in a remote part of Arkansas. She was good with her hands , smart and unafraid to hunt and get dirty. She had her children with no medical assistance. She survived very cold winters in a teepee. Plenty of pine needles, woodsmoke, leather tanning, preserving blackberries, washing clothes on a rock in the creek etc. She and her people were certain of their accuracy and certitude about what was to come and that they would survive it. Many of them died in their 40's and 50's mostly due to a lack of available healthcare and an underlying contempt for science anyway. I miss her; she was brave and interesting. But her children want nothing to do with that life. They want heated and air-conditioned houses, Costco, and cars and manicures , botox, breast enhancements, Facebook friends. They have gone whole hog the other way. ( which is not better ) And back to the point: the earth cannot support this ever for the 7 billions but no worries as so many will definitely get sick and die.
33
@Eve Fisher Your estimate of 10 million people as the world's entire population pre-agriculture is off by at least one order of magnitude. Most currently accepted estimates of the pre-European contact population of just the Americas are in the range of 60-120 million.
5
@Eve Fisher And the brain disease resulting from the cannibalism would further reduce the surviving numbers to something sustainable!
I am in love with Lynx and this story. The human spirit has been chained and shackled by consumerism. It’s nice to see it running wild.
13
Lynx's closet is incredibly nice. Really beautiful. I'd bet she could get high end jobs as an art director or set designer. As far as the wilderness project, these things tend to attract many psychologically conflicted people and while there's an abundance of that in Manhattan, the difference is one doesn't have to rely on them to hoe the garden and skin a possum in order to eat. But I wonder what happens if one has a bad stomach bug or an injury? I certainly am not depending on the basket weaver or seed farmer to heal me. That seems highly imprudent.
36
Understand that with a full societal collapse, or however one wishes to term it, in rather quick time there will be plenty of animals to hunt, fish to catch, trees to cut, and more, because likely many humans will have died or will soon do so (pick your scenario, presuming the collapse does not directly attend that issue, at least in part).
There will be no medicines, antibiotics, no birth control much less life-saving measures we take for granted (albeit quite costly, and in more than mere financial sense); there will be no fire, police, military. And on and on.
Lynx is correct that olds skills will be necessary, but necessity is indeed the mother of invention, even if that is re-invention of the wheel, bow/arrow, and fire.
But to believe that the world will experience some sort of apocalyptic event and actually maintain most of the current human population is beyond naive.
And those humans who do survive, well, I'll certainly be wary of them. I'm a pacifist at heart, but I am a one-shot realist when lines are crossed. That combination of philosophies gave a few of my philosophy instructors no end of consternation.
But one should hope such an end does not befall humanity. One should hope our massive brains quit focusing upon wealth and power and realize that waking up in a warm, safe environment (hopefully with someone at one's side), taking in a deep breath of clean air, and knowing that the day has started out beautifully.
62
Nice to know I’m not alone. Years back, I bartered my stuff for hernia surgery, last week I got new handles for the axes. At 63 I haven’t forgotten how to split wood or how to fell a tree. Wood stove needs it. My dad cut trees on the land, hauled them out with a mule living there and had them milled to build the house next door to where I live now. Now all is within earshot of the bobcat that screams in the night, jets that fly over going Atlanta to Nashville and the interstate a long mile away.
Beer and coffee are not staples, they are icing on the cake of life and can be let go of.
Baggage is what you carry when you go somewhere and you still have it empty handed. It takes really even tempered, level headed folks to try such as these are. I wish them well. It is a shame though. The society they are part of that they claim to withdraw from will live on in some form or another. It could very much use their heads and hearts at the table to summon the courage to ready for the next ice age.
After all, they’ve gotta move on foot to what is now central Mexico to have an environs willing to let them live, much less thrive. Bon Voyage!
11
@sly creek Sly Creek: People have been making beer and other alcoholic drinks for a very long time. And there are lost of other inebriants out there.
One of my favorite movies is "Witness" because of the way it portrays life without modern conveniences in an Amish community. They may end up being some of the few survivors.
6
@Nick
I was at a local TH Max today, where I observed a young Amish woman push a cart full of very nice items, in chic colors, over to the cashier.
We walked out at nearly the same time. She got into a waiting car, driven by a friend who whooped with joy over the nice things in the cart and bags.
So much for simplicity.
They loaded up the car and took off.
3
@HMJ There are various sects of Amish, and some don't eschew modern conveniences even when they dress in the old way. (Here's something I found in a quick search: There are four main groups — the Old Order, the New Order, the Beachy Amish and Amish Mennonites — with many subgroups and different rules within these categories. For instance, the Beachy Amish and Amish Mennonites often drive cars and use electricity while the others use horse-drawn buggies.)
9
@Nick
I've worked in Amish communities. They're very clean people who would be appalled at the lack of efficiency these budding "wild people" display. The Amish don't use electricity or drive cars, but they would be appalled by the silly regressiveness of making their own tools. And their children receive eighth grade educations in schools with teachers.
1
It may not be for everybody. And, that's a good thing, given that most of everybody tend to follow the herd.
To truly experience life, delving into the obscure can have lasting impact; be it favorable or not; well, that's up to the individual.
I say give it a whirl, then provide feedback. Perhaps you'll learn something!
