My Year Without Matches: Escaping the City in Search of the Wild

by Claire Dunn

In the tradition of Wild and Tracks, one woman’s story of how she left the city and found her soul.

Disillusioned and burnt out by her job, Claire Dunn quits a comfortable life to spend a year off the grid in a wilderness survival program. Her new forest home swings between ally and enemy as reality – and the rain – sets in.

Claire’s adventure unfolds over four seasons and in the essential order of survival: shelter, water, fire and food. She arrives in summer, buoyant with idealism, and is initially confronted with physical challenges: building a shelter, escaping the vicious insects and making fire without matches. By winter, however, her emotional landscape has become the toughest terrain of all. Can she connect with her inner spirit to guide her journey onwards?

Brimming with earthy charm and hard-won wisdom, My Year Without Matches is one woman’s quest for belonging, to the land and to herself. When Claire finally cracks life in the bush wide open, she discovers a wild heart to warm the coldest night.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Nature, Australia, Travel, Adventure

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2014

Reviews

[Sara Foley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw Claire Dunn speak at the Bellingen Writers Festival and was immediately captivated by her story. This book is about her year in the wilderness (without matches). It was exquisitely written, honest, and enthralling. Her journey from burnt out environmental crusader, the modern woman who defines herself by what she accomplishes and how much she can squeeze into a day to a woman in touch with her heart and spirit and land was mesmerising. To me, it resonated so much with my own journey, even though I haven't spent a year in the wild nor do I want to, that I felt it was a universal story. This book is a treasure, and I can already think of at least 5 people who I want to give it to!

[Chrysantemum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, it was a journey. There is a great change happening in this book, and it's apparent through style and pace and language. Yes, she describes the change that happens in her, but the main thing is - she makes you feel the change. I was totally stunned with this book, and with its progress I have been becoming calmer...

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phew, the last half of the book was tough. The first half was about survivalist techniques and the logistics of living in the Australian wilderness for a year but the second half descended into a spiritual awakening journey... thing. Whilst that was kind of interesting, it was also highly personal to the author so I found it not particularly relatable or engaging. I enjoyed the first half of the book and struggled through the second half, waiting for things to pick up but instead it just became more bogged down in the spiritual woo-woo. So I put this one down with mixed feelings.

[Ronni · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing journey. I felt as if I were going on the journey along with Claire. Her ideals were mine, her frustrations were mine. And when she realised she only had three months left before she had to leave her wilderness, I was screaming "Noooo!!!" right along with her. Such a good book.

[Maree · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the survivalism stuff but the spiritual stuff started to shit me.

[Rebekka Steg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever wanted to just escape the city, suburbs or even a small village in the country side? Just leave it all behind and go out into the wilderness. Well Claire Dunn did just that, she spend a year in the Australian outback building her own shelter and learning how to light a fire without matches. She wrote about her experiences in My Year Without Matches: Escaping the City in Search of the Wild and it is a fascinating and inspirational view into what a year in the wilderness can look like - and how it can help you figure out who you really and what you really need.

Our mission is to build our own shelters, and gradually to acquire skills such as making fire without matches, hunting and trapping, tanning hides, gathering bush food, weaving baskets, making rope and string, moulding pottery, tracking, increasing sensory awareness, learning bird language and navigating in the bush. Visiting instructors will join Kate and Sam to teach a series of workshops over the first half of the year. Then we will be left to fend for ourselves.
The rules are few. Apart from no booze, we are limited to thirty days out of camp, and thirty days of visitors in. It is essentially to be a Choose Your Own Adventure story, with equal emphasis on experiencing the changing face of the bush and ourselves, over four full seasons. A cross between the reality-TV show Survivor and the solo wilderness reverie that American poet and naturalist Henry David Thoreau elucidated in his book Walden. "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" Thoreau had exclaimed in exaltation of his self-styled life as a forest hermit, words I had inscribed on the inside cover of my journal. To qualify for the program, all we had need to do was study the basics over two week-long courses, and prove that our motivations weren't madness or law evasion.

Even though she'd been working to protect the environment and the Australian forests and thought she knew what the forest was like, actually living there turned out to be quite a different experience...

I thought I knew the forest until we moved in together. And then, as is often the case with flatmates, I realised I barely knew it all. It had been an easy assumption to make. I was a forest campaigner; the forest was my life. All day every day it was what I spoke of, what I thought about, what I loved.

