Dancing Hawk: Back to the San Juans
Posted on July 17, 2008, by admin.
Filed Under Pacific Coast, Community, Washington, Adventures | 1 Comment
Well, the end of the year expedition for the Dancing Hawk Apprentices has completed, and we are back healthy and happy, after having paddled many miles and gathered a ridiculous amount of food from the bounty of ocean’s denizens.
I am writing this now because Ancestralways.net has been on hiatus for nearly a year, and that is because major changes have happened. As one of two major organizers of this community experiment, I found that our tremendous energy input into free classes and opportunities wasn’t sustainable– few people participated in our free courses and not a person helped in organizing except Thaddeus and myself. SO! In the last year I have redirected my efforts back into Dancing Hawk, my Native Lifeways and Hunter-Gathering School.
Most of my time has been spent with my yearlong apprentices, who have done amazing things in this last year– they have grown through major personal challenges, built bows and kayaks, paddled throughout the waterways of our region, hunted and gathered food from nettles and snails to deer and rockfish. We’ve grown a garden, learned to live in community together, and even pushed the edge of our own mortalities on the mighty Columbia River.
Now the energy of Dancing Hawk is back in full force, and with the addition of three new wilderness guides, we are taking on both introductory courses in plant identification to advanced courses in long-distance kayak-based foraging. Dancing Hawk courses are not free, but we have discovered much greater sustainability in our efforts and much greater participation.
Ancestral Lifeways is closing down and all our efforts are returned to offering Dancing Hawk’s very unique blend of kayak-based naturalist and primitive skills. Pay us a visit and check out our Photo Gallery! Our new website is coming soon as well.
Well now, back in the San Juans, we spotted all sorts of amazing wildlife. Eagles, of course, but then also Harbor Porpoises (who surfaced and blew our of their blowholes at sunset on Doughty Point), seals, river otters, and lots more.
We also did some on the spot learning of plants and their uses. Jack kindly stripped some cedar bark from a dying cedar tree for us, and we then corded it and attached the strong cord to a dead gull for crab bait.
Of course, we ate tons of crabs, but also lots of delicious shellfish– oysters and great huge Washington surf clams for dinner every night.
That’s it for now. I hope that you all are getting outside and participating in nature, and becoming one with it! Good luck on your adventures, and perhaps we will see you at our log cabin on Oregon Coast if you decide to come and take a Dancing Hawk course.
Up the River
Posted on August 28, 2007, by admin.
Filed Under Community, Portland Region, Adventures, Willamette Valley | 3 Comments
For me, there has always been one way in which I have wanted to reclaim a part of Portland which has always been only scenery to me, and that is kayaking the Willamette. Portland’s river is, for many of us, something beautiful to stare at on the way across a bridge or something to avoid at all costs lest we birth hermaphroditic children like the fish who dwell within it. Taking the time (five days to be exact) to learn the river at its own eye level provided an entirely different perspective than the one I was used to from driving above it. Looking up at the world from the water is a privilege every Portlander should know, if only once. Thaddeus, Kilii, David, Justin and myself had the astute privilege for 64 miles of upstream paddling, often times all to ourselves.
We set out from North Portland’s Swan Island at one of the less sightly spots on the river. North Portland’s industry and its runoff are evident in the health warnings posted by the docks prohibiting consumption of fish by the elderly, pregnant women and children, which begs the question of why young, non-pregnant people should be any exception. Despite the human impact on the area, small trees and plant life will grow on the floating pillars at the bases of enormous container ship docks; lone soldiers of life and persistence within an inhospitable, modernized environment. We found our first night’s home along a sand bar near Ross Island, gifted with all the blackberries, leftover peanuts, and unopened two-liter Coca-Cola we could ever ask for.
Our five was down to three on day two. Justin and David retired back to the city while Thaddeus, Kiliii and myself pressed on. The day greeted us with a downpour almost immediately upon leaving camp. That morning the river let me in on an old secret: the rain is so indescribably glorious on the water, such that it instills the same sense of wonder and excitement as a sunny day in the park.