4
Great story that set my imagination wandering along some interesting paths... I applaud the efforts of such intrepid dreamers. I appreciate what the writer is telling us too. The hunter gatherer lifestyle (which none of them have truly realized yet) holds the possibility of actually being a fulfilling one. Most people will simply refuse to believe this and will will even laugh at the idea that anyone would voluntarily give up the comforts of our mechanized technological immediate-gratification society. Personally, I think it's a great experiment and I hope they can keep going.
9
I have considered living this way myself because I know its fulfilling nature. One thing stops me—modern medicine. I would die without it, literally. I can’t be “wild” when I have to go to the pharmacy every month.
1
@RobinBullard : There is subsistence farming which is a level of living just above Lynx 's plan . Grew every thing made most things all crude and basic. Living was the entertainment. Sun was the light and alarm clock. My father would love Lynx.
What's with all the negative and critical comments?
At the end they'll know a bit more than they did before about living in the wild, even though it's far from enough to actually do it for real.
Seems to me there are worse ways to spend $600 for a week's entertainment and learning.
36
Programmes like this have to posit the total end of society and a new stone age in order to rationalize the immersive experience that they are selling. Lynx is selling her business services. While all around the world, people who know that they are fully part of modern society also practice their traditional skills, including hunting, trapping and living on the land. Using such skills isn't anything new although charging to teach them is.
23
I spent some time in Southern Africa and many people over there live off the grid with very minimal access to the modern world. In Zambia, I saw first hand how people would look for a water source, dig a hole to access the water, dig another hole far away for the Latrine, then gather sticks with leaves from brush and make some homes. Then, they used a hoe to carve out some farmland and plant the seeds. Now, they have a village. Almost everything but their clothes, metal, and cell phones which they charge up miles away is produced locally. When the water runs out or the land is not fertile after A few years, they move to another place. There is a limited amount of contact with the government in terms of education and healthcare. It is a very tough existence but shows me the strength of humanity in the face of adversity. If civilized society breaks down worldwide and most of us go down, these people will continue to thrive without missing too much.
25
If they blow up the world, then they blow up the world. And I'll go down drinking my Alba 77.
14
Lynx looks to need some dental work before she moves to deeply into her cave.
18
@Joe Miksis
because her teeth aren't unnaturally whitened or what...?
@Joe Miksis : her earlier diet ruined her teeth. You can tell when people started to eat honey by their dental health.
@PR. But what if you’re not?
1
When it begins unless you are very isolated you would be forever defending your stores and possibles from takers. Not everybodys going to be nice and friendly in survival mode.
15
@CORNSMOKE
Actually, I am pretty sure nobody's going to be nice or friendly if humanity is reduced to true survival mode. Knowing how to hunt deer, make a hut from sticks or start a fire will be a lot less valuable as skills than knowing how to spear people who made the hut, caught the deer and started the fire and take it from them. Let's hope things never get to that point.
18
@CORNSMOKE Actually, despite all these survivalist fantasies, experience has shown that societies become more cooperative when faced with a crisis. People realize that no one can make it alone and they help their friends and families.
@CORNSMOKE
The more realistic training is Army Ranger school.
Nice way to reel in readers with the cute cat pic hahaha
19
What nonsense. This is just scout camp at $600 a week. Why are we even paying attention? Lynx has her little life, but the idea of going back to the Stone Age is ridiculous, and not at all what’s going on here.
66
Wow. This is some serious first world problem.
48
Where are they killing animals like this? Is this "Lynx's" private property? Is that even legal? I don't think there is anything enlightened by looking and smelling bad. The society we live in today requires money. It also demands that people practice good hygiene. I like the idea of smashing our smartphones and collaborating more but there's also nothing inherently wrong with being alone sometimes. I was especially disgusted by the end of this piece. A deer is not a flute. It has a life to live, just like you. There's no reason to kill and torture animals for their flesh.
48
@atb I think the killed the deer to eat it, it was dragging itself away to survive, not because they were torturing it and using the bones to make things.
@atb,
This group is pretty silly, but it is a fact that killing animals "for their flesh" is how the natural world has always worked. Animals do it all the time.
1
@atb During the Warming, most snowflakes will melt.
Deer will do fine, but the whales will die.
1
"So, how are you handling your divorce?"
"I'm learning stone-age survival skills, using moss as toilet paper and planning for the collapse of society."
"....Uh...that good, huh?"
189
@Goat Meds
Skeeter Davis intensifies:
https://youtu.be/xHa6a3FtPJg
Nothing new here. Hippys all over again.
28
@Paul Shindler absolutely . . . . I was in Ranchos deTaos N.M. in 1968 living(?) in an adobe hut about three miles up a rut road off the fire road, yes., We had new mexico commodities and disability and welfare by con. We were all able-bodied. Truly. We took from the "state" to live "free". I am embarrassed to admit I did this. I believe about less than half of Lynx and her "students" claim. She gets paid. She still smells bad and her teeth are falling out and on and on and on . . . . So did I . . . I left . . . so will many of them. I wish those who truly live off "their" land the best.
William Wilson dallas press club 1981 dallas texas
@Paul Shindler actually it's Hippies...
Pre-historic/pre-industrial/pre-20th century fantasy camps are a curiosity all over cable TV at the moment.
Gotta say - don't get it.
Regardless, enjoy your filth and the connection with mortally wounding a deer in the name of feeding yourself. Enjoy the ticks, and the mosquitos, and poison ivy, and the drafty dwelling.
I'll take my soft hands and the Embassy Suites any day.