More importantly, I imagine, was learning how to truly listen to yourself. To stop being a human doing, rather than a human being (something I can personally relate to).

"Claire, the messages we receive from our culture run deep. It trains us to be human doings, rather than human beings. Your upbringing was particularly strong in this.
"For a woman, in particular, this comes at a great cost - separation from her true self. The most important task for you this year is to return to the feminine."
...
"The feminine is guided by feeling and intuition. She learns to listen to the impulses arising within her, and acts according to her own sense of rightness. Her heart, not what the outside world deems to be success, is her map and compass. This is the seat of her power."
...
"What I want you to do is simple: I just want you to feel. Feel everything. Unmoor your emotions from the judgments that will arise and come back to your heart. Ask yourself, 'What do I feel like doing now?' And then do that."

I think this is such an important lesson for all of us. Learning to truly listen to ourselves, figure out what is the right next step for us and realizing that we don't need to check of all of the things on our to-do list, before we are "enough", before we can do the things we truly desire.

I pick up the pace, my face red with the knowledge that I am being seduced again by the false promise that there is a magic point in the future when enough will be enough, when I will tick the right number of boxes to give me permission to slow down.

In conclusion she touches upon how most of us could do this, if we really wanted to, but so few of us do in part because we don't truly believe it's possible. In my experience this doesn't just go for spending a year in the wild - it is just as true for our other dreams.

"You could do it, too," I say lightly, as the young guy looks wistfully at my shelter, knowing as soon as I say it that there's plenty of reasons why he can't, or won't. While the few thousand dollars and the luxury of unattached time mightn't seem like much, it's more than most people have. And that's the easy part. Hardest is the belief that it's possible, that you can do the thing you've always wanted to do, the one thing that calls to you more than anything. The thing you'll only regret in its absence.

My Year Without Matches (currently $5.07 on Kindle) is beautiful, inspirational and thought-provoking - I highly recommend it.

[Ruth Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting reading about living in the bush, starting a fire without matches, building some shelter etc., and I enjoyed following the stories of the other people who were also part of this year. But the second half of the book didn't hold me as much, there is a lot about Claire's inner journey which was at times rather confusing, but also something more personal and relevant to Claire than to me. The account of killing and butchering the Wallaby was way too detailed for me as well.

[Angelica Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written and heartfelt journey about living and embracing nature. Loved it!

[Story Circle Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would you ever want to spend a year in the Australian bush living close to the earth and using ancient skills for survival? In Claire Dunn's My Year without Matches, we discover the ordeals that await amidst the forest gum and Moreton fig trees. The author explains her mission:

I want only to apprentice myself to Mother Nature, to steep myself in the raw reality of survival, and, like Thoreau, to wander without time or destination, a hawk-eye witness to the unfoldingof four full seasons.

This narrative reveals a path of both dreamtime and awakening. When Dunn leaves her workaday world to suspend the "busy-ness" of mainstream routines, all sorts of emotions begin to surface. With heartfelt honesty, the author leans into the sharp places, exposed and raw, to discover her true self. Wisdom blooms from her experiences. "This is what I love about this year," she writes. "I'm crafting the tools for living from my own hands, from the earth; beauty and functionality are one and the same, transforming the mundane into the sacred." So evolves the journey of balance with nature, as Dunn seeks the sacred order of shelter, water, fire, and food to sustain herself through the seasons.

This book is the antithesis of the popular TV shows about wilderness survival. The setting for this adventure is in the educational context of a community of several like-minded people. There were parameters for the undertaking, and choices to be made. Participants were trained by local naturalists and experts in survival skills. The chronicle intrigued me, not only because it takes place in the wilds of Australia, but because of Claire Dunn's dedication to her vision to honor the ways of the earth. Her comment, "Padding around barefoot, I'm literally coming to my senses," struck a chord with me as I imagined her stalking through the night, feeling her way along the inner and outer landscape with keen awareness.

