Survival School

Hello there, this is Nelson Olmstead. Today I have a lesson in the arduous art of survival. First, listen to this in a moment to think Groover speaking for Pacific Power. Welcome once again to Stories of Pacific Power Land, a presentation of Pacific Power and Light, the company that has been serving the electric needs of the region's homes, farms and industries

through more than half a century of progress and growth. Now, here's Nelson with an intriguing chapter from his storybook. If you're interested in attempting ragu of water dog pail, a side dish of skunk cabbage, garnished with bracken fern shoots, topped off with a steaming cup of huckleberry leaf tea, the chef to talk to is a husky Norwegian gentleman named Odd Bjerke.

Mr. Bjerke will also volunteer the news that most any plant is edible in a pinch, and that grub worms, eaten in sufficient quantities, provide more nourishment than teapone steak. The third beer-cake, you see, is headmaster of one of the most intriguing educational institutions in the West, the Wilderness Survival School.

The classrooms for this unusual school are often in the Cascade Mountains west of Bend, Oregon, but can be anywhere, so long as the country is wild, the going tough, and the weather terrible. For the lesson to be learned is survival, plain and simple, how to stay alive when lost or stranded in the wilderness.

He tells the students, survival is a matter of common sense. First, the basic human needs must be met. A water, shelter, food, then each person must realize that nature is completely neutral and that survival is a matter of adapting to nature, not struggling to defeat it.