[HN Gopher] Petrov: A man who lived in the woods of Mendocino Co...
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Petrov: A man who lived in the woods of Mendocino County (2022)
Author : nose
Score : 73 points
Date : 2023-12-25 05:49 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ukiahdailyjournal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ukiahdailyjournal.com)
| davely wrote:
| This immediately reminds me of a book I read a year ago about a
| man who walked off into the woods of Maine in 1986 and lived as a
| hermit for 27 years [1]
|
| [1] "Stranger in the Woods" by Michael Finkel:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30687200
| huytersd wrote:
| The craziest thing about this guy is he spent every _Maine_
| winter over those 27 years without lighting a single fire to
| keep him warm because he thought it would expose him. He would
| just stay awake all night and start walking around when he
| thought he was getting so cold it might be dangerous. That
| really to me is hell on earth. At least Petrov lived in
| California where it was mostly nice year-round.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| But he did use gas bottles to heat up things and this can
| make all the difference. Still, not pleasant.
|
| Oh - and you automatically stay awake, when it gets too cold.
| Only when you are really exhausted and sleep in the cold, you
| will never wake up (from various movies and books I was
| afraid of this trope when I was younger, but nope, as long as
| you have energy left, your body automatically wakes you up
| and starts moving to create heat). Not being able to sleep,
| because of cold, is one of the less awesome outdoor
| experiences. On the other hand, the more you enjoy the sun on
| the next day (if you are lucky and there is sun).
| DaftDank wrote:
| I learned this the hard way when I was homeless at 17-18
| years old in the middle of Wyoming winters. I had at least
| had my old Grand Cherokee to sleep in the trunk space, but
| not enough money for gas to run the heater. I'd pile all my
| clothes on top of me, but there were always patches where
| the cold got through and I'd spend so many nights just
| shaking from the cold. Spent the Christmas of 2004 this
| way. You are also correct that when it would be sunny (but
| still cold) the next day, it was an awesome experience.
| Almost like a ray of hope, as cliche as that sounds. It's
| crazy what having sunlight can do to improve your mood.
| That's one reason I loved living in SF later on, there were
| so many sunny days and I also wasn't homeless lol.
| solardev wrote:
| Merry Christmas man, hope this one is better for you!
|
| I was also homeless with a car for a while, but in a much
| warmer climate. It's no fun!
| worik wrote:
| What evil you two tell of
|
| So much wealth in the world, and an eighteen year old
| sleeping in the trunk of a car in a continental winter
|
| "Poverty is a sin A sin of the rich"
| asimpletune wrote:
| I met a self-described "mountain man" in Montana once, and I
| asked how he stayed warm in the winter. He told me the key
| was to build an insulated nest, below ground, packed with
| snow, and then you light a single candle and close up the
| nest. That this was enough to stay warm even in the Montana
| winter.
|
| It's hard to know if what he was saying was true or not, but
| I think I believe it. He also saw my VW and immediately
| observed that it had been in an accident based on the way the
| doors hung. So, I feel like he knew some stuff.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| That's how snow caves are constructed. Tunnel in and up in
| a snowbank so that the floor of the cave is higher than the
| ceiling of the entry tunnel. The air in the cave will
| equalize to 32F once you enter thanks to body heat. As far
| as I can tell this works well in any temperate climate
| because the snowpack tends to be warm(er) at the bottom and
| warmer air rises.
|
| At any rate it worked in all my snow caves, which was
| admittedly not a large sample but included places like
| Teton pass in Wyoming.
| huytersd wrote:
| You might survive 32F but you can't possibly make it for
| very long if you have to be that cold night after night.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Actually 32F without wind is no big deal if you have a
| decent sleeping bag. Plus it gets warmer as you do more
| stuff inside (e.g., cooking). Igloos have the same design
| and can get pretty warm. [0] The real problem in my
| experience is that it's quite humid. Since you are
| insulating with snow it evaporates and raises the
| humidity up to the dew point.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo
| huytersd wrote:
| I guess it varies from individual to individual. I can be
| out in 110F weather all day comfortably if I have enough
| water and a large hat but have very low tolerance for the
| cold.
| gen220 wrote:
| Inside the sleeping bag, it will definitely be quite
| warm!
|
| Even quite mediocre sleeping bags (by modern standards)
| are positively toasty at 32 degrees. It was common in my
| group for people to sleep in their underwear in the
| caves! Our sleeping bags were 0 degree rated, though.
| worik wrote:
| > mediocre sleeping bags (by modern standards)
|
| Sleeping bags have been very good for a long time
|
| "modern standards" means cheaper than goose down
| gen220 wrote:
| You have to poke holes in the ceiling, and make sure the
| they're clear every day.
|
| If you light a candle, the snow will melt and freeze into
| a film of ice.
|
| The holes are important for ventilation in general, but
| it also allows vapor to escape.
|
| When we built them we'd use ski poles to make the holes.
| You don't want them to be too big or you risk the
| structural integrity of course. There was a ratio of hole
| count : people that we followed but I can't remember that
| detail (:
| gen220 wrote:
| I camped out like this once per year in my teens!
