If I didn’t have my glasses, I’d probably be dead. I can’t see worth crap without them. I’m at around +7.25 diopters in each eye.
If I didn’t have my medication, I might not be dead as quickly, but it would be a serious disadvantage. I’d probably have real trouble with allergies, and I’d start wheezing. I’d also get very, very dizzy from inflammation in my ear that I take stuff to keep in check.
Oh, and I have prescription orthotics. I get terrible knee pain after a day or two of not wearing them.
In other words, I’d probably be dead pretty quick, despite all my outdoorsy skills from plenty of hiking and camping.
Incidentally–the scenario described by the OP is nothing like what most of the famous explorers had to deal with. Most of those guys came with at least some provisions, some tools, and their clothes. A lot of them had something to trade with, so they could buy stuff from the local people, and a mode of transport. I’m not saying that Lewis and Clark and their ilk had it easy, but they sure as heck didn’t wake up naked and completely defenseless in the middle of nowhere.
Well, first I’d make sure I had an Army engineer skilled in chemistry, physics, and metallurgy, a juvenile botanist, and a couple of other handy guys with me, and it would help if there was a benevolent Indian submarine captain lurking nearby, and then I’d blow up the pirate ship and use the timbers and rigging to build another boat.
Make fire Bow drill. Assuming I could locate a suitable string. (gut or tendon)
Make some kind of tool/weapon to enable you to hunt Sapling spear/atl atl
Set traps Snare or spring spike trap, again depending on suitable string.
Find water Travel a straight line in the forest and you’ll likely find a source daily.
Find suitable material to cover yourself Why bother? Modesty is not a survival trait. And if it’s cold enough to require insulation, someone without survival training won’t make it anyway.
Build a shelter of sorts
** See 5. You might shiver through the night without it, but you’ll survive.**
Know what vegetation is good to eat and which to avoid Around here, yes. Unfamiliar territory, maybe.
Avoid dangerous wildlife Most wildlife will avoid me. Otherwise, I have my handy sapling spear.
Build a canoe if you found a stream/river Canoe is too labor intensive. Would lash together a raft if needed.
Get back to civilization Eventually
These questions asked because I’ve always admired the old pioneers like Davy Crocket, Daniel Boone, Jebediah Springfield and the rest. Just wondered if the old spirit is still alive and kicking in the US.
None of the listed pioneers wandered out without significant planning and prepared supplies. They had their supplies well thought out before they left town.
Absolutely - in a survival situation in woodland, you’re going to have to eat some bugs - at the very least just until you get established (but by then, you might be really enjoying them).
Insects and other invertebrates are a very rich, nutritious source of food - being the slightest bit particular about what you eat is a substantial survival disadvantage in these scenarios.
Probably my best advantage is that I carry around about a couple of months’ worth of spare calories in case of famine, so I won’t be starving to death until I’ve dropped seventy to a hundred pounds, maybe more. So I should have a little time to master the basics.
Make fire - I know how, but it’s going to take time to find the necessary materials, and even then it’s a case of theory versus practice. I’m short-sighted so my ordinary glasses wouldn’t help, and I’m not too sure the lenses of my reading glasses are big enough to gather enough heat to burn anything.
Make some kind of tool/weapon to enable you to hunt - I see no reason to dick around with an improvised spear when a club is probably better. If I can find enough flint to practice on, I can mug up a fist-axe in time - hours rather than days, I’ve had a go at smacking flints together before.
Set traps - That’s a big “maybe”. Better if I could find a tree overhanging a game trail and make like a drop-bear. Otherwise it’s the grubs and so on for me. Maybe a fish trap. After the first few days I’ll be willing to try anything that can’t get away.
Find water - It’s never very far to walk to a river or a stream in England. A spring would be favourite, if I want to give myself the best chance of steering clear of parasites; even so, I expect some serious holiday tummy.
Find suitable material to cover yourself - Not unless and until I can kill a deer or something, and I hope I’ve found my flint supply by then or I’ll have a hell of a time skinning the bastard.
Build a shelter of sorts - Yeah, no problem. No need for planks, a roof of thin branches and vegetation will keep most of the rain off and some of the wind. If it’s winter I’m dead of hypothermia anyway, I probably can’t get the materials for fire-making before the first nightfall.
Know what vegetation is good to eat and which to avoid - I’d have to be desperate to bother with fungi as the food value is so low. Most other stuff I could test carefully if I don’t actually recognise it as dangerous. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to use the approach the Japanese did in Malaya - watch and see what the monkeys eat.
Avoid dangerous wildlife - There is hardly any dangerous wildlife in England. But then I wouldn’t be 500 miles from civilization anyway.
