Mighty Turned Around

Every now and then we hear about people who are lost, or at least it is assumed that they are lost as opposed to genuinely missing. This used to happen a lot during hunting season up here, but in recent years lost hunters have been on the decline due to technology and the fact that so few “hunters” actually engage in an activity that could truly be called hunting (but that’s a column for another time).

Even with our technological advances—our global positioning systems and our smart phones—people still manage to get lost from time to time. I am sure there are people who get turned around while out in the woods and end up temporarily lost on an almost daily basis, but these people don’t make the news since there is no need to send out a search party.

This is the only type of lost I have ever known personally. While hunting with my father and brother years ago when I was a teen, I stepped through some pine trees into a small clearing, maybe fifty feet wide. I walked across the clearing, through a few more pines and into another clearing of similar size. I repeated this scene three or four times. When I turned to go back through the clearings it became evident to me that this area was pocked with little clearings and they all looked the same. I realized that the one I was in was not one I had passed through before. I was working on getting lost.

Years before that, back when my dad was the chief of police for the township we lived in, he had been asked by a friend to help find his son who hadn’t returned from a day of deer hunting and it was assumed that he was lost. The boy had been hunting near his family’s camp and they knew that he couldn’t be far away but walking into the woods to look for him could take forever since people actually hunted in those days. In an effort to save time my dad decided to use the PA on his patrol car to call out for him, hoping that the boy would walk toward the sound. He did and was home safe and sound in short order.

Recalling this story while I was turned around, I knew that eventually my dad would figure out that I was getting myself into trouble and would do something to make some noise. I just stopped where I was and waited. I suppose I could have yelled out for help but I was a teen and I didn’t need help, I just needed a hint as to which direction to go.

Sure enough, my dad hollered my name a few minutes later and, following the sound of his voice, I walked out of the woods like nothing had happened. 

That moment of uncertainty was a bit unnerving, although it wasn’t a feeling of dread. It felt more like an adventure or a challenge. There were times later, when I lived in the woods, that I tried to replicate that feeling. I would strike out into the woods without map, compass or a trail to follow and I would try to get lost. The trouble was that I knew the area all too well. I knew that if I continued in the same direction long enough I would eventually find a road, a stream or a pond that was familiar. I would then use these things to navigate home.

Doing this showed me areas of the forest I lived in that I would have otherwise never seen. Even though it never provided the unnerving feeling of being lost, it did provide the feeling of adventure, at least on a small scale.

Daniel Boone is quoted as saying “I have never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days.” Now that winter is seemingly at an end, I am tempted to strike out into the woods and get turned around a little myself.

Waye Braver can be contacted on Facebook or by e-mail at waye@braverinstitute.com

Visit the Braver Institute at www.braverinsitute.com

This piece first appeared in the May 29th, 2014 edition of the Pioneer Tribune, a weekly newspaper from Manistique, Michigan. Please visit their website: www.pioneertribune.com