|
| It was lots of fun. We'd hike into the snow pack set up a
| tent the first night, and spend the second day building
| snow caves and sledding. Then we'd build a bonfire that
| would melt down to the ground (or a boulder) by morning.
| Good times.
|
| Caves take way less time to set up than an igloo and only
| requires a shovel for equipment. Although, it requires more
| maintenance for long-term shelter than an igloo. There's
| good documentation on how to build one online.
| NaOH wrote:
| I haven't read Finkel's book on Christopher Knight, but other
| pieces on Knight were discussed here, with distinct tones to
| the discussions.
|
| _Into the woods: how one man survived alone in the wilderness
| for 27 years_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13878801 -
| March 2017 (124 comments)
|
| _The Strange and Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8205993 - August 2014 (86
| comments)
| 7thaccount wrote:
| This the guy that basically lived in a tent and stole from
| those in the nearby community for decades right? I agree it
| must have been difficult in the middle of the night when it
| was cold, but it's not like he was farming, hunting, or
| foraging in the forest.
| mc32 wrote:
| There is also Daniel Suelo who left everything behind and moved
| into the caves in and around Antelope Canyon:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/homeles...
| stevenwoo wrote:
| A doctor did this in Hawaii for a while
| https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/The-tale-of-the-doctor...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Kauai, ok
|
| One thing that initially annoyed me about Oahu was that there
| were people _everywhere_
|
| Remote secluded beach? People.
|
| Woods? People.
|
| Forbidden, secret trail after ten "no trespassing we'll shoot
| you" signs? People.
|
| I lived there for 6 months and found more solitude when I
| wanted it, but also became more exhibitionist
| LastNevadan wrote:
| There was a family in Siberia who went off-grid and lived in the
| Siberian forest for 42 years. They were discovered by the Soviet
| authorities in 1978.
|
| https://allthatsinteresting.com/lykov-family
| hutzlibu wrote:
| The most interesting bit about this to me is, how fast the
| daughters developed their own language without intention.
| hyperthesis wrote:
| also https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
| toastedwedge wrote:
| This was a very nice and fascinating (although strange) read
| with my morning coffee. Thank you for sharing.
| gattr wrote:
| I read about them elsewhere; one of the details I remembered is
| how at some point they started noticing fast-moving "stars" in
| the night sky and the father realized they must be man-made
| artificial objects (satellites).
| morkalork wrote:
| They were Old Believers! I've heard of this story before but
| never picked up on that facet. There's still some living in
| settlements in Alaska.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I believe he's not Petrov but Petro after all (out of options
| listed in the article)
|
| You are unlikely to have no first name and two last names, and
| Zailenko looks like a last name, so the other one is likely a
| first name, which would be Petro.
|
| Of course there is always a chance that he is Petrov-Zailenko.
| vzaliva wrote:
| -enko is a common ending for Ukrainian last names and Petro is
| Ukrainian first name.
| mehal wrote:
| Thank you for pointing it out! Name is definitely Ukrainian,
| so no russian army, because in Second World War the was Red
| Army of USSR
| thriftwy wrote:
| No Russian Army because he was born around 1914. Otherwise,
| of course you would find a lot of people with -enko last
| name in Russian Army in WWI. Not only Russian Empire
| controlled most of present-day Ukraine but also parts of
| Poland.
| mehal wrote:
| He was captured by Nazis during Second World War
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38765757
| huytersd wrote:
| I'm always blown away by how people like this managed to eat. I
| suppose you could live off bottle deposits if you only ate corn
| and beans. Even at five dollars a day he would've had to collect
| 50 bottles in the best case scenario.
| zxspectrum1982 wrote:
| Hunting and gathering is as old as human beings. It's more
| difficult in the XXI century but in a large-enough forest (and
| a natural park that is), you can still do it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer
| bbarnett wrote:
| It saddens me to see a comment where finding some way to pay
| for food, would be the only way to eat.
|
| Outside of local edible vegetation, there is smaller game.
| And as you say, this is how many used to survive.
|
| But beyond that, you can plant beans and have a crop in
| weeks. Even with a lack of pesticides and fertilizer, being
| able to plant a plant here, a plant there, will result in
| food not being eaten completely by pests.
|
| And the ground is far more fertile, when not monocropping.
|
| And yes, seeds can be reused, it's how farming still works
| today for many farmers.
|
| To speak to this, where I grew up, many people would go into
| the woods, and plant a single pot seed here, another there,
| always close to trees etc, so overflies by police helicopters
| wouldn't see a crop.
|
| Being rural, some people owned 1000 acres, and plausible
| denialability exists. Even if some went missing, the scatter
| method yields results.
| hyperthesis wrote:
| do beans need to be in season, or are some varieties year-
| round?
| fallinghawks wrote:
| Many beans can be dried and cooked months or years later.
| hyperthesis wrote:
| I was responding to this: you can plant
| beans and have a crop in weeks.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| > Outside of local edible vegetation, there is smaller
| game. And as you say, this is how many used to survive.
