Orienteering, the Lost Art

An Orienteering Compass

The Lost Art of Orienteering

Guest Post by R. W. - January 19th 2018.

Orienteering is not only a fun and rewarding hobby, it’s also a crucial survival skill that could one day save your life.

But orienteering is different from other ‘survival skills’ in that it is something that can be beneficial to almost all of us in practical situations. Let’s be honest, many survival skills are things that we are unlikely to ever need. A lot of survival enthusiasts operate on a ‘what if’ basis. What if I got stranded on an island? What if there was a zombie apocalypse?

But getting lost without GPS is something that still happens to most of us from time to time. And being completely helpful in these situations makes us feel just that: helpless.

So, learn orienteering and be a little less dependent on your phone. Not only could it get you out of a pickle, but it will also hone and train valuable skills.

How Orienteering Works

Orienteering is more than just navigation, it is actual practiced as a sport. It is possible to find ‘orienteering events’ which include courses for beginners and experts. To start, you will pick a special map with a course of your choice printed in red. You’ll see a start point (a triangle) and an end point (a large double circle) and you’ll be required to visit a number of specific points along the way, known as ‘control sites’. When you reach the control sites, you’ll see a stake with a triangular red and white nylon flag. There will be an electronic timing device here, which is used to record your time and to prevent cheating. You’ll also carry a small block called a ‘dibber’ which will record your time and download to a computer when you’re finished.

This sport is great for testing your skills with a compass, honing your natural sense of direction and also getting some fresh air and exercise (not to be underrated!).

Engineering Compass

Tips

Whether you’re taking part in an event or just trying to improve your navigational abilities, you’ll need to be able to use a map and a compass. Orienteering is all about reading and understanding maps drawn at large scale. These will often be 1:10,000 scale.

One tip for this is to keep the map set to match the view. This means you’ll need to constantly turn the map as you go, in order to know what sites you’re looking for. Of course you also need to know which direction you should be heading in, and this is where using a compass helps. That said, the best navigator or orienteer will be able to use the sun, stars and even vegetation to help learn the direction they need to head in.

Another skill that needs to be developed is the ability to judge distance. Interestingly, most people will walk at a rather even length pace and if you can count how many paces it takes you to cover 100m, then this can be used to ascertain how far you’ve walked in a given direction.

But to really master the art of orienteering, you need practice. Over time, you’ll find that you learn to intuitively estimate distance, direction and more much more easily. You’ll become better at looking out for useful landmarks and orienting your map.

Once you manage this, you’ll find you become inherently more aware of your surroundings in daily life. You’ll be more mindful and engaged with the world around you, with more of an idea of which way you came and where you need to go. And so if you ever do get lost, you should be able to quickly and efficiently correct your course!

See Also

The Barkley Marathon, a marathon for people who are into orienteering / survivalism.

Ship's Compass

DIY Blacksmithing Forge

How to make your own DIY blacksmithing forge, courtesy of the "Outdoor Boys" YouTube channel.

Note - Luke notes in a later video to skip the sand and just use gravel instead. Sand + Blower just makes a mess. The gravel alone does the trick.



And while you are at it, check out the DIY smelting method for making crucible steel out of iron ore the same ways the Vikings did it centuries ago.

The Economics of Firewood

Living Off Grid often means you are using some alternative method of heating your home.

Traditionally wood is seen as the most economical, but is it really cheaper than say propane?

Well lets do the math.

If you use 2000 litres of propane per year (roughly November to April) to heat your off grid home, at 75 cents per litre that comes out to $1,500.

To get the equivalent amount of heat from wood you would need 3 full bush cords for the same November to April time period. At $350 per bush cord (pretty standard rate in Ontario), you are looking at $1,050.

Okay, you saved yourself $450. That makes wood cheaper yes?

Technically, yes.

But what about time consumption?

Once you get those 3 full bush cords you also need to cut the wood with an axe or a mechanical log splitter and then pile up the wood.

