So, where would you theoretically be experiencing this getting away from it all? I think your choice of locale would make a huge difference in your survival rate.
Hey…I subscribe to that magazine! :eek:
It has its fringes, of course. But most of it is good stuff on gardening, building your own whatever, animal husbandry, and the like.
The problem with military-based survival manuals like the US Army Surival Guide or SAS Guide is that they are intended for a SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) type of scenerio and fail to account for long-term (>30 days) survival without hope of retrieval per the OP. Larry Dean Olsen’s Outdoor Surival Skills is, IMHO, the best general text on outdoor survival, including extensive information on tool-making, trapping, fire starting/carrying, shelter/coalbed, and natural tanning. It is based upon survival in the Southwest (primarily Utah) and so needs to be suplemented with detail information about a particular climate or region, but it gives a good general coverage of the needed skills. I’d also toss in Where There Is No Doctor and Wilderness Medicine for intermediate-to-long term survival.
But let’s be realistic; it’s one thing to imagine playing Robinson Crusoe; it’s quite another to actually live off the land. Not only is it hard, wet, cold, and tiring; it’s also very boring (most of the time), and occasionally quite hairy until you gain an appreciation for the dangers and non-threats, especially if your previous exposure has been limited to James Fenimore Cooper novels, what with all of their twig-cracking and trail-reading. This is not something you are going to learn reading a book; while you can pick up some valuable tips, you are going to need to go out in the backcountry and practice in a somewhat controlled situation before you stand any genuine chance of surviving sans a heart of darkness. The first time you like a fire by friction methods, for instance, I guarantee it’ll take you a couple of hours; once you’ve mastered the technique (which I have not with any great consistancy) you can do it in a couple of minutes. And there’s no way you are going to pack out more than a couple of weeks of supplies, even with condensed meals.
It takes years of skill to be able to handle an indefinite period in the backcountry without aid, and you’re not going to absorb that off of a page, and certainly not out of Hollywood. If you want to learn, start now, and start easy. It’s becoming a lost skill.
Stranger
I’d say that the survival guides are just that- how to survive until rescued (or you find a hatch with all the modern conveniences and a button that has to be pushed every 104 minutes). For how to actually live, I’d think the Foxfire books mentioned earlier would be good. Instructions compiled from stories of living in the Appalachian mountains were money was non-existant and people pretty much did for themselves, they’ll show you how to build a cabin, dress out livestock, plant gardens, make moonshine, etc. Everything you need to know to build a life, not just hunker down and survive.
StG
Have you considered becoming an Amish person, Inigo?
No Dope for you. But if getting-out of the world is what you want, may as well go for the version where you still get to sleep in a bed.
Really? Well now that I find interesting. I’ve come across it at bookstores several times, and I guess I saw in it what I wanted to. There were indeed some really decent articles on primitive fishing and amature carpentry and what have you, but it’s the whack stuff that it contained that caught my eye. However, if you subscribe to it, that’s enough for me not to give it a complete dismissal. I’ll have to read over it again.
Except for a minor issue of belief that would be cool for a while. But they’ve got too many rules.
OK, so there are plenty of good short to long-term survival & how-to guides out there, and now I know some titles. But what is it that’s most likely to be my downfall in the deep woods. For location purposes lets say Rocky Mountains in the Colorado/Wyoming/Montana neighborhood. Only predators I need to watch out for are mountain lions (who evade people as a rule) and cute little fuzzywuzzy black bears who are more likely to be interested in sharing my meals than making me one. What’s most likely to kill me? I’m not really smart enough to get bored.
Sadly, and in pretty short order, I’d think most people would quickly succumb to dehydration due to a lack of a clean water source. The reality is that you run a pretty good chance of picking up some naaaasty bugs if you take a nice drink from that cool stream. Nasty diarrhea causing things that can curse you with a rather short life span if not quickly treated. Things like Cryptosporidium
You’re likely to be your own worst enemy; most injuries and fatalities in the backwoods occur because the person either didn’t know what they were doing (gets lost five miles from civilization) or tried to do too much (do not attempt to swim a fast moving stream without a safety line.)
As far as natural hazards, I’d place exposure to the elements and contaminated water higher on the list than any animal. There are predators and, on occasion, they’ll attack a person, but as you say, most are either more interested in your lunch or in avoiding you than in making you their next meal. The biggest threat from animals comes during mating season–that’ll be the time that some animals (moose, for instance) become most territorial. Even then, though, unprovoked animal attacks in the backcountry are rare. Bears, wolves, mountain lions, bobcats, and other major predators are unlikely to attack a person–we’re just too foreign and stand too tall (even though we mass less than many of their prey). The reason that attacks occur more often in suburban and near-urban areas (like recent mountain lion attacks in Southern California) probably has more to do with human encroachment and habitutation than the natural instincts of these cats.
Try an experiment; take a small bag o’ stuff–water and filter, a knife, some granola bars or trail mix, a poncho, a spare pair of socks, some basic first aid kit, and (very important) a compass and map–and hike a few miles into some isolated-yet-not-remote area. Spend a weekend or a few days; try a few techniques for shelterbuilding (note: use deadfall when you can; don’t go wantonly destroying living foliage). Learn to forage for food (avoid mushrooms unless you know exactly what you’re doing) instead of eating out of your pack. See what works and what doesn’t. See what you need and what you can get by without. Apply, rinse, repeat with longer intervals until you have the skills and confidence necessary to survive longer periods.
That’s the only way you’re truly going to learn how to survive–by doing.
Stranger