Thoreau at Walden Pond

Thoreau’s Walden: Reality or Romance?

The part (or, “one" part) that confuses me is whether this land experience becomes easier as my knowledge and skills improve. When I search for guidance on that topic, I find conflicting stories.

Where I live on the west coast of British Columbia, there are a large number of individuals and couples who moved here in the 1960s and 70s as part of the U.S, draft dodge, or a “back-to-the-land” movement. Many of these people eventually abandoned the physical part of that dream, remaining concerned with the same values and politics, but taking on full-time or seasonal wage-work to live more easily inside a cash economy. I have heard second-hand accounts that concluded the early experiment “was just too much work.” I’ll have to talk directly to some of these people to get a clearer picture.

One of the best known accounts of an individual attempting to opt out of the frantic pace of “modern life”(in the mid 1800s) is Henry David Thoreau’s book "Walden." He spends two years and two months in his cabin by Walden Pond, and during that time he questions and passes judgement on most of the dominant economy and the society that supports it. His conclusions concerning quality of life have inspired many dreamers, discontents, idealists, and misfits, both young and old, during the last century and a half since its publication.

Thoreau states that “I maintained myself thus solely be the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.”

A couple pages later he writes, “to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely… It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.”

Much more recently, Eric Brende wrote about his back-to-the-land experience in his 2005 book "Better Off." He describes the eighteen-months the he and his partner Mary spent in a semi-Amish community at an undisclosed location in the U.S. During that time, they benefited from the help and advice of the neighboring family, the Millers – who were also the owners of Eric’s rented home.

Eric and Mary arrive in the community with little money or practical gardening and construction experience, yet the food grows, vegetables are canned, surplus produce is sold, albeit with difficulty. While Brendte tries to temper the romantic tone of the message in his book by writing some rational advice in the final “P.S.” chapter, much of his story creates the impression of an ease of existence that this life choice might offer.

I arrived at this property five years ago. I have a lot of construction, mechanical, and other trades skills to draw on. I had dabbled with gardening, hunting and fishing, but in those areas especially I have a lot to learn.

For the first few years, Tova and I did little on the property other than machete back the encroaching blackberries, build a few raised-bed gardens beside the house, and prune the existing fruit trees. There were also a few emergency repairs done – such as a new roof on the house and replacing most of one wall and part of the floor after I discovered major carpenter-ant damage. Beyond that, we were both consumed with writing and academic projects on one hand, and finding enough cash work to pay basic bills and the mortgage.

As I wrote about in the “September” post, I am sometimes overwhelmed with the volume of small chores that can consume days or even years. That is a reality that I find missing in the two books mentioned above. I wonder about that discrepancy of experience between their accounts versus those of my unpublished neighbors and my own past few years. Was it really that much easier for Thoreau to find self-sufficiency and contentment strictly because of his wise choices? Is it actually possible in this present time to arrive in a rural community and begin with little skill or finance and yet sustain yourselves with small-scale agriculture?

I think that both accounts leave out some critical factors – Thoreau’s in particular. Thoreau was given free use of cleared land that had lay fallow for some time so that he was able to rely on its existing fertility for that short time period rather than using soil inputs. In the second year he decides to plant only 1/3 acre rather than the 2 ½ he did in the previous year.
“...if one could live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and expensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground.”

In this way, he concludes that he can simply move from one location to the next without returning manure or other inputs to the soil.

He partially justifies this plan by observing that he wasn’t the owner, but merely a “squatter.” Of course, this in turn might lead to a discussion of the “Tragedy of the Commons” debate, wherein free access to common land can be a huge benefit to a wider community until that population rises beyond a certain point, or an individual or group decides to profit from the common land without returning to it at least as much as was harvested – even if that return is in the form of manure.

Another major missing element in Thoreau’s account is his pattern of almost daily meals at his mother’s house in Concord. There is nothing wrong with that reliance on the generosity of family and friends to supplement our own production, but that economic input needs to be emphasized rather than leaving the impression of the ease of rural life – i.e. a few hours in the garden, and the rest of the time lazy fishing, writing, feeding crumbs to a cabin mouse.

