American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 181 Treasures on the Coastline!
He first headed towards the coastline.

The former beach has long since disappeared, replaced by an "ice pressure ridge" that stretches along the original coastline.

This is the immense energy of the storm surge, which repeatedly pounds and piles up all the floating ice and ice shards in the bay onto the shore like a battering ram, forming a natural ice wall.

"This is our treasure trove today."

He walked carefully at the foot of the ice wall, speaking to the camera with a slightly raised voice due to excitement.

Just then, a deep, creaking sound, like a giant beast turning over in its sleep, came from the depths of the ice beneath his feet.

He immediately stopped and listened intently.

He pointed to his feet: "Listen to this sound! Although the sea is frozen, the power of the tides has not disappeared, and the seawater under the ice is still rising and falling regularly."

"It's low tide now, and the huge ice sheet is slowly sinking. The sound is caused by the friction between the ice sheet and the frozen parts on the shore."

"This is both a dangerous sign and an opportunity."

"When the tide goes out, the ice sinks, creating temporary cracks and passages between the ice walls. I can use this to go to places that were previously inaccessible."

"But we must remain vigilant at all times, because once the tide comes in, these cracks will close with enough force to crush everything."

He soon made his first discovery: inside a huge ice floe, he saw something familiar—a cable!
He stepped forward, first kicking away the surface snow with his boots, then using the thick back of the axe instead of the sharp blade, he smashed it hard against the ice.

"boom!"

With a muffled thud, ice shards flew everywhere, and only a spiderweb-like crack appeared on the hard ice surface.

He didn't stop, but instead aimed at the same spot and kept hitting it. After a few minutes, he finally smashed a hole in the ice floe.

He threw down the axe, grabbed one end of the cable with both hands, and pulled it outward with all his might.

The rope was frozen very hard, and he used all his strength to "tear" it out of the frozen seaweed pile.

This was a longer nylon cable than the one he had found before, estimated to be at least five meters long.

"Great! New ropes, now my rope reserves are more than enough."

He carefully tied up the extremely valuable item and placed it temporarily on a conspicuous rock, intending to retrieve it on his return journey.

Then, in a corner formed by two huge ice floes, an orange man-made object half-buried in the snow caught his eye.

He walked over, dug through the snow with his hands, and found that it was a damaged, thick-walled plastic fishing pontoon.

One corner of it was cracked, which was obviously a major reason why it was discarded, but most of the box was still intact.

He tapped the side of the box with his hand, producing a dull, solid sound: "Although it's broken and can no longer be used for sealed storage, this stuff is perfect material for sleds."

“If I cut it open, I can get several huge, smooth plastic sheets to make a sled for transporting supplies, which will be much more efficient than pulling it by hand.”

He continued along the ice wall, his gaze sweeping over every corner of the chaotic area like that of a hawk.

Huge blocks of ice and bare driftwood create an apocalyptic scene, but it is precisely in this chaos that "treasures" abandoned by the sea are most easily found.

After walking about a hundred meters, amidst a pile of debris entangled with floating ice and seaweed, he saw a large, dark green object that resembled a giant spider web.

He immediately stepped forward, first using the back of his axe to break the frozen shell on the surface of the fishing net, then grabbing the thick main rope at the edge of the net with both hands and forcefully pulling it out piece by piece from the frozen seaweed.

It was a huge fragment of a commercial trawl net, completely torn apart by the storm; the main rope that made up the edge of the net was thicker than his thumb.

The net itself is woven from extremely strong multi-strand twisted nylon threads. The entire fishing net is crumpled into a ball, covered with seaweed and shell fragments.

However, the material itself was almost undamaged, reflecting a moist, dark green luster in the sunlight.

"A tattered trawl net...this is a treasure trove of materials!"

He stroked the rough but incredibly strong nylon rope and said to the camera, "The value of this thing is immeasurable! First of all, each of these main ropes is a top-quality load-bearing rope."

"Secondly, I can disassemble these network cables and obtain thousands of meters of thin rope to make traps, binding tools, and construction. I will have more rope than I can use."

He pointed to a row of lead-gray metal blocks hanging from the lower edge of the fishing net, and some hard plastic balls tied to the upper edge.

"Most importantly, these sinkers and floats. The sinkers are ready-made lead blocks that can be melted down and polished to make sinkers for ice fishing, allowing my bait to sink to the bottom more quickly."

“These floats can be modified into fishing floats, or used to mark the location of my ice cave.”

As he spoke, he spread the fishing net as wide as possible, assessing its potential.

Suddenly, his gaze locked onto the central area of ​​the fishing net, where the mesh was significantly smaller and denser than at the edges.

He spoke to the camera with increasing excitement: "This should be the core 'net bag' part of the trawl net, used to collect the catch at the end, so the mesh is the finest."

“This area is the most valuable to me! Because it leads to an extremely tempting possibility—a network under the ice!”

"In open water, setting up a gillnet is simple. But setting up a net under thick ice is one of the most advanced techniques for polar survival, and it is extremely difficult."

"It not only requires carving two ice caves that are far apart on a huge ice surface."

"Then we need to use some method to send a guide rope in from the first hole, let it travel dozens of meters under the ice, and then come out from the second hole."

"If I can do that, I can attach the fishing net to the guide line and pull it under the ice to create a deadly underwater wall trap!"

"This is a passive but highly efficient way of fishing. If successful, I could catch dozens of fish overnight and completely solve the food problem."

"This is of course just a preliminary idea, and it will be very difficult to implement. It will require more tools and a well-thought-out plan."

He stood up, brushed the ice chips off his gloves, and made no attempt to remove anything from the huge, ice-frozen fishing net.

