Why I rarely post on newsgroups

Since the recent James Kim tragedy, I've received numerous e-mails
from newsgroup posters,
asking for advice about cold weather survival, one of my specialties.
I've replied to all of these
individuals personally, but I've decided to post my answer to their
questions about why I seldom
visit newsgroups.
Basically, I'm thoroughly disgusted with the anonymous crap I've
gotten while trying to help
posters who legitimately ask for advice. One poster on
rec.backcountry, a group notorious for being
infested by liars and pretenders, claimed he saw a mother porcupine
with a litter of several young.
When he was checked by someone who actually knew that E. dorsatum
females in fact give birth to
one kit a year, several newsgroupies began a long, inane argument over
whether generations of
scientists might be wrong about the species' reproductive
characteristics. That thread was as
retarded as it was representative of rec.backcountry, but the real
crime was that it caused confusion
among people who might believe what they read there. More serious, the
same type of fabricated,
erroneous, and potentially hurtful "advice" is routinely presented to
people who ask about
orienteering, water purification, and other topics where acting on
misinformation could have serious
consequences.
Because I have a moral obligation to late tribal elders like Amos
Wasgeshik and Albert Colby to
pass on the wisdom they gave me, I once embraced internet forums as a
way to perhaps save others from coming to the same tragic end of James
Kim, Chris Hallaxs, and the many who have died unnecessarily in the
woods. Yet, because I make my living from writing and working (hard)
as a wilderness guide/survival instructor, I've been viciously attacked
as a "spammer." When someone
asks how to make snowshoes, sharpen a knife, or set a snare, I cannot
write a chapter explaining the finer points of accomplishing those
tasks, so I refer them to my books and magazine articles, because they
do - that's why I wrote them. In fact, I've often suggested that
readers check out mine and other books from a public library, because
the objective is to get useful information into their heads. Believe
me, no one who wants to make a decent living would ever become an
outdoor writer, because there just isn't much money in this occupation.
There is, however, tremendous satisfaction from having a former
survival student tell me that what I taught him saved his life, and
that has happened to me numerous times.
For years I put up with unmitigated insults from the minority of
newsgroupies who found it hard to
be an expert when I was in the room, then someone finally got the idea
that they could get a free shot at me by posting fallacious reviews of
my books on Amazon.com. Anyone who has actually read the books that
were slammed knows that they were quoted incorrectly, and were not read
by the so-called reviewer. One especially malicious "review" of the
university-level Encyclopedia of
Tracks & Scats flames it for having too many drawings of tracks - she
obviously didn't read the
section on photography that explains why a two-dimensional camera
cannot adequately capture a
three-dimensional track imprint; that's why we plaster-cast them, and
that's why I used drawings to
precisely identify pertinent characteristics. Personally, I think the
book just had too many scientific
terms for her to comprehend - she'd be better off with a copy of The
Complete Tracker, or maybe my
newest pocket tracking guide (still under construction). Amazon.com
has since taken steps to
prevent such phony reviews from being published.
Even that libelous crap didn't deter me from trying to offer
experienced advice to the majority of
decent people who frequent newsgroups. But when a few slimeballs began
attacking my fellow
wilderness guide (Timberwolf Wilderness Adventures, Paradise, MI),
Cheanne Chellis, because
she'd posted a couple of positive reviews of my books, that was the
last straw. Cheanne is a licensed paramedic of nineteen years, and she
makes her full-time living by saving lives - she has doubtless saved
the life of someone who is reading this - and she's a better human
being than all of us. I can say that because I've known her for a
decade - we met while conducting wolf research with the Little Traverse
Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (I was their tracker). She can say what she
said in the reviews because she's had as many years seeing me at work
in the wildest country in the Lower 48. Any respect she has for my
skill as a woodsman derives from having personally seen me at work in
forests where some missing people have never been found. To have some
neurotic waste of skin who has never met either of us badmouth the
integrity of such an outstanding and professional individual is
shameful, and intolerable to me. FYI, Cheanne is also an excellent
tracker, a professional dogsledder, a wolf-handler, she shoots less
than 1 MOA with a rifle, and she can butcher a deer nearly as fast as I
can. All of that in a beautiful, blonde-haired, blue-eyed package.
Because a few despicable concrete cowboys can only feel good about
themselves by maligning
anyone who makes them feel inadequate, I lost interest in putting up
with internet assholes. I still
make my living as a writer ( http://www.modernsurvival.net/preview.cfm
), and, in fact, my writing
sells better than it ever did. Only now, if someone wants an informed
opinion about a wilderness
skill, or a product from one of the 115 outdoor manufacturers I field
test for, they'll have to buy a
magazine or one of my books. From my end, that's more profitable
anyway, and I don't have to
endure the offal of cowardly miscreants who transfer their
self-loathing to others while hiding in
shadows like a cockroach.
I don't hide from anyone. I live 5 miles north of Paradise (pop.
35), on Lake Superior's Whitefish
Bay, where the giant SS Edmund Fitzgerald was running for when the
Gales of November sent her
to the bottom with all hands. My home is bordered on two sides by
1,000,020 acres of Lake
Superior State Forest, which is bordered to the east by 900,000 acres
of Hiawatha National Forest,
to the west by 800,000 acres of Ottawa National Forest. Occupying the
10.5-million acres of MI's
Upper Peninsula are only 328,000 residents. Winters here on Whitefish
Point average 20+ feet of
snowfall, and I've personally seen ambient temps as low as -37 F,
windchills to -65 F. We aren't on
the electrical grid, but on a single leg that extends from it, and
power goes down here with annoying
frequency, sometimes for days at a time. We keep a pack of gray wolves
- legally - for the purpose
of public education, at no charge to visitors, and the "boys" have been
featured in numerous
magazines, my last book, and on Country Music Television. The woods
surrounding our house is
home to moose, cougars, wolves, bald and golden eagles, and we've
occasionally had to go outside
with a flashlight to chase off black bears that were tring to get into
our barn, where our wolves'
venison is kept. In summer, the blackflies, mosquitoes, horseflies,
deerflies, and stable flies have
literally driven some to a nervous breakdown. In a single winter, I've
spent as many as 110 nights
sleeping on snow. So much for those clown shoes who spew lies about
Len McDougall not spending much time in the woods.


Len McDougall, author of the books: The Encyclopedia of Tracks & Scats
* The Log Cabin: An
Adventure in Self Reliance, Individualism, and Cabin Building * The
Field & Stream Wilderness
Survival Handbook * The Complete Tracker * Practical Outdoor Projects *
Practical Outdoor
Survival * The Snowshoe Handbook * The Outdoors Almanac * Made for the
Outdoors

Wilderness Guide/Survival Instructor for Timberwolf Wilderness
Adventures, Paradise, Michigan
USA

Len McDougall, Outdoor Writer wrote:
Since the recent James Kim tragedy, I've received numerous e-mails

snip self promotion from the attention whore

You seldom post because you gave very bad advice in the backcountry
newsgroup, got called out on it and got your ego bruised. After that
you went away to lick your wounds.