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What has happened to the compass? Where has the most simple, yet needed, survival tool gone? This last week a friend of mine said they didn’t know how to use a compass. At first I was surprised, but soon realized I was a part of a dying breed. The compass has fallen down the nostalgic dark hole that the Red Ryder B.B. Gun and Cracker Jack went into a decade back. People my age just do not know how to use a compass, and I would go as far to say that youth in the generations after mine would not even be able to recognize one.

I can’t even count the amount of times I have asked for simple directions and been told turn at the big sign, or ‘it’s a bit down from the McDonald’s.’ People have honestly lost all knowledge of north to south and east to west.

We have completely lost our sense of direction. It’s not that we have become stupid. I believe the compass has just been pushed to the wayside by new technologies like mapquest, fancy GPS-enabled phones, hand-held mapping systems, and navigation systems. With all of theses electronics, why would people need to know how to use a compass or even a map?

My first adventure memories are with my dad on the open road in the big brown Suburban, riding copilot. I would sit perched in my booster seat with the map unfolded in my lap, navigating my dad the directions.

Now, it should be known that I have a genetic predisposition to having the latest and greatest gadget or new technology. I do own and use a variety of direction-guiding tools. Whether it be my Garmin handheld mapping system, my internet-ready and GPS enabled blackberry that I can’t leave home without, or my wristwatch the size of the landing pad at Cape Canaveral that tells me air temperature, altitude, and coordinates with directions, and even predicts the weather. I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to phasing out the simple manual compass.

But I ask you this, what will you do when your watch goes on the fritz, your cell phone can’t get service, and your fancy GPS loses the tower to link its location? You are going to be lost!

We need to rally around the trusty compass. It could be the newest comeback kid. We need to take a few steps back and start taking gear advice from the old greats like Lewis and Clark and rock-climbing pioneer Royal Robbins. I guarantee these adventurers definitely didn’t rely on the latest GPS tracker. We can’t always count on technology, but we can count on ourselves! Get a compass, use it, like it, love it!!!

Girl vs. Wild, Jacquelyn Farris

I am headed to lake Tenkiller to do some fishing. I am not a worm and bobber fisher, but a fly fisher. Don't get me wrong, a good worm and bobber off a pond dock brings back memories of my childhood in Maud, OK. I spent many a weekend fishing on what was called the Duck Pond with my little tackle box and Snoopy pole to match. Those were sunny days on the ranch dangling my red cowboy boots over the edge. My Dad and I fishing is one of the greatest memories I have.

But with age, a ripe 26, I have passed on the Snoopy pole and am in the calm waters of fly fishing. I remember my first fish caught. I was behind my house in South Fork, Colorado on the Rio Grande. It was early August, and the river was perfect. I could see the fish rising all around me. Waste deep I had been casting for awhile and finally tracked one straight to a strike. I hooked that brown and was pulling him in. Beyond excited I wished badly for someone to see it was true. I had finally hooked a fish all by myself. No one around I ran up river to fetch my camera from the house while the fish flopped on the bank. I get back slipping twice in the mud, grab the fish and try to snap a photo. At the very second I push the shutter he swan dives out of my grasp.To this day my friends tease and joke that it never really did happen. I swear that fish was mine. That is no fish tale.

Girl vs. Wild,

Jacquelyn Farris