News of the Arroyo
Title: | Survival of the fittest |
Subtitle: | Outdoorsmen share tricks to taming nature |
Date: | 2006-09-25 |
Summary: | September 25, 2006 - The Star-News profiles naturalist Chris Nyerges. |
Author: | Elise Kleeman, Staff Writer |
Publication: | Pasadena Star-News |
Content: | ALTADENA - In Los Angeles\' urban expanse, it\'s a rare person who knows one way to light a fire without a match or lighter. Christopher Nyerges probably knows 20. Sitting barefoot on the steps of his small house at the edge of the Arroyo Seco, he demonstrates a few sparking a magnesium starter with his knife, igniting steel wool with two D-cell batteries, and focusing the sun\'s light with the shiny interior of a Jeep headlight. Then, kneeling, he drills a stick into a flat piece of wood by rubbing it between his palms, adding extra pressure with a cord that he has draped over the top and wrapped around his thumbs. His face reddens beneath a ponytail of salt-and-pepper hair, but in less than a minute, curls of smoke waft upward and a tiny ember smolders on the wood. Nyerges is a wilderness survival expert, a master of self-sufficiency in a world where most people have their basic necessities delivered to them or shop at the nearest store. His is an unusual skill, but one that has been gaining followers and even a place on television with outdoorsman Les Stroud\'s popular series \"Survivorman.\" \"Right about in the last year, there\'s definitely been a gradual increase in interest,\" Nyerges said, guessing it was due to recent international tensions. It\'s happened before. Nyerges who teaches classes at Pasadena City College and elsewhere throughout the area saw a rise in attendance when the Iranians took over the American embassy in 1979, during the nuclear scares of the Reagan years and leading up to the Y2K panic, he said. But for him and many others, wilderness survival isn\'t about preparing for anarchy. \"Not only does it give you a sense of accomplishment, I think it gives you a sense of self-confidence you\'ve never had,\" said Dude McLean, a fellow survival expert. \"It gives you the sense that no matter where you are, you\'ll be OK.\" Even at 68, McLean takes weeklong trips alone into the wilderness with only a light pack of tools, a tarp, some dried food and a change of clothes. Nyerges and McLean can do much more than make fire they\'re skilled in finding and purifying water, building shelter, harvesting wild plants, catching fish or small game, even weaving baskets and making rope. \"There\'s a million things you could do with a cord,\" Nyerges said. His callused, scarred hands smoothly twisted two small bunches of fibers together, and a sturdy length of twine emerged useful for anything from snares to shoelaces. Admittedly, some survival lessons might be a little tough for city folks to swallow. A recent issue of Wilderness Way which Nyerges edits and McLean writes for extols the virtues of a mashed beetle larva and berry shake, and mouse soup. But even the most stalwart urbanite has something to gain from a little survival experience, preparation, and awareness, Nyerges and McLean said. \"What if you have an earthquake?\" McLean asked. \"People don\'t know how to get their own water, people don\'t know how to purify it. Your nice, warm, cozy house becomes an alien cave, and you don\'t want to be there because it\'s shaking all the time.\" \"Look at [Hurricane] Katrina, all those people were waiting for the government,\" he said. \"Three days being stranded is a long time.\" elise.kleeman@sgvn.com (626)578-6300, Ext. 4451 |
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