A friend from Alaska brought a unique gift - a Ulu (pronounced oo’loo) knife. The design was crafted by Native Alaskan People over 5000 years ago. Originally the blades were fashioned from polished slate and given bone handles. They were used primarily for skinning and cleaning fish and sea mammals. As time has progressed, the [...]
A juniper berry is not a true berry but rather a fleshy female seed cone with merged scales with an approximate size of a 1/4 inch in diameter. All juniper species grow berries, but a few are toxic and some are considered too bitter to eat and are not recommended for eating in volume. Most [...]
Recently I was visiting family and friends out-of-town and wanted to show them my signal mirror that I carry in my “bug-out bag” (an emergency travel bag supplied for 3+ days sustainably). They live in town so I didn’t have a field to demonstrate the mirror’s effect from afar. However, the city street did offer [...]
As an empty one gallon milk jug looms before me, I am reminded that a one gallon container is worth roughly 8 pounds of flotation. More precisely, 7.7 pounds. This becomes significant when you need to build a raft with salvaged containers in the aftermath of flooding or for emergency travel by waterways. Of course, [...]
