Kifaru LongHunter Review Pt.2 The Pack Frame

Transporting lazy offspring?

Apart from the greater load stability, the great thing about a proper external frame rucksack is you can separate the two parts and use the frame to haul awkward loads that wont easily fit into the pack (small offspring), or would puncture it (firewood) or cover it in, well blood, guts, and gore (fresh meat).

The Kifaru Pack Frame is the basis of the Multi Mission Ruck, the Extended Mission Ruck and the LongHunter and it's a fantastic piece of kit. Much of the strain of carrying heavy loads comes from their instability; a tightly packed load, held as close as possible to your centre of gravitmakes the weight more comfortable to carry.

The 'load side' of the frame is a High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plate so the load keeps it's shape, with two aluminium stays that hang the weight from belt onto your hips.

The 'back side' (it goes against your back - or should that be 'person side'?) is strategically padded to reduce the contact area between back and pack whilst perching the pack on your sacrum where the belt and tabs pull the weight forward so it's 100% on your hips with the shoulder straps only keeping the pack from falling backwards. In the words of MCP 'it's basically a kind of truss'.


The Kifaru Cargo Chair is a very handy accessory; you can clip it on to either the pack or the frame. It comes with two stays making it very good for carrying things with a flat base or the afore mentioned lazy offspring.

Barrel pic courtesy of Jungle_re on the British Blades forum - the uber nerdy amongst you will have noticed that his Pack Frame is from an MMR (multi mission ruck) so has the quick release clips on the shoulder straps and the PALS belt for attaching pouches to. Tactical baby Tactic-cool.

More soon
SBW

Steve's Kazakh Teleportation Device

Steve Bodio at the controls

Through reading a post Steve Bodio wrote about the commissioning agenda over at Atlantic magazine I found this piece he wrote for them years ago. I've always wanted to visit the Stepps and see the rugged beauty of a landscape that remains as it would have been in Gengis' time. Now I want to go more than ever.


Sovereigns of the Sky

In 1995 an old friend, the photographer David Edwards, went trekking in western Mongolia and returned with tales of people "from history, from legend, from myth." He spoke of Mongol sheep feasts, Tsataan who rode reindeer and lived in tepees, Kazakhs who wintered in adobe houses and hunted with eagles. Edwards said that the Kazakhs were hospitable and had eagles in every village. He knew a young Kazakh entrepreneur, Canat, who had learned English in the Soviet army and was willing to guide me. I was ready to go.

Some weeks later I stood blinking in a Mongolian courtyard in the blazing sun of a February morning. The night before, Canat and I had rattled into the village of Bayaan Nuur, in the northwestern province of Bayaan Olgii Aimag, in a Russian jeep. The village was near the home of Canat's mother-in-law, where we were staying, and Canat knew of a master eagler there. The eagler was a shepherd and potato farmer named Suleiman. His eagle, a two-year-old, dozed atop a tractor tire. She was nearly three feet from head to tail, thick and broad-shouldered, black-bodied and touched with gold on her neck. She wore a black-leather hood like those I had seen in the photos (eaglers generally keep their birds hooded except when they are flying, so that the birds will stay calm). Her bill was charcoal-colored and gracefully curved; her feet shone like yellow stone. Pale fluff fanned out over the white bases of her tail feathers. Braided leashes connected heavy sheepskin anklets on her legs to the hub of the wheel. In the bright desert light she glowed like a dark sun, as elegant as a living thing can be.

Suleiman ushered us inside to a brilliant-blue room. In it was another eagle, on a roughly carved tripod. A slender young man entered, carrying the first eagle on his right arm and a similar perch under his left. Canat explained that this was Suleiman's apprentice, Bakyt, who owned the second eagle, and that they were going to give the birds a drink. A child brought in a teapot and some lump sugar, decanting the tea into a drinking bowl and sweetening it while Canat translated. "Suleiman says that it is end of season. He has not flown eagles for two weeks. But tea and sugar give them energy, so they will be hungry and fly." Suleiman put one end of a length of rubber tubing into his mouth, like the end of a hookah, and made a joke ("He says it is the exhaust pipe"). He put the other end into the drinking bowl, sucked up some tea, and then emptied it into the first eagle's mouth. He repeated the process. The bird shook her head but otherwise remained still. "Now he will take the eagle's hood off," Canat said. "She will vomit fat if she has any." Indeed, after a moment the eagle gagged, brought up a little tea, shook her head again, and wiped her beak on the perch. She then "roused," shaking down all her feathers, and looked alertly about, as though a morning caffeine dose and purge were the most normal thing in the world. The other bird got a similar dosing, and we were ready to go.

