In Praise of Paths by Torbjørn Ekelund

Author:Torbjørn Ekelund
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

PART

III

TRACKS

BEFORE THERE IS a path, there are tracks. A path is created only after multiple footprints and tracks have been trodden in the same place, because a path is the result of organized movement. But what about all the tracks made by animals that don’t follow paths, those that simply amble around without a particular plan, acting on basic impulses or searching for food in some location they don’t quite know?

Some among us are still skilled at finding and reading animal tracks. Hunters and nature photographers are able to pick out animal tracks that the average hiker would never see. And not only can they detect tracks that are nearly invisible to the rest of us, they are also able to discern which animal created them, when the tracks were made, and what direction the animal was heading. Throughout the generations, indigenous peoples have developed their ability to read the tracks in nature. Stone Age peoples must have mastered these skills.

As a child, I enjoyed reading books and comics about the indigenous peoples of North America. They were all good trackers. But what about those of us with little to no experience in interpreting and following tracks? Believe it or not, we still have the chance to try our hand at track tracing, at least those of us living in subarctic regions. Such an opportunity, however, is completely dependent on the weather.

TWO MONTHS HAD passed since John and I returned from our off-trail hike through the Nordmarka. We had spoken on the phone several times since then about how strange the experience had been, about how the forest had revealed a totally different side than we were used to seeing. John said he had been reading anything he could get his hands on about navigation and orienteering. He wanted us to undertake several more such explorations, and I agreed wholeheartedly.

It’s a steep learning curve when you practice new skills rather than just reading about them. You make one mistake after another, but the second time you try a slightly different way and slowly you start to develop an understanding of how things work. John and I agreed we were better at finding trails now than before we went on our expedition. At the same time, we also both agreed that we had a whole lot to learn before we could ever hold a candle to the indigenous peoples depicted in the cartoons we used to watch in the 1970s. We decided to plan a new trip for the following summer. But first we would have to get through the long, cold winter.

CHRISTMAS APPROACHED. THE thermometer dropped below freezing for the first time, and I went walking and waited for the snow. Nothing is better than freshly fallen snow if one is hoping to document movement. Even the tiniest creatures leave behind clear tracks on a soft snow layer, and my plan was to follow the tracks to gain insight into what the animals that made them must have been thinking, how they had moved, and where they were headed.

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