Photo 1: Walking cross county.

Definition: hiking crosscounty - walking without roads or trails through the woods or open areas of uninhabited land.

            When I was a young boy my parents like to go camping. I spent six months living in a tent in the summer of 1986 and if you include my many trips out west fighting wildfires and working as an ordering manager and as a receiving and distribution manager on wildfires for the United States Forest Service I spent more than two years living in a tent.

Photo 2: Bear sign - bears had torn this tree apart looking for insects and grubs to eat.

            I also saw evidence of the American black bear (Ursus americanus) in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). If you look carefully at the woodland picture above you can see the downed tree appears white where the bears have torn the water part with their claws to find grubs and insects crawling in the wood.

 

Photo 3: Bear sign - if you look at the logs carefully you can see where the bears have torn them apart.

Photo 4: Deer sign - deer tracks in the mud.

Photo 5: Birmingham Creek.

            Last Sunday, I took off for what I call the Sylamore National Park and did some cross-country hiking. I went down into a deep valley and walked about a half of a mile upstream along the creek. At one point, I followed the bluff line up out of the Birmingham Creek and found the bluff shelter where Native Americans have lived in the past.

Photo 6: Gao Li Shelter - I named this shelter after my first Chinese friend, Gao Li. You can imagine living here as a Native American using this natural table.

            I named the shelter Gao Li shelter after my first Chinese friend who now has his doctorate degree after spending time at the University of Arkansas. He's a teacher and a university in Beijing. I taught Li how to drive when he was in Arkansas.

Photo 7: A rock knife.

Native Americans made tools from rocks!  You can see how the edge of this has been sharpened.

Photo 8: The same rock knife (or scraper).

            Look carefully at the rock I have in my hand. This is no ordinary rock. This is a tool made by Native Americans. I don't collect such tools from national forest land because that is a legal. I took this tool photograph from another site but found a similar tool at this site. The tool has grooves on both the front and back that make it easier to fit in my hand. It even has a flat space for my index finger at the end. The Native Americans made it this way intentionally. If you look at the edge you can see where it has a sharp cutting edge which could be used to scrape the flesh off of hides of deer or bear so they can make the skins into clothing or perhaps even blankets.

Photo 9: this is how you hold the scraper (rock knife) to cut deer hides for clothes.

            The United States Park Service employee from the Buffalo National River showed me a pair of very well made sandals which were found in another bluff shelter on Park Service land nearby.