For every newcomer’s effort to condition themselves to the reality of Portland’s perpetually wet weather, either by resignation to drier, indoor safe havens or devotion to remaining outdoors in spite of the weather, nothing compares to being on the water and under it at the same time; an equilibrium or sorts.
We spent the last traces of daylight looking for possible portage sites to move beyond the falls, but no feasible alternative could be found. With the highway on our left, an old, decommissioned paper mill on the right, and the falls directly ahead, we had no choice but to wait for access to the locks come early the next morning. Dangerously swift current prevented a closer look, but a view from a distance was close enough to see the paper mill’s ongoing contribution to the Willamette falls.
What was once unkempt wilderness was strewn with uprooted trees and visible signs of general neglect for the surrounding area. The paper mill had managed to leave its mark both up and downstream in the form of scattered concrete chunks, piles of rusted automotive debris, and dark cavities at the base of the buildings where basement walls had been blown out, spewing bricks and gravel outward onto and along the shore.
Despite all that, no amount of human interference could keep back the blackberry which consumed entire hillsides in ten-foot tall thickets with plum-sized fruit. Both fruit and some wild meats made for a good and sustaining meal for all.
Day three gifted us with a day’s worth of food almost immediately upon setting out. A sea-run cutthroat trout was beached upon the island we’d stayed on the night before. Presuming that it hadn’t spent much of its life in the Willamette, Thaddeus took it into his boat to be cleaned and cooked at the end of the day.
Proceeding through the locks was a much lengthier process than had been anticipated, but we were met with warm company for the hour or two spent filling each of the locks’ compartments. Those boaters who weren’t throwing back cheap beer and bourbon helped to steady the makeshift barge as it progressed from one chamber to the next.
After four separate lifts, we were finally even with the upstream side of the falls and continued on. That night we feasted on our catch from the morning and laid its bones at the edge of the riverbed, grateful once again for the sacrifice which granted us sustenance for the day ahead.
–Danny Newman
[Danny is off to Russia very soon and left me to finish telling the story, so in short…]
Once we shot past Champoeg State Park, the downstream current began to pick up in a serious way. We began to paddle up through sloughs and across eddies as we worked our way around the river, learning to understand how water _works_. We stayed close along the edge of the river to take advantage of back-eddies that pushed us against the current when possible, but we every so often there was no way to avoid the current, which ran between one and five knots at some points. We got out and portaged the boats, dragging them behind us along the shallow banks for as much as half a mile at a stretch. It was nice change from simply paddling.
Well, on our final day we were pretty exhausted from battling the current for twelve mile days, and a bit dehydrated as we had run out of fresh water. Fortunately, a fellow elderly boater on the river gave us a small bottle of water and a can of Pepsi. Not one to argue, we decided to land and take a rest. Well, somewhere in there as we skipped stones on the shore and wondered about the last six miles of daunting currents to paddle to reach Salem. We cracked open some wine and made wine-pepsi mixers (since we were dehydrated, after all) and soon enough, we were very merry and the last six miles of portaging and paddling very quickly went by so smoothly that it was infinitely enjoyable. It was a great feeling to land on the banks of our destination at a primitive skills gathering (known as Echoes In Time), having gotten there not by fossil fuel, but paddle power and learning the waterways which define our place, even against the current.
That seems to be our community’s defining characteristic, a penchant for going upstream; sticking it out and discovering the magic behind getting soaked in the rain, eating trout and blackberries, and letting our creative souls roam freely.
-Kiliii Yu
The Class(y) Umiak
Posted on June 18, 2007, by admin.
Filed Under Pacific Coast, Community, 7 Generations | Leave a Comment
On Saturday, June 2nd my teacher Francine Adams, myself and 29 other eighth graders from the Portland Waldorf School (PWS) arrived at Cedar Grove Farm, a permaculture farm outside of Port Orford, Oregon. One of our tasks was to build an umiak, a traditional Inuit whaling boat, with instruction and help from Ernie, Kiliii, and Thaddeus from Ancestral Lifeways. The owner of the farm, Rick Hazard, provided the Port Orford Cedar that was used in the making of the boat.
Most of the PWS 8th grade class has gone to school with each other for eight years. It is a school tradition that the eighth grade class take a trip at the end of the year before many of them leave for different high schools. Tony Deis offered to put together and lead our trip. Through his connections, we were able to find people to host and to teach us how to build an umiak.
