Title The Tracker

Author Tom Brown Jr.

Year Published 1986

Kind of Book Survival/Memoir

How strongly I recommend it 10/10 

My Impressions This book was given to me as a gift in college and sat on my book shelf for 8 years until I felt pulled to read it. I'm glad I did. It contains some of the best survival stories I've heard—including one story about him being stalked by a pack of wild dogs for several days. The book also contains some great Native American wisdom that was passed down to Tom Brown by his mentor Stalking Wolf.

Date Read Oct 2019

Practical Takeaways

  • Make use of everything (resources)

  • Revere what you take from the woods

  • Master your fear

  • Live with the least disruption of the earth

  • Hone your skills

  • Expand your sense of awareness

  • Live in the space of the moment

  • Never focus your attention so narrowly that you're not aware of the larger pattern around you

  • Switch your focus between what's right in front of you and the larger picture

  • Don't look for the track, look where the track is going

  • Never be careless around dogs

  • Choose not to let the cold bother you

  • Treat the cold as your brother

  • Stop resisting the cold

  • (to find the trial when you're lost)Go back to your center point and circle around it widening the circle until you've found the trail

  • Be a patient observer like the owl

  • Be clever like the crow

  • Be courageous like the Blue Jay

  • Test your limits

  • When you're trapped and there's no way out--attack!

  • Entirely confront your fear

  • Let your instincts and training do their work

  • Allow your kids to take risks, so they know where their limits are

  • Don't corner an animal cutting off any escape route (it will attack you)

  • Don't come up on an animal suddenly

To get unstuck from mud or quicksand

Break the suction.

  1. Work the leg back and forth in short stiff-legged motions until working space has been created in the mud

  2. Push your rump back to create a space behind you

  3. Get one knee raised under mud

 

Big Ideas

  • The cold wind is our brother

  • Often we treat the cold as our enemy

  • Hate is the outward manifestation of fear

  • Most people underestimate their abilities

because

  • Most people have never had a chance to test their limits.

  • Nature can not hurt you if you are at one with it

  • If you stop resisting the cold, you will not be cold

  • Your fear goes away once you confront what you are afraid of

  • During a rite of passage a boy goes into the woods as a boy and returns as a man

  • Kids have to take risks to grow up so that they'll know what their limits are

  • Parents have a natural instinct to limit the risks their children take

So

  • Most boys keep the risks they take secret from their parents

 

Memorable Quotes

"The cold wind is your brother, you have treated him as your enemy."-Stalking Wolf

 

"Hate is just fear worn inside out." -Stalking Wolf

 

"A week ago I saw two boys walk into the woods. Today I saw two men come back out."-Stalking Wolf