The Natural Navigator: A Watchful Explorer's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 1615190295
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Before GPS, before the compass, and even before cartography, humankind was navigating. Now this singular guide helps us rediscover what our ancestors long understood—that a windswept tree, the depth of a puddle, or a trill of birdsong can help us find our way, if we know what to look and listen for. Adventurer and navigation expert Tristan Gooley unlocks the directional clues hidden in the sun, moon, stars, clouds, weather patterns, lengthening shadows, changing tides, plant growth, and the habits of wildlife. Rich with navigational anecdotes collected across ages, continents, and cultures, The Natural Navigator will help keep you on course and open your eyes to the wonders, large and small, of the natural world.
surroundings more skillfully than most modern travelers can. They have much to teach, but it is not laid out in ancient textbooks. Some of the pieces of the puzzle come from oral traditions or even the very earliest images etched in stone. The myths of a particular culture connected its people with their surroundings, their past, and each other. Myths should never be totally discounted, because even if a story is not meant to be understood literally, the teller still must add a degree of
this does not usually make a significant difference, but it becomes important if you are traveling over long distances, such as crossing an ocean. This is the reason that the flight paths on long-haul flights often show a curve. By following a star you are taking the best possible curved path toward the point beneath it, something that is very hard to achieve using a compass. The North Star As we have seen, there is a prominent star in the night sky which sits very close to the north celestial
Smati-Osiris, the Barley God, in the Egyptian Book of the Dead from nearly 4,000 years ago. Resting on the equator, however, the constellation lacks the steadfastness of the North Star, rising and setting, moving constantly through the sky, shifting with and the seasons. The constellation Orion. Orion’s right shoulder is the red giant Betelgeuse, from the Arabic expression for “giant’s shoulder” and often pronounced “Beetlejuice.” It is one of the brightest stars in the sky. His lower half
the experienced island sailor Captain Ward reported that a man’s testicles were the best apparatus for assessing swell, and that this was the preferred method in the Pacific. Anyone who has spent any time on small boats will have witnessed the skipper sticking their head above decks for no apparent reason and enquiring sternly if everything is all right. This is often prompted by a sense, perhaps a slight change in the rhythm of rolling or sounds of waves, that something has altered
attracts the seagulls in such numbers. It leads to an unusual sensory map of the area that includes the sight and sound of the gulls, but the street itself smells different at different times of the day and year. Early on a winter day there is no way of telling how close you are to the market by smell, but late on a summer day the scent of overripe fruit that has been trampled on the roads and pavements carries several hundred yards downwind. This relationship between temperature and smell can