LOCALadk Magazine

"You see the world from a whole different view, and it makes you a different person," he said. "It gives you a certain level of toughness and makes you think how tough our ancestors were. When they were hungry, there was no going to the supermarket." He sought people who felt the same way, and found it in underhawk, where he teaches primitive navigation, shelter building, fire starting, hunting, trapping, fishing, finger weaving, beading, copper smithing, period archery and tool making. When not traveling to teaching engagements, McCormack and Sawyer live on a farm and forest off the grid west of Port Henry. ere, they set up a native hunting camp much as the Mohawk would have done in summer before returning to their permanent homes for the winter in lower elevations. e fire is small, McCormack said, to avoid detection. "It's just enough to cook on, and it can be put out quickly" on the approach of an enemy. Its location is strategic, beneath hemlock boughs that dissipate the smoke. Even so, the fire is potent enough to roast a ruffed grouse and boil the chocolate that was a desirable trade item at the time, as were pineapples, oddly enough. e tents are made of fabric steeped in a soup of blueberries and walnut hulls for an effective camouflage. e canvas tarp is sloped low on one end to ward off wind and rain, and higher at the other to catch and recirculate the heat of a small fire. Modern society holds that bigger is better, but in native cultures, the opposite was true. If the party had to move, it oen had to move quickly, the tent becoming a backpack. "Everything is designed to break down quickly and travel light," McCormack said. Cody Van Burens Anglo, Scottish, Mohawk bloodline can be traced all the way back to 1739. LOCALadk 28

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