When we got to Cedar Grove Farm, Ernie, Kiliii and Thaddeus had already prepared the wood and assembled the floor frame of the umiak. It was late in the day, so after setting up camp, eating and having the first of our nightly campfires, we went to sleep.
The first day, twelve people worked on the umiak. We lashed together the frame of the boat and helped Ernie make the tiller. Twelve other people went harvesting in the tide pools and six worked with Rick on the farm.
On Monday we went to the Cape Blanco Lighthouse and took a tour. Back at camp in the afternoon, we calculated how much work was left in order to finish the umiak and the paddles that went with it. It was a large amount, so ten people were assigned to spend all of their time working on the umiak and paddles. While we were working on the boat that afternoon and all day Tuesday, the others were harvesting mussels, making crab pots, cooking meals, and cleaning.
On Wednesday, the umiak was ready for its maiden voyage. We took it to the town of Bandon which is next to a very sheltered part of the ocean. After splitting into two groups, we took turns rowing the umiak. It worked quite well, although the paddles were really heavy. We paddled around the bay and tried to catch some crabs with our handmade crab pots.
We returned to Portland on Thursday, June 7th. The next Monday we took the umiak out on the Willamette River. A journalist from the local newspaper and a television reporter from KATU came to interview us and, in the case of the latter, film the launching of the umiak.
Part of the boat building experience included composing an accord detailing the future of the umiak. We discussed this at our last campfire and came up with the following:
• Ancestral Lifeways shall store the umiak.
• Ancestral Lifeways shall have free use of the umiak
• When a particular trip involving the umiak seems appropriate, Ancestral Lifeways shall invite the Portland Waldorf School 8th grade class of 2007 on this trip. Ideally this should happen at least every four years.
• When a trip involving the umiak seems appropriate for grade school children, Ancestral Lifeways shall inform PWS of their trip. PWS shall send whichever class they believe would benefit most from the experience. Ideally, this should happen once a year.
• Children from PWS shall assist Ancestral Lifeways with any cleaning and repairs needed for the umiak.
Our hope is that the umiak will foster a relationship between Ancestral Lifeways and PWS that will last for the next 200 years or seven generations.
Our class grew a lot closer on this trip and we learned many new things. We grew more skilled with a lot of woodworking tools, learned about the diverse life in the tide pools and repaired two cob structures, not to mention learning some new songs from Kiliii.
When we began the trip, all of us were worried about the lack of warm showers and toilets. But by Tuesday, most of us had decided that peeing in the woods was much more convenient than finding a bathroom. We tried new foods such as mussels and venison and discovered that rain is one’s worst enemy when you live in a tent.
We had so much fun and are really grateful to all the staff for teaching us so much about the outdoors.
-Taylor E. Holland
Portland Waldorf School 8th Grader
Pirates of San Juan
Posted on May 31, 2007, by Shaun.
Filed Under Pacific Coast, Community, Adventures | Leave a Comment
Six of us arrived on Shaw Island last Thursday evening after just barely making it on the 6:30 ferry from Anacortes, Washington. We still needed to pick up tide charts and so drove around for about a half hour in search of a store but soon realized that the only store was the one next to the ferry dock and it was closed. After sitting in front of the store indecisively trying to make a plan, we were eventually greeted by the store owner. He was a nice guy and invited us into his office where he printed out some tide charts from the web.
We settled down to camp that night at a park on Squaw Bay, the ground already wet with dew. Around 5:30 a.m. the dawn chorus of the birds whispered through our ears half awake, half asleep welcoming us to their home. After breakfast we packed up our gear in dry bags and filled the hulls of our new kayaks.
For those that may not know, last month 7 of us built King Island style kayaks from salvaged doug fir, willows, oak and nylon skin. The project took almost 2 weeks and this trip was our chance to put the boats to the test.
The plan that morning was to put on our wet suits and take the kayaks down to the shore to practice our rolling/rescue skills before the paddle. I wasn’t looking forward to the icy morning dip as the sun still hadn’t burned through the morning fog. Once geared up and in the boats though we each had a good laugh at each others wet heads and gasping mouths popping from the water after a practice “T” rescue.
