In case you have to eat crow

Despite the current fascination with things native, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a magazine like Wilderness Way. But for the last nine years, the quarterly has offered blueprints for the kinds of seminal skills our species has mostly forgotten. With our smarter-than-thou technologies, we surely don’t need the means to identify lifesaving herbs or native plants that can stave off starvation, right?

Hogwash. As editor Christopher Nyerges writes in the current issue, now may be the best time to reacquaint ourselves with natural wisdom. It’s just plain smart to be self-sufficient. Anyone who is curious about “the old ways” will find Wilderness Way riveting. In the current issue’s 56 pages, I devoured stories on the owl, as well as on scout tracking (it’s all about the five senses). I also took the “Awareness Quiz” (probably rated a “C”) and photocopied a fire-building article for future outback reference. Who knows when I’ll need this knowledge? But I’ll be ready.

-- Shermakaye Bass