A varied audience may find this memoir appealing. The author's vivid flora and fauna descriptions are fascinating. Her trial and error tales of learning the physical skills required to exist in a remote wilderness are engrossing. Also resonating with me was Dunn's expression of her deep connection with the natural world, her self-discovery, and her thoughts on how mother earth heals deep, old wounds. Her exploration of her creative feminine essence, which she discovered she had neglected in her previous career in the city, became an unexpected theme. In addition to the sage lessons, which captivated me, her writing was simply enjoyable, melodic, and expressive:

I like to think I'm mapping the story of the land, but it's as much my story that I reference: my impressions, my tracks, my landmarks. I map the land as much to know myself as to know it.

Since Claire Dunn lived without electricity for a full circle around the sun, I could not overlook the paradox that I found myself reading this particular account on an electronic device in iBook format. Since the story is rich with unique Aussie vocabulary, I was grateful for the "Look Up" feature to learn about "wattle seed" and terms like "doona" and "shonky" without missing a beat. I highly recommend the iBook version for non-native Australians.

I would very much like to live a year like Claire Dunn did. Until then, I appreciate coming to know the ebb and flow of the lands of the north coast of New South Wales through her storytelling.

by Martha Meacham
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

[Adakhc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I'm glad I read this book recommended to me by a friend. The stuff about survival techniques and healing and burnout were interesting.
Was disappointed but not surprised to see lots of aspects of 'white people go into the bush and culturally appropriate other cultures terminology, references and religions'. the way that the author described the few characters of colour was shit and exotifying.
the interesting part of the book that i think saved it was the interpersonal relationships between the various characters and the author's personal transcendence through pain, but even more so the discussion of buried trauma and recovery.
it's a long slog so only read if you won't be triggered by the above and are really really interested in forests, survival, plants and animals, and a slightly self indulgent narrative style.

[Johanna De · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of living as Claire dared to do was absolutely enthralling to me and for a whole year, scary! The book took me into this other world night after night and I loved hearing about the trees, the birds, bush foods and of course the challenge of lighting a fire. Overall I just wanted more of this and less of the group dynamics and inner struggle. This is not to say I didn't value the expression of this side of the experience. The discovery of being as opposed to doing has stayed with me as I walk through the busy city streets and shuffle my emails.I just felt at times it is weighted toward the inner journey whereas I was fascinated with the landscape and how you literally live within it.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Into the woods and into the wild and into the bush. Dunn joined an experimental programme that sent her and five others out into the Australian bush for a year. They didn't go in with nothing: the first six months were spent learning from experts, building shelters, etc., and they were allowed to bring in more or less anything they wanted. Dunn opted not to bring matches or other firestarters, for example, but others in the group relied heavily on matches and lighters.

It's a complicated setup, and it sounds like Dunn struggled against it. Enough people that she wasn't entirely isolated, which is good, but enough freedom to make their own choices, and also to chafe against the others' choices at times. I'm not entirely sure how much time Dunn spent with or without others, to be honest. They were clearly significant parts of her time there, for better and for worse, but they slip in and out of the narrative (to the extent that some of the others leave, permanently, and it only rates the lightest of mentions).

This is a story of survival, and it isn't: because Dunn was free to go in and out as she wanted, and not required to forage and hunt for and grow her own food, the majority of the food she mentions is store bought. There's less pressure to learn those skills, and as such Dunn puts them off as long as possible. I don't say this as criticism (it makes the year more flexible, and anyway, as someone who doesn't grow or catch any of her own food, who would I be to judge?), but it definitely opens up a lot more room for grey area in the experience, and in the book.

One thing I'd really have loved: I've never been to Australia, and it was only from the photos that I started to get a bit of a sense of the landscape. There's a tough line there, I think; too much focus on the natural landscape would leave less space for the focus on physical and emotional survival, but I also really wanted to be able to see it and feel it and live it vicariously.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the premise of this book - taking one's self out of the city to be fully immersed in nature. No doubt this was not an easy year for Claire Dunn and her contemporaries. The frustration and discomfort would have tested one's spirit and mental tenacity.
Readers are reminded of the extreme challenge it is to survive in the wilderness without the support of modern tools and systems. It was interesting that Claire longed so much to be alone, and yet we really are naturally social beings and rely on the collective group. I think she realised this more as the year passed. I was a little lost on the spiritual subtext, but each to their own. Dunn has a beautiful ability to capture and describe nature. I really loved her writing.

[Helen Lehndorf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this memoir very much.