As prepared as we could be we paddled off to the east and then north around Shaw Island at a leisurely pace. The boats felt very stable carrying 60+ lbs. of gear, water and food.
A couple hours later we landed at our first destination, Blind Island. The sight of a few crabs in the shallows around the island piqued our interests and we set out like hunter gatherers upon the new land, no bigger than a city block.
In time our campsite became the site of a great feast as each of us returned with quite a bounty. Crabs, oysters, limpets, kelp, nori, and miner’s lettuce were all on the menu.
It seemed only appropriate that we light our camp fire with a hand drill, so I gathered up a few mullein stalks and a cedar driftwood fireboard. We tag teamed on the drill until we got a good coal going and ignited our fire. Paddling gave everyone a hearty appetite. As we ate we went around each giving thanks for things that we had been blessed with that day, food, safety, friendship, the moon, etc. We slept deeply that night on what we imagined to be our own private island.
Our next stop was Jones Island, about 5 nautical miles to the west. The wake from passing ships added a little excitement to the calm waters causing our kayaks to rise and dip. I imagined myself adrift in the middle of the sea.
We arrived at the island in the afternoon, chowed down on some trail mix and splayed out in the sun for a nap. Jones Island is a state park with its most visible inhabitants being tame deer, mink and white crowned sparrows. We struck camp on a mossy hilltop while Kiliii and Tony went fishing in their kayaks. In time they came back with two rock fish that Kiliii caught. Rock fish curry for dinner. Yummm!
We spent some time exploring the island and swimming the next day as we waited for the slack tide, when the water is calmest. I gathered seaweed and layed it out on the rocks to dry, Kiliii harvested some weird looking sea cucumbers and assured us of their tastiness.
Around noon we packed up and set off to the southeast for Turn Island. It was about 5 miles away and involved many open water crossings so we stayed in close proximity to each other in case someone spilled. The wind picked up on the San Juan Channel and the water was a bit choppy but our boats felt quite stable. The clouds crept in behind us and blocked out the sun giving incentive to pick up the pace.
As we passed Yellow Island the effect of the wind and the receeding tide created some little white caps that made us all a bit nervous. Thaddeus and Kiliii consulted their maps and directed us ahead to smoother waters.
In time we reached Turn Island. Exhausted and relieved to be back on land we slipped into dry clothes and gathered around as Marya lit a fire. Skogin climbed up a fir tree to hang his fresh kelp out to dry.
We had an extra day to spend and decided to spend it on Turn Island. We woke early to a low tide and so took advantage of the situtation gathering oysters, snails and lots of clams. I’ve never eaten an oyster this fresh before and it was definitely a treat. We had oysters for lunch and pasta with clams for dinner. Oh, and snails as an appetizer. Fine dining indeed.
During the two nights we stayed there our camp was visited by the local raccoons. I was awoken by them digging through our trash bag on a few occasions. The next morning well after sun up I saw two of them on the shoreline foraging about. Thaddeus and I stalked up through the woods and watched them as they turned over rocks and feasted on little crabs. We tried to get closer but they caught sight of us and scurried up a tree. They perched there on two limbs peering down at us while a crow scolded them from above. We all gazed at each other for awhile with curiousity. I felt empathy for what it must be like to be raccoon and I imagined them feeling an empathy for what it must be like to be human.
The tide was at its lowest when we put our kayaks in and started the journey back to Shaw Island. We had about a mile to go. It wasn’t a long paddle but the current was strong and I was having trouble keeping my boat straight. The seals popped their heads up now and then watching us pass by. We were back before noon and got to work loading up the boats to catch the next ferry back to Anacortes.
This was the first kayak tour for most of us and was an awesome route to take. I enjoyed the kayaking but enjoyed even more the opportunities that the ancient kayak provided us to explore distant islands, forage for food, observe new beings both plant and animal and create stories and memories that we all can share.
Cone-Cone-Chweee!
Posted on April 14, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Community | 1 Comment
The song of Red-Winged Blackbirds trills the morning air as we walk along the shores of the marsh. Suddenly, a flock of thousands explodes off the water, honking and darkening the sky. The geese are heading north again!