“It’s too much of a waste of time and energy to carry it around now.” He glanced at the mountain of dark green netting: “I’ll note its location first, and then come back later to move the whole thing.”

He dragged the fishing net a little closer to the shore and weighed it down with several large ice floes to prevent it from being swept away again by the next possible high tide before continuing his exploration.

This time, instead of venturing deeper into the labyrinth of the ice walls, he chose to climb to the highest point of the ice ridge, using his height advantage to observe a wider area.

He stood on a huge, high-edged ice floe, looking around.

Just then, at the edge of his line of sight, in a natural "harbor" formed by several giant stranded ice floes, a huge, bright blue cylindrical object caught his full attention!

Even from this distance, he could tell that the thing was enormous.

"What's that?" He immediately perked up, slid down the ice ridge, and started heading in that direction.

Crossing this chaotic icy ridge was extremely strenuous, and it took him nearly ten minutes to finally reach the edge of that "harbor".

When he saw the object in its entirety, even with his composure, he couldn't help but exclaim in amazement.

That's an industrial-grade HDPE plastic drum!
It was overturned, with half of the barrel wedged between two huge ice floes, while the other half floated in the seawater below, crashing against the ice wall again and again with the surging tide, making a "thump...thump..." sound.

“A 55-gallon barrel! That’s about 208 liters in capacity.” His eyes lit up instantly.

He immediately began analyzing the situation at the scene; the bucket had clearly been washed into this "harbor" surrounded by ice floes during the storm.

Because it was empty and the lid was sealed, it had great buoyancy. At the highest tide, it was pushed to its current position by the waves. As the tide receded, it was stuck by these two floating ice floes.

“I can’t possibly drag this thing up by hand.” He examined the enormous object.

An empty 55-gallon plastic bucket weighs about 10 kilograms, which is not considered heavy.

However, it was too big, its surface was slippery, and it was stuck between two huge ice floes, so it had no effective point of leverage.

He observed carefully, trying to come up with a good solution, and then focused his attention on the two giant ice floes that were wedging the barrel.

He discovered that there was a tiny gap between the bottom of one of the ice floes and the base ice below.

He immediately used the logging axe as one end of the lever, inserting it deeply into the gap, and then found a small, hard block of ice to use as a fulcrum, placing it under the lever.

"Hi!"

With a low growl, he pressed all his weight onto the other end of the lever!
"Crench--!"

With a deafening roar, the massive ice floe was pried open by his strength and leverage, creating a gap large enough to dissipate the pressure!
This movement instantly altered the structure of the "harbor." The pressure that had been firmly holding the plastic bucket in place vanished!

The huge blue plastic bucket, like a loosened cork, sprang out from between two ice floes with a "plop" due to its own enormous buoyancy, and floated freely on the surface of the "harbor".

At this point, Lin Yu'an could easily grab the other side of the plastic bucket, and he steadily dragged the huge blue barrel to the shore, bit by bit.

He examined it carefully, and thankfully, the barrel itself was not broken, and the lid was still tightly sealed.

Then, he grabbed the edge of the lid with both hands and twisted it counterclockwise with all his might. The lid was frozen tightly by the salt and the low temperature. He used all his strength and, accompanied by a screeching sound, finally managed to unscrew it.

He peered into the bucket, preparing to check its contents. However, what he saw inside stunned him instantly, followed by an even greater surge of joy!

The bucket isn't empty!

At the bottom of the huge, dark blue bucket, lay another, smaller, equally bright blue plastic bucket!
"My God! It's a bucket within a bucket!" he couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

He immediately understood what was going on. It was obvious that a fisherman or community resident had placed a small bucket inside a large bucket to save space during storage or transportation.

Then, in the storm, the entire set of matryoshka dolls was swept away. He reached in and took the small bucket out of the large one.

It was a 5-gallon (about 20-liter) bucket with slight signs of use, with a handle and a screw-on lid.

He placed two blue plastic buckets of vastly different sizes side by side on the snow, facing the camera with an irrepressible, radiant smile.

"This is simply the most perfect surprise treasure!"

He unscrewed the lid of the small bucket, and a sealed, dry plastic smell wafted out; the inside was very clean.

He looked at the camera with an extremely satisfied expression: "This thing, in the wilderness, makes me happier than finding a chest of gold! Because it can solve several core problems I'm currently facing."

"First and foremost is water treatment and storage."

“I used to use my metal pot to melt ice and move water, but it was very inefficient, and I could only process less than two liters at a time.”

"With this 20-liter portable bucket, I can melt and store enough drinking water for several days at once."

“I can place it by the fireplace in the shelter and use the residual heat to slowly melt the ice inside, which means I will be completely freed from the predicament of having to struggle for water every day.”

"Secondly, it's a perfect food storage container. I can put all my food into this 55-gallon container, which perfectly locks in the smell, so I no longer have to worry about other animals threatening me!"

“I can even turn this little bucket upside down and it becomes a seat of just the right height, making me more comfortable whether I'm working in the shelter or fishing on the ice!”

Satisfied, he tightened the lids of both buckets. With this crucial discovery, his confidence soared, and he continued to focus on today's exploration.

Having completed all reconnaissance of the northern coastline, his confidence soared. He temporarily hid the 5-gallon plastic bucket and marked it.

He turned and glanced at the road he had come from, then turned his gaze to the south side of the shelter, an area with more complex terrain.

He said to the camera, "Alright, the exploration of resources on the north side is basically over, and the harvest is very rich. Now, I'm going to change direction and go take a look to the south."

"I believe that the gifts brought by the storm are far from over, and there are definitely more surprises waiting for me on this coast that has been reshaped by the storm!"

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(End of this chapter)