Several years ago I told my daughter that I wanted a good compass for Christmas. I had lost my compass, and it was a present she could afford because a good compass costs about $15. Instead, she gave me a handheld GPS that cost about $250. I was appalled that she had spent that much money on my present, especially since all I really wanted was a compass. A GPS is better than a compass for finding your way back to your car, but it stops working when the batteries run down. Then you are really lost, because people tend to rely on technology when they have it, and therefore don’t pay proper attention to all the natural direction indicators.
This months American Hunter had an article on how to determine North without a compass, and I noted that it was missing the method I was taught as a scout in Denmark, and that I have relied on ever since. The article said to plant a stick in the ground so it points directly at the sun. Then you wait half an hour until the stick throws a shadow about 4 inches long. The shadow will point due East. That works when there is enough sun to throw a shadow, but it is time consuming.
I was taught to point the hour hand on my watch away form the sun. North will be half way between the hour hand and 12 o’clock. Granted, that method is not as convenient if you use a digital watch. However, if you turn your back to the sun, and it is 4 pm, it is easy to extrapolate where halfway between 4 pm and 12 pm would be. I sometimes draw a circle in the dirt or in the snow, and quarter it to get a precise bearing.
Back when I guided hunters on the western slope I spent many nights looking for lost hunters. Some of them got lost because they believed the old fallacy about moss always growing on the north side of trees, or that the wind always blows from the West in this part of the country, but most went astray because they held their compass to close to their gun. The metal in the gun attracts the compass needle enough that it may be 15 to 20 degrees out of line, and that soon adds up to a lot of territory. I always told my hunters that if they didn’t return by a certain time I would fire one shot to give them a direction. Then they were to fire 3 shots to let me know where they were. Most of the time that didn’t work well, because several lost hunters would respond to my signal, and it would take most of the night to sort out which signal came from the hunters I was looking for.
Gråulf.
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