Born to Explore: How to Be a Backyard Adventurer » (Original)

In 2002, Richard Wiese became the youngest president in The Explorers Club's one hundred-year history. He has tagged jaguars in the YucatÁn jungles, captured crocodiles, and handled venomous snakes in Australia; achieved the first ascent of an unclimbed mountain in Alaska; discovered twenty-nine new life forms on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa; and cross-country skied to the North Pole.

Born to Explore is filled with skills, projects, and essential knowledge for the budding adventurer

Explorer extraordinaire Richard Wiese's more than one hundred excellent projects show how to have fun with science and nature, how to not always take the most walked path, and how to learn to "read" the natural world. Discovery does not occur just in the Amazon or deep in the ocean. It happens everywhere around us:

Navigate by the stars,
Tell time without a watch,
Start a fire without a match,
Make an igloo,
Build your own canoe,
And be prepared for any challenge.

The Barnes & Noble Review

Say you're going on a wilderness expedition and can take with you only what will fit into one compact Altoids tin: What would you take? That's just one of many thought-provoking survival questions addressed by Richard Wiese in Born to Explore: How to Be a Backyard Adventurer. Wiese, who has served as the Explorers Club's youngest president and hosted a syndicated TV show, also fills in readers on how to: build their own canoe; start a fire without a match; make an igloo; cook "Road Kill Stew" (no, that's not a euphemism); survive a moose attack; bake bread in a plastic bag; catch fish with a Coke bottle; chop down a tree; fashion a compass out of a sewing needle, a magnet, and a glass of water; and, well, a host of other useful things to know. In eight lively, amply illustrated chapters, accessible enough for the whole family to enjoy (included are many experiments and activities suitable for teens and up -- or even for parents to attempt with their kids), Wiese incites our curiosity not only about the faraway lands to which he has traveled ("Several years ago, while cross-country skiing to the North Pole." is the sort of line he tosses off in passing) but also about the flora and fauna in our own backyards. "I hope Born to Explore inspires both the nature enthusiast and the nature-impaired and provides information on the tools needed to discover and love the outdoors," he writes. Mission accomplished.and pass the (curiously strong) mints. --Amy Reiter

Acknowledgments and Thanks for Research Help ix

Foreword xi

Introduction xiii

I Explorer Tool Box

1 Altoids Survival Kit 3

2 Your Knife, a Point of Pride 10

3 Backwoods Bow and Arrow 15

4 Miracle Material: Duct Tape 19

5 Fire 23

6 Chopping Down a Tree 37

7 Floating Art: The Six-Hour Canoe 42

8 Build a World War II Foxhole Radio 63

II Safety

9 How Not to Be a Victim of Insects 71

10 Avoid Becoming Wildlife Food 77

11 Taming an Electric Fence 86

12 Ninja T-shirt Sun Hood 88

13 Rumble in the Jungle: Avoid Mr. Poopy Pants 91

III Navigation

14 Maps 99

15 Tracking 118

16 Sky 132

IV Shelter

17 Levitation Station 151

18 How to Build an Igloo 156

V Food

19 Your First Meal Outdoors 165

20 The Paper Bag School of Cooking 182

21 Fishing 191

22 Eat Like the Rest of the World 203

23 Mining for Iron in Your Food 206

VI Weather

24 Weather-You Know More Than You Think 211

25 Reading the Wind 219

26 Mountain Weather 222

27 Weather Animal 228

28 Why Is the Sky Blue and Sunsets Red? 234

29 The Mystery of the Full-Moon Illusion 236

30 Bad Hair Day-No One Is Safe 239

31 How to Make a Simple Thermometer 242

32 How to Build a Snowmaker 245

33 How to Create a Rainbow 252

VII Exploring

34 Lord of the Tree Rings 257

35 A Palm Tree Grows in Brooklyn 261

36 Finding Fossils-Our Relatives from the Past 264

37 City Wildlife Safari 270

38 Panning for Gold 278

39 Thumb Piano, Please 282

40 Lightning in Your Mouth 291

41 Star Trail and Moon Photography 293

42 Collecting Meteorites 299

VIII Giving Back

43 Grow a Jurassic Tree 305

44 Building a Bat House 309

45 Resler Reef 315

Conclusion 319

SourcesConsulted and Suggestions for Further Reading 325

Index 337