The Survival Trip

I was beginning to miss the Little Pee Dee River and so I constantly planned trips to take friends out, and paddle the river for a weekend.
On a late October weekend, Dawson Jordan, Edwin Smythe, Dylan Cruz, Elijah Drenen, Jeffrey Hansen, and myself, took three canoes to McKay’s Bridge and paddled down to the Hwy. 301 bridge.
We were off to a late start Friday afternoon and paddled in a hurry to reach our first destination. The sun was setting quickly and the river being low did not help our progress. I saw turkeys all over the place but I knew that they would be smarter when the season came in the spring.
We reached the camp site and tied string around some trees so that we could prop up our lean-to shelters.
None of us packed tents, and we used sheets tied from the trees, slanted to the ground, as our cover. Jeffrey started a fire and Dylan looked in my boat for food but he only found rice and corn.
He asked, “Where’s the food?” I realized that I had forgotten the meat cooler and left it in the car.
I replied, “Surprise, I meant for this trip to be a survival situation!”
He wasn’t amused, but we took our shotguns and killed four squirrels and two doves before dark. We cleaned the squirrels by the river under a lantern and put sticks in their rear so that we could roast them like marshmallows.

We sat around the fire that night, eating rotisserie squirrels off the stick, talking and telling jokes. I heard an owl off in the distance and Elijah, a full Cherokee, sat looking a bit nervous.  Dylan was pestering him and Eli told us that the owl was a bad omen. I was not sure about what that meant for us, and we went to sleep shortly after. Our shelters were no more than a sheet tied diagonally from the ground to a tree and my sleeping bag was cushioned by a pile of leaves. Surprisingly enough, we all slept as if we were at home in our beds.
I woke in the early morning because the temperature had dropped into the 40s. I tightened my sleeping bag and lay still to wake up, then I threw a stick at Dawson to wake him up. We slid a canoe into the foggy river and checked our bush hooks, baited with eels, which gave us two channel catfish.  Dawson kindled the fire and I skinned the catfish to cook filets for breakfast. I might have overcooked the catfish because it was crunchy, but it did the part and filled us for paddling.  We were able to break camp quickly because there were no tents to stuff in bags. We just untied the rope, put the sheets in the boats, and slid into the water. The sun was shining through the trees now but the fall air was still cool and crisp. We shot a few squirrels and dove from the trees as we paddled. Jeffrey and I paddled near Dawson and Edwin, but Dylan and Elijah had left us behind. Elijah and Dylan came across some deer meat along the way.
Elijah was grinning when we caught up with them, Jeff asked, “What did ya’ll get?”
“A fat squirrel!,” Eli replied. We came alongside their canoe and found a deer laying in the floor.
We were all excited because the struggle for food was no more! We hung the deer from a tree and quartered it, leaving only the skin, bones, and organs behind. Jeffrey started a quick fire and some deer meat was cooked for lunch. The remaining meat was wrapped in shopping bags, and packed in the cooler in order that we could save it for later.
The second night was much easier than the first. We had deer steaks, corn, and rice, giving no reason to be picking for scraps. We had plenty of time to sit around the fire and relax. As we ate, I thought about how healthy of a lifestyle it would be to live every day like today, paddling so many miles on the river and eating wild game.
Dylan disagreed, arguing that it would make you age faster and get worn out. He is probably right. Everyone was tired and so we tucked into our shelters for the night. We were blessed with perfect weather for the weekend. The sky was clear, and the temperature was fair during the day and cool at night. We did not have a long paddle Sunday morning. We broke camp at a relaxed pace and loaded the boats. I ran to a tree to engrave my initials as i do at any place were i sleep on the river.
Dad was waiting for us in his truck at the boat ramp with a bag of biscuits. No breakfast had ever tasted so good, and all at once, we swarmed dad with all of the weekend’s stories.
According to Jim Prescott, the number one rule of survival is to always look good, and on this trip, Dawson and Edwin fit the part.
Dawson had a coonskin cap and Edwin wore a coyote skin hat.
The fact that they were on the same boat was fitting.