I’m a sucker for the show Survivorman. If it’s a weekend day and I haven’t set foot out the door yet, there’s a good chance Les Stroud is painted across the flat-screen, explaining how to create fire from a radio battery or catch a fish with a piece of broken glass and a harmonica. Each sounding of that commercial bumper
chik-oon chik-oon chick-oon signals an increase in my survivability, the set of knowledge that I know would keep me alive were I to find myself in the desert with nothing but urine, or in a glacial crevasse with only one match and a hunk of seal blubber.
As much as I may fantasize that I could survive the elements in completely implausible scenarios, deep down, I never truly believed that I would put this knowledge to the test. The closest I’ve ever come to a survival situation was being stranded by a blizzard in my office building after hours. I had no food and limited change for the vending machine. But a few short months ago, that all changed during a week-long camping trip.
My girlfriend and I were invited to a friend’s wedding, to be held at a campground on the west coast of Maine. The property boasted a picturesque lake cradled in a lush valley of pine and maple. Along the lake shore sat a dozen rustic cabins. “Rustic” means your heat is chopped down, dried out and piled on your porch. We called one of these cabins “home” for more than three days. Four more than three. Each of these days was sunny and beautiful. Breathtaking, actually, and spent with new friends and old that had also come for the wedding.
No, the days were not the problem. On the first night, as my girlfriend and I trembled fully clothed under a total of five blankets, watching our frosted breath glow the faintest orange from the dying fire in the main room, the temperature dropped to 20 degrees. We may have slept two hours.
The next morning, we all gathered for a home-cooked breakfast in the (heated) main lodge, and told our tale of woe to the mother of the bride. As it turns out, she was an avid hiker, camper and outdoorswoman. With mild disappointment, absolutely no sympathy, and a hint of annoyance, as if we’d coaxed from her an exam answer that she’d spent months studying, she offered advice. “Well, you could hot rock the bed.”
Chik-oon chik-oon chick-oon I stared, dumbfounded. The answer was so simple. Why did I need this woman’s advice at all? Hadn’t Les Stroud espoused this sage advice on multiple occasions, warming rocks in the fire and then wrapping them in his clothing to ward the chill of night? Then and there, I promised myself to trust my instincts. If a survival situation arose again, I would simply ask: “What would Survivorman do?” We slept well that night, with red-hot rocks wrapped in towels lining the center of the bed, warming us through the night.
The wedding was held in a local log cabin church, officiated by the owner of the campground, a man that had known the bride’s family for a generation. The intimate nature of the nuptials carried over to the reception, which was devoid of the typical, empty ceremony, and full of music, life, booze and excellent food. Midnight came and went, and guests started wandering off in small groups, winding down the celebration. As we walked across the campground to our cabin, we stopped at an after-party for a few more drinks, but quickly made our exit, exhausted and stomachs stretched with food. We made our way through a congregation on the porch, and at the bottom of the steps, one of the other guests struck up a conversation with my girlfriend. He’d heard that she was a professional artist and began discussing her craft. It was innocent enough, and maybe his intentions were pure. Then again, maybe they weren’t.
Over the years, I’ve become quite adept at distinguishing the banter of admirers of her art and the bullshit of the unabashed flirt. I was in the latter category when I met her (although it didn’t immediately work on her, but that’s another story). And so was this dude, asking more about her than her work, not making eye contact with me, etc. The conversation had to end. It was now territorial. I asked myself, “What would Survivorman do?”
I immediately recalled Les Stroud explaining, upon finding a giant pile of bear shit, that animals sometimes leave their spoor to warn other animals. In another episode, he urinated around the border of his campground to mark his space in a wilderness known for mountain lions. I looked at the dude, and then took a short stroll around the porch, ending back at my girlfriend’s side. In my circular wake floated a noxious, reception food-fueled vapor. A few moments later, the gang on the porch got quiet. With sudden excuses about the chill, the porch cleared back inside, leaving the three of us. Then I caught it, virulent, unmerciful and terrible. If it were visible, it would have been mustard yellow and taken the form of an angry sultan with a flaming sword. The dude stopped talking, quickly exchanged pleasantries and went inside. My girlfriend then turned to me, her smile disappearing as mine grew.
“Was that you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I admitted, nodding.
“What the fuck?” she exclaimed, turning towards our cabin and marching off. “I think he thought it was me!”
Chik-oon chik-oon chick-oon
I slept well that night, a man having successfully defended his domain. And she slept beside me, disgusted and separated by a wall of hot rocks. Les Stroud, God bless you.