Back out in the courtyard we found a bustling scene of organized chaos, with elements that spanned many centuries. A camel was signaled to kneel so that its rider could mount. Horses stood waiting as Suleiman gave brisk orders. Hunters slung rifles and shotguns over their shoulders, single-shot twelve-gauge Baikals. Siassi, our driver, fired up our jeep and popped in a cassette; wild Kazakh music with the rhythm of a galloping horse rang out loudly from the speakers. Suleiman motioned toward a ridge about a mile away: we would climb the rocks and sit on top while Suleiman's younger brothers beat the plain below for game. He, Bakyt, and the other riders set off. READ MORE

There's just time for a trip this year before the cold arrives.
Anyone need a bathroom building? A Kidney? Shine yer shoes guvner?
SBW

Stop It! 50% Of Fish Are Thrown Away. WTF!

It is what it is. MADNESS.

Around half of the fish caught by fishermen in the North Sea are unnecessarily thrown back into the ocean dead. 

The problem is that in a mixed fishery where many different fish live together, fishermen cannot control the species that they catch.

Fishing for one species often means catching another, and if people don’t want them or fishermen are not allowed to land them, the only option is to throw them overboard. The vast majority of these discarded fish will die.

Because discards are not monitored, it is difficult to know exactly how many fish are being thrown away. The EU estimates that in the North Sea, discards are between 40% and 60% of the total catch. Many of these fish are species that have fallen out of fashion: we can help to prevent their discard just by rediscovering our taste for them.

Others are prime cod, haddock, plaice and other popular food species that are “over-quota”. The quota system is intended to protect fish stocks by setting limits on how many fish of a certain species should be caught.

Fishermen are not allowed to land any over-quota fish; if they accidentally catch them – which they can’t help but do - there is no choice but to throw them overboard before they reach the docks.

Do me, yourself, and your kids a favor and go to fishfight.net and sign the petition to stop this madness. Takes less than a minute, and frankly is very important.

Thanks
SBW

Eating Animals: Book Review

Jonathan Safran Foer's book runs the whole gamut of possibility, from A to B.

When you're ready to take a peek behind the label, behind the attractive pictures of happy-go-lucky animals living out their days on an idyllic farm, and see the horror of industrialised farming as it really is, Eating Animals is a fantastic place to start. Not too preachy, JSF's book is a thoroughly researched investigation of the madness of modern food culture, and a system so unsustainable and fundamentally cruel that no one who ever had a heart can look upon it's works without dispair. 

I imagine myself to be concerned about these issues and reasonably aware, in reading the book I found I was still hiding from the unpalatable truths of  mass meat and factory fish. If you're the kind of person who's happier not knowing, and who's conscience will permit it, this one is best left on the shelf. Of course you and your children will still be poisoned by the flesh of animals so far removed from their natural state that they can't breed, or live without regular doses of medication that weaken the imune system of first the animal and then everyone at your dinner table. Still, the animals of the packet look sweet don't they?

While I'm a massive fan of this book there is one area where it's scope is a little limited JSF is mainly vegetarian, and to him this is both the solution and the terrain the debate takes place over. A: Factory farmed or B: Not at all. Options C:, D: and E: are never mentioned

I recently spent six weeks eating Venison that I'd shot myself, I'd like to say 'only eating' but the sausages I made from it did have some traded-for pork in them. I was and will be again disconnected from the factory farming of meat.  Holly and Hank have gotten pretty close to 'game only', and The Envirocapitalist has also written about venison being the main source of meat his family eats. 

I've met quite a few families who, even living in the city, only eat eggs from their backyard chicken coops. Deus Ex Machina and Wendy eat Rabbits raised at the end of the garden. Hubert was living on agricultural pests shot within a mile of his home and there's another option, but we'll come to that later.

Clever, witty and wise; Eating Animals made me think again about many of the ideas that first inspired my journey and this blog. Good Work Fella. Well worth a read.

Update: Ankle still hurts, so I've not been out in a while, but the Fallow Buck season is only weeks away and I'll be hobbling to a tree stand in search of more nose-to-tail eating very soon. In the meantime lots more Kit-Tart-ism to come. Lots more.

