For the past two months, we've learned how to handle survival situations. We've learned how to make rope, how to build a fire without matches, how to find and prepare suitable drinking water, how to set traps, what plants to avoid, and what plants to utilize, how to build a shelter, and basically, how to not be stupid when your life is on the line. And this weekend, we're getting tested on how well we know this stuff.
The teacher's instructions are clear, but bare: "Bring only what I tell you to bring and meet at the Richards Building at 4 PM Thursday afternoon." That’s it. With nothing but bare essentials, our class of roughly 25 gathers together in the orange light of a cool Autumn afternoon to face a new adventure. We know we will be doing a three-day survival trip, but that's all we know. As one of the van drivers, I'm only given the instructions to keep up with the lead van and call the driver if we fall behind. We have no idea where we are going or what we will be expected to do, and with no food and as much water as we could carry (per the instructor's orders), we're anxious to get started.
We hope to leave soon after we meet at 4 PM. Instead, the instructor and Teaching Assistants keep us busy making small baskets out of pine needles and raffia grass. We stir and laugh with anticipation while trying to nimbly move our fingers to produce some kind of a mess that might pass for the beginnings of a basket. Our stomachs start to grumble and we are granted “one last meal.” We jump in the big blue BYU van and make a quick stop at Wendy’s. No sooner do we get back to the Richards Building than we are told to load up.
The final has begun.
Before anything else, the instructor lines us up and gives some cautionary words. “If anyone has brought any food, I want you to hand it over now. If I find you have brought food, you will fail the final and fail the class.”
No one moves. We’re all eager to do this and we don’t want to cheat the experience.
“Ok, now, give me all of your cell phones, watches, jewelry, and anything electronic. Keep your cameras, if you brought them. We don’t want to you lose this stuff, and we want you to experience this final without them.”
We offer a prayer, asking for safety and for a good experience. It is always wise to ask for God’s assistance in everything – small things, big things, good times, bad times. Since we are testing our survival skills, prayer is now especially important. After a brief and earnest prayer, we pile in the vans, and drive into the night.
Civilization fades as we turn from highway to main street to side-roads to back-roads to dirt-roads. There are no city lights. There are no streetlights, just headlights, starlight, and the dim lights of a factory or farmhouse over 50 miles away. The lead van pulls over in a cloud of dust and we climb out of the van, asking ourselves, “What now?”
“Grab your jacket, your knife, and your water,” calls the head Teaching Assistant.
What!? What about my sleeping bag and the extra pair of jeans? What about the camera? This could be very interesting.
It’s cold as we head off down the dirt road. It’s dark, too. The moon hasn’t risen. But it doesn’t seem to bother most of us. We share stories, tell jokes, and wonder what kind of class we got ourselves into. Some students are genuinely worried – would they be able to do this? Two hours and eight miles later, one of the teaching assistants informs us that we’ll find the vans around the corner, by a group of juniper trees. Although relieved, I wonder to myself, “What if…what if I really had to do this with just my knife and my water bottle? What would I do?”
Slowly and silently, the breeze has turned into a wind, cutting like ice through my jacket. We grab our gear and set up for the night.
“More bodies equal more warmth, right?” It was close to freezing, even without the wind chill. So we welcome the idea, pitch a tarp against the wind and huddle together like a bunch of frozen burritos waiting for the sun’s radiation to warm us up. We settle down for the first night of our final.
The approach of the sun turns the sky into a calm and clear blue. The Teaching Assistants, TAs for short, wake us for breakfast: one orange. Oranges aren’t my favorite fruit. I’d take a bowl of strawberries over an orange any day, but right now, I’m eating it. I don’t know how much more food we’re going to be given.
We clean up our meager campsite and follow the instructor over a small creek to a meadow where we demonstrate our survival skills: figure-four deadfall trap, a cord-tension-based deadfall trap, fire by bow-drill, and fire by steel and quartz. The animal traps are easy. I build them, set them, and demonstrate them to the TAs in thirty minutes. So, I start working on building a fire with the bow-drill method. Before the final, I had practiced for hours, unsuccessfully, to start a fire using the bow-drill method. As a break from my schoolwork, I would drive toward Provo Canyon and practice at a park where our class was instructed. But I never could get a fire going. I needed to now. I break two shoelaces in the attempts. I make a new set of fire starters. On multiple occasions, smoke pours from my setup and I nurse the small ember…still, nothing.
It’s getting later in the day. If I don’t make a fire, I could be very cold tonight because tonight, we’re surviving individually. I try again with my set of fire makers. My arms are getting tired from whipping that willow-branch bow back and forth so fast and furiously. Smoke again pours from the board beneath my spindle. “Keep going – I’m going to keep going until this whole stinkin’ board bursts into flames!” I had decided to place my tinder bundle beneath my base board, in a small hand-dug channel, hoping that the ember I was creating would fall into the fire nest and set the bundle on fire. I stopped whipping the bow. Smoke drifts from the board. I’m getting close. I pull the nest into the air and blow life-giving air into the bundle of crushed juniper bark. Suddenly, I find myself in possession of a ball of fire! I created living, breathing, violent fire out of a few inanimate sticks and a bundle of dried bark! I was as giddy as a little schoolboy on holiday. I have made fire!
