Wealth, War and Wisdom
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These are good days for survivalists, those dour predictors of dire times who’ve said all along we’d better prepare for the worst.
With people losing jobs, homes and life savings through no fault of their own, and with natural disasters, oil shortages and terrorists in the news, those long-predicted grim times may have arrived.
Kurt Wilson, who hosts a Web site called “Armchair Survivalist,” predicts the nation is falling into such chaos that survival skills will be crucial.
But what are those skills?
I think I have a good idea, based on what pioneers endured as they worked to settle the West.
I believe they have plenty to teach us about what it takes to make it through hard times.
Here’s a hint: A gun isn’t the most necessary thing.
Where I live in Wyoming’s inhospitable high desert, settlers in 1908 knew if they were ever going to grow anything, they needed to build a reservoir and ditches to direct water from the Wind River Mountains.
They did that by working together, and the ditches they dug a century ago still run water today.
Some families lived in tents their first winter, burning sagebrush until they could bring logs from the mountains to build cabins and provide better fuel.
They cleared the sagebrush, planted hay and grain and hunted rabbits, antelope and sage chickens.
Gardens provided vegetables – fresh in summer, canned for the rest of the year. Each family had a cow, pig and chickens. Surviving meant working dawn to dark.
Because it took two days to ride in a wagon to Rock Springs, the nearest town, they stocked up on staples once, maybe twice, a year.
As recently as the 1930s, folks here were about as close to self-sufficient as you could get.
May 15, 2009
