SURVIVAL BASICS OUTLINE
To survive a wilderness emergency there are several skill areas to develop and practice.
Index: Mental Prep Fire Shelter Signaling Water First-aid Frostbite Food Survival Kits
shelters Wild Foods
Plants Altitude sickness
Bear and Lion avoidance Insect pests Life Saving First Response New! Survival & Self-Reliance DVD
Found: Mental and Physical Preparation
See the video or DVD: Survival, 17 Ways to Start a Fire Without a Match
Be mentally prepared to meet your needs in an
emergency by developing the following tools and skills.
Develop several innovative ways to start a fire.
Know and practice the basics of obtaining
potable water, water that is safe to drink.
Recognize a natural shelter or have within you the means to make a shelter to protect you from
heat and cold extremes.
Know how to use the basic tools to signal for help.
Acquire some naturalist abilities to procure food from the bush.
Be trained in elementary first-aid techniques so you can stem off the danger of life threatening injuries.
Prepare and pack a survival kit.
When you are skilled in these survival essentials you have the weapons to overcome The
Seven Enemies that threaten your life.
The Seven Life Threatening Enemies in a survival situation are:
1. Fear and anxiety.
2. Cold and heat.
4. Boredom and Loneliness
7. Pain and injury.
Your Survival Pattern to defeat these Seven Enemies will vary from one situation to the next. .
Survival Pattern priorities are different in different environments. For example, in a dry, desert environment starting a fire may not be the first priority in your Survival Pattern. But Thirst and seeking...or making shelter are. Finding water defeats the enemy Thirst. Making a shelter helps defeat the Enemy of Cold and Heat.
In a different situation, you may be injured and bleeding. Treating the injury, stopping the bleeding is step one. This initial step in your Survival Pattern defeats the life threatening Enemy Pain and Injury.
If you are cold and wet a fire is your first Survival Pattern priority. Cold and Heat is the enemy and the weapon to defeat them is fire.
If your ship has wrecked and you are a cast
away in a small open boat Thirst may be your enemy.
Let's discover more Survival Pattern skills you need to defeat the Seven Enemies.
Of primary importance is the presence of a survival kit in your day pack, car, boat or airplane. A thoughtfully stocked survival kit will go a long ways toward making you feel mentally prepared.
Several of the Seven Enemies can be defeated with the tools in a Survival Kit. But first you must develop the skills and experience to use the tools in the kit. The more skills you have, the more survival weapons you can direct at your seven enemies. For example, The enemies: Fear and anxiety disappear with the self-confidence that you have the kit and have mastered the skills to survive any situation
Survival kits come in all sizes and shapes. You can make a kit for your car, boat, airplane, or bicycle. Larger kits afford you luxuries such as: larger amounts of water, space blankets, flares, special tools. We're going to concentrate on the compact easy to carry personal survival kit. The one you carry in your knap sack, fanny pack or coat pocket.
The personal kit is a stripped down version of the larger kits you may stash in your car, boat, snowmobile or airplane.
It is important that each tool in the kit has more than one use.
Cordage, nylon string, fishing line has a multiplicity of uses and as much as 50 yards can be put in your kit for shelter building, fishing line, sewing, repair, signaling (raising a signal flag for example).
PRACTICE: On a separate sheet of paper list how many ways a piece of nylon string could be useful in a survival situation. Make such a list for all of the following components of a survival kit that is about the size of a plastic soap dish.
Knife and a Small File (to sharpen knife) may be used to shape a tool, make a spark, cut food, carve a whistle, defense, lance a wound, etc.
More kit tools: waterproof matches, magnesium match, fish hooks, wax paper for fire starting, a whistle, two or three hard candies, bandages, iodine (for water and as an antiseptic), snare wire, small pocket knife, small flashlight with fresh batteries (may be used to start fire), some very fine steel wool for fired starting with batteries (see our video), a couple of birthday candles, a zip lock bag, spare set of folding eyeglasses if you need them, signaling mirror.
Kits will vary according to the environment you are traveling in.
As my survival partner Mountain Mel says, "It is extremely important that you have the kit with you when you need it, or you may never need it again."
When you go camping, hiking, always carry your kit and practice using the tools. Make every experience a survival experience. Size up the place and say to yourself: What would I do if I were lost here...What materials and skills could I use. Later in the tape we will show you how to If you are caught unprepared and do not have survival kit there are ways to replace items in the kit, from gifts and tools provided by Mother Nature. Here's a tip: make two survival kits one for practice and one for trips.
Kits Help Start Fires and Build Shelters
With the kit you can conquer Fear and Anxiety. You now have the tools to continue your attack on the Seven Enemies...Your first enemy, if you are not injured is Cold and Heat. To conquer cold and heat you must build a fire and make or seek shelter. Your survival kit has the basic elements for starting a fire. Matches and tinder. Tinder is a highly flammable substance. It may be natural or synthetic.
Natural tinder include; cattails, scrape of vines, small dry twigs, leaves, birch bark, pine needles, pine bark , cedar bark, cotton wood bark.. When dry these are highly flammable materials
Other fuels you can pack with you include: Vaseline, candle, wax paper, popsicle sticks.
