50 STATES: New Hampshire

DO you have any idea how to survive in the wilderness? Have you ever built a campfire, or made a shelter when there was none around? Do you know which grubs are the tastiest? None of these things are likely to occur to the typical Brooklynite on an early spring stroll through Prospect Park, but for some reason — this crazy year, I guess — they were occurring to me. Say I was to lose everything. My job, my apartment. Maybe even my mind. How would I survive?

While everyone else was talking about finally making those dreams of an MBA come true, or heading back to school for that long-delayed teaching certification, I found myself contemplating how to become more self-reliant. Outward Bound? I’m not a teenager anymore. Plus, who has three weeks to master the Sierra Nevadas? We’re trying to keep our jobs here, right?

SETTING THE STAGE

Lucie Villeneuve is a New Hampshire native. With some 15 years’ experience as a guide and outdoor instructor, this descendent of French-Canadian woodsmen (and Acadian purge survivors) is known around the Granite State’s Lakes Region for once leading a whitewater rafting tour while eight months pregnant. Owner of the Outdoor ESCAPES New Hampshire adventure tour company, Villeneuve, it seemed, might be the perfect person to turn me into a credible facsimile of Bear Grylls (minus the three-day beard). Plus, she custom-builds adventure trips based on client’s wants and needs.

Villeneuve, who offers a survival course as part of her repertoire, seemed pretty serious about toughening me up, so I called in backup. My friend Shannon is from Boston. Unlike me, she is in a growing field — biotech — and owns her own home (also unlike me). There was little chance Shannon would be needing to bivouac in Boston’s Public Garden anytime soon. Even so, she was totally game for our “Weekend Women’s Adventure.”

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

On a late April weekend, we headed to Holderness, NH, about a two-hour drive from Boston. Overnight camping was not on the agenda (we weren’t quite that adventurous), so we checked into a hotel overlooking Squam Lake, the setting of the early 1980s weeper “On Golden Pond.”

Over a bottle of wine on the deck, Shannon and I reviewed our itinerary — canoeing, fire-building, archery, shelter, map and compass skills. We looked over the Personal Survival Kit list supplied by Lucie (also called a Bivy Kit). Duct tape, rope, pocketknife, contractor-size plastic bags, bandana. The thing read like a serial killer’s shopping list.

The next morning, Lucie’s husband, Peter, also an experienced guide, picked us up for the first of our two half-day escapes.

“Lucie had to take care of the baby,” he explained.

We were disappointed. Couldn’t she just strap the kid on her back and kayak down the river? Angelina Jolie would have done it without breaking a sweat. Still, the weather was unseasonably warm and sunny–perfect for a day of paddling–and Peter’s enthusiasm was infectious.

A 15-minute drive outside of Holderness, on the Baker River, we slipped the tandem canoe in the water and climbed in. From his kayak, Peter instructed us.

“You’ll want to use the J-stroke; it will help you control your steering,” he demonstrated to Shannon, who had the harder job at the back of the canoe. “Be sure to paddle on opposite sides,” he continued. “Otherwise you’ll start running into things. I’ve seen too many fights between couples on a canoe to count.”

(Indeed, it brought back to mind a trip my boyfriend and I took in Costa Rica, when I wanted to whack him in the head with my oar and leave him in that mangrove swamp.)

Shannon and I proved to be a good team, maneuvering the lazy-flowing river quite well. Along the way, Peter gave us a bit of the area’s history: its trees, its birdlife, its wild animals. We peppered him with questions: What should we do if we see a grizzly? (“There are only black bears in the Northeast; be sure to make a lot of noise and don’t run.”) How do we catch a fish if we don’t have a pole? (“Make a net with rope.”) What does squirrel taste like? (“Chicken.”)

Periodically, we paddled to the river’s banks, pulled the canoe ashore and dug out the “Pocket Guide to NH Animal Tracks” Peter had provided.

Like Nancy Drews in the bush, we examined track patterns and measured the size of the prints. “Possum!” “Otter … no wait, raccoon!” “Wild turkey!” (We were right about half the time, improving as the day went on.) Now, would any of these critters make for good eating? “Wild turkey isn’t bad,” answered Peter, “but you can’t eat the legs, they are too tough and bony.” (Note to self: ixnay on the -ild gobbler thighs-way.)

Around noon, we stopped on a small inlet, and got down to some serious survival talk.

“The most important things are shelter, location, water and food,” Peter tells us. “So, where’s your shelter?”

We scanned the area, waiting for some refuge to magically reveal itself. He pointed to our canoe.

“Tilt it on its side and you can crawl in. There’s your shelter.” (Duh.)

