Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1914-08-28
90 DAYS LIVING IN
KLAMATH W|LDS
PRIM EVAL TEST FINISHED BY
JOE KNOWLES PROVES THAT
MAN NEEDS BUT LITTLE HERE
BELOW.

A bronzed, SCOT -blackened figure,
clothed in deer skin, his flesh SCARED,
his hair matted his beard half grown,
his eyes dazed, his legs almost too
weary to carry him another step-this
was Joe Knowles as he came out of
the klamath forest last week into the
camp which he had left thirty days
before for his naked, lone handed
struggle with nature.
For a minute those who were wait
ing for him were shocked. They be-
iieved the woods had got" him. Every
5ngue was tied. But Knowles, moved
by his iron will, walked into the center
Of the group and began shaking hands
and calling each man by name. Then
he staggered toward the water pail.
In half an hour from the time he
came into camp he was himself again.
He smiled as he used to smile. The
d3zed. panied. weary look was gone
from his eyes. He chopped wood,
tossed a 150-pound man over his head.
carried a big log into camp, fiddled
"9ld Zip Coon," and wrote his story.
Although Knowles has lost about
pound a day since he went into the
woods, he appears harder, sounder
stronger than ever. He was not hun
CRY when he came out, not more so
than a normally fed man who had sat
up all night by campfire waiting for
the dawn of great day, worked hard
all morning and walked miles through
the brush under the MONDAY sun.
His experiment was a success in
every ways He has proved that he can
go into strange woods and adapt his
of nature to force a good
living from the earth. He stood the
loneliness 30 days. coming in on the
thirtieth day of his experiment.
He. claims TO have conquered the
cigarette habit and to be the finest
shape of his career. His camp |
in the hills is stocked with jerzed ven
ison and dried fish and berries, enough |
to feed two men a week
He had fire and was sufficiently
alothed. This was practically all he
claimed that he went in to do, but he
went beyond this and achieved what |
he considers the greatest thing he
ever did, the most original painting |
in the world. Under his arm as he |
came into camp, guarded as the apple |,
Of his eye, was a color picture on a
slab of fir bark nearly three feet long
and more than a foot wide. 1t depicted
n remarkable detail a moonlight scene
n the forest, a bit Of the burned clear
ng down the valley that appealed to
he artist in him.
This picture is made entirely of dead
caves, dead wood, dead plants - rich
,olors ground on a stone, mixed with
,alsam pitch and put on the wood with
paint brush made by chewing the
nd of stick. He has worked for two
weeks by sunlight, moonlight and fire.
light over this picture.
1t has obsessed him. For 1t he gave
Up the thought of trapping a bear, al
hough a bear was close to his camp
nd nearly stole the deer that he roped
" moonlight.
He almost forgot to eat as he
earched the ground and the trees for .
he discarded things of nature which
e has touched into new life. He found .
he ground dead aspen the very thing ,
Or his white moon. and the powdered
panish moss and lichen the thing for 6
is delicate greenish sky and powdered r
rown bark the material for his real y
'tic old trees that jut out against the
foreground. 9
Knowles Own Story. ID
Camp Knowles, klamath National p
crest, via Grants Pass. Ore. At.-.. 20. il
can you imagine now you would s
'el after an absence of thirty days n
ON all civilized comforts and from n
Ie companionship of your friends, O
one in a wilderness unknown to you
I'd of which the wild animals and c,
rds were your only neighbors? m
I have lived for thirty days as out &C
led above, as a test of what a man W
ay do if put to it or if by accident Of
was left alone to depend on nature
r an existence. W
Today have completed my self i'm OF
sed task and I am prouder of my be
Movement than I would be of