Runic alphabets are native to the ancient Germanic peoples, before they adopted the Latin alphabet. The earliest runic inscriptions found on artifacts give the name of either the craftsman or the proprietor, or sometimes, remain a linguistic mystery. Due to this, it is possible that the early runes were not used so much as a simple writing system, but rather as magical signs to be used for charms. Although some say the runes were used for divination, there is no direct evidence to suggest they were ever used in this way. The name rune itself, taken to mean "secret, something hidden", seems to indicate that knowledge of the runes was originally considered esoteric, or restricted to an elite.

The Bluetooth logo is the combination of two runes that are the initials of Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson's who was a king of Denmark from the Viking Age.

— read by 'N' —

Sears was a writer and adventurer who penned essays on hunting, fishing, and camping for popular journals and magazines.

This episode will feature the last chapter of the “Woodcraft” book.

Next month, for the final episode in the series, we will read selections of the author’s poetry, published as “Forest Runes”.

In this episode, the author discusses his preference for clinker-built canoes over other styles. A Clinker-built (also known as lapstrake) is a method of boat building in which the edges of hull planks overlap each other. Clinker-built ships were a trademark of Northern European navigation throughout the Middle Ages, particularly of the longships of the Viking raiders and traders.

— read by 'N' —

This chapter is called “Canoeing”. In contemporary times, the author lives on not just through his writing but through his canoe. In fact, one of the most celebrated canoes in American canoeing annals and referred to as “the Nessmuk”. Historic replicas of this canoe can be purchased so that canoeists can paddle in one just like the one commissioned by the author for his famous 1880 Adirondack cruise.

This type of craft has come to be generically known as the Adirondack Pack canoe, and is the best way to obtain the smallest, lightest solo recreation paddle craft. Incredibly handy to paddle and transport, the Nessmuk is still known to surprise paddlers with her quickness and seaworthiness.

— read by 'N' —

This chapter is called “A Ten Day’s Trip in the Wilderness- Going It Alone.” At 40 years old, Sears served in the Civil War. Five years later he traveled up the Amazon River in Brazil.

At the age of 59, a little more than 5 feet tall, weighing less than 105 pounds, and weak with tuberculosis, Sears decided to see if the Adirondack lakes and forests could improve his health. Only then is when his experiences (and plentiful writings) as an Old Adirondack Woodsman began.

— read by 'N' —

The author was born in Massachusetts in 1821 as the oldest of 10 children. A young Narragansett Indian named Nessmuk ("wood drake") befriended him and taught him hunting, fishing, and camping. Later Sears took that as his pen name, and also as the name of a couple of his canoes.

This episode refers a few times to an Old Woodsman who enjoys smoking “navy plug”. Th name for this strong, dark tobacco was given because sailors would fill a long canvas tube with tobacco (or tightly wrap rope around tobacco) and sometimes add flavourings like rum, fruits and spices. Then the tube was twisted tight, mimicking the pressing process. This technique created a dense roll, or “plug” of tobacco about an inch thick which could be cut into smaller pieces or coins.

— read by 'N' —

Here is some Nessmuk lore: This book we are reading from tonight, Woodcraft, has remained generally in print ever since it was published in 1884. There is a mountain in Northern Pennsylvania named after him- Mount Nessmuk.

And finally, his hand-crafted canoe, the Sairy Gamp, was named after the Charles Dickens character Sarah Gamp. Sarah was a comic fictional character in Charles Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit. She was a high-spirited Cockney nurse-midwife of questionable training. The canoe Sairy Gamp was later acquired by the Smithsonian Institution.

— read by N —

Canoeing had been popularized by a Scottish lawyer in the 1860s, but the typical canoe trip of the day employed expert guides and heavy canoes. Sears, who was 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed little more than 100 pounds had a lightweight solo canoe built. He named it after a Charles Dickens character and used it to travel alone for months at a time through the Adirondack wilderness of New York.

— read by N —

Growing up in Massachusetts, he took his pen name from a Native American who had befriended him in early childhood. A period of factory labor while still a child left him with a fondness for the writing of Charles Dickens. At nineteen he signed on for a three-year voyage on a whaler headed for the South Pacific; it was the same year that Herman Melville shipped out of the same port bound for the same whaling grounds.

— read by V —