Build a canoe if you found a stream/river - I’d go more for a log raft. I could burn out a dug-out canoe if I found a big enough fallen log in sound condition, but getting it to stay right side up would be another matter.
Get back to civilization - A S A friggin’ P, believe me. Follow a watercourse downstream and live off my fat. Anything I can chow down to ease the hunger pains will be a bonus. If I find myself in open country then I’m marking out the biggest SOS on the ground that ever I possibly can.
Malacandra: Sorry to piss on your cornflakes old bean but you are 500 miles from habitation, your survival tactics are based on you being in Merrie England.
I suspect, like me, you’d be fucked and dead in short time.
Seriously though, insect larvae are almost completely fat, protein and water - they’s the job of the larva - to build up a big store of food and body-building material. If the wriggly nature of the grubs was off-putting, I’d wash them, wrap them tightly in a big (non-poisonous) leaf together with some wild onions/garlic/herbs (which I’m sure I could find) and put the package in the embers of my fire for a little while - then eat them steamed. Can’t possibly be any weirder than eating prawns.
Very likely. I did read a book once called Living Off The Land which was all about the Australian outback, which is about as harsh as it gets and still remain survivable. So yes, splitting open rotting sticks for the grubs inside would be one tactic (apparently they’re a bit like pork crackling if lightly toasted) and, as LOTL helpfully points out, something that lives off the inside of a tree is about as clean a food as you could hope to find. If the nights got chilly then I might get lucky with a snake or two - I should be able to handle the low temperatures better than they can - and supposedly they taste kinda chicken-y. The club’s still my best option for a weapon unless I really do manage to lay my hands on enough sinew to craft a proper axe or hammer.
As alluded to, if I’m in any environment where there are primates of any kind then on the one hand I don’t piss them off if they’re big enough to be dangerous, but on the other hand I watch and see what they’re eating on the grounds that anything they live off probably won’t kill me, at least if I take it slow (see if it burns; see if a tiny shaving held in my mouth makes me feel ill; see if a minute bite stays down without causing trouble).
If I’m in any kind of a national park or similar then once I can build a fire of any size I’m sure to be picked up sooner or later.
I don’t say my chances are good, but what the heck, they aren’t meant to be. Man wasn’t meant to survive weaponless and toolless ever since he came down from the fruit trees. Give me the clothes I normally slob around in and a Swiss Army knife and my chances go up no end - and all the more if you’ll throw in a copy of Scouting For Boys.
I knew that about insect larvae, I was just pulling your leg.
In all honesty though I just can’t see myself scarfing down a bunch of crawlies but then again I’ve never been hungry enough to even consider it…other than prawns
Come to think of it they look fairly gruesome up close
I think “Can’t possibly be any weirder than eating prawns” is what I’d be repeating, mantra-like to myself as I made myself eat them for the first time.
The prospect isn’t particularly appealing, but I think in our scenario here, the person that overcomes the ick factor and starts scoffing bugs right away is the most likely to survive by probably quite a significant margin. Running around after rabbits and deer, or making fish traps (or whatever) is fine - but not on a completely empty stomach.
And if you think about it…
If you had your memory erased and then dropped into the forest situation with only a survivor handbook that showed you how to trap/kill/skin/quarter/eat a deer and also how to gently pick edible bugs off the ground which would you be more likely to do?
Since we’re so used to having a butcher prepare our cuts of meat and we’ve been conditioned to be disgusted by bugs is why we have a hard time even considering eating them.
Look at a cow, then look at a worm. Which is really more appealing at first glance?
I’d eat worms all day long rather than try to slaughter some big ass mammal.
Uncommon : I suppose you are right about the conditioning, after all there are peoples that fry and eat monster sized spiders and consider them a delicacy. There are also some big fat white worms, the name of which I forget, that are also considered tasty in some region of S. America.
When I look at a cow I see a juicy steak, when I look at a worm I see it on the end of a fishing line
Agreed. Mammals are useful for other things though - such as skins. My beetle-skin jacket project never really got off the ground.
BTW, I just went out and spent my lunch break on the beach behind my workplace (in the rain and howling wind - this is England) and managed to fashion a quite respectable flint spearhead and a number of scrapers and knives. I have no proper experience of flint knapping. I cut myself only once, slightly, but accidental injury is a big risk here.
Also, I noted that the beach was pretty rich with food. Winkles were abundant, I’m pretty sure the masses of sandhoppers under the seaweed mats would make a good soup if I could contrive to catch them in good number and I think it would be fairly simple to rig a baited snare to catch gulls - you would probably get away with a less durable twine than would be required for snaring mammals.
I’ve never eaten shore crabs, but they’re easy to catch and there must be some nutritional value there.
With a suitable digging implement, cockles and clams would be easily collected.
and the rest. Just wondered if the old spirit is still alive and kicking in the US.
