One of the greatest fears that you can have is getting lost in the woods. As seen from the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy was saying lions and tigers and bears immediately comes flashing before your eyes. You can see yourself being devoured by strange animals and the trees look even stranger. You come to a swampy area and immediately there are skulls floating just below the surface of the water. You’re going to starve to death or die of thirst or any other number of calamities will befall you. This need not be if you prepare yourself before you venture into the woods.

Ideally of course you will have a equipped yourself with the GPS unit. This of course is a Global Positioning System unit. If you’ve got one of these all you have to do is plug in the coordinates for where you are going, and the GPS unit will take you right there, no sweat. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.

However people have been able to navigate in the woods for thousands of years before GPS was invented. For the past few centuries at least they have had a compass available. We sincerely hope that you don’t go venturing into the woods with out at least a compass or sure as little green apples you’re likely to get lost.

Invented by the Chinese by magnetizing a steel needles with a naturally occurring magnet. This naturally occurring magnet was lodestone also known as magnetite or a type iron oxide. This invention eventually found its way west, in the West it was used to navigate on the high seas as well as other places.

The compass needle naturally points to the magnetic North Pole so that at least you will know what direction is north, from that all else follows. The card positioned below the needle has printed on it the four quadrants of the compass, and subdivisions of the quadrants. On many compasses this is further differentiated with marks showing the 360° found on a compass face. What this tells us is if you are facing north and if you do an about face of 180° you will be facing south. If you do another about-face you’ll be facing north once again. If you were to do a right face 90° to the right you will be facing east. If you want to be facing west just do an about-face and you are looking west. That is basically how a compass works.

There are many different types of compasses but they all basically work the same. One type of compass commonly used in navigating in the wilderness is the Lensatic compass. This comes equipped with a sight very much like a rifle allowing you to point right at a particular geographic point in your line of sight. The compass also has a movable dial allowing you to turn it under the needle allowing you to read the bearing at what you have pointed. This is done using a mirror that is attached to the underside of the cover. You actually read the compass dial from the image in this mirror. There is another use for this mirror however, that is an old Army joke that says you can look in the mirrior to see the monkey that’s lost.

There are many number other ways to navigate in the woods without a compass. One of the easiest ways is if you can see a hill or mountain between you and where you want to go, you just walk toward the mountain and keep it in sight.

What they say about trees having the most moss on the north side is relatively true, because this side of the tree that is sheltered from the Sun. The sunlight acts as a retardant on the growth of moss. Once you have established the direction of north you can just repeat the exercise given above. At least this will give you some idea of what direction you’re going.

In a country that has been glaciated there is another way to determine your directions. That is the long narrow boulders exposed on the surface will tend to line themselves up by the direction the glacier flowed. This is not as accurate though for other than rough navigation it is not very accurate. The great continental glaciers of thousands of years ago had several different points of origin. The direction the particular glaciers flowed is dependent upon where they came from.

In the morning the sun is to your East. At noon it is directly above your head. In the evening the sun is to your west. In the northern hemisphere the Sun is always in the southern hemisphere of the sky. This means that if you can see the sun you can navigate by the Sun and even use it tell the time of day.

However there are days that are cloudy when you cannot see the sun. This calls for some different navigational tricks. You can always use the moss on the back of the trees, or the alignment of the boulders to get a rough idea of the directions. There are other ways that can be used also. There isn’t a day no matter how cloudy it is that some light from the sun doesn’t get through, and cast a shadow. Under most conditions you will not be able to see the shadow but it is there. One of the simplest ways to make the shadow appear is by wetting your thumb nail, and putting the point of a knife on top of it. This will allow you to then see a faint shadow that is pointing toward the north. If you have a watch and know what time of the day it is you can even deduce the direction of true North this way..

This is assuming that before you venture into the woods you have studied a map or other navigational aide. This is extremely important to show you where you want to go beforehand. The compass headings can be plotted right off the map making your job easier. In all wilderness navigation it is important to know as much about the land and the lay of the land as possible before you venture forth. The best way to get this kind of knowledge is by reading either at home or in a library. You can also practice these techniques close to home in country that you are familiar with. In a wilderness situation a little knowledge can go a long way.