1859 Spring 2010

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lesser Man vs. Wild good reasons against tackling a foolhardy outdoor adventure in the middle of the winter on the Oregon coast. After hiking for hours in the rain, we reached Three Mile Lake. North, along its banks, we’d find shelter and attempt the impossible: to create fire in a water-logged environment. It was a make-or-break moment for the 1859 Man vs. Wild Challenge. 48 1859 OREGON'S MAGAZINE SPRING 2010
y Kevin Max photos by Joni Kabana THE PAST FORTY-EIGHT HOURS WERE DIFFERENT SHADES OF WET masquerading as day and night on the Oregon coast. Best I could tell, from the back of the van, was that we were in the Siuslaw National Forest, scarred as it was by clear-cutting. I made a mental note to take up that nonsense if I survived the next day and a half in the heart of the county of Umpqua. What mattered for the moment was that I had been kidnapped by a benevolent faction of outdoor survivalists, who had sharp knives and more knowledge about how to get along in wilderness than I ever would. The rules were that we could bring only knives and a flint and magnesium to start a fire. No food, no water, no cell phone—nuthin'. Fire turned out to be everything. “When all else fails, fire is the simplest means of providing comfort and warmth against cold and wet in the northwest forests” — Mors Kochanski, Bushcraft It was the first day of a survival challenge that I had arranged with reality show Man vs. Wild consultant Mark Wienert, whose outfit, Lifesong Wilderness Adventures, operates from a secluded lodge south of Reedsport and another camp farther south near Mt. Shasta. Wienert is built like a bear, has a child’s heart and talks in a voice humbled by Mother Nature and experience. As a young man on the Oregon coast, Wienert filled himself with the lessons of nature. When he turned 15, he discovered that he enjoyed sleeping on the bare ground in the path of wolves and grizzlies in British Columbia and Alberta. Still consumed by nature, he formalized his outdoor education under the tutelage of Tom Brown Jr., an Apache-trained tracker who had spent ten years wandering America’s wilderness with no manufactured tools. Lately Wienert has worked with Bear Grylls, the Man vs. Wild survival monger, whose British accented narration makes starvation, dehydration and hypothermia sound more gamely—even fun. “If only Oy cood foind a bit of wahta, Oy cood fashion a spot uff tea from this poyne tree.” If this malnourished punter from the U.K. could hoist his arse up a rock face with his belt repurposed as a camming device, why couldn’t I? The Lost County of Umpqua Months ago, I tripped over a blink of text about Wienert and Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild in Outside magazine. The unlikely connection between the show and Oregon was all I needed to start a phone conversation. Now, wet and trekking into 630,000 acres of the coastal Siuslaw Forest on a winter morning, » 1859 oregon's magazine spring 2010 49
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1859 Spring 2010

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