What started your interest in primitive activities?

[bow101]

I grew up during the "War" in Cody, Wyoming.  There were no TVs, freezers, or spending money!  You could get a red rubber innertube from the gas station for free.  The Saturday movie cost 14cents if you could sell enough milk bottles to afford it and watching the pictures of the war let us know it's progress!  In the fall a dollar would buy a l00# sack of potatoes and 50cents would buy a sack of beans from the then called "Jap Camp" if you could afford it.  If you wanted something you built it!  There were two locker plants in town and we filled ours with wild game.  Us kids could hitch hike anywhere with our fishing poles, bows, or 22 if you had one.  We sold magpies for 5cents, prairie dogs for a penny, jack rabbits in the winter for a quarter and were lucky to break even with 22 shells costing 36cents.  My sling shot, sling, bow, and single shot Stevens Junior were my weapons.  We hunted and fished year around.  Every family had a coupon book and the women traded with each other for the things they could afford to buy.  If you wanted something you made it!  Even in collage in Laramie I shot and sold jack rabbits to help with the expenses.  So when did I start the primitive life?  You could say I was born into it!  Joe

Interesting story.  Makes you wonder why some us are so appreciative of what we have and others don't give a hoot about anything including human interaction.  Rats have more social graces than most people these days........

[Paul F]

Well, it really started with my Dad getting into hunting about a year ago.  We have always been "gun" guys and used to work together at a local gun store.  When he told me about a guy in his hunting course, I asked what he was gonna hunt with.  He said a bow he made himself.  Being the researcher I am, 3 week's later, I had a itch that has been looking to be scratched.  So in the interm I have read a lot and watched a ton of video's.  I now have a draw knife and stave on the way, and plans to go to the TN Classic next year and see where this all leads.

Paul F.

[silverfox]

I grew up during the "War" in Cody, Wyoming.  There were no TVs, freezers, or spending money!  You could get a red rubber innertube from the gas station for free.  The Saturday movie cost 14cents if you could sell enough milk bottles to afford it and watching the pictures of the war let us know it's progress!  In the fall a dollar would buy a l00# sack of potatoes and 50cents would buy a sack of beans from the then called "Jap Camp" if you could afford it.  If you wanted something you built it!  There were two locker plants in town and we filled ours with wild game.  Us kids could hitch hike anywhere with our fishing poles, bows, or 22 if you had one.  We sold magpies for 5cents, prairie dogs for a penny, jack rabbits in the winter for a quarter and were lucky to break even with 22 shells costing 36cents.  My sling shot, sling, bow, and single shot Stevens Junior were my weapons.  We hunted and fished year around.  Every family had a coupon book and the women traded with each other for the things they could afford to buy.  If you wanted something you made it!  Even in collage in Laramie I shot and sold jack rabbits to help with the expenses.  So when did I start the primitive life?  You could say I was born into it!  Joe

Wolf, people like you need to write down your stories. They might not become a best seller, or make you a million dollars, but they need to be saved and told. I love to talk with WW ll vets and hear their stories. Not just stories of war action, but just what they did day to day, and what they thought and wondered about, as the world was in a state of unknown. Stories from people growing up here at home during that time or before are very interesting as well. There is plenty written about the famous and powerful of the past, but it is the everyday guy that made us and the country who we are today. People like you paved the way for us coming after you.

[Marks]

I used to make cane spears to throw around the yard as a kid (I still do at 27). I spent most of my time running up and down the creek and just being outside. For a high school "indian project" I made a blow gun with 12" cane darts (later on at home I had a friend shoot me in the side of the face with it. It stuck there.) Making things myself has always interested me. Somewhere along I learned that indians made bows out of hedge apple trees and at the time I stored it under useless facts I know. I've hunted with compounds for quite a while but since I recently bought a house and have a place of my own to tinker around at I've started trying to learn new outdoor skills (not necesarily primitive). So far I've trained 2 squirrel dogs, made my own maple syrup from the trees n my yard, grafted some pink and white dogwoods and at some point I recalled from my 'useless facts I know file' that indians made bows from hedge apple trees. After a few hours on Google and Youtube I found yall. Blessed with plenty of private land access I started by cutting my own tree.  My first bow attempt failed about 1 month or 2 ago when I got it to full draw and I've been super busy this spring landscaping and hunting turkey and haven't had much time to work on my 2nd attempt. I'm also trying to postpone making another as long as possible so my remaining wood can season some more. Hopefully I'll have a shooter by this fall.

[ionicmuffin]

Wow! I'm really liking all the stories so far! I never get tired of hearing these stories, keep em coming!

[ionicmuffin]

Also, I'd like to add that another book that drove my archery craze to its limit was the Rangers Apprentice series. Great series about a boy who trains as a ranger(kings secret intelligence and elite archery corp) and as an apprentice, practices with a bow for many years and learns knife throwing, silent movement, stealth, investigative skill, and other skills. It really peaked my interest in bows because I was reading about some crazy accurate shots they did and it was all so amazing. I realize obviously that I would have to train for years before I could even be that good, and it would be several years of non stop training. None the less, I'm now more focused on getting accurate for big game hunts.