19
@Joe
At least these people aren't shielding themselves from the realities of being carnivores. If you're not a vegetarian, then you are buying meat from animals that were slaughtered with equal inattention to their lives. You just don't have to see it happen.
1
I once attended Air Force survival school near Spokane, not too far from Twisp. A quick one week lesson in many similar skills. How to start a fire in wet, snowy woods has stuck with me.
But the Air Force added a twist, how to deal with your potential captors, who could be merciless in their treatment of you. If the end comes that will probably be a necessary adjunct to this course, as conflict will likely be widespread.
For a video about this sort of thing I highly recommend Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness, about his life in the Alaskan wild. Now there was a man who knew how to take care of himself, though he made use of some basic industrial tech to do so. And filmed everything he did along the way. Very impressive and a stunning lesson in how far removed we are from those basic, though very sophisticated, skills.
31
@Terry
There's also Rugged Land of Gold, by Martha Martin, who gives birth to her first baby, alone in the Alaska wilderness in the 1950's, after being separated from her husband(for months) by a giant landslide. Among other feats, she describes killing and skinning and tanning an otter hide to make a very warm blanket.
Twisp is in the North Cascades, Spokane is in eastern Washington, three and half hours away. That's pretty close if you're an LA commuter!
2
It all boils down to this:
When you have the rare good fortune to be governed by a wise and courageous leader in a time of crisis -- someone like a Churchill at the onset of World War II-- you take heart, keep your cool and muscle up the courage to persist until a better day.
If, however, you have the great misfortune to be governed by a spineless, ignorant lout -- a Trump perhaps -- you hunker down in your cellar or your fallout shelter and imitate his worst behavior.
38
@A. Stanton . . . I usually recognize your letters before I get to their end. Truly great responses every time.
William Wilson Richardson Texas Dallas Press Club 1981
1
When we Natives live like this, we are called primitive savages, abducted, reprogrammed, whipped, enslaved, starved, and forced off our land. When Whites do it, it costs $600 for a weekend and is written up in the New York Times.
780
@Melanie Exactly my point , thank you!
5
@Melanie - astute observation
7
@Melanie Thank you for telling truth to fashion.
15
these people are a parody of the flintstones.
27
For so long as the Times goes on publishing pieces of this kind it will never have the need for a comics section...
45
@Marcus Aurelius
They should have put this in the op-ed section under News Analysis.
Sure. Let’s all kill a couple of deer each year.
14
Dear Bill,
Realistically we'd each need to kill about a hundred deer per year.
1
Amusing that this discussion takes on a web site, only way I'd be aware of a "lynx" that wasn't a wild cat.
4
This is overkill.
Bigger picture: just use the info here to motivate you to eat healthier raw food, such as fruits, nuts, vegetables, and even meats if that’s your preference, but not processed food. And exercise to mimic what one of our ancestors would do when they hunted and gathered food. That took exercise such as lunging, hurling rocks, running, climbing, jumping, grabbing, pulling, etc. Please people, be smart.
10
I think you missed the entire point.
1
I find it incredibly sad that we killed off 90% of the poulation who could have taught us all this from the start.
73
Dear John,
All of our ancestors were living this way at one point. All of them also did their best to improve their lives out of this low-tech existence. Living with stone age tech means never amounting to anything.
1
@Dan Stackhouse Good job avoiding the point. You're an expert.
2
Around 13,000 BC, shortly after the Clovis point, the hunter gatherer culture emptied North America of all it's large game. Didn't take long. Historical accounts of waterfowl, passenger pigeons, darkening the skies there were so many, didn't last long from unrestricted market hunting. I could go on.
In 1000 AD, the global population was estimated at 265,000,000 and most hunter gatherer populations were gone, replaced by agricultural based societies.
Today, with the world population touching 8,000,000,000 (read 8000 million), there is no way any currently compromised ecosystem could sustain this "lifestyle". Where would you walk in the Methow where you wouldn't step on someone's moss toilet paper?
I started reading the article and thought uh oh, back to the communes of the 1960's. The Methow Valley is a high priced location. Where did the $ come from to start this? At least in the US we have the freedom to not grow up if we can charge others for a week of play.
33
Your numbers are so way off in almost, well in every point you bring forward. Might be a good idea for you to read some literature that has been scientifically refereed, not what you have come across on the internet.
Ive known many, and spent some time among, alongside...not this particular group/s, but very similar ones. 1. far too many are running from something, or ones, very often the law. very often their demons. making many of them dangerous to themselves and those around them. 2. cult like relationships are a frequent result. where the more skilled among them is put in a power position that is also too often exploited. 3. the trading around of "partners" often only lights fires that can also be dangerous and disheartening, and wholy counterproductive to the initial goals of those involved. 4. no matter the love the adults have for their children, in or out of a stable relationship, they are very often neglected in a variety of ways. malnourished, left with untreated illness and disease, poorly socialized, and worse exploited and abused by the adults, with no one to go to for protection, as the group needs subsume the individuals, especially children. most often these adults are trying to fix in their lives, what they are truly not equipped to fix on their own, much less know what the exact thing in need of fixing truly is. very little that would resemble "paradise," or a truly better way of life results from these endeavors. more people run, literally run, away from these lifestyles, then last. many barely escape with their lives. inadequately replicating our more primitive past is not the fix civilization demands from us.
180
@Boregard
Thank you for the down side of this life style. It sounds like "Lord of the Flies."