I thought that Brende also creates an the impression of relative ease to sustain the physical part of life necessities – food, shelter, etc. in the main body of his book. That said, I did appreciate his last few pages of post-experience reflection where he gave some more sober words of advice to would-be pioneers. However, in many ways, the two messages seemed to be in conflict.

Perhaps, in both of these books, the contradictions result mostly from the desire to paint a picture that is more uplifting than the complete experience would give – either because an optimistic flavour would more attract a publisher and subsequently sell in the book market; or because that is the message that the authors felt a reading public needed to hear at this point in time. Some breath of hope.

Whether or not I accept their message as a whole, a few of their simple wisdoms are critical and apply no matter how we choose to live.

-Brende repeats in both words and actions, “Never bring in more technology than necessary.”

Is it the novelty of the item and or desire to not miss out on what others are doing? Or is it the advertiser’s convincing portrayal of the easy life that will follow your purchase? … because eventually we have to recognize that very rarely do we actually gain that promised life-of-ease, contentment and satisfaction simply by buying the next piece of hardware.

As a starting point, we can use Thoreau’s self-interest equation – …the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
We have to consider the time it takes to earn the funds to purchase the item; the effort to learn to operate it, and often unquestioningly changing our life patterns to accommodate the technology (such as accepting the distraction sending and receiving text messages rather than being completely engaged in the face to face interactions with family and friends we once relied upon).
And beyond that – we also have to consider the effects outside our immediate experience with this technology. The cost to the environment of this industry – past, present, and future. The cost to quality of life – in our own personal experience, to those workers poisoned by the industry, to those who have never used these technologies but still suffer from the toxic fallout. And the effect it has on society – shifting from direct interaction (human touch, physical presence, etc) to that of Facebook friends and digital relationships.

This isn’t to say that these technologies are wrong or evil, but rather – returning to Brende’s simple point of advice – consider and question all of these new toys and technologies before inviting them into your life. And think beyond your immediate diversion and novelty experience.
What am I truly missing in life, if anything, and will this technology satisfy that need or desire? And simultaneosly we have to ask, Can I justify the real and complete cost of that item - financially, politically, socially, environmentally?

In response to the latter question, people often impatiently and defensively reply that it is impossible to get at any real answers - not knowing where to start; too time-consuming; nit-picking, etc. However, I believe that, especially at this point in time and technology, ignorance is a concious choice fueled by laziness and selfishness.

As always, I welcome any comments from other groups or individuals who are working through these questions in their own way.

The First Deer

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Mostly Quiet

During the first week of September, I hiked and camped on T. Island off the coast of British Columbia. I spent my days searching for animal tracks and Black-tail deer. I examined their droppings, rubbing them between my fingers and comparing the shine and size and softness. I discovered the location of scrapes on alder and cedar trees where bucks return again and again to rub the velvet off their new antlers. There were plenty of does and fawns in open areas, but bucks usually stay out of sight during daylight hours. They push in deep under thickets or behind tall salal bushes so that they’re well hidden from hunters

For the first three days on the island, I didn’t speak a single word. I walked and ate and slept alone. I would usually stop in the afternoon to eat the fruit and cheese I’d brought along. If it was hot, I would swim in the ocean at one of the isolated coves and then find a mossy bluff for a nap. Later, as the afternoon sun began to cool, I would find a good spot to wait and watch for the deer to begin moving again.

On the fourth day, my friend Cowpoke arrived to camp beside me. He’s an odd and angular character, with thick glasses and a red beret, but he has focused his life around animals and has become a teacher for me. Sometimes we hiked together. At other times we went our own ways and then met again to cook supper as the sky grew dark.

Two days later, just as the light was fading in the early evening and I was standing alone behind a large cedar stump, a proud three-point buck stepped out from the forest and into the grassy meadow. I was wearing Cowpoke’s camouflage pants and jacket. There was just a light breath of evening breeze working in my favour, and I felt a pocket of cool air filling the meadow. The buck took three careful steps into the tall grass. Then he stopped, staring out across the field, his disproportionately large ears turning independently, searching for any hint of danger.

