It was a perfect fall day for the Round Lake Area Public Library to host a  workshop dedicated to three of the most basic survival skills–shelter, fire, and water.

To start the afternoon, the audience was given a hypothetical survival situation which replicated the weather conditions of this October day, but at a time thousands of years earlier.  In that wilderness setting the students hypothetically found themselves swimming ashore from an overturned canoe with all of their gear lost downstream.  They were then asked.  What will you do?  When will you do it?  And why will you do it in that order?

The answers set the backdrop for the 90-minute session that included building the skeleton of a primitive shelter, watching a demonstration of fire made with a primitive bowdrill, and a discussion of the safe and not so safe sources of drinking water.

Apparently the majority of the guests were pleased as is evidenced by some of the comments on their evaluation forms:

Content:

• Good basic skills.  Informative & entertaining.
• Fantastic class.  Great info.  Bring Mr. Nosek back for more classes.
• Great! Very Informative!  Would attend more like it!
• I learned a lot that I didn’t know and the content gave me a lot to think about.

Instructor:

• …very interesting.
• …very knowledgeable & kept the audience engaged.
• Friendly & easy to listen to.  Knows the material and gave plenty of examples from personal experience.
• Very knowledgeable on [the] subject.