Eve­ry­thing began during the Amhan­ska (Febru­ary, time of the Long Dro­ught Moon in the Assi­ni­bo­ini tra­di­tion), or as some peoples living in the north would call, the Bear Moon. It wasn’t long befo­re I faced the forest in my ear­ly chil­dho­od, thanks to my parents moving to a house on the edge of a meadow near the sur­ro­un­ding, ever-rustling and gre­en tre­es. It was a Polish forest which grows near Poznań; a gre­at forest of adven­tu­res soon awa­iting me , which flo­uri­shed to form a forest play­gro­und. In it I assem­bled the first shel­ters under fra­grant resin soaked pines, which were like sign­po­sts for me when for when I went for a hike in tho­se fore­sted woods. Here I gained expe­rien­ce in the field of fishing, in which my four unc­les and father par­ti­ci­pa­ted, and it was them who tire­les­sly sup­por­ted me to absorb this dif­fi­cult and fasci­na­ting art. In the begin­ning, we har­nes­sed very old-fashio­ned fishing methods, blo­wing away the dust of histo­ry from our bam­boo and hazel rods so that I could fish with them in the forest waters. I wor­ked thro­ugh a series of even more intri­gu­ing tech­ni­qu­es, immer­sing myself deeper and deeper into a trap­pe­r’s atmo­sphe­re. Aro­und this time, I also faced sco­uting for the first time, altho­ugh sle­eping alo­ne was not a cor­ner­sto­ne for me. Alre­ady the youn­gest Tome­k’s parents admi­red the­ir trips to the skim­ming sea and the lake that mat­ched it with blue. They set the time for us to sle­ep in old canvas tents, shro­uded in the aro­mas of 

The good results achie­ved at the camps fur­ther streng­the­ned what sco­uting gave me in gene­ral: an uncon­trol­la­ble desi­re to be in the woods and not neces­sa­ri­ly accom­pa­nied by a fishing rod but rather it is impor­tant that I am sur­ro­un­ded by a forest and the har­mo­ny of two smells flo­ating in its cle­an air: the smell of resin with a hint of adven­tu­re. When the tur­bu­lent period in my life pas­sed, in which the role of the forest path was tem­po­ra­ri­ly sta­ved, I allo­wed myself to light that fire of pas­sion aga­in one day, which direc­ted me aga­in into the myste­rio­us woods. Such a fire belie­ve it or not is not dan­ge­ro­us to this envi­ron­ment but is “allo­wed” a good word? In fact, I could­n’t do it any other way. It was like a thun­der­bolt that spar­ked an instant deci­sion; I just sud­den­ly pac­ked my back­pack one mor­ning, drop­ped a kit­chen kni­fe, a mess tin, a pie­ce of foil for the roof, maps and string. This hasti­ly fol­ded gear was my only com­pa­nion on the instinc­ti­ve path to the same forest which remem­be­red me as a teen wal­king with my grand­pa­rents. The pur­po­se of this mad­ness was the lack of a point or goal, name­ly it was abo­ut going so far into the forest , just to get lost in the­re. Appa­rent mad­ness con­ta­ined an uncon­scio­us method to chal­len­ge your­self: awa­ke­ning an even more inten­se need for com­mu­ning with natu­re and rela­ted expe­rien­ces, bru­shing aga­inst the extre­me. The goal was achie­ved, and with con­si­de­ra­ble vigor. 

All this has beco­me a new chal­len­ge, which is gro­wing bey­ond me along with Leśne Rze­mio­sło, but it did­n’t tan­gle my paths. On the con­tra­ry – I was get­ting more and more invo­lved in acqu­iring new skills, which also inc­lu­ded buil­ding log huts in a tra­di­tio­nal way, sewing leather, dres­sing ani­mals, or dres­sing skins with pri­mi­ti­ve, altho­ugh very instruc­ti­ve methods. In the end, hun­ting cra­fts began to bother me, and under the influ­en­ce of fasci­na­tion with trap­ping, I was car­ried away by the histo­ry of North Ame­ri­can trap­pers. I col­lec­ted equ­ip­ment, star­ting the adven­tu­re with histo­ri­cal recon­struc­tion. Sho­oting and black powder weapons beca­me the apple of my eye. Thanks to such meti­cu­lo­us scien­ce, the majo­ri­ty of my cur­rent equ­ip­ment comes from my work­shop and per­for­man­ce. I began a real adven­tu­re bur­ning the return brid­ge to a civi­li­za­tion on which I had kil­led my exi­sten­ce in civi­li­sa­tion itself. With a pocket com­pass in hand, I set the azi­muth to be the North Star, oppo­si­te me was a book titled Wal­den by Hen­ry David Tho­re­au. Love for bore­al fore­sts and a trap­pe­r’s raw life led me to the full-blo­oded are­as of the north, whe­re I also lived. Today, the forest is my authen­tic home, and its tra­ils are a cor­ri­dor that I tra­ver­se in clas­sic fashion, per­fec­ting myself as a trap­per and guide tra­di­tio­nal­ly as to my methods, and equ­al­ly inva­ria­bly, with the same desi­re to meet the unknown.