Then whenever you need to carry the wood into your home to be used, you need to go through the whole process of carrying it in, lighting a fire in your fireplace or wood-burning stove, and then keep feeding the fire.

You also need to either brush snow off your wood pile regularly, or build a roof that goes over the wood pile, possibly with a large tarp to prevent snow from drifting / blowing in to your wood pile.

Clearly, wood is not the best option for lazy people.

So how much TIME is required to do all that extra work?

Well if you end up toting around wood, chopping it into kindling, etc for 30 minutes (at least 30 minutes minimum) each day, over the course of November 1st to April 30th (181 days) you will spend at least 90.5 hours per year doing all that work.

Is it exercise? Sure. And exercise is good for you.

But how much do you value your time?

Personally I see my time as being worth at least $30 per hour. That is the minimum rate I charge clients in both of my two businesses.

But maybe you only value your time at say, minimum wage. So $15 per hour in Ontario.

90.5 x $15 = $1,357.50

So is wood still cheaper?

$1357.50 for TIME + $1,050 for wood = $2407.50

As opposed to propane. You click a switch on the thermostat and the propane heat starts warming the place up. But you are saving $907.50 worth of your time by being lazy.

What if you cut the wood yourself?

Well first you need to determine how many cords of wood do you need during the colder months? Do you need 3, 4, 5 or 6?

A single person living in a small house might only need 3 cords. Two people or a family living in a larger house are going to need a lot more firewood.

You should also know how much a cord of firewood is:

4 feet x 4 feet x 8 feet of wood.

So a single cord of wood might require you to cut down at least 3 large trees. (Or 2 very large trees.)

Really it depends on the size of the trees available...

So lets say you need 4 cords...

So that is 12 large trees that need to be cut down with a chainsaw, clean the branches and twigs off of it, cut the trunk and larger branches into logs with the chainsaw, and then split into smaller pieces suitable for burning, and then pile them in neatly in rows that you can use during the winter.

All of that is very time consuming. Cutting down a single large tree and processing it will take you about a day. Less time if you have help. So about 12 days to make 4 cords of wood.

Or you could just buy 4 cords of wood for $1,400 from the professionals who do it as a living.

You will also need:

Chainsaw + gasoline + an axe or mechanical wood splitter.

Minimum price of a gas chainsaw at Canadian Tire? $199.99 + HST. Highest price? $669.99 + HST.

Average price $434.99 for a gas chainsaw.

Plus 13% HST, so $491.54 total + however much gasoline you end up using. Lets say $500 even.

Plus repair costs whenever it breaks down, say once every 3 years. Or buy a new chainsaw every so many years. Whichever. Lets assume the cheaper chainsaw breaks more often than the more expensive ones.

So you do all of this work, the cost of the chainsaw is still $500, and you only really saved $900 instead of just buying 4 cords of firewood from your local professional woodcutter.

What about the Trees on your property?

Really depends how many trees you have on your small/medium/large property.

If you have a tiny property you might not be able to cut down 12 large trees each year without seriously effecting your privacy and the general sense of beauty/pride you have in your property.

A very large property might have ample trees that come down during windstorms that you really only need to collect the trees that fall down naturally and cut them up.

Can you just do a mix of both firewood and propane?

Absolutely. Sounds awesome.

You could simply have firewood for your fireplace and wood-burning stove, which you use for cooking/preparing food, and then use propane most of the time or whenever you feel lazy. Having both options available is certainly a thing to do.

Conclusions???

You really should do what is right for your situation.

You are the best judge as to whether you want to be spending your time getting exercise by collecting firewood or whether you would prefer to just buy propane. Or a mix of the two. There is nothing wrong with doing one, the other, or a mix of both.

Is propane lazier? Of course it is. But it also saves you a lot of time and effort.

So you have to ask yourself, which option is better for you?

Personally, I like having all my options available if I need to. A mix of the two works well for me. The romance of the fireplace, the convenience of the propane heater.