More soon

Your pal

SBW 

Alpaca Lotta Stories Into A Blog Post

Once upon at time in a galaxy far far away I used to work in an office where we sold the chance to have your CEO appear on 'business TV' talking about himself and his vision for the industry or 'market vertical', the vanity and avarice of these people would soon disabuse anyone of the notion that business is a meritocracy. A useful lesson in the skewed world that these clowns inhabit. There was another upside. On my second day in the job and very nice woman came over to my desk to tell me to prepare for the boss' annual shindig at his house. "you've got to come, he's got helicopters, and alpacas" not the kind of invitation I receive everyday so I signed up.
As the coach drove through the countryside towards his spread the trophy homes got bigger and bigger, until they seemed to run out. They hadn't, he just owned so much land that there was a HOOJ gap between his place and his neighbours. As we drove up the drive way he did indeed own both helicopters, and alpacas. Two helicopters, and a small heard of alpacas.
After stuffing our faces at the barbie, with a couple of lads from the team I worked on we wandered down to the helicopters to see if the rides were on. I don't know the name of that kind of helicopter but it was 2+4, pilot and co-pilot in the front and four salesmen in the back. The pilot really looked the part with his adventure wristwatch, epaulettes and aviator sunglasses. Next to him was a lad of about twelve.
From the way the pilot and lad were chatting it seemed like the twelve year old was doing the flying. Well you'd ask wouldn't you? Yes he was.
Nervous salesman: Been flying these things long?
Lad: Every weekend since I was eight
Pilot: He's really very good, and he's got more flying hours than most professional pilots
I'm still here writing this so I guess it was true.
As we came back in to land after our tour of the surrounding countryside, the full herd of Alpacas could be seen and above the cacophony of the rotter blades one of the others said " A man's gotta have a lot of money before he says 'got helicopters, what I need now is Alpacas and lots of 'em'"
It seems he wasn't the only person to think Alpaca herding was a viable pastime in the English countryside, about ten years earlier Phillippa Wills had started breeding them at Great House Farm and if you pop her an email you can go and visit them in sunny Oxfordshire. Or you can can watch the show online as part of a series of documentaries.
Honda are continuing their sponsorship of Channel 4 TV's W+K documentaries this season and to grow their reach into cyberspace have kindly commissioned a few Sponsored Post's which in turn are sponsoring my love of collecting outdoor kit. Result!
Now what should I buy next? Will Honda and C4 team up to make 'SBW the movie'? If you've got any of your marketing budget left and fancy your brand appearing here, Al-pac 'em in.
More soon
SBW

Viral video by ebuzzing

Guest Video, Beaver And Forrest Gold

Got a request from a chap who's started a video blog the other day, and as I'm always keen to promote new voices in outdoor writing, and he has to be one of the most enthusiastic voices in outdoor broadcasting [or any other kind] I've heard in a while, so without further ado I bring you Stuart McGehee of Huntallyear.com and his Beaver hunting adventures. O-err-mrs.



I've been planning to do a little Beaver Hunting myself (that title has 'traffic spike' written all over it doesn't it) I'm going to do it with a bow though, and while I'd love to visit Stuart's  home town of Memphis 'the city with a soul' Tennessee.  I'm actually planning to explore a little of Finland (europe's Alaska) with another blogger, where we'll eat bow-hunted Beaver and hopefully pan for gold in what remains of the pristine Boreal wilderness.

Finland is is Europe's most heavily-forested country with 23 million hectares or 74.2% forestry which is over sixteen times more forest per capita than in other European countries or to put it another way nearly 2 Bilion cubic meters of timber or enough wood to build a 10m X 5m fence around the globe. Should you want to.

The streams of Northern Finland are protected from industrialised gold mining, but totally open to the amateur adventurer in search of a a few souvenir chips or the eternal optimist in search of a 380.9+ gram nugget to break the previous record (just over $19,000 today). Then again if you're not the kind of person who thinks squatting in iced water, while being eaten alive by flying beasties is a fun way to spend a week or so you can stay home and I'll go for you. Any misfortunes will be shared dear reader, but any gold will be kept [or more likely cashed in to buy more kit].

This post was sponsored by the lovely people at Wolfe who in their wisdom realised that all these gear reviews don't just happen and were kind enough to flash-up a donation to the Kit Tart Fund. They offer a neat coupon scheme where you can get money off at a few of the bigger outdoor gear stores in the US, here's a link to +REMOVED+ and they do a whole load more. Remember: a dollar saved is another dollar to spend!


More soon
your pal
SBW

Mini Mauser CZ527 Carbine

From yesterdays unusual and big ticket air rifle a here's something a little more commonplace an a lot more affordable. The CZ 527 carbine. I know a couple of Stalkers who have these chambered in 7.62 x 39mm (AK47 fodder) but uploaded to make 1700 foot pounds of muzzle energy with a 125 grain sierra game king soft points, making them deer legal in the UK. While yesterday's double barrled air rifle maybe almost one of a kind. This is a sweet little truck gun. Not too expensive to buy and cheap to keep, when you consider the price difference between this and the double air rifle it'd take a while to shoot your way through the price difference even at air rifle pellet prices.

True micro length action - the Kate Moss of rifles for shooting the Kate Moss of deer.
Controlled round feed - nice to have, this is hardly a dangerous game rifle though
Hammer forged barrel - so buy a better one when you've worn this one out, or re barrel it to a round in the 6.5mm class. Sweet!
Single set trigger - two settings; fine and scary very scary.

5.9 Lbs (without a scope) - so it's light enough to tote around.

Drop box - AKA detachable magazine.

Walnut stock - I'm not a massive fan of the stock, but at least it's not made of Beech. 

Sweeeeeeet Mini-Mauser Action, dude.