On T. Island there aren’t any bears or cougars or wolves. Man is a deer’s only predator, and bucks seem to be aware of that, tracking the yearly cycles to anticipate the start of hunting season. Throughout the month of August, you can often see bucks boldly moving through open areas. Sometimes they even use my truck bumper to scrape the velvet from their antlers, but as September arrives bucks disappear into thicker forests during daylight hours.

Last winter, in January, I made this same trip with Cowpoke. It was my first visit to the island, and we hiked through the hills and along ocean bluffs. Sometimes there was snow or ice on the ground. Sometimes it was pouring rain. Often it was hard to sleep in the tent at night with storm winds tearing at the fabric, and giant cedars and Douglas firs groaning and bending, massive branches shaking the ground when they crashed down near our tent.

I didn’t fire a single shot with the crossbow during that trip. A number of times I had the cross-hairs in the scope set just above and behind a deer’s forward shoulder, on the soft entry to his heart and lungs and body organs, but each time I had to relax my trigger finger. I had never killed a deer before. Sometimes I started to question what I was trying to do. Other times a single branch blocked a clear shot to the kill zone, or the distance was slightly beyond what I was confident to fire, or the light had faded to the point that the scope image was too vague and faint. Sometimes the reasons were less clear.

On this September evening, during the first week of the hunting season when only bows are allowed, the buck moved closer to where I stood motionless. I moved only my eyes to scan the meadow. He stopped again and began feeding sixty feet away – a perfect distance for a shot with a crossbow bolt, but his body angle was difficult. So I waited. I had the cedar stump to brace against. The scope sight and the bow were steady. I wanted him to turn and put his flank more square to my shot. I remained still. Quiet breaths. The light faded and daytime colors began to slip into evening greys. I watched through the crosshairs, both eyes open, my index finger still outside the trigger guard.

After so many hikes, and years of reflection on whether it was ethical or natural to kill another beautiful being and to eat its flesh, I had settled with my decision. I knew that I could argue well for so many different viewpoints – animal rights, doing the least harm, the health of our food, environmental concerns, respect for all life, sustainable sustenance, anthropological and cultural beliefs, and on and on. But at this moment I was ready to set aside that endless internal circle of questions and the judgements I felt from inside and out.

I would wait for the right shot. I would be as certain as is physically possible. I would wait until the deer was close, and until the shot was clear, and I could see into his eyes, the movement of his breath in his nostrils and lungs, his chest swelling and contracting, his ears canting side to side. I felt confident now that I could field-dress the animal so that his essence, meat, hide and organs would all be treated well, with respect and without waste. It was still about killing another sentient being, but I would also consider the deer as a gift offered to me. And with every gift accepted, I understood, there are also these obligations.

I looked through the scope, cross-hairs just behind the upper part of his shoulder. I consciously turned off my heart fears and focused only on the decision to kill well. The three-point buck stopped eating, and he looked up from the meadow grass. Still I waited. He turned his head toward me. My finger moved to the trigger. The metal against my skin. Then he turned a little more, this time with his chest and body as well so that the cross hairs rested solidly on his heart and organs. I breathed in and out again. At the end of the exhale I began to squeeze my right index finger through the long trigger action, moving smoothly until it stiffens slightly at the threshold point. Still steady. I pulled through the point of resistance.

The crossbow bolt shot across the space between us. A frail rubber O-ring held the expanding broad-head tip closed and compact during the brief flight. Then the impact against his body. The rubber ring snapping as the broad-head tore into his chest, forcing the razors open so that they could rip and tear through his organs, through his heart and lungs and his flesh.

The deer jolted upwards. He exploded running, cloven hooves tearing up the grass and leaves and cedar needles as the evening darkened. I watched the first part through the scope, not moving the crosshairs, following through like I’d practiced time and time again on target cardboards. For a second I doubted my shot. I wondered if I’d missed completely, or if the bolt had just glanced off his body and startled him. For a second I wondered at what I’d done, why I chose to kill this proud deer, all of the arguments, the ‘fors’ and ‘againsts’, but I pushed it out my mind. I focused only on finding the blood trail and of finishing what I had started.

