Blame whatever reason you’d like — the first human farmer probably bears more blame than fast food — but very few of us would last all that long if we had to live off of merely what the wilderness provides. Christopher Nyerges is working to change that.
An ethnobotanist, survivalist, and forager who’s studied the ways native peoples lived from what the earth provided, Nyerges has led more than 40,000 students in wilderness classes since 1974, written such books as How to Survive Anywhere, Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants, and Foraging California, and appeared many times on TV alongside Huell Howser and the Doomsday Preppers.
On March 9, he joins Lanny Kaufer for a foraging field trip along the Ventura River Preserve — hoping to find such plants as chickweed, miner’s lettuce, and possibly edible mushrooms — followed by a workshop at Euterpe Farms, where he’ll teach how to make cordage from yucca and build a primitive fire. He answered a few of my questions recently.