13
@Boregard After having been around scenes like this before in my younger days I think I will just perish with the rest of society.
4
Thank you, Lynx and others, who are keeping this wisdom alive.
1
@Mike And don’t forget the $600 a weekend, that’s what this all about !
@Mike When you tan a hide, it shouldn't stink when it's done. This is not wisdom.
It takes 2000 calories per day for me to stay alive. In the winter it's more like 3500 calories / day. Maybe 1% of the U.S. population can survive by hunting and gathering.
15
@Tom Stark I thought the ending was hopeful...and predictive of the cycles of civilizations' rise and fall.
This lifestyle movement is like the last episode of Battlestar Galactica: interesting, but naiive and really quite disappointing when you look back at it all.
7
Ah but that was a terrific show, up until the last few episodes.
7
I loved the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica. They formed a kind, generous statement about the nature of humanity, one that I think Jesus would approve of. BTW, the makers of Battlestar Galactica, like true artists everywhere, have never explained the meaning of the ending. So I recommend that you wait a few decades until your life teaches you the value of kindness. And then rewatch the ending.
2
@Dan Stackhouse - a fitting epitaph for the human race.
1
It's a tough life no doubt but what has always surprised me is that the hunter gatherer was taller that modern man. They must have done something right.
2
Having just returned from a rather painful dental procedure I remembered how much more painful a tooth infection is, and I would have been dead in my 20s after a particularly bad one.
Anyway, am I really going to be first to mention the film “The Island”?
I spent many of my formative years in Papua New Guinea as a missionary kid and got malaria twice. I would have died each time -10 and 12. Chloroquine saves my life. Science. Science. Science.
154
@Elle Davi
Good point about dental care. Lynx has quite a set of choppers, but it's easy to see at least one place where a cavity could form.
7
@Elle Davi I was born disabled. Modern medicine fixed it before I was even aware of my disability. How could we possibly consider leaving such wisdom behind?
6
@Elle Davi yes, but which "Island" Try "the Road" by Cormac McCarthy". Book or the movie, which I would dare you to watch twice. Truly and I wish you well.
William Wilson Dallas Press Club 1981
3
People are living now with reduced living within modern society. The family at Ruby Ridge is an example. The Amish also live without many advances we use routinely. Albert Einstein said he didn't know what WW III would be fought with but WW IV would use sticks and stones. We won't be in a world like the stone age. Our world will look like the war destroyed towns in Syria. Add to that, nuclear radiation contamination. Plus, you can bet some will have guns and other weapons to enforce their demands. Then, of course, we won't have antibiotics or pharmacies to run down to in our BMW. I think I'm going to enjoy all the advantages we have. Those would include good heating, air conditioning, healing medicines, uncontaminated water, TV, etc. etc. etc. We have to remember the caveman, got plenty of exercise, had clean air, and their food wasn't contaminated with chemicals. Even so, they hardly lived much past thirty.
16
Is the Rust Belt still in the Iron Age? Just asking.
5
Going back as far as 40.000 years ago requires a catastrophic event, and set back to clock.
Other than trying to be relative primitive ever advancing civilization is not prove , this is early life.
Do not forget psychology is crucial. In 2020 you can live like that but you can't erase from your mind out there there is a human civilization. Anthropocene.
40.000 years ago psychology is out there nothing, only extreme hard life.
You can live as primitive as you can imagine but you cannot erase background psyche of out there there is a civilization.
Therefore this type of life never represent what it is trying to be.
8
Sitting in a bunker waiting for a savior ? First only the very rich for the most part have bunkers to sit in and wait for a savior. Next the only end of the world that all are facing is death . But if the end of the world were to come upon us I think the best outcome would be to look up and see that mans Redemption is at hand . It is far for interesting to look forward to Eternal Life and the elimination of Death and the Restoration on mankind and the Earth than to think about reverting back in Time to the Stone Age and trying to live a few years in the wild . The idea of a Divine Plan in spite of the sad state of mankind is far more brilliant to consider . The fact that if God allowed us to get into this mess He can certainly rescue us out of it !
It is called for the devout and faithful
The Mercy Seat ! Mankind’s problems are a drop in the ocean compared to the Mercy of God which is the Ocean . Think Restoration not Destruction !
6
@Charle
First of all, if there is a God, she will not be inclined to mercy once we have destroyed our species and much of other life on Earth. Just how many chances should humankind have to do the right thing, treat each other with compassion rather than brutality?
Christians who mistakenly believe they will be spared—despite their hatefulness and abuse of others and the planet—will be cruelly disabused of that notion as they suffer eternal torment of true divine truth and judgment.
1
Living here in Dominican Republic I can see a very peaceful existence with live chickens and pigs running around, they grow rice coffee and beans here and coconuts bananas mangoes pineapple limes papaya and honey from this non-industrial country. Plus warm days trade winds evenings and a country ripe for solar energy.
8
I kept wondering throughout my reading of the article, "Does she feed her cat?" Let me explain. Besides my love of cats, I kept wondering this because I see this group as choosing dependence on others but not responsibility. I see them choosing to hide from society instead of seeking out ways to be productive in the world (i.e., make it a better place). I see protection of self instead of a dedication to protecting the vulnerable. They are not more honorable, they do not lead more virtuous lives. Maybe I think...they are cowards. I'm sorry for that harshness but I finished the article still wondering about the cat and whether the two children were vaccinated. They're the only ones I really cared about.