More Soon
Your pal
SBW

Double Barrelled Air Rifle - Double Want One

Now there's something you don't see every day

Here's what I was able to google about it's history
"...The Imperial Double Express was the "cover girl" on "Airgun World" vol. 10 no. 9, April 1987. There was also a one-page article, two-page centerfold photo, and a full-page ad from The Airgun Centre in Rayleigh featuring the gun (price: 550 pounds).

The gun was designed and built by Mike Childs of Skan electronics, aided by Chris Price of Helston Airgunsmiths. [Skan make amazing pump action air rifles - have a look here]

The Double Express was designed to give two shots at about 10 fpe apiece, from only 10 pumps. It has the appearance of an over-under shotgun, but the lower tube is the pump tube of course, the shot tubes are side-by-side in the upper tube. It was intended to be available in .177, .22, or .25 per the customer's choice; two calibers in one gun was do-able. Each barrel was controlled by a separate trigger, and adjustable for zeroing at any desired distance. Power was adjustable as in all multi-pumps.

The breech design was very unusual, a single lever opening the pivoting breech for loading, and then a large brass button sizing both pellets on their way into the chamber. It had a safety.

The gun was reportedly well-balanced and weighed only 7 pounds without scope. No open sights were provided..."


Sale A1054 Lot 10

THE IMPERIAL AIR RIFLE CO. LTD., ENGLAND,

A RARE .22 MULTI-PUMP PNEUMATIC DOUBLE-BARRELLED AIR-RIFLE MODEL 'DOUBLE-EXPRESS', serial no. 13, circa 1986, with blued, shrouded 20 1/2in. barrels, blued receiver with hinged loading gate to rear engraved 'THE IMPERIAL AIR RIFLE CO. LTD, ENGLAND' on the left hand side and 'DOUBLE-EXPRESS' on the right, chequered walnut half-pistol grip butt with ventilated rubber recoil pad, chequered walnut forend/pump-handle, the whole appearing little used (two spots of mild corrosion on the left hand side of barrel and pump housing, valves require service) TOGETHER WITH an 'OPTIMA' 1.5-4X20 telescopic sight
Provenance: Always intended as a limited edition, only 25 of these unusual air-rifles were produced between 1986 and 1987
Estimate £2,500-3,000


Between writing this post and posting it the gun didn't sell so I got an email telling me it was in the un-sold lots an available for £2,500. Nice very nice, but not for me.

This one went for a grand as recently as last year

Back to posts about things that are vaguely affordable very soon

Your pal

SBW

Fallkniven F1: Used Abused Loved

Nothing good is unmarked by the passing of time. 

I've had my Fallkniven F1 for quite a while now, and its seen a fair bit of use, it's been back to the factory to be re-ground and its the suffered the slings and arrows of heavy use. If I'd put it in a drawer, still in its original packaging, it would be nominally worth double what I paid for it (I bought it in the US at a time when the dollar was lower against the pound and our tax rate was lower) but that would be to spectacularly miss the point of owning such a knife. Sure some knives are designed to be worn with fine boots once a year, some are designed to be kept in the pocket of a dinner jacket and then be admired for their workmanship and materials as they are used to trim the end of a fine cigar, but a knife such as this was designed to be used, abused, and then loved for its utility.

I sharpened the knife she gave me. The buffed factory edge, though shiny and new and perfect to see, was not keen when I took it up to use. Stoning the edge to a shaving sharpness left it uniformly and finely scratched where it had been as mirrored as the blade, and to a collector (those ill preservers) less valuable. Sharpening and using the knife is an act of being alive. Touch and pressure and wear are real and whole, and nothing good exists absent of them. Nothing good is unmarked by the passing of time.

From the excellent Rum and Donuts [if you aren't reading his blog yet, clear some time. It's that good]. In the comments section of this R&D post Some Guy mentions a passage about box-fresh knives from a William Gibson novel that's worth repeating

...Stood staring blankly into a glass-fronted cabinet, the shelf at eye level displaying military Dinky Toys and a Randall Model 15 "Airman," a stocky-looking combat knife with a saw-toothed spine and black Micarta grips. The Dinky Toys had been played with; dull gray base metal showed through chipped green paint. The Randall was mint, unused, unsharpened, its stainless steel blade exactly as it left the grinding belt. Fontaine wondered how many such had in fact never been used. Totemic objects, they lost considerable resale value if sharpened, and it was his impression that they circulated almost as a species of ritual currency, quite exclusively masculine. He had two currently in stock, the other a hilt-less little leaf-point dirk said to have been designed for the US Secret Service. Best dated by the name of the maker on their saddle-sewn sheaths, he estimated them both to be about thirty years old. Such things were devoid of much poetry for Fontaine, although he understood the market and how to value a piece. They spoke to him mainly, as did the window of any army surplus store, of male fear and powerlessness. William Gibson - The Bridge Trilogy

For our ill fated scouting trip to Italy the F1 was the only knife I took with me, I cooked with it, I split fire wood with it, and when trying my hand at digging for water - I have to admit - I hit it with a brick hammer to get through some tree roots. To fund my Kifaru habit I've been selling off my posh knives; the clever designs, and the interesting timbers, but this one's a keeper. My companion has some gnarly scars and a few titanium rods to remember the his trip by, I have the scars on the F1.