Having demonstrated my ability to build fire the hard way, the TAs teach me how to start a fire through the means of a spark from steel and quartz and charred cotton canvas. I have a small fire going within fifteen minutes using this method. “This fire by spark sure is a lot more convenient,” I think to myself.
Before long, the class instructor appears, checking up on us and informing us that he has our next meal available for us. We are ready for a meal, but we are not ready for this meal. The instructor brings us a cage of live chickens and a few carrots and celery.
“In survival situations, you must be prepared to do things you don’t normally do. These animals are God’s creation. They are given to us for our benefit. You will form teams of three or four, pick a chicken, and prepare it for eating.” He gives a very brief run-down on how to clean a chicken and we are left with a noose, a hatchet, and our empty stomachs. Having never slaughtered or cleaned a chicken, I am nervous about this experience, but interested to have it. We kill the chicken and clean it by trial and error. One of my teammates prepares the fire, another cuts the vegetables and I rinse the meat off in the creek. It’s time to make chicken soup.
We live in an interesting time. Many of us never experience everything involved in preparing a meal from scratch. We have our store-bought bread, our canned soups, processed meats, and yet we complain that cooking takes too much time, or that our life is hard. I wonder what people of the 18th century would say if they saw our day. How much room do we really have to complain?
We hurry and finish the last of our chicken soup and stomp out our cooking fire. It is now our privilege to survive the next 24 hours alone. We are lead, one by one, into a juniper forest, if you can call it a forest, and given a location to set up camp for the next day. We are not to communicate with other students except in the case of a severe emergency. This is an individual test.
My camp location is well situated in a ring of juniper trees. A small stump marks the center. I look around. Nothing by the sturdiest plants grow here in the desert – juniper, cactus, sage. My first priority is fire. It will be dark soon and making fire in the dark is much more difficult than making fire in the light. A spark from the quartz and steel sets my charred cloth smoldering. Nursing the glowing cotton into a flame is delicate skill, but it begets the heat and companionship of a warm fire.
With my small fire going, I set about creating my shelter that will be my temporary home. Growing up, I loved reading stories about survival and adventure. Books like My Side of the Mountain, The Hatchet, and the Worst Case Scenario Handbook were constantly by my side. As a boy, I imagined myself in their shoes and I wanted to taste of their experiences. And here I am, tasting that adventure as I build my makeshift tent. I keep a steady eye on my fire, knowing that it can leave more easily than it arrived. I scout the area, finding plenty of juniper branches and a few pine branches to create the backbone of my shelter. Just as the night before, the wind picks up and the temperature drops. I set up my tarp on the windblown side, protecting myself from the piercing wind.
After some more additions and modifications, I settle down into my shelter. It’s not big, which is nice, because the smaller the shelter is, the better it is at retaining my body heat. It is surreal being alone in the desert. The wind playing music in the juniper trees keeps time for the fire’s mesmerizing dance. I hear a classmate singing hymns to himself in the distance. I lay peacefully in my sleeping bag, feeding the fire snacks of small sticks, to which it replies most graciously, and I fall asleep under the canopy of the stars.
I awake to something wet on my nose. I open my eyes, wishing the ground was a bit softer. Of course, it’s my fault. I could have made some kind of bedding from the surrounding plants, but I didn’t. The wind is gone and it’s slightly warmer than the previous morning. Snow! About quarter of an inch on the ground and still coming down! I glance over at my fire, which is now a small pile of ashes. If all the wood gets wet from the snow, I’ll have no fuel. No fuel means no fire. No fire means no warmth. If I don’t get my fire going, I’ll have to stay wrapped in my sleeping bag to stay warm. I quickly get out of my sleeping bag and find dry wood and a few dry cow patties. I coax a small flame out of the remains of the previous night’s fire and a store up enough fuel to keep me warm the rest of the day.
I make a few changes to my shelter in order to make it more weather proof. I settle down to watch the drifting snow, the dancing fire, and the stream of memories playing across my mind as I read my journal. I pass most of the day keeping my fire. The occasional hum of a distant motorcycle reminds me that I am one big adventure – not out of danger, but not entirely in it either. The solitude is refreshing. Our lives are so full of noise and distractions that time to ones’ self is often neglected, although very much need.
The day passes and the TAs come by towards the evening, inspect our shelter, and tell me to take down camp, and return to the vans. The day passed too quickly and I am sad to leave my little home and the solitude I enjoyed.
Back at “base camp,” the instructors have a dutch-oven meal cooking. Stew never tasted so good! Upon finishing our meal, we gather around to hear some final words from our instructor. We share some of our experiences and our testimonies about God. We gather our things together and head back to Provo.
As the sun sets and the night air gets cooler, I drop off the students at their apartments, then I drop off the van and walk back to my apartment. “I would love to do this again. I really felt . . . good out there.” I say to myself. This experience has given me more confidence in myself. Not only has it taught me that I can survive in difficult situations, but it has given me time to reflect, to explore, to enjoy, and to experience. It was one great experience.
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