85
If or as this big beautiful world collapses, I'm toast. No wild life for moi. I'm OK with that. I'll love family, help friends, feed strangers and walk the dog till unable. The last glass will be raised and the world will spin without me.
25
Talk about going to extremes. Addicted to social media and video games? Crave human interaction? Go see a therapist and take up some hobbies.
6
Two words to encapsulate all my feelings after reading this story: oy vey.
30
From the first, I saw the cat who looked very much like HE would much rather be lying on a comforter in a nice warm house, rather than living in the woods.
Then I saw "Lynx" had little lights. Much of this is make-believe stuff, like the 1960's communes.
That's not really the way people lived. They had to fend of raiders--or die. They built cities as fortifications against being robbed, raped, and slaughtered, developed spears, bows, and eventually gunpowder, farmed, and siloed it.
Lynx is a typical British eccentric, no more.
37
There is something to be said for this kind of life. The Native Americans lived it for about 10,000 years and, from what I gather, were not persuaded to leave it by the arrival of White culture until it was taken away from them.
And there's so much to be said against the kind of life most of us are living right now but I don't have the space to list it.
However, in both life styles there is one shared constant. The need to kill. If that is our ultimate purpose on this planet, we don't deserve it. I find it unfortunate in the extreme that just when we've nearly learned how to survive without killing, we're about to kill ourselves and the better part of the planet along with us via climate change.
To survive that just so we can go on killing in a bygone hunter - gatherer society is cruel irony.
4
@Jack Hartman The Native Americans had great cities. Go to Illinois east of St. Louis and take a look at whats left. They had agriculture and trade. It was smallpox that killed off so many that Euros thought they were small bands wandering through the woods or the that the land was empty and availab.e
1
When the world ends I think I’ll just go into the nearest abandoned hardware store I find and help myself to all the match boxes I can carry for fire. Maybe grab some charcoal too.
8
@John Doe, hmm, think I’ll hunker down in either an abandoned Ikea or Target. Or I’ll go to the beach and watch the sun set as everything dies.
2
@John Doe
Ha ha, yes! Even if society were to collapse, people will not instantly lose all the accumulated knowledge and tools of human civilization. All the knives, hammers, pliers, matches, axes, blankets and clothes, et al., will not just disappear.
2
How about a field trip to Baltimore? One need not wait for The End. The Apocalypse (or a reasonable facsimile) is available right now in Charm City. Dysfunctional government, lawlessness, rampant disease, etc. It's all there for review and comment. Mad Max would feel right at home.
3
@Mike,
That could be any large city in the US. I don't understand how it became acceptable to allow the mentally ill, the intoxicated or drug addicted to wander around freely in our public places. I know the cost of addressing the problem would be great, but the damage being done to urban life is far greater.
I like how it was written with short sentences that seemed to stylistically fit the subject matter.
2
Okay, so timing the moment of when "the End" is here is a bit like timing the NYSE; are we still going up or has the Big Slide started already? What if you go wild a few decades too early? Or w few generations too early?
Will Forte in "Last Man on Earth" had a pretty good take on being a survivor. Oh, wait, that was scripted TV. But it did note that untended Nuclear Power will cause a few problems.
Why the Stone Age? What's wrong with just preparing for the Middle Ages?
32
Is using store bought toothpaste allowed?
6
What was curious to me was the comment that there was a hole in this wilding society. They didn’t have any old people. They were all in their 20s or 30s. What these youngsters didn’t realize was that by stone age standards they were all already very very old indeed.
54
@Susan they are evolving. Older wiser people will be accepted when they get older. Possibly.
1
Shame to have a cat in a wild area.
9
What a sad bunch of people. Instead of running from the horrors and alienation of capitalism, they should join the fight to overthrow it and build a more humane world. They have fundamentally lost confidence in themselves and our capacity to transform ourselves and our world.
11
Lol, millennials with trust funds.
43
If you have one foot in the modern world, and one in a pretend caveman world, you are playacting. It is not real. It's like Fantasy Football for people who romanticize a simpler time. A time which was actually, probably, not a lot of fun much of the time.
11
The picture of Lynx Vilden , Louis Pommier and the cat show why cats will inherit the world...
11
Oh wow, would I love to see this as a reality show.
3
Dear Pinksoda,
Check out "Naked and Afraid", a challenge to exist for a few weeks in the wild, just two people, each with one implement like a metal knife or soup pot. Most people don't make it and need to bail out.
It’s called “Naked and Afraid”
" 'You walk into it naked and if you can create from that land what that land has to offer, then you can stay there,' Lynx said. 'It’s going be these feral rewilded people. I’m thinking in two to three generations there could be real wild children.' "
Right.
Another doomsday cult meets a personality cult. Or, if you prefer, just another garden variety of survivalists living in some sort of a makeshift commune. Yawn.
The real question is how much real, non-Stone-Age money, "Lynx" is charging all these people?
11
What happens when someone gets sick or injured?
12
Not to make light of people learning to live off the land, but someone once said, "I have two words for anyone who gets overly romantic about the past: plumbing and dentistry."
57
@John And antibiotics, painkillers, and anesthesia.