More soon
SBW

PS seriously though; if you must get a Randall it's gotta be a model 18, not boxfresh but real user, abused and loved in equal measure like Albert's.

Unboxing: Kifaru Zulu G2 Review

 It's finally here and out of the box, a Zulu in Foliage Green [what other colour am I going to get?] 52.4 litres capacity and tough as old boots. I haven't been this exited to unbox a pack since the last one arrived.

Kifaru divides the internet into two piles: The 'you can buy a perfectly good pack from Walmart' guys - these are the same chaps who'll tell you a dullard GF is as much fun as a smart one, all Scotch tastes the same, and that a Hand Made Suit is the same as one from the discout store, and in the other pile: those of us who know you've just got to suck it up, buy the best once, safe in the knowledge that you'll be remembering quality long after you've forgotten the price you paid while numb-nuts has had to buy and re-buy with what little money he has left after buying the chiropractor a Mercedes.

Size of a LateSeason, but from the Military/Tacticool range, I do like the weight saving of the hunting range, but for this size of pack I needed super robust, and no one does super-tuff like Patrick Smith and Kifaru Tactical. If you want to be able to fill your pack with tools and hoist it into a filthy crawl space in a loft, fill it with scrap copper tubing and chuck it into the back of a rubble filled truck, hose it down and take it on the plane to go gold prospecting - you'll see why I wanted something a little tougher than your average bear. 2kg is a fair old weight for a pack in the 50l class, but I'm not sure you could make one as tough weigh much less.

 The lid that comes with the Zulu does a fine job of compressing the load, but is a rare example of Kifaru not really delivering on the design front. Seeing as the lid has two layers of material I found it a bit disappointing that its not got a zipper giving you a pocket between them. I bought my Zulu almost new and the chap I bought it off was happy to sell it with the standard lid or the XTL.

I saved some cash by not going for the Xtreme Top Lid as a couple of guys on the Kifaru forum told me they use and prefer the LongHunter lid, which I already have.

 Another difference between the hunting and tactical pack is Kifaru equip the tactical packs with quick release buckle on the shoulder straps, they are surprisingly useful.

With the Kifaru Cargo Chair, small off-spring, dead deer, firewood, and big fuel drums carried with ease. I'd call them the most 'must have' of all the add-ons you can order.

Kifaru sell most of their packs with 'optional' hip belts, this is a bit like buying a car with 'optional' wheels; as the hip belt is so integral to Patrick Smith's vision for load carrying where 100% of the load is supported on your hips and the straps are just to stop the weight toppling backwards. An extra $50, I'll order mine this week.

More gear freakery/kit-tart-ism, books, food, and attempts to escape suburban life as they happen
Your pal
SBW

I Am Sad, As In Pityful

A few weeks ago on a forum I frequent a fella sold off some Kifaru boot bags, yes a bag to keep your muddy boots in. He had three, I missed the colour I wanted but I bought one anyway. I kept my stalking boots in it. Just a bag to keep my muddy boots in.

Usually I only confess things like this to Chad and The Northern Monkey, but such is my shame I'm going to tell you all.

The guy who bought my first choice of colour put his up for sale, and sold it while I was off line, so I wrote to the buyer

He wrote back straight away "We are cut from the same cloth!" and we swapped bags to keep our muddy boots in. I feel so ashamed, but somehow comfortingly colour co-ordinated.

Until the next time

Your sado pal (in Foliage Green)

SBW

Blogger Comments, Always Read The Comments.

Blogging = Sitting at home laughing at your own jokes. What's not to love?

Your pal

SBW

Survival In The Bush: When Bears Eat Your Dinner

Shot in 1954, Bob Anderson a producer with NFB and Angus Baptiste, his guide and minder, are given a thorough drenching and then left dripping wet in the bush with just an axe and Baptiste's knowledge and ingenuity to keep them going while Baptiste rustles up a birchbark canoe for them to travel home in.

Shamelessly hammed up for the camera [in a far more honest way than todays 'reality' TV] but still informative, and interesting to see how Bushcraft was portrayed on TV nearly 60 years ago. We've come a long way, but are we traveling in the right direction?

More soon

SBW 

And Thoreau's Mum Did His Laundry Every Week

Paleo-Survival TV has been on my mind this week and while I would happily sell what few scraps of dignity I have left, and appear on pretty much any one of them for a sandwich and a glass of tap water I've got to say I just don't get it. Sure they are entertaining, I love watching the hippy and the butch military guy bicker like a pair of fishwives and I could watch the posh boy eating rotting meat for hours. The whole genre poses one question, why the pretend adversity? There are lots of things I've learned from the idiots lantern, TV can educate and entertain at the same time, so why is the bar set so low?