He then taught us how to make a fire: Clear the area, pull the peeling bark off a birch tree (the oil in the bark helps it burn) and gather dry leaves and small twigs (if it snaps, it’s dry–even if it’s been raining). Then pile it up and set it alight. Pretty simple. For nutrition, Peter broke off a small branch from an evergreen tree (“you can brew needle tea and it has vitamins”) and showed us edible fiddlehead ferns (which would have fetched a pretty penny at the Greenmarket).

Back on the water, we finally encountered our first whitewater. Raising our oars in the air and shrieking like schoolgirls at a Jonas Brothers concert, we’d thought ourselves pretty hardcore. But according to Peter, they barely qualified as Class 1, and he went on to tell us about a recent trip kayaking Class 5 waters. (Whatever — he didn’t do it with a baby on his back.)

By the time we had reached the last leg of our journey, we were feeling quite confident, until our pleasant, meandering river intersected with the much larger Pemigewasset (an Abenaki Indian word meaning “rapidly moving”). We hadn’t brushed up on our Abenaki, so we weren’t prepared for the angry confluence of the two bodies of water. I mean, I was actually forced to paddle.

The Pemigewasset was also busier; it flowed by Plymouth State University, and all too soon, we were back in the real world. Empty beer cans drifted alongside us, Nickelback blared from the dorms and a raft floated by filled with squealing, bikini-clad sorority girls. It was like paddling onto the set of an MTV reality show. Our three-plus-hour tour over, we emerged from the water–muddy, sweaty and hungry–but triumphant.

AND THE NEXT DAY

The following morning dawned with still more sunshine and warm temps. Lucie and Peter arrived to take us for a half-day of archery, map and compass and shelter-building. Shannon and I were, of course, excited to meet Lucie in person.

We had spent the previous evening out on the deck, listening to the loons and imagining what she would be like (we’d arrived at a composite of Xena Warrior Princess and Nurse Ratched).

The real Lucie, however, was nothing like that: She was petite, soft-spoken and gentle, but she also possessed a quiet strength that would come in handy should we have a debilitating archery accident.

We drove to a recreational park in nearby Meredith where Lucie set out the bows, arrows and a target. Though we’d have drawn a crowd if we’d started practicing archery in Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, here in New Hampshire, no one gave us a second look.

Now, if you have never used a compound bow, this is nothing like the one you shot with at summer camp. This is a complex, 20-pound machine that requires protective arm gear and a bit of strength. In other words, though we could barely hit the cardboard target, we looked like total bad-asses anyway.

“What can we shoot with an arrow?” I asked.

Well, first off, Lucie told us, the bows we’d need to use would be about 20 pounds heavier (for birds and small game) or 45 pounds to shoot a deer. And we’d have to have real arrows (not target arrows), which, she explained, “drill into the animal until it hemorrhages to death.” (Maybe we’ll stick to cardboard.)

Next, it was off to the woods to learn how to navigate using a map and compass. For this, you must be able to do two things: read a map and do math. I can do neither. Which is why I refuse to go to Queens and always over-tip.

“There’s north but there’s also magnetic north,” Lucie explained. “You need to figure out the magnetic declination in order to plan your route. So, according to this year, New Hampshire is 14 degrees west. . .” Blah, blah, blah–it was like being back in seventh-grade geometry; there was no way any of it was going to stick.

As Lucie started drawing lines from points A to B to C, estimating miles and calculating something using subtraction, I just smiled and nodded stupidly. Luckily, Shannon was picking up on everything, busily tracing our imaginary route, scribbling down numbers and turning the compass’ housing this way and that.

We set off on our course, each holding a compass level in front of us, making sure the arrow was “in the red” (i.e., pointing north), and counting our steps based on some earlier unfathomable calculation. Sure enough, Shannon made it to all her “destinations” and back to the starting point. I ended up somewhere in Queens.

Our final task was to build an emergency shelter out of wood and rope. We gathered large tree limbs to make our frame. Lucie taught me how to make a slipknot (a most excellent skill I plan on using as a party trick) to tie the limbs to larger trees, then we weaved smaller limbs into the frame to fill in the shelter’s “roof.” Sitting underneath our completed woodland digs, Shannon and I knew we’d made a shelter even Martha Stewart would be proud to call home.

THE LOWDOWN

Go: Outdoor ESCAPES New Hampshire offers guided adventures year round. Choose from half-day, full-day, or multi-day programs, adventure/lodging packages, or create a customized trip. There’s a large list of activities, including hiking, mountain biking, whitewater rafting and birding and moose tours, and adventures are available for every level. Prices vary depending on the length and kind of activities; a package like the one above will run you about $400 for two people. Outdoor ESCAPES New Hampshire, 49 Butternut Lane, Conway, NH; (603) 528-0136; www.outdoorescapesnh.com
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