2
I was the age of the people in the article in the 1970's. A lot of young people went Back To The Land then. I was one of them for awhile. There are good reasons why this is the kind of thing young, white, educated, healthy people are attracted to, but few others. Hardship is exciting! It's a heck of lot of fun when you are single and twenty, and can leave for the city and a good paying job if you feel so inclined. My experience was that all you have to do to be disenchanted with going primitive is to try to educate your children, need dental work, break a finger, or just finally get tired of being cold, malnourished, and dirty.
39
I find it dispiriting that some would find the idea of living in the Stone Age so reprehensible as to completely ignore the beauty of the writing in this article.
7
The skills needed to truly live off the land without the benefit of money, commerce, electricity, or modern medicine are mostly as lost to us as an ancient language. Living this way would be harsh, ruthless, painful, and short. Our species has been so removed from the concept of "only the fittest survive" that I doubt we would survive a true apocalypse - we have been too genetically softened over too many generations.
Bad vision to the point that you can't see to aim your arrow? You die. Asthma? You die. Heart disease? Diabetes? Born prematurely? You die. No elders to pass along the knowledge of which mushrooms, roots, or berries are safe to eat and which will kill you? You die.
No thanks. If survival means living like this, I'll leave that others.
12
That's great it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes and airplanes. Lennie Bruce is not afraid.
8
Great article. In a pre-fab world where its easy to feel like we have so little or no control to influence major events, going back to Nature and learning self-reliance and having a deeply personal connection with the outdoors makes a load of sense to me. It's like metaphysical therapy. My only criticism is the contemporary natural world they are learning to live in is bound to be changing dramatically with climate change. Meaning, learning to survive there, now, doesn't mean they'll survive the profound, rapidly evolving ecological changes that our inevitable at this point. After how many times can one survive or be functional contracting Lyme's Disease? How many infected deer can you eat before you get sick? What happens when the creeks dry up, or the trout die off due to warming river temps, or the forest one inhabits goes up in smoke from drought? I think the answer to individual/community survival is probably more technological/agricultural then they want to believe. On the flip side, I do find their approach to living in dystonia so much more positive and realistic then the bunker-hiding / assault rifle & bullet hoarding prepper crowd: idiots (have fun killing each other).
5
@Dan,
...but when if and when the apocalypse comes, the heavily armed and paranoid "prepper crowd" will take what they want from everyone else. I think that is their fantasy.
What a first world conceit, to pretend it's the Stone age. All fun and games till some health care is needed.
18
Survival skills won't help much after the nuclear plants all start to melt down because nobody will be around to maintain them.
And the runnaway heat starts to kill off the fish and the willdife leading to starvation even among those with survivial skills and meanwhile refugees from the coastal cities start forming gags.
And then, your gun will run out of bullets and there will be no factories making more.
Good luck!
9
I more have a question...is that a (cat) fur scarf she's wearing, or a pet cat? Assuming the latter but hard to be sure.
5
Best way to learn survival skills is to grow up on a farm or ranch.
13
What could possibly go wrong?
22
Choosing to live a life of privation, making a fetish of the details, then setting yourself up as a dirt whisperer is just the kind of silliness that makes my blood boil. If you want to know about survival, talk to someone living without health insurance, cooking with what's available at the food pantry, or trying to find someone who'll let you and your child sleep on their floor for a few nights. Or, ask someone living in--or trying to reach--one of the many border "camps."
32
If a Stone Age person had a domestic cat, they would probably eat it.
28
@Peter Aretin...or get eaten by a decidedly undomesticated one.
1
"Lynx is single, and that is starting to bother her. 'The hard part is finding a partner to share it with...' She wore her skins. We smelled disgusting…reeking of rendered, rotted deer fat and smoke..."
'Nuff said.
Too, too precious for words - thanks for the laugh, this was a nice distraction from all things coronavirus!
40
I know this is a small thing, but why do people who want to throw away civilization and go all hunter-gatherer again always look disheveled and dirty?
I'm pretty certain not all prehistoric people looked filthy.
14
"The biggest challenge, they’ve agreed, is that no one around them is old.
“Most of us are in our 20s and early 30s,” Epona said. “You start to see where the holes in society are, and our holes now are elders.”
Unless I'm mistaken no one is Black or brown, either. Or without at least one college degree.
32
It seems that this lady has already started her wilderness living by not visiting her dentist.
6
@Mitch45 There is less of an orthodontic culture among Brits than there is among Americans.
IDK. These things never seem to end well ...
5
“Epona Heathen” takes her first name from the horse in Nintendo’s “Legend of Zelda” series of video games.
These are not serious people. These are self-demising dilettantes.
15
Hard pass though the comments section is golden.
22
there was a time before we were born if someone asks this is where I'll be....I love all those kinds of people you got a place with a view I'm just an animal looking for a home share the same place for a minute or two.....
Too bad the kid in Jon Krakauer’s book, “Into the Wild”, is no longer around to give this bunch some tips.
9
Her game seems as fraudulent as her name.
18
This is a good column for fans of James Kunstler.
Mr. Kunstler lives in upstate NY where he often writes doom and gloom scenarios. He has authored such books as "The Long Emergency" and "World Made by Hand" which speaks to living much like Lynx is doing (which I find way beyond eccentricity).
My idea of "roughing it" is a hotel without room service. If our society totally collapses I'll opt to expire with it. Ciao.
11
@Mike
Kunstler is going to have a good time with Ms Lynx's money-making scheme.
1
When pushed to extremes by necessity, we will do what we must to survive.
But to voluntarily attempt to “return” to a past none of us have ever lived in seems folly at best.
