(click for large image)
Not your typical class photo!
Advanced Standard
Advanced Tracking and Awareness
(click for large image)
Not your typical class photo!
(click for large image)
One of my favorite pics... Tom lecturing next to his
Hummer.
Some of us online folks! That's John Fisher, Kevin Reeve, and
Carl DeMarco (from left to right).
The daily hike from camp to the maze (and back again).
A front view of the beautiful men's swim area.
A rear view of the swim area. Can you find the two naked men?
More pictures coming... stay tuned!
Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 10:13:18 PDT
From: "Platanus occidentalis"
<easternsycamore@hotmail.com>
To: trackers@muskoka.net
Subject: b to b
Message-Id: <199705231713.KAA07311@f13.hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
hey folks,
benn back from the back to back for a few days now. gotta go to
scout class in less than two weeks where i'll be lookin' out for
joe schilling and kevin reeve. I quake in my moccassins.
So here's a quick rundown of btob while i try to catch up on all
my email and office work.
First week was very intense. We spent the whole time perfecting
our debris huts, making bowls and spoons, arrows, arrow heads
(from bottle bottoms donated by the local pineys), fish
spearheads, fish arrow heads, advanced throw sticks, primitive
pottery, baskets, etc.
We also got into advanced camo (shadow camo as used by the apache
scouts) which made for some fun on sunday with the newcomers for
advanced tracking. I camoed up, dropped a big bright blue towel
on the path to the swimmin' holes and concealed myself at the
edge of the path.
innocent passersby would stop, look around, ask other passersby
if they dropped a towel to which the reply was invariably
negative, then they'd walk off with the towel towards camp or the
swimming hole.
"Hey, where ya goin' with my towel?" would come the
voice of the hidden. The initially startled samaritans usually
got a good laugh out of it. It really got fun when people already
nailed would lure other people into the game.
sometimes they just hung the towel up on a bush inwhich case the
voice would say, "wouldja mind puttin that that back where
ya found it?" and so forth. It was really fun when a very
cute and sweet little girl (well bout college age really, but
we're all kids fer life (god, i'd hate to have to think of myself
as a "man")) ambled right over the towel on her way to
the swim hole, then stepped over it again on the way back.
"fine citizen you are leaving people's towels in the
road." What followed was an elaborate expostulation about
why that's better than, say, turning it in or bringing it to the
wrong swim area.
Sure is fun to practice what ya learn at tracker school.
The second week was really intense, but the food was substatially
better. Each day we hiked or fox ran a five mile roundtrip to the
"anvil" or "crucible" to study tracks. A CNN
crew went out with us tuesday and filmed tom's students making
all kinds of errors (though entusiastically) about they're
tracks. The highlight of the day was watching tom act out what a
deer was doing when making the tracks he showed us. The passion
was intense.
We also did a blind drum stalk and got into some basic spirit
tracking that drove one scientifically minded fellow to tears.
Said the success of the exercise shattered his belief system. All
that science he learned was crap. He was a changed man after
that, full of infectious joy to boot.
Then there was murphy and his didjeridoo. he played wonderfully
and set a profound note for the whole course the first night. The
music was primal and just made ya feel you were there that much
more.
That's about all i can write for now. I'd be happy to hear from
any of you who have questions about the course or the experience.
bear in mind i'll be away this weekend and at scout next week so
the responses won't exactly gush from my keyboard.
good tracking and much peace,
carl