We had ventured to Eugene ostensibly to harvest cattails, though we spent a great deal of time simply playing in the wetlands, as usual. Here Ellen fluffs a cattail head, reseeding the plants we harvest, trying to learn how to manage the land in a respectful and sustainable fashion.
The cattail harvest was not as fruitful as I had hoped. The weather in the coast range was colder than the Willamette Valley (which includes our home territory in Portland), and the cattails were a good twelve inches shorter than the ideal harvesting height. Nevertheless, we harvested a good bunch, even in the face of the dry soil that made shoot harvesting difficult.
A number of the group were from Lewis and Clark University (spring break), so to make it a proper trip for us all, everyone put in with kayaks and canoes to experience the wetlands at water level. Paddling through tule rushes, the boats helped the group get closer to the truth of the wetland– bass under the surface, a juvenile bald eagle overhead.
Not to be daunted by the cattail situation, Pete, Thaddeus and I spent the last morning down by the stream picking lady fern and bracken fern fiddleheads. There is some controversy over the potential for bracken ferns to be mildly carcinogenic, though the literature certainly supports that notion. Considering how wonderful they taste and how prolific they are, I’ll still be happy to eat a few.
Let there be Light, Air… and Dried Nettles?
Posted on April 13, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Technology | 1 Comment
There’s a quiet little hum in the other room right now, a satisfying hum. The hum of twenty pounds of stinging nettles lying in a box, rapidly drying.
But wait. Nettles don’t hum, nor do boxes. What kind of etymological mischief is this?
Well, my friends, I am introducing to you the new food dehydrator, made in the usual DIY fashion from recycled materials. It has an enormous capacity– imagine a room about 9′x6′ filled with drying foods. I’ll also let you on to the secret for rapid drying here in the wet wild Pacific Northwest. Moving air and heat.
Moving around air inside a large box and generating heat aren’t particularly difficult things to do, but a few considerations first:
1. The dehydrator should be quiet. We’ll need a quiet fan.
2. The fan(s) should be low volume, so they don’t blow us away.
3. The heat must not exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. The heat should be at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
5. We must use recycled components.
As you can see, we did pretty well. A trip to FreeGeek in SE Portland resulted in 8 computer fans that we rigged up to a computer power supply. With a donation of a lightbulb assembly, we had all the hardware we needed.
This was preceded by a trip to the ReBuilding Center, where we found the wood we needed to make the box, and the old window screens that provided the food trays. The total cost of all materials minus screws? $45. With screws? $65. I don’t know why screws are that expensive.
The only real trouble we ran into in the construction of this dehydrator was establishing a correct airflow. When we first mounted the fans, we found we were simply circulating the air in circles around the fans. So we took them off, cut holes in the wooden panels at the front and back of the box to create an airflow around the box itself rather than inside it. It worked like a charm, and gave me some inspiration for the final touch on the dryer door. Now I’m really excited about a summer and fall of wild foods.
Freezing Rivers of Molten Rock
Posted on April 2, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Community, Central Oregon | 1 Comment
In our continuing series of adventures-until-we-drop-dead, the Ancestral Lifeways group arrived at the old volcano in Central Oregon, Glass Buttes, to collect obsidian and dacite stone for making stone tools (also known as flintknapping).
Here elder Goode Jones works on one of the enormous boulders we dug out of the earth, spalling out large flat pieces for us to work into large stone blades and smaller tools.
Earlier, the had weather decided that it was more appropriate for us to work on our shelter skills. Freezing rain, snow, sleet and strong winds swept down the valley and dropped the nighttime temperatures to fifteen degrees. Most of us Portlanders don’t get fifteen degrees all winter– it was like being blown back into winter two months ago. Nevertheless, being at camp was a joy. We cooked, spent time with the fire, and cooked some more. Overall, a wonderful experience at being human and exposed to the forces of the outdoors.
That old time feeling: Stinging Nettles
Posted on March 28, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Washington | 2 Comments
Spring is in full sting here, and apparently, it is in Olympia too. A few of us took a trip up to Olympia, Washington to collect baskets of the wonderful Stinging Nettle, a blessing of the spring foods.