Twenty feet from where he had been standing, I found the bolt on the ground. One of the blades was twisted out of shape, but his blood drops smeared the length of the fletching so that I knew it had passed completely through his body. I saw the scuff marks and loose pebbles where he had rounded the corner, charging for cover in the forest, thinking only of thickets and bushes where he could burrow and hide.

A three-point buck. He must have known without words that he should never have walked into an open meadow against a headwind. He was old enough to have experience, to recognize the risk. He must have avoided other close calls on T. Island with all of the hunters that come every year. Maybe he first tried to deny what had happened, but likely he already knew that he was dying.

Did he feel ashamed? Was he angry with some god, or at himself? Had he seen me at all, and did he understand where the sudden pain had come from? Was he embarrassed to be dying beneath his tall crown of proud antlers still red from the alder and cedar rubs? I didn’t wonder about these questions at that time.

I waited motionless until after he had charged around the corner, and then I followed his desperate tracks as they me led towards the forest. The first explosion of panic had carried him in full flight through a small pocket of trees, his legs and body fuelled by reflex and what was left of the stored power in his body. Even with his blood draining onto the grass and needles, his desire was enough to lift him across the early stretch of the meadow until after what was only a few short seconds, but seemed so much longer, he felt the unforgiving pull of gravity and the release and the emptiness.

When I rounded the corner, I saw his body lying in the meadow where he had collapsed still thirty feet before the trees. He tried once to lift his chin, but his head was already down under the weight of the antlers. If he’d managed to reach the forest, it would have been hard to follow him in the early darkness. He would have escaped deep beneath the low branches and scrub, hoping to lose me so that he could die alone with his sorrow.

By the time I knelt beside the deer, he was breathing only the shallowest of breaths. Seconds later, even that stopped. I spoke quietly, to myself or to him. I took hold of his antler to steady his head. I reached across him, and with the hunting knife in my other hand, I cut through his neck, his wind pipe and arteries to finish bleeding his heart. Only a trickle flowed from the opening.

The sky was almost dark, and the autumn air was growing cold. I called Cowpoke to join me, and we put on headlamps and used a block and tackle to hang the deer from a sturdy tree. I used my hunting knife to cut a circle through the fatty tissue around the anus and its attached intestine that leads into the body. I took a short cord and cinched it around the exit to stop feces from contaminating the meat. Using the same knife, I slit the hide on the deer’s belly from its crotch to its sternum, and then split the breastbone to open the body cavity wide.

The deer’s stomach and intestines were still warm. As they spilled out of his body, we used our hands to control them, fingers cradling his intestines to keep the bladder intact, and to separate the liver and kidneys from what was going to fall and eventually feed other animals. I reached inside to pull loose a last attachment from the anus so that the cinched cord followed everything out through the belly as it fell free to the ground. We used our knives to free the connective tissue binding the hide, pulling from underneath to “fist” the hide from the deer’s body, cutting it free from his legs leaving the head and antlers still attached until daylight. By the light of our headlamps, we picked out loose hairs with a soft rag and then wrapped the hanging body in a clean sheet to keep flies and animals from the meat through the night.

It was colder by then so that I knew that the deer would cool quickly. We would have to get moving early in the morning to take it from the forest before the sun warmed the air. Cowpoke built a campfire to sit by. We sat and talked. Sometimes I would walk over to look again at the white sheet hanging ghostly in the night, now a few spreading stains near the bottom hem where the last blood was draining.

Eventually Cowpoke fell asleep beside the fire. I’d kept him awake most of night helping me and guiding all of the work on my first killed deer. In the morning he’d be tired and his body would ache, but if I made a pot of coffee early, he wouldn’t complain. That’s the way he is.

I lost track of time. I remember that at some point during the night, I chased away two raccoons and, later, a squirrel that I saw crossing on the branch above the deer. A loon sang her lonely song in the dark, but with Cowpoke sleeping across from the fire and the deer hanging behind me in the shadows, I didn’t feel alone. I stoked the fire for company and kept it burning through the hours of the night. A number of times an owl called and it echoed in the hills. Once in a while I would hear the roll of ocean water washing in on a nearby pebble beach, and sometimes I noticed the comforting crackle as the firewood burned. But besides those sounds, I can’t remember hearing anything else. Mostly it was quiet.