The legendary Tim Smith of Jack Mountain must have been musing on the same thing as he posted a link to this article in Mother Jones.

Like any TV genre-of-the-moment, the roster of primitive-skills programming represents a series of variations on a theme. The ur-example is arguably Man vs. Wild, which premiered in the US on Discovery Channel in March 2006. In each episode, the buff and charismatic Grylls is dropped into an isolated and menacing location, then forced to find shelter, improvise tools, and eat carcass scraps, all the while offering lessons on how intrepid pioneers might have handled the situation. The show is phenomenally entertaining, owing largely to the schoolboy enthusiasm of the former British Special Forces host, who manages to sound exuberant even when delivering schlocky, back-from-commercial bumper lines like, "I've just dragged a dead sheep out of an Irish bog."

The TV executives that I've met are very very good at talking up 'cross platform' broadcasting, but when's it going to arrive? There's a HOOJ audience of people like me, and probably you, who want to learn more and are deeply cynical of the pretend urgency of these guys and the fake way in which they offer the irresponsible illusion of preparedness. By faking their way out of another supposedly life threatening situation they are telling a generation of viewers, for example, that its pretty easy to climb back out of the freezing waters and onto the ice. Bullshit.

How would you like to see it done differently?

Your pal
SBW

PS To who ever left the title of this post on the comments on the Mother Jones site, Genius!

Picture credit

The Biggest Known Elephant Tusks

For scale the cardboard plaque is 2 meters or 6.56 feet tall 
and together the tusks weigh 183g or 403.45lbs

In WMD 'karamojo' Bell's 1923 book 'The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' he mentions a tusk in the 'South Kensington Museum'. About ten years later it was later reunited with its twin, and there hangs a tale.

The tale as Bell tells it:

On our arrival at Mani-Mani we were met by one Shundi--a remarkable man. Karirono by birth he had been captured early in life, taken to the coast and sold as a slave. Being a man of great force of character he had soon freed himself by turning Mohammedan. Thence onward fortune had smiled upon him until at last he was, the recognised Tajir (rich man) of all the traders. Having naturally the intelligence to recognise the value of bluff and from his primitive ancestors the nerve to carry it off, he was at this time the greatest of all traders. Just as he had been a leader while slave-raiding was the order of the day, so now he led when ivory had given place to slaves as a commodity. One other thing that makes him conspicuous, at any rate, in my mind, and that he had owned the slave who who had laid low the elephant which bore the enormous tusks, one of which now reposes in the south Kensington museum. these tusks are still, as far as I know, the record. The one we have in London scales 234lb. or thereabouts. According to Shuundi his slave killed it with a muzzle-loader on the slopes of Kilimandjaro.

Kilimanjaro Tusks (1898)

More soon
SBW

Book Review: The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter

A while back when I spent what was to be the first of many hilarious weekends with blogger, deerstalker and rifle aficionado, The Bambi Basher.  Amongst other things he considered it essential that I receive a lesson in vintage rifles 101 he showed me around his .275 Rigby-Mauser rifle and mentioned one of it's most famous proponents, the Scottish adventurer and hunter Walter Dalrymple Maitland 'Karamojo' Bell and his numerous african hunts with the 7mm rifle. I'm not an experienced reader of the safari memoir genre, but as usual I was drawn along by The Bambi Basher's enthusiasm, and soon wanted to know more about the story of  'Karamojo Bell' and his adventures on the slopes of Kilimanjaro a hundred or so years ago. I put his long out of print book 'The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter' on the list and the back burner as other things took precedence. When I was lucky enough to receive a copy of as a birthday present I was intrigued to see how I'd find him and the times he lived in.

Bell is from a different time, when ivory was a common(ish) luxury material and he made a fortune out of the 1,100+ elephants he shot. In one (exceptional) day he tracked and shot nine elephants. He estimated that he had just earned £877 from the ivory the days work brought him. Not a bad wage today - this was in the 1920's!

The style of the day was to try to take as much of the Edwardian world with you as possible.  Eating tinned food brought from home, off tableware from the English midlands, accompanied by fine French wines from Irish crystal glasses. Even having a 'gun-bearer' to carry your rifle, while there's another servant who draws your fold-up bath as you get plastered on 'sun-downers'. More glamping than bushwhacking. As the twentieth century was getting going, this reaches new levels of absurdity with 'motor safari's' becoming fashionable amongst the western elite. Newly rich industrialists positioning themselves as 'sportsman' by shooting wildlife from the safety of the motor car, and their debutante daughters re-branding themselves as fearless 'safari chicks'. Wounded game died unrecovered, and the locals were treated as semi-cognate. 