2
I also have a 16' yurt, like Epona. But...I do it a little differently. Wall to wall persian carpets, the walls completely covered in fur (real and fake), the ceiling is alternating panels of blue velvet painted with gold stars, and gold lamé. The central hub is painted red. I use real furniture, including a bed, floor length mirrors, and a bathtub. The seating area is dozens of pillows and furs. A stained glass chandelier hangs from the smoke hole, and iron candelabras fill the room with dancing light.
It's a nice way to camp.
11
I worry about our planet and all of the inhabitants we share it with. I do think that the probability is that if we damage the world to such an extent that remaining humanity is pushed back to the stone ages, it will be damaged to such an extent that there will be almost no flora or fauna to support them and they, too, will become extinct.
When I look forward (on a dark day -- I don't always feel this way) I fear that our solution will be to use our scientific resources to find ways to compensate and control for all the life we are eliminating. I imagine a world of humans, science, and dust.
As anybody old enough to remember a world without computers knows, it would only take a single generation to forget what was lost. And a generation more to stop mourning it.
9
@txpacotaco, don't fool yourself. Science WON'T save us from our own follies. Profits are more important than people, and will be, up to the day the very last human being dies. That may be several hundred thousand years from now, or less than 100. Who knows for sure? All I know is that I'll be dead and long since turned to dust, so I won't have to experience the agony of knowing that we destroyed this great and wonderful world and everything on it, including ourselves. It's hard enough now living with the knowledge that this is where we are headed.
I participated in Primitive Technology classes at the Kule Loklo Village at Pt. Reyes, CA for years in the early 1990s. We learned much of this stuff - making fire, making a bow and arrows, and tanning hides. There we had a touchstone of reality with the Pomo-Miwok people who also participated and used the site for their native celebrations. Making and using sweat lodges and temporary shelters were part of the experience, as was extensive flint-napping and spear throwing. I loved it. Then I got in my Volvo station wagon and drove back to our house in Oakland. Interesting, satisfying, but I'm not sure how sustaining it would be in withdrawing from civilization or replacing it. This kind of primitive skills training goes on all over the place and it ties us to the past but presents, in my view, a very tenuous bridge to any viable future unless we are prepared for high mortality from disease, injury and malnutrition.
29
Fascinating story, of people trying to live out a fantasy. The reason there weren't any old people there is probably because such a life forbids old people existing. When humans lived with stone age technology, hardly anyone made it past 40. When you got diabetes, you died. If that axe head flying off and narrowly missing people had hit one, they would probably have died, without modern medicine, tetanus shots, and so on.
Funny that people would put together bookshelves too, when stone age tech cannot produce books. Living off the land is extremely difficult, and demands a shorter lifespan, and there are just too many people to do it now, the land couldn't provide for us if we all turned to hunter/gatherer subsistence. So if society really did collapse, living off the land would not be the top priority, it would be killing off all the humans nearby trying to live off the same land you were on.
So it's a funny fantasy group, but unimportant societal dropouts at base. Stone age humans can't accomplish anything other than grim, brief survival. If humanity is going to prosper and expand out into the universe, we'll need to keep improving and embracing technology.
28
@Dan Stackhouse Your claims regarding "grim, brief survival" are contradicted by the huge body of anthropological research into hunting & gathering societies.
9
@Dan Stackhouse
>When humans lived with stone age technology, hardly anyone made it past 40.
That's a common misconception. The life expectancy, which is an average, was about 40 - but that's due to high mortality during childhood. If you survived to your 30s in those societies, you were well on your way to living to and probably past 60.
Probably not past 70 though.
11
Dear Tom,
Sorry but that's incorrect. In the most idyllic scenarios, small islands in tropical latitudes, it might have been possible to live to about 60, with extreme luck. Our current understanding is that it was very rare to live past 30.
6
I remember when the survivalist Eric Rudolph, aka Olympic Park bomber, was on the run, he had a terrible time of it in the forests of North Carolina, dumpster diving and potentially relying on the support of those who were sympathetic to his cause.
Whether we like it or not, we are all in the same boat and we can only prosper if we work together. For the vast majority of us, including the wealthy, we can never survive in the long run if society crumbles. Nature can only support us if we support each other.
17
I love this; I wrote my master's thesis on John Muir. But I also love clean water and antibiotics. Good luck to all, wherever your heart leads.
26
@Elizabeth Connor Muir spent decades as a prosperous fruit rancher, didn't he?
2
@Goat Meds Muir came in from the wild to spend time managing a fruit ranch, yes. He also wrote and advocated ceaselessly among anyone who would listen on behalf of wilderness. For much of the public wilderness we do have, we can thank Muir's willingness to leave it and be among society.
6
@Elizabeth Connor Totally, but that is key: he didn't simply disappear into self-reliance for himself. He was an advocate and very much IN the world of organizing, lobbying, and outreach.
6
“our utilization of natural resources is way beyond the natural carrying capacity of the earth, and we’re seeing that in essentially ecosystem collapse,” I have some sympathy for these folks. But let’s be honest, if many people join them, they will soon run out of deer to hunt, and martens for fur. The carrying capacity of mother nature, for stone-age humans, is not that high.
34
@John Ranta
Absolutely. There is not enough land nor enough wildlife for even a fraction of today's human population to be living off the land. That's a rich nation's fantasy. Plus, real living off the land the Stone Age way is stinking, dirt poor poverty; non-stop physical labor just to survive; and a short, brutal life.
