Ted Kaczynski’s 1972 Journal
Journal Series II, Journal #2
... About the time I got back to camp, the sky began to cloud over again. I put half a cup of lentils, and the mere smidge of rice and barley I had left, in the pot with my porcupine meat, also some sage-brush leaves that I got on my hike, a touch of sugar and salt, and boiled up a good soup.
By the time the soup was done it was raining and pretty chilly, so that hot broth really was welcome! The livers and kidneys were particularly tender. The rest of the meat was neither tough nor tender — just average. I just ate the liver, kidneys, heart, and hind legs — saved the front legs for today. (I only took the heart, liver, kidneys, and legs of this porcupine — that’s most of the meat anyway, and you can get that much without going through the tiresome process of skinning the whole animals. Of course, I always save all the meat when I’m back at the cabin and have better facilities). Then I had mint tea for desert. (I picked some mint on my walk.) By the time I finished supper, the rain had stopped. Actually I enjoyed the rain, because it gave a pleasant sense of defying the elements. I kept warm and reasonably dry under my lean to with a fire in front.
I enjoyed sitting up for a while after dark, just watching the fire. About the same time I rolled up my blankets for the night, it commended raining again. The night was not quite so chilly as the last few nights, and I kept warm and reasonably dry, and slept pretty well, even though I felt rather uneasy about how I was going to cook breakfast the next morning. It rained hard all night with but little intermission. As I feared, this continued in the morning, but the rain was lighter. All the same, I got a good blaze going (one match, match), but of course it takes a good deal more effort to start a fire under such conditions. In an area like this where there’s no birch bark or other ready tinder, you have to cut a piece of sound standing dead-wood, hack off the moist outer layer and then manufacture a pile of shavings, splinters, and chips from the dry inner part....
... I forgot to mention a trick I have used several nights on this hike. Heat up rocks in your campfire, but don’t get them too hot to touch. Then take them to bed with you. They radiate heat for a long time. Meanwhile, put other rocks on the coals and heap them over with ine-needles, humus, and various moist peaty stuff from the forest floor. This will smolder for a long time, and when your first set of rocks gets cold, you will have a new set all ready and waiting.
Later: Just after I finished making pancakes a couple of forest rangers, or Forest Service guys, or whatever the hell they are, showed up with shovels and mattocks. They saw the smoke from my fire (earlier, when I had a big heap of wet wood on it, drying out) and they came to investigate lest it be an incipient forest fire. They said they spent a couple of hours looking for it. I was afraid they would be mad, but they didn’t seem to be disturbed in the least. They stayed around for 15 minutes or so chatting about my backpack trip and such things. It was interesting meeting them and all that, but it kind of spoils things, because on a trip like this one like to think one is out of touch with civilization. Well, after this, when things are wet so that fires are smokey, maybe I will make a point of camping only in deep gulches where my smoke won’t be readily visible — but then, it isn’t always convenient to camp in a deep gulch. Shit.
Sept. 13 The rangers coming yesterday rather spoiled things, and besides that, there was a lot of noise of machinery (loggers I suppose) coming from the north, so I decided to go home this morning, even though the weather was beautiful. Actually, I enjoyed meeting the rangers, after I got over my initial fear that they were going to be angry, but after they left I felt depressed over the incident. If I had merely met another wanderer in the woods, it wouldn’t have spoiled things. People individually aren’t so bad; some of them are even pleasant to associate with. But for me one of the main satisfactions of being out in the woods is getting out of the social machine. What disturbs me is that the agents of machine may watch my smoke and come to check up on me. I had been thinking of building some kind of wigwam of bark and poles in the Trout Creek area and camping there for an extended period this fall — but that is very likely against the rules (and in any case might excite curiosity or suspicion); and if the Forest Service checks up on columns of smoke as small as those from campfires I might be found out, which might result in trouble and embarrassment (But then, maybe the gulch of Trout Creek is deep enough to hide the smoke from even a wet campfire — I’ll have to think about it.) On the positive side, I enjoyed this trip very well until the last day, and it seemed less physically tiring than my previous trips. Maybe I’m getting used to carrying that pack. Although I am thinking in terms of another such trip; but where the hell can I go where neither the Forest Service nor anybody else will come to pester me?
Oct. 21, 1972: The deer season opens tomorrow, and I am out to get a deer....
... Unfortunately, I heard quite a few shots early in the morning. Most of them were fairly far away, but some asshole came down the gulch my camp is in, expending ammunition very indiscriminately. I didn’t see him, but I could mark his progress by the “bang, bang, bang, bang.” Where the hell can one get privacy? Maybe in the wilderness across Route 200 but you can’t hike there directly from the cabin. This feeling of not having anywhere where one can get real seclusion is very depressing. But at least I am glad to say that anyone coming through the gulch would more likely than not miss my camp, since it is in a fairly well-hidden nook. ...
... I aimed and fired. The deer staggered 50 ft or so, then fell dead. I had hit it where I wanted to — in the lungs. I was surprised that the deer didn’t fall immediately, and I was also surprised that the bullet didn’t go through the animal — at least, I found no exit wound....
