License Free Fishing and Fishing Rod construction: July 13 6am to noon

Date: July 13
Time: 6am to noon

These ponds are stocked with rainbow trout. There are many picnic tables, and fires are permitted, as are dogs. Wide, paved pathways surround the ponds. This may be a busy place this weekend, so an early start will be beneficial.
If you would like to try your luck at fishing with your own pole, bring a green flexible stick, about your own height. Also bring some line and a hook.
We will take a look at rope making, but it will not be a reliable fishing line, so we are not going to count on it. We can also make a few hooks, and give those a try.
With any luck, we will catch a fish with our primitive fishing rod. Lets hope we can make some strong effective line!!
Bring food, water, sunscreen, sun hat, sun glasses, and fishing gear. All regulations are applied for this license free fishing weekend. Please take a look at the regulations http://www.albertaregulations.ca/fishingregs/

Spring Green Edibles: Identification and Tasting

If you own field guides or interesting books on botanicals, please bring them with you. This is a study, not an instructional, so we will be learning from everyone. If you would like to sample any of the greens, it is on your own accord, and identification must be certain.

Social

Date: 
Time: 

A home in Canmore has been offered as a gathering place.  This is a good opportunity for people to come and get to know each other better, while bringing their ideas about what they would like to do with the group.

We would like to do some experimenting with wild food, so if you have any recipes or even better, a wild food dish to bring along, please do so. There is a fire pit to do some cooking, so bring along a snack, or some bannock mix (we can add some wild greens). For a recipe see cook-out

Cook-out: Fire-building skills, stone cooking techniques

Date: April 20, 2013
Time: 11am to 3pm

We will attempt the following Cooking Techniques:
 
• Bannock making using a stick
 
• Water Boiling with hot rocks
 
• Egg Frying with flat stones 


You are more than welcome to try the food, but don’t rely on it for sustenance. Still bring a snack or lunch and water. We will make some conifer tea with the boiling water, so bring a mug and some utensils for sampling.
Pick something from the following list to bring:

• a dozen eggs 

• firewood – 2 or 3 bags 

• 1 jar of jam 

• 1 small jar of honey

• large old wooden bowl

• bottles of water

• roasting sticks 


The finished product, YUM!

Please e-mail me with the item of your choice, and I will let you know if we have it covered or not, and what the gaps are. 

Dress warm, it may still be cold or even snowy. Bring a few bucks for the campsite. 



Bannock Recipe 
Serves 3 or 4

2 1/2 cup flour
2 t             baking powder
1/2 t         salt
1 T            brown sugar
1/4 cup    butter or fat

Combine ingredients in a large ziploc bag.  
On trail, slowly at water 1 Tbsp at a time, kneading the dough inside the bag, until it reaches desired consistancy. Roll dough into a long tub, then wrap into a spiral around a long green roasting stick.  Cook till golden brown, add jam or honey, and enjoy!

Variations: add cinnamon and raisins and/or crasins and nuts
                     add thyme, rosemary and sage (or any desired combination of savory herbs)

Skep Making - Ancient Beekeeping

Date: March 23, 2013
Time: 11am to 3pm

Beekeeping is an ancient practice. We humans have been robbing bees since the dawn of time. Honeybees are amazing beings that work tirelessly for the benefit of all living things. We truly owe our quality of life to the tribe Apini. Honey (the unpasteurized kind from local bees) has, in recent years, been an elixir of mine, so I have a deep appreciation for the honeybee. 

My thinking is that it is in our best interest to bee-friend the honeybee, and learn to support these wonderful creatures in their endeavor to support life. These are honorable beings, and deserve our utmost respect. Beekeeping is an integral part of wilderness living. Not only do they provide one of the most nutritious, healing, and tasty foods in existence, they pollinate your garden while they are at it. There are many schools of thought when it comes to beekeeping, but of course Ancient Odyssey, is going to practice the oldest method, which comes in the form of Skeps. 


A Skep is basically an upside-down basket, in which the bees are left alone to do their thing. This traditional method of beekeeping produces far less honey, but much more wax, and does not stress the bees by forcing comb structure and introducing chemicals. It is however, much more difficult to harvest the honey. Skeps are not commonly used today, as they have fallen by the wayside in replacement of Moveable Frame Beehives, which are the commercial version (so to speak). They are expensive, but easier to use with greater production. The other option for a sustainable, friendly to the bees, easy and potentially free (if using scraps) to construct is a Top Bar Hive. Maybe we will build one of these next year.


The goal of this meetup is to build at least one functional skep. I plan to bring a bushel of tall grasses, which should be enough materials to build at least one. To be on the safe side, if anyone can bring 2 handfuls of tall grasses, it would ensure we have enough materials, and may even have enough to build a couple more. The weft, I plan to harvest on sight. Hope for a sunny day, because we will use spruce roots for this. 



Skep in progress

Materials:
Warp=long straw or grasses 

Weft=spruce roots

Outer coating=cow dung, clay – this can be applied later.

Tools: 1-2” section of cow thigh bone (marrow gone),
bone awl.

Homework: 
I am a beginner when it comes to beekeeping, and there is A LOT to know. There is an informative series on u-tube called Heathland Beekeeping. Check it out and be sure to watch the video on skep making. It is titled ‘skep making’ and will give you a really good idea of what we are going to do. Remember, this is just one way to bee-keep. There are many more ways. The more information we can all bring, the better our collective learning will be, and that is after all, our purpose here at Ancient Odyssey. 


Winter Survival Skills 2

Date: Feb 23, 2012
Time: 11am to 3pm

We intend to practice 3 simple traps; a ground snare, a spring snare, and a figure 4 deadfall. If one is without snare wire, knowing how to make rope from your surrounding vegetation is crucial. We will take a look at at least one species that is suitable for this purpose, and will make some short rope in order to portray the consept of rope making.
Plant study: each month we will take a look at one species of flora. Their are many winter medicines out there, so we would like to take a look at a very plentiful and useful one, the cottonwood and/or balsam poplar buds. Note: this is a study, so please come with at least one tidbit of information to share on this topic.
Homework: we are all students here so please do some research on at least one of the topics that we will be covering. Come with something to teach everyone.
Come self reliant and prepared for the elements.