Then there was Bell. As is usually the case with the people who get truly remarkable results Bell approaches the whole enterprise in a totally different way to his contemporaries. Carrying his own rifle, living entirely on local foods, and importing a pair of Canadian canoes to explore uncharted river courses. While his fellow Europeans stride across the continent with the arrogance of pseudo-gods, Bell and his companions tread a lot lighter, with a mixture of humility and cunning, he's courting the local support he needs as a matter of great urgency. Calling himself by the name the locals have for him Longelly-nyung (Red Man). Seeking to present himself as someone benign, who just happens to be passing through, and if anyone would be good enough to point him in the right direction, as an almost endless source of free food for those that help.  Bell is part adventurer and part psychologist. With balls of steel and an eye to the main chance.

And so we became friends I was not going through the blood-brotherhood business, with it's eating of bits of toasted meat smeared with each others blood, sawing in two living dogs or nonsense of that kind. I took his hand and wrung it hard, and had it explained to him that amongst us that was an extraordinarily potent way of doing it. That seemed to satisfy the old boy, for the act of shaking hands was as strange to him as the act of eating each others blood is to us. 

When an opportunity to defend the underdog (and serve his own interests) presents itself he delights in disrupting the activities of slavers.

A chance to assert ourselves occurred on the first day of our arrival among the Lakkas, for no sooner had the camp been fixed up than our merry band had a Lakka youth caught and bound and heavily guarded . On enquiring into this affair it transpired that this youth had been taken in a previous raid, but had escaped and returned to his country. We had this lad straight away before us, asked him if he   wished to go back to Buba Gida, and, on his saying this was the last thing he desired, at once liberated him. He did not wait to see what else might happen; he bolted. Of course the kings people were furious with us. We, on our part were thoroughly disgusted with Buba Gida for having designed to carry on his dirty work under the cloak of respectability afforded by two Englishmen on a shooting trip...


In short Bell was not as I expected to find him: he wasn't as racist, or apart from the odd incident as keen to enforce his morality on others, most of the time he was the only white dude for miles (not that would have meant anything to the Belgians), he understood that his reputation would be travelling a lot faster than he was, and was even quicker with his wits than he was with his Mauser.


He had of course heard all about our refusing to allow any 'recruiting' of slaves to be carried out and I daresay was furious with us. He remained polite but cold, and we noticed a great falling off in the presents of food, ect., which were demanded by custom. Among other things we were distinctly annoyed to find that we were classed by the king as third-class white men. To Buba Gida there were three classes of european. In the first class were French governors, French administrators and French military officers. For these people sweet Champaign was forthcoming in quantities to suit the individual importance of the visitor. Class two comprised minor French officials, important American or English travellers  scientific expeditions, surveys, ect. ; these got whiskey, while ginger beer was reseved for elephant hunters, clerks, or small commercial people. We were Ginger Beerites.

I've read that 'Wanderings' were originally published as a series of articles in a long defunct Scottish outdoor magazine [Update: it was Country Life which is still published, although with less interesting content] and the book reads as though that's true, its tantalisingly vague in parts, and eludes to a far more amazing set of tales, but is well worth a read if you can face flashing up for the out-of-print price.

The house Bell retired to Upper Corriemoillie, Garve, Rosshire, Scotland

Stay tuned for more about WMD Bell and more of the usual nonsense from yours truly
Your pal
SBW
PS if you know any more about Bell, or who W. was drop me a line

Ethics, Karma And Dead Deer

Dear You know who you are.

We live in a world where it is socially acceptable to have others mistreat animals before we eat them. Fact.

Unless you have hunted: felt your nervous system change gear and go into predator mode, killed and felt the vortex of emotions, then feasted on the flesh of another being, your opinion is abstract, a fantasy based on accumulated preferences, prejudices, and reactions to social norms. It's your right to engage in that, I'd defend that right to the death if need be. Just, please, please dont eat a burger from a factory farm and tell me killing is wrong.

So you used to be vegetarian, but now you eat some meats, but nothing with a face. A lot of animals died for your vegetables to grow, so it's OK to kill mice and bugs but not deer? I keep searching google images for that 'fish that doesn't look like fish', and the 'faceless animal' (we both know you've never tried worms) and they don't seem to exist. Those soya beans grew in a field where a lot of plants and animals had to die for a mono-culture to exist. Your morality, the same morality your parade in front of me, can only exist if someone else kills and processes animals for you out of your sight.

Oh you like eggs? Me too, lets us put the suffering of the factory chicken to one side for a moment, and think of the Fox who had to die so you could have eggs. Non lethal means? So you'd prefer Mr Fox starved to death rather than the bullet he never saw coming?

Karma: I'm going to spell this out for you. Nowhere in the original concept is there a one-to-one relationship between actions. End Of. Karma is not a concept of fairness, never has been never will be. "Karma's a bitch, she'll get you every time" is an entirely western concept. A comfort blanket for the person who wants revenge, but wants to take no responsibility for seeking revenge and cannot bear to think of themselves as a vengeful person. I'm sorry but life just isn't one plus one equals two.

