As Bryan says, there's certainly a skill to getting round in the woods. My father spent a winter or so cruising timber in Quebec back in the '40s, when he'd be out all day on snowshoes doing 20-30 miles/day. Years later, when we moved to the Petawawa Forestry Station, the foreman there said that Dad was one of the very few others he knew that didn't get turned round or lost in the forest.
Just as an idle question, how many of us have ever tried to find their way (off a marked trail) through woods? I've wandered off trails damn little myself, mostly in tame areas where I knew that I'd hit another trail inevitably, but have a healthy respect for how easy it would be to get lost even in ideal circumstances, let alone in the dark, in a snowstorm, after running away from danger, etc.
As I've always considered much of Sartar and neighbouring territory to be wooded like Ontario and Quebec, that is probably still the case for most of the farmers. Professional hunters/trappers, yes, they'll know the woods because they work there year-in, year-out. Most farmers and others will know their own backyards and immediate surroundings, but not much more. Even when they go raiding, I'll bet there's trails!
So what about the kids who allegedly know everything in umpteen square miles? Children are naturally curious, and would have some time free from chores, but even they would be officially discouraged from wandering too far away from the stead. I'm sure that they know everything there is to know about the immediate neighbourhood, but also sure that they don't go that far. We certainly didn't on the station. The woods started at the end of the yard, and went on basically forever, but we never went far. There were wolves (less known about them then), there were bears, and there were rabid animals from time to time. Plus if you did get lost and all the grown-ups had to dump what they were doing to come find you, there would be much worse trouble!
Alison
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