Magic Bus 142

Before moving to our current home in Central California, my wife and I lived up in the San Emigdio mountains about an hour’s drive north of Los Angeles. Besides being surrounded by a million acres of natural forest—perfect fuel for a runaway fire—our cottage lay within 100 yards of the San Andreas fault. Moreover, there are only two paved roads in and out of the small town. Aware of the inherent risks—and in an effort to mitigate the odds—I decided to compile a how-to guide for those like-minded folk who saw the wisdom in being better prepared for a natural disaster. Depending on the scale and magnitude of the catastrophe, ‘bugging-in’ is typically the most preferable of the two options. However, under extreme circumstances, ‘bugging-out’ may be the only viable option.

While many survival techniques are considered universal, my uniquely African perspective required a few adaptations for my American readers. One useful addition to my list of suggested items was a pack of playing cards with an edible North American plant featured on the back of each of the 52 cards.

Here’s an excerpt from my survival guide, ‘Bastion Avenues—Building a Bug-Out Bag’.        

Do you recall the true story about Christopher McCandless, the man who ventured into the wilderness of Alaska and set up home in an abandoned bus? Released in 2007, the story was made into a movie titled ‘Into the Wild.’ Here’s an interesting aside. Amongst a worldwide legion of movie fans, there arose a burning desire to embark on a pilgrimage to the actual site of McCandless’s bus. Sadly, over the years, a number of those pilgrim-tourists were either injured—or worse, perished—while trying to reach the remote spot. Due to the burden of launching numerous rescue missions, the Alaskan authorities decided in June 2020 to remove the ‘deadly tourist lure’ from the now-famous Stampede Trail. The bus is now on display at the Fairbanks campus of the University of Alaska. 

Why do I mention this? A scene toward the end of the movie suggests that McCandless might have misidentified a type of edible plant species and instead ended up consuming a similar but poisonous relative. The mistake proved to be fatal.  

It is for this reason that I rate these playing cards as highly recommended for North American readers. The back of each card features 52 different edible plants found in the North American wilderness. Not only is each plant depicted in full color for easy identification, but a map identifies the geographic areas where the plant grows in the wild. A condensed set of warnings, characteristics, uses, plant parts, aliases and special cooking hints are also included on the back of each card. (And you can also play solitaire if you get bored!)