The writer tests herself to her limits and beyond and her account of her 'year without matches' is compelling, fascinating and inspiring. She describes the natural world of the Australian forest- her home for a year- in beautiful detail. She is frank about the ways her peers on the quest irritated and challenged one other - this is no hippy paradise. At times she seems overly hard on herself and her mental wrangling gets a bit tense/overly earnest, but I appreciated her honesty, and her exploration of all the ways she was challenged, extended and enlightened by taking herself out of 'normal life' and into nature for a year.

[Danice H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but quite introspective

I found the writing about actual bush living far more interesting than the deep and meaningful meanderings into the authors reasons for choosing to live in the bush for a year. Also I found some major events skipped over/missing (like a sudden introduction to Bella - could've been a dog or a cat or who knows what) To be fair, this could've been because I skipped a few pages when the philosophical rhetoric started up. I think this book was less about living in the Bush for a year and more about the authors "who am I?" question. Would have been 2 stars but I liked the National Geographic photos at the end.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! Who wouldn’t love to disappear into the wild for 12 months! Technically, it wasn’t the wild, civilisation wasn’t too far away but it was a chance to escape and learn how to live by your own devices. Claire wrote very well and was very candid about her experiences, especially about how she faced her fears and her demons. It would be no mean feat to live and survive off the land (even though they did have access to shop bought food). But what an amazing experience to learn how to build a shelter, make fire, trap food, learn which plants are edible, make your own utensils and tan a hide!!! This is a book worth reading!!

[Rosemary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like my fellow book club friend, I too was disappointed in this book. Although Claire managed to convey an image of the Queensland forest, and her struggles to adapt to her environment, with that of her friends, it became too much of an emotional journey rather than a physical journey. I was unable to connect with her friends caused perhaps by a lack of character development, although I appreciate that it was Claire's story, not theirs. It just didn't click with me unfortunately. Having said that, I really enjoyed listening to Claire interviewed on the radio, promoting her book. Maybe I'll pick it up again sometime and try again.

[Kathrin Passig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eigentlich kein Buch für mich, es besteht mindestens zur Hälfte aus Dingen, mit denen ich wenig anfangen kann (Tarotkarten, Bäume segnen) oder die mich ärgern (es geht mehr um Selbstfindung als um irgendwas, was der Natur tatsächlich nützen könnte, z.B. wird explizit erwähnt, dass man viel weniger essbare Tiere findet als früher, und dann werden sie trotzdem gefangen und gegessen; einer der Beteiligten kommt aus den USA nach Australien, um dort ein Jahr im Busch zu leben, und zur Abschlussfeier wird seine ganze Familie aus den USA eingeflogen, etc.). Aber der Rest war so interessant, dass ich es trotzdem gern gelesen habe. Außerdem geht es überhaupt nicht darum, dass andere Menschen lächerlich sind und alles falsch machen, das ist selten im Outdoorgenre.

[Jim Irvine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this book twice now, and have loved it both times. The main character can be SO annoying, and I disagree with her on a bunch of things. That is probably a bit harsh - she seems nice! Maybe it was those around her who were more frustrating. Anyway, it was a super fascinating read, really got to go on the whole journey with her.

[Genevieve Lawlor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this book hit me like a truck! I was not expecting it be so addictive to read. Claire Dunn writing is very poetic too. It was such a nice 'escape' to read this. I recommend this to everyone, especially Australian women!

[Ashleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting read. It's heavy on the emotional experience and medium on the practical experience of what it means to live out bush. Inspiring topic with floral prose.

[Olwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome experience. Could I have done it? Probably not - which makes what the author achieved even more admirable.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about this book! Beautifully written. A fascinating story.

[Kristin Alford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Push pull of how to be beyond doing, self-knowing, resilience and kindness (my favourite of the hedonism stories)

[Kerrie Paterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting read that had me longing for change

[Kerrie McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting read that had me longing for change

[Charlie Ville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Such a beautiful writer, I felt like I was there with her. What an incredible journey. Well done Claire

[Kate Jax · Rating 4 out of 5]

I re-read this every year or two - a beautiful reminded to rekindle connection to land and country.

[Nancy Dardarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an amazing story, and an amazing woman! Beautifully written. Really wonderful.

[WildWoila · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

A year roughing it in the bush and the traumatic transformation from human doing into human being. Surprising parallels with chronic illness & housebound life.