Nettles are amazing. I once asked a group what they would eat if they could eat only a single food for the rest of their life, on nutritional value alone, and one herbalist answered, “Dark Chocolate. And then after that Stinging Nettles.” So there you have it. It’s hard to compete with Nettles for nutrition, and they are easy to harvest in large bunches. Checking in the wet meadows and forests for this newly native plant (introduced by the 1700s) can yield a a great harvest.
But you can’t (or maybe shouldn’t) eat many without cooking or drying them first. Nettles make a first rate tea, and instantly become full size again when the dried plants are put into hot water. We collected forty pounds of dried nettles in two days of easy foraging.
A nice thing about going places to harvest are the connections we make with other communities and other lands. We met up with Benjamin Pixie and some of his wild foraging community in Olympia and we wandered the wetlands there, encountering a great many things, including a fallen cedar tree. The cedar had many exposed roots, and we collected a few for the daunting future task of weaving water-tight baskets, which are possible because roots swell when exposed to water, sealing the basket.
Here Thaddeus plays on a pan flute made from Scouring Rushes which grew by the side of the river. We spent much of our time simply walking, exploring and playing in the wet wild woods, by our wild lones.
Jon Young, Seven Generations, and Beyond
Posted on March 22, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Community, Speakers, Portland Region, 7 Generations | 2 Comments
Jon Young gave a great lecture on Friday, speaking to the group about the importance of cultural mentoring, the system that he has evolved over time side by side with native elders from the Akamba of Kenya, San of the Kalahari, Haudenosaunee of the Northeast and Polynesians of Hawa’i'i.
So what is this cultural mentoring thing all about? Cultural mentoring is about, it would seem, a way to build a community; a way to relate to one another in a fashion that has worked for other cultures for long periods of time; a way to pass on important modes of connecting deeply to the land. I would venture to say to say that it’s about permaculture, community structure, consensus, good communication, aboriginal lifeways, birdwatching, and more.
There was a wonderful moment when workshop leader Tony Deis asked Jon a question about what’s happening in our communities across the world.
“So Jon, does that mean this is a movement?“, asked Tony.
“Well, yes, I guess this is a movement,” responded Jon.
“I ask because if this is a movement, then I want to know what defines the movement.”
Jon hesitated a brief moment and then said, “Well, the nature awareness people are all about getting back to how indigenous peoples did it, and permaculture’s principles are borrowed from indigenous peoples. I guess it’s a movement in re-indigenizing.”
At that moment I nearly jumped out of my seat. What Jon said resonated deeply with me, knowing that all these different communities and organizations in Portland are together on this one– a greater community that believes in the seven generations before and beyond.
Reed Island Willows
Posted on March 21, 2007, by kiliii.
Filed Under Columbia River Gorge | Leave a Comment
We are at winter’s end, and the willows wave at us from the shore of Reed Island, a boat-only accessible island on the Columbia River.
So with only days to go until spring, we hurriedly packed our willow clippers into kayaks and canoes, and set off for the great Reed Island. What did we have in mind for the willows? I had visions of ribs for future kayaks. Peter had visions of willow baskets. The beavers had visions of delicious steamed willow shoots.
Now in the spirit of gratitude, we gathered a great many willow shoots, but noted that the good straight willow shoots seemed to all come from the same plants. Why was that? Were some plants simply straighter and more compliant? Or was it perhaps that the beavers had been maintaining the willows for us?
The notion of beavers keeping the willow gardens in good shape for us isn’t that far off, really. When beavers chew off willow branches, they are effectively ‘coppicing’, or pruning those branches. Between previous willow gatherers, the beavers, and a heritage of native caretakers tending the willow beds, we found a large amount of straight, branchless willows, great for basketry. We also spotted the signs of beavers and nutria, the first stinging nettles of the season, and listened to the great blue herons as they sailed by.
So after a long, misty day, we packed off into our boats and set for the northern shore. Several of us had never been in kayaks before, but by the end of our day’s journey, felt more comfortable and I’d reckon, that much closer to the spirit of the great Columbia River, being connected to it through the thin skins of our boats.