A long time ago, I was walking with a bunch of guys in a jungle. We were supposed to be going from point to point when I noticed we had passed the same lake three times. We were walking in circles. Since the indigenous personnel in this jungle would shoot us if they found us, I deemed the situation critical. I approached the leader of this merry band and informed him of my observation. He looked at me and spoke words that would prove to be terrifying and magic, “We’re lost”.

“Maybe you are, but WE are not,” I said. “Give me that map.” Within the next few seconds, all the orienteering and map reading classes I had suffered through begin to replay in my head. Up to that point I thought these skills unnecessary in my life and had slept through, or distracted myself with silly games from the things being taught. My subconscious must have been listening, because in just a matter of minutes with the aid of a compass, I had located our position and plotted a course to safety. “Follow me,” I said. I was navigating. I had skills.

I was asked to teach a group of young men orienteering. I had come full circle. I was now going to be the dull teacher of a boring subject. I got out my compasses and maps and gathered the none-to-eager crowd around me. It was early enough in the morning that the sun was still low in the sky and easy to determine where it had risen, so I asked, “Who can tell me which direction is east?” Some got it right, but when I asked them how they knew, they could only stammer an answer, which told me that they were guessing. Nobody knew where they were. Map reading and orienteering are dying skills.

After a lesson on the cardinal points of the compass, they all had a rough sense of their location. As the class continued, I wondered how many of the general population could have done any better. I guess few. Like so many other things in our modern time, advancing technology is making navigation and orienteering obsolete.

Anyone with a smart phone has a Global Positioning System device built in. GPS is in many cars and allows those with either device to find almost any address in the world. It is not perfect, but gets you a lot closer than a street map, and is much easier to use. With this, none of us ever need to be lost, but what if…?

If GPS fails, what then? What would happen if all this technology went away? You want to know? Think about what it is like when the electricity is out. There has to be something that never fails, and there is. It is called celestial navigation.

By computing your position to various stars or the sun using a sextant, and following a complicated book of charts, with the application of trigonometry, you can find yourself on any map, anywhere in the world. It isn’t easy, but it is good to be able to not be lost.

I hope those boys were listening just a little. It is scary being lost, but not nearly so as being lost and your life depends on it. There are some skills that should never be allowed to die.

David Wilson Atwood is a local writer whose human-interest columns offer a unique perspective. He is the author of Where the Mockingbird Sang, A Novel of the Civil War and I Followed the Wolf, Buck's Story, the prequel/sequel to Where the Mockingbird Sang. He may be contacted, and his other works viewed at: www.starchasers.us, or david@starchasers.us.