April 2-4, 2010 FTX

Island Lake Organizational Campground, Island Lake Yellow (9.5 mile) Trail

Temperatures ranging from 45-72, afternoon rain.

Two dozen or so militia persons and support, along with at least three media crews, present.

The media frenzy brought on by The Hutaree Arrests was in full force. We were not sure how many people, if any, would show up for April's training. We were pleasantly surprised.

April's FTX featured an additional field craft class, again taught by Bowguy. This time, we learned about several types of deadfall traps, and simple snares. Please note that trapping is regulated by The DNR, and certain things may be in or out of season and certain permits may be required. Check with The Michigan DNR for trapping specifics. In a wilderness survival situation, use your own discretion. Nobody expects you to die because of a DNR regulation.

Several members from The SMVM and other elements camped out Friday night at The Island Lake organizational campground.  This is a nice, large area, complete with picnic tables, fire pits, and outhouses. For those of you who are wondering if they are cleaner than the old outhouse that was rigged up at Camp Stasa, yes, yes they are.   There are enough trees in this area so that those of you who wish to use hammocks or field expedient shelters, or both, will have no problem. Just don't cut down any live trees.

The deadfall traps and wire snares that Bowguy taught were simple enough that the kids as young as age seven did not have a lot of problems setting them up. Some of the carving might be an issue with the younger ones, and you should supervise your children carefully when they are carving anything. If you look around, you can find sticks to use for one of the deadfall traps that do not need any carving. The wire snares are even simpler.

Setting up traps or snares while you work on your shelter, or locate water, or gather wood for a fire, would allow you to potentially secure high protein food sources while you work on your other survival needs. You don't need to watch a trap or snare, and you don't need to hunt or chase any small game. The potential food return versus the energy and material investments are excellent, and if needed, several can be set up.

Subsequent to this, we had an introductory land navigation class, primarily teaching people how to use a compass to shoot an azimuth and calculate a back azimuth. This will be expanded upon further.

We also did several pace counting exercises, to get an idea how far 100 yards is. There is some natural variance in each person's pace count. This makes it important to have more than one person doing this job on patrols. If you don't know you pace count, find somewhere where you can measure out 100 yards (meters for our metric friends, eh?), like your local high school football field, and measure out your paces. Do this several times. Your pace count may be higher if you are weighed down with gear, as your steps may become shorter.

PHOTOBUCKET PICS FROM APRIL 2010 FTX

It was then time for a nice, refreshing hike. About 14 people set out on the nine mile trail. Madcat and I had three of the kids, including Fairy Girl, who just turned seven in March, so we kind of assumed the rear element position. Frenzy Boy, age 10, decided to fold in with the lead militia element of about nine or ten members.

We encountered about seven militia guys heading back after a couple of miles. This left Frenzy Boy with D-Day and Wopper. We took the kids further along, but turned around after maybe three or three and a half miles. The kids were real troopers about hiking. This will be done a lot this year.

After we got back to camp, we contacted D-Day to check on their progress, and on Frenzy Boy. They were inbound after nine miles. We are proud of Frenzy Boy for hanging with D-Day and Wopper, and we appreciate D-Day's and Wopper's patience. It's good to know that your ten year old can hang on a nine mile hike.

Rusty W had chow up and running. We appreciate his culinary abilities. It started to drizzle, and we were worried that the weather would take a turn for the much worse. So most of us packed up and headed home.