|
| And: compared to past centuries (or even pre-agricultural),
| a _bit_ of help from modern society can save a lot of time.
| A lighter here, a $5 knife or cooking pot there, some
| discarded materials from a construction site, etc etc.
|
| Doesn't make primitive life easy. But it's not hard to see
| why some people would prefer it over navigating the
| complexities (or stress!) of 'living in the fast lane'
| modern society.
| huytersd wrote:
| Hunting and gathering is fine if you have free rein of the
| land and live in a relatively productive area (for fruits and
| vegetables). From what I know of NorCal it does not naturally
| grow stuff you can pick and eat. Also hunting is relatively
| restricted around national parks and there is no mention of
| petrov doing it.
| lonlazarus wrote:
| I live in NorCal and do some culinary foraging for fun.
| There's plenty, I mean people lived here before Europeans
| colonized. There's all kinds of native berries, blackberry,
| salmon berry, service berry, elderberry huckleberry. There
| are plenty of nuts, beaked hazelnuts, black walnut and the
| most plentiful are acorns.
|
| And there's plenty of small game to hunt and trap. I don't
| see that Petrov did this, but I imagine if he was
| comfortable catching and eating a neighbors duck, he
| probably took a squirrel or two in his life. The natives
| would obviously fish, take all kinds of small game, even
| including rat.
| solardev wrote:
| Have you tried living off foraged foods for any length of
| time? Is it realistic to be able to get enough calories,
| proteins, and fats doing this on your own without
| extensive fishing and hunting? Sounds like it would need
| a lot of nuts, and there aren't that many fruiting trees
| there to begin with, are there?
| xyzwave wrote:
| I just read a hypothesis from an anthropologist suggesting
| that the reason California's indigenous tribes did not
| practice agriculture like eastern tribes, was due to the
| abundance of food they could forage year around. Oaks
| providing a significant part of their diet (which are
| plentiful in Mendocino) but also other nuts, berries, and
| tubers found throughout California.
|
| So relative to our modern diet, maybe your point holds, but
| the California Floristic Province has plenty of plants to
| sustain humans. IIRC, the indigenous population density was
| some of the highest in the world.
| solardev wrote:
| I thought a lot of that is acorns (that need a lot of
| preparation) and fish, not so much random food growing
| around the redwoods you could just pick and eat?
|
| (Lived in the area for a long time, but not an expert at
| all). Did the anthropologist provide any details? I'd
| love to read their work
| lonlazarus wrote:
| That's also my understanding. I do wonder if that's a bit
| of a misunderstanding about not practicing agriculture,
| though. They did practice forest management with
| intentional burns. I'm pretty interested in traditional
| English forest management, and reducing brush and
| decreasing canopy increased the amount of forest
| "products" available to people, from building materials
| (basketry, hut materials, etc) to increased yields from
| under story vegetation.
|
| It's a bit of a digression, but it's a subject I find
| interesting and rarely pops up in hacker news. :)
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| The Dawn of Everything has an interesting take on this -
| they didn't practice agriculture because they wanted to
| differentiate themselves from other cultures in the area.
| huytersd wrote:
| I would love to hear what it is. There are truckloads of
| acorns but it's all I can think of besides some berries.
| sleiben wrote:
| Also an interesting story of a man who lives now for more than 20
| years in a mountain cave in Serbia.
|
| https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/23086418/tiny-cave-home-in-rem...
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| A back to the lander true and true.
| rendall wrote:
| https://archive.is/sqo6S
| winrid wrote:
| Great skies there at night.
| geocrasher wrote:
| "And I was a kid, so I thought love could fix anything," she
| said, recalling how she hugged him good-bye once, "and he just
| shook."
|
| Wow. I did not expect to cry at this story, but here I am. How
| profoundly sad this man must have been.
| sakopov wrote:
| > John Melvin said Zailenko was eventually taken to the hospital
| in Ukiah, and over several days, many different people visited
| and tried speaking to him in Russian and many other languages,
| but no one could identify what words exactly he was speaking.
|
| I'm assuming it was Ukrainian? Although if someone tried to speak
| to him in Russian, they'd be able to understand that he was
| speaking Ukrainian and naturally understand a good majority of
| it.
| MikePlacid wrote:
| Most probably. Petro is the Ukrainian first name, while Petrov
| is the Russian last name. Zailenko is the Ukranian last name.
| So the only valid combination is Ukranian. (Do not ask me how I
| know this. I can't explain. Just a trained neural network
| produces these results).
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Petrov/Petroff is a (a very common) surname/lastname in
| Russian, but never a firstname.
|
| -ko is a suffix denoting a lastname of Ukrainian _origin_
| though those were spread around even in Russian Empire.
|
| There are a lot of people with Z _ayi_ lenko surname in Russia
| now and Zalenko and Z _e_ lenko is still one in Ukraine now.
|
| Given the Wikipedia article on him there is a chance it's just
| a corruption and he was called Petro Zelenko
|
| [0] Petrov "Petro" Zailenko, a.k.a. Pitro Zalenko
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