[Dane]

My story is different. I didn't really know what drew me to primitive skills and weapons, fire making, etc, until I found a copy of a book I loved as a child and re-read Call It Courage, by Armstrong Sperry. It was written in the 1940s, and is a great story. A South Pacific kid named Mafatu is considered a coward by his people, and takes a canoe with his little dog, vowing to never return unless he finds bravery. He ends up stranded on a strange island with his dog, and has to fend for himself. He makes weapons, fire, shelter, etc. He faces his greatest fears, the ocean, a shark, a wild boar and an octopus and leans he has had courage the entire time, and what bravery is really about. He builds an outrigger canoe, and escapes when canibals discover him there. He makes his way home after a harrowing chase and ocean voyage and proves to his people he is just as brave as the mightiest hunter and fisherman.

The entire story is fun, and I am sure all the skills he learned to do I must have wanted to learn, as well. I still haven't battled a shark with a bone knife or a wild boar with a spear, and I still totally want to build an outrigger canoe one day.

Dane

[ionicmuffin]

YES! THANK YOU DANE!
i have loved that SAME book! that was part of it as well!

[Dane]

It is a great story. Everyone should read it. Mafatu has only himself and his skills to house and feed and arm him and protect his dog. He makes everything himself, and can only make a bone knife when he finds a beached whale skeleton. The skills he acquired from being forced to do "women's work" (since he was a "coward") at his villiage because he won't fish (his mother died at sea during a storm when he was very small) come in really handy as he survives. He was definately a hero of mine when I was a kid. And growing up in the city, it was all totally exotic. And having a real outrigger would be awesomely cool.

I love tiki drinks, too. They don't go into that in the book, however, but he does enjoy ribs when he kills the boar.

[Ed Brooks]

I have been thinking about this, and it has been several things that got me started. I can remember finding some dart tips and some arrowheads (lost most of them now), got into looking for arrowheads again last yr. Then there is the fact that I have a little bit of native blood along with wanting to kill a deer / elk with all homemade equipment.
Now that I have started my journey in traditional archery. There has been two very pleasant side effect, 1st I'm getting to talk to a lot of nice talented people who enjoy this sport (you guys and gals) and mostly my 13 yr old son is getting into this with me now.  He cut a small maple stave yesterday and now wants a board to work on.
Happy Hunting Ed.

[Buffalogobbler]

I'm not sure when or what started it for me, I grew up in the inner city, Buffalo N.Y., raised by a single mother.
I always loved nature and history, so I suppose that's where it started, and I'm kinda an artsy do it yourselfer, I always loved the challenge of learning to make things for myself.
 Because of my love of nature, I learned to fish and hunt and that lead me into callmaking. I spent 20 years designing and making all kinds of game calls, still make them to this day.
I shot and hunted with a compound bow all of my adult life and then about 8 years ago a friend of mine invited me to join Hawkeye Bowmen Archery Club and I learned that there was more to archery than wheels and cables.
 Fellow club member Dave Reed introduced me to Gary Davis and I made my first self bow with him and killed both a doe and buck with it that hunting season and never picked up my compound again.
I loved that first self bow! Named it Hawkeye Spirit! It was a special bow, it changed my life!
I made three more bows that were just OK bows, then last May at The Tennessee Classic, I won the stave donated by Clint(Osage Outlaw). Clint said it was from a Monster osage tree that yieled 100 staves! I knew that I had to try and make another special bow from this stave, and I think I did.
I'm going to miss the Classic this year because of a once in a life time adventure, if things go well, I'll post pics when I get back.

Kevin

[Ifrit617]

I'm not sure when or what started it for me, I grew up in the inner city, Buffalo N.Y., raised by a single mother.
I always loved nature and history, so I suppose that's where it started, and I'm kinda an artsy do it yourselfer, I always loved the challenge of learning to make things for myself.
 Because of my love of nature, I learned to fish and hunt and that lead me into callmaking. I spent 20 years designing and making all kinds of game calls, still make them to this day.
I shot and hunted with a compound bow all of my adult life and then about 8 years ago a friend of mine invited me to join Hawkeye Bowmen Archery Club and I learned that there was more to archery than wheels and cables.
 Fellow club member Dave Reed introduced me to Gary Davis and I made my first self bow with him and killed both a doe and buck with it that hunting season and never picked up my compound again.
I loved that first self bow! Named it Hawkeye Spirit! It was a special bow, it changed my life!
I made three more bows that were just OK bows, then last May at The Tennessee Classic, I won the stave donated by Clint(Osage Outlaw). Clint said it was from a Monster osage tree that yieled 100 staves! I knew that I had to try and make another special bow from this stave, and I think I did.
I'm going to miss the Classic this year because of a once in a life time adventure, if things go well, I'll post pics when I get back.

Kevin

I got one of those staves to Kevin. Still have to turn mine into a bow, but it would be cool if sometime Clint started a thread to show all the bows that that tree yielded.

Jom

[Buffalogobbler]

Yea Jon, 100 pics of 100 bows made from 1 tree!
That would be COOL!!

Kevin