by Tom Brown, Jr. as told to William Jon Watkins, 1978
Adam’s book about Tom Brown, Jr. and how he became the tracker he is. He grew up near the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. He was taught how to track by his best friend’s grandfather, Stalking Wolf. From the age of 6 to 18, he and Rick learn just about everything there is to learn about survival, camping, and stalking and tracking.
Some of the things that stand out:
- They spend hours upon hours investigating tracks, watching them disintegrate in different types of weather, drawing them, making casts, finding them blindfolded, in the dark, etc.
- Stalking Wolf teaches them how to survive in the freezing cold by taking them out to the woods and having them strip down to their underwear and sneakers, giving them each a pair of cutoffs, and telling them if they braved the cold in this manner all the way home, they would never be cold again. Sure enough, they initially feel the icy wind and intense cold, but after about 3 miles, they don’t and by the time they get home, they are laughing and throwing snow at each other, and they are never truly cold again.
- In the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, there are wild dog packs and they continually have to be wary of them. One time, he and Rick are exploring deep pits and the dogs come upon them. They manage to get out of the pit as the dogs enter the pit and the dogs are then trapped. They watch the dogs and realize they will starve. They throw their food down to them and then feel so sorry for them, they lug an abandoned refrigerator and drop it down the lip to allow them to bound out of the pit. They think they will be attacked by the dogs but they are not. Instead, the dogs run along with them back to their camp and stay the night with them but are gone in the morning. Before this, however, Tom and Rick learn how to climb trees really fast to get away from the wild dogs. One time, Tom is camping alone and spends 3 days and nights in a tree until he finally figures out how to escape by going down the center of the river to safety.
- He also sees a lot of drunk hunters and poachers. One time, he comes across a bunch of slaughtered deer. He tracks the poachers to a shack and and beats them almost to death single-handedly. He loves animals and all of nature and those men that abuse nature are despicable.
- The mob sometimes executes and buries their dead in the Pine Barrens and Rick and Tom are winter camping once when a hand comes out of the ground near their campfire as the ground thaws. They go to town and anonymously call the police and watch secretly as they come and exhume the body.
- There is a legend of the Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens. Rick and Tom are deathly afraid of it. Stalking Wolf has them camp separately, each one alone, for 7 days. After the third fearful night, Tom is convinced the Jersey Devil is out there and he chases it through the woods in the dark until he collapses. The next day, he searches for its tracks and finds only his own. He realizes it was his own fear feeding his imagination. He is never afraid of the Jersey Devil again.
- Rick and Stalking Wolf move away while Tom is in high school. The loneliness is excruciating. Nothing comforts him. Coming across the poachers snaps him out of his grief. The rage he feels and the fight itself cures him.
- He finds solace in the woods. He spends the whole summer in the woods, alone and eventually naked. He finds meaning in his ability to survive, track and remain unseen in the woods.
- He helps a lost family find their way out.
- At the end of the book, he alone tracks and finds a developmentally disabled man lost in the woods.
Fantastic book. As Adam says, “You can get so much more out of the woods after reading it.” He’s right.