Now for the emotive bit:

The other day a wannabe Buddhist and I sat down for a chat, I'll admit I was stirring the pot - when I need to spend time with someone who agrees with me I stay at home and talk to myself - I told him about WDM Bell and the 1,100 elephants he shot. Bear with me I said it was the emotive bit.

Wannabe Buddhist pulled his 'oh the pain of the world' face and told me that it was to be Bell's karma to be the last elephant, and to be shot by a fat american. Putting to one side his prejudice against fat people (frankly he could lose a few himself) and his prejudice based on the accident of a persons birthplace.
Bell did it for the money, yes he revelled in a sense of adventure, but fundamentally he shot the elephants because he wanted the money their ivory was worth. As a by product of the way he hunted, he fed hundreds of people. Yep he went to Africa and fed poor people. Where Elephants lived wild and free he shot them without their ever having known he was there, they were dead before the rifles bang reached their ears. The locals ate them. Where the Elephants were trampling and eating the crops of the poorest people on earth, he turned the loss of farmed foods into meat. Now tell me about about your cozy definition of Karma.

Sitting Bull "when the buffalo are gone we will hunt mice, for we are hunters and we want our freedom."

Let's not get started on the racism of your views about indigenous hunting, me and the deer are indigenous to northern europe, maybe if I dressed a little more colourfully you'd show me the same courtesy?

At last when we've talked it over, and you can't overcome the simple honest logic of the meat eater hunting their own dinner, I ask you if your objection isn't simply that I enjoy it, and you've said yes, so I'd like to pose this question

We humans are hard wired to enjoy the things we need to do in order for us to survive, thrive and procreate. Only in industrialised society do people toil at jobs they hate, to live lies that leave them unfulfilled.  I wish to live wild and free in nature, I'd like my dinner to live the same way, it's a freedom I'd extend to you too.

Thanks for reading
SBW

If this post has made you think differently about your dinner, or your more certain than ever, or somewhere in between Leave a Comment I'd like to hear what you think.

Urban Hunter [Spoof]

OK they're joking, but for how long? While I'm not a doom and gloom prepper myself the number of credible voices starting to talk seriously about coming food shortages are certainly rising. Suburban Detroit is already to be turned over to Cuban style city farms and several other cities are not far behind.

My own [early days] experiments with baiting suburban gardens suggest that while you wouldn't get fat, you'd be able to get a reasonable amount of protein from passing pests. If you supplemented pest control by keeping Rabbits and Hens even a very small space would feed a family.

Of course in Europe there are several precedents; during the Siege of Paris (19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871 Franco-Prussian War) market stalls did a thriving business in cat, dog and rat meat.

Le Monde Illustre, April 1871. 

The food shortages of WWII were felt even by the winners, with the rationing of most foods continuing into the 1950's. In Berlin pets weren't seen for quite a while after the conflict ended.

More about this to come

Your pal
SBW

Mark Zuckerberg Wants To Be SBW?

Really? I was delighted to read that you and I dear reader are not alone in our desire to have a more honest relationship with our dinner. Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook is joining us

"This year, my personal challenge is around being thankful for the food I have to eat. I think many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that and being thankful for what I have. This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself. So far, this has been a good experience. I'm eating a lot healthier foods and I've learned a lot about sustainable farming and raising of animals.

I started thinking about this last year when I had a pig roast at my house. A bunch of people told me that even though they loved eating pork, they really didn't want to think about the fact that the pig used to be alive. That just seemed irresponsible to me. I don't have an issue with anything people choose to eat, but I do think they should take responsibility and be thankful for what they eat rather than trying to ignore where it came from."

See the very very rich are just like us after all.

Rumours that Mark is a regular reader of this blog remain unconfirmed, although a 'close friend' was quoted as saying "who wouldn't want to be like SBW?"
Meanwhile SBW was quoted as saying "My life? He's welcome to it, even if he only wants to try it out for a week or two, I'll swap places with him in a heartbeat. it's the least I can do"

More soon
Your pal
SBW

Hat tip to Chad for finding this one, and if you don't believe me the story is here.

Locavore Escargot AKA Snails

It's that time of year again Helix aspersa or the common garden snail is out of hiding and on the move. Towards my dinner table.

The plateful in the picture were harvested (picked?) from a pile of unused border tiles in a wooded, but still inner-city (zone 2) London garden. I kept then in a lidded bucket and fed them on salad trimmings for two days which purged all the grit they had accumulated from their natural diet. Then they were fed for two days on white bread. The bread passing through the snails and staying white, tells you the purge is complete. A lot of recipes say you only need to purge them for twenty four hours but my 'white bread test' reveals that it's not quite long enough.

Boiled, rinsed and boiled again (approx. 5-10 changes of water) until the slime and froth were gone. Stuffed back into their shells with a dab of parsley, garlic and butter. I baked them until I could stand the deliciousness of the smell no longer. Served with rustic bread to mop up the melted butter. Yummy.

More soon
SBW