The Lost Art of Finding Our Way
by John Edward Huth · first published 2013
4mentions
3recommended by
4HN commenters
2018–2022first – last mentioned
75% recommend25% neutral
Long before GPS, Google Earth, and global transit, humans traveled vast distances using only environmental clues and simple instruments. John Huth asks what is lost when modern technology substitutes for our innate capacity to find our way. Encyclopedic in breadth, weaving together astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, and ethnography, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way puts us in the shoes, ships, and sleds of early navigators for whom paying close attention to the environment around them was, quite literally, a matter of life and death. Haunted by the fate of two young kayakers lost in a fogban
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…culture (for better or worse) tends to cut people off from physical reality. Spend a few days with a Cape York indigenous person and find out how amazingly good people can get at this. John Huth's The Lost Art of Finding Our Way is a good read for anyone interested in improving their navigation skills.
on “Scientists 'speechless' at Arctic fox's epic trek” ↗For anyone interested in natural navigation in general, you might check out The Lost Art Of Finding Our Way: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16241535-the-lost-art-of...
on “AstroNavigation – A free course” ↗if you are interested in learning more, John Huth (who features prominently in the article) wrote a book: The Lost Art of Finding Our Way. I would also recommend "Emergency Navigation" by David Burch. Not about traditional navigation per se, but rather how to navigate at sea without instruments (which touches on some traditional celestial…
on “The Secrets of the Wave Pilots (2016)” ↗In the book "The lost art of finding our way" the author claims a big boost to not getting lost is to (simply) pay more attention to an outing as it evolves. It is indeed difficult to suddenly, half way through a trip (to a dense city, hiking trail,…
on “Ask HN: How can I improve navigation skills?” ↗