4
@Grainy Blue
I agree but living in the real stone age wasn't horrible if you as a group adapted to your environment. Here's an interesting documentary you might want to watch. if you public library offers Kanopy you can stream it for free. Or here's a trailer on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nLWevhitPM
But the world we live in now is very different from the one our stone-aged ancestors lived in when there were very few people and many more animals and intact ecosystems. I doubt these people are really living long term on what they can get from the few acres they are supposedly living on.
Though I don't know her, I have met Lynx a few times. She is spoken of reverently by many people I respect.
I do know enough about her to be able to say that preparing for a collapse is not really what her work is about. I am sad to see that the author for much of this piece (and most of us commenters) can't see past a desire for immediate survival.
Those who have had the privilege to live closely to the land for a period of time, creating and thriving with an impact that helps - rather than consumes - the earth, know that this act is far more profound than preparing for the apocalypse with a band of characters.
We need to adopt new (and old) ways of doing things to free ourselves collectively. Thank god for people like these.
8
Dear Liam,
If we were to adopt this lifestyle en masse, we would need more than 99% of humanity to die out. The maximum world population in the stone age was around 100 million. That technology doesn't permit enough food production for much more population.
We would also have to give up on humanity ever accomplishing anything. The ability to create a historical record would vanish, the hope for humanity to spread out into the galaxy would evaporate.
And humanity would become quite savage, rule of law would be replaced with rule of force, women's rights would be eliminated.
So no thanks, it wouldn't be the happy fantasy this group is contemplating.
1
@Dan Stackhouse
Yes, but we could consume much less and still have a great life with good food, natural and human created beauty (nature and art) science, intellectual pursuits and close connections with other people and animals. I'm fascinated by how quickly people have adapted to this coronovirus scare. I know the "health" of our economy depends on consumption but I was secretly satisfied by the NYTimes graphic about how air travel in China had been cut way down after the initial outbreak. Why do people have to fly all over the place to have a good life? With current technology flying dumps huge amounts of carbon into the environment. Now I'm laughing at the hypocrisy of the photo of Gweneth Paltrow in her expensive mask flying to fashion week in Paris. I appreciate science and technology when it's used to increase the quality of our lives. But we need to think more deeply about what that means. I just read a New Yorker article about the high suicide rate among non-college educated Americans and how difficult it is for the "working class" to survive let alone thrive in America compared to other countries like Germany https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/06/opinion/working-class-death-rate.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
How does all this tie in? We need to think things through more carefully. And how can we "adapt" to our current reality and the emerging one in ways that increase human happiness?
Our civilization Will collapse, just like every prior one; the only question is why and when. Total dependence on technology, starting with reliable electricity, makes our society more vulnerable than earlier ones.
Living in the Stone Age might be necessary immediately after the collapse but it should be temporary, as survivors relearn pre-industrial agriculture and technology. I have long felt that we should have many centers where people learn to plant and harvest basic foods by hand, work with draft horses and oxen, raise food animals, blacksmithing, woodworking, cloth and rope manufacture, ship building, all the old skills that have been lost. A remnant of humanity could rebuild pre-industrial civilization, but only if there is a core of people with the knowledge and skills to start over.
It would cost little to run a University of Medieval Agriculture and Technology; every city should have one.
20
Mother Earth News runs a yearly set of fairs in towns across the nation that feature expert speakers on all these topics and more. (My daughter calls it CompostCon.) In addition, there are tons of books, local organizations and even youtube videos to teach useful skills for those who want to live more in tune with the land. As a modern homesteader, I like dwelling in the happy medium between today's hyper-consumeristic society and the Flintstones.
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@Someone else Good idea, but I wouldn't call it medieval. just"Traditional". Having built a log cabin starting with felling our own trees, there is a great sense of accomplishment when you learn you can build your own house, grow your own food, grind your own flour, heal yourself of many things using herbs. In another part of my life I took a job running a home for delinquent teenage boys (10). Was just about to start dinner when the power went out, which meant it was likely to be out for at least hours, if not days. And the boys all griped they wouldn't get any dinner.
We were sitting in the living room with a functional fireplace and I looked at that and shook my head. "Well, we have fire," I said, "and I have cast iron pans and know how to cook a meal over fire." And I did. Back up skills are important. You don't have to go back to the Stone age. Just know what to do if part of current civilization fails.
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@calannie, true. When Hurricane Sandy knocked out the power here in Jersey, my mom warmed part of the house by boiling pots of water on out gas stove. She grew up in a coal camp, and knows all too well about survival living.
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Sure, folks learning these skills may have a few extra months or years on a planet earth that undergoes radical changes that aren’t conducive to the long term viability of the human civilization. Still, the news on the virus, the commentary provided by professionals while being interviewed by the MSM reinforces the fact that all across the world no government is prepared for a long term catastrophic event that cuts off food, water, & power, nor could any population center /environment effectively manage & treat a pandemic’s worth of seriously ill people. What’s sad is that just a small percentage of the great collective wealth of the civilized world could have been used to fund scientists, engineers, doctors & municipality planners to develop & test scalable solutions/civilization disaster recovery plans that might be implemented to offset/hedge against partial or complete & total annihilation.
That we haven’t been doing this already in response to global climate change tells me that most human beings are easily distracted, are in denial or aren’t very smart. Sad but not unexpected.
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