Magnesium Match/Fire Starting
To make a fire in adverse conditions use a magnesium match. You may purchase a magnesium match from such places as REI, Campmor, Lunkers and other outdoor outfitters. First prepare a nest of tinder in an area sheltered from wind and dampness. Provide a survival fire platform or dig a hole...Pile a small amount of bone dry pencil thin and even pencil lead thin twigs in a teepee around your tinder pile. You can find dry twigs and tinder under pine trees even in wet weather. Dead twigs on trees make good fire fuel. Test them for dryness...They should make a sharp snap sound.
NOTE: You need three elements to start a fire, sometimes this is called the fire triangle: spark, fuel and oxygen.
Make certain you can put a match into the center of the tinder. Cup your hands around the lighted match just so. Light the tinder. Shelter the young fire from the wind and elements. Add small twigs to the pyramid as the fire grows. Next build a log cabin of small twigs around the pyramid of fire. Have plenty of small twigs and fuel of increasingly larger size.
Other Fire Starting Tools
Here are some other innovative methods to start a fire...If there is room one or two of these may be in your survival kit.
TIP: To actually see these tools in use see our video: Survival .
Chemical Fire Starter
Waterproof matches in waterproof cases
battery and steel wool
NP3 (fire gel)
Flint and steel
Primitive Technology: Fire Starting Methods
Native Americans and other indigenous people did not have matches to start fires. In our Survival video Mountain Mel demonstrates several ways to start fires with primitive tools to include:
-Bow and drill
-Bamboo fire starter
-Aborigine split wood fire starter
Leaf hut: Learn
how to make a world class debris shelter and about 50 other useful
survival skills. See Bill Gingras's
Backwoods Survival Skills
video...To purchase a copy
To protect yourself from heat and cold, wind, snow and rain you need shelter. There are many kinds of natural shelters. Natural shelters save time providing immediate protection from the enemies of heat and cold. Caves and crevasses are excellent and were used by Native Americans both as homes and temporary lodging. Ducking under the bows of a mature pine tree provides good shelter for an emergency
You can't beat a tent. A bivouac tube may save your life and can be made from garbage bags or purchased from outfitters.
Emergency shelters can be made from cotton wood tree bar, pine boughs (a frame of sticks covered with pine boughs). Other construction materials include stones, leaf huts, dead falls. These natural materials may be all you have to work with.
A space blanket can be a handy emergency shelter. It can be neatly packed in a jacket pocket.
Try making a leaf hut with a space blanket cocoon.
An emergency bivouac in a snow bank can be made with a ski pole or small shovel. This will require a large expenditure of energy. Open or shed clothing while working as not to sweat. Wet clothes will later cool after you have finished your work. This kind of energy expenditure coupled with chilling may lead to hypothermia.
When making a shelter or leaf hut seek a wall or tree or other structure that provide you protection and a flying start on shelter construction.
In a desert environment seek shade. Use clothing, your bandanna or debris to make a lean to. Have the opening face north away from the sun. By making the shelter above or below the ground will keep temperatures down by 10 degrees.
There are numerous books on fire making and shelter building. make certain you have practice shelter building before tramping off into the wilderness.
You have your kit and know how to use its contents. You have a roaring fire and an adequate shelter. If you are going to spend a cold night, begin heating water immediately. Drinking hot water will help you stave off hypothermia. Drinking hot water has saved the life of many a wilderness victim, even without adequate shelter to protect them from the cold and wind.
Okay, You have told someone where you were going and when you will return...You have not traveled alone. Then, Rescue is only hours away...You've got it made.
Typically, in the continental United States, given you have told someone where you have gone, rescue is imminent. Most likely within 24 hours. But lets say rescue may be a week, or weeks away. What's your next enemy.
THIRST! YOU NEED WATER. Check your urine for dehydration: if it looks like Coca Cola you're in bad shape. The symptoms of dehydration sickness are headaches, weakness, impatience, mental confusion, fever, thirst, fatigue and dizziness. If water is a problem, be prepared! In a desert environment you need water almost immediately. Under the desert sun, physical exertion could use up to 5 gallons of water per day. The idea is to shelter yourself, keep cool, and don't exert yourself. Even so you will need about 2 quarts of water per day. Most water is lost through the lungs and in urine. If you reclaim this water survival time is lengthened by 30%. In a desert environment, carry at least a two day supply of drinking water...That is one gallon of water.
Natural Reservoirs of Water
Prickly pear cactus is a fair source of moisture. Smash cactus and reclaim water in a solar still. A solar still is a hole in the ground covered with a sheet of plastic. A hollow tube runs from outside the plastic under the edge down into a water collecting cup sitting in the middle of the still. The plastic cover is sealed with dirt around the sides and there is a weight in the middle to make an inverted pyramid. Water collects inside the sealed system from the green house effect. The inverted pyramid directs the collected water droplets to the plastic to the cup. Use the tube to suck the water out of the cup. A efficient still may be 5 feet across (diameter).
Slice a cactus open with a knife and rub the gelatin side of the open cactus over the body.
Tie rags around ankles and walk through grass in the morning. Dew collected this way may provide you some moisture. Also, mop up dew in the morning from leaves, grass.
Salt water from the ocean can be desalinated in a solar still. Solar are more efficient over damp ground. As mentioned, in a desert, add crushed plants to the still to get water. Human urine should be recycled through a solar still. OFTEN IN LOWLANDS SUBSTANTIAL WATER IS JUST BELOW THE SURFACE. DIG FOR IT AND SOP IT UP WITH YOUR BANDANNA.
All drinking water should be boiled before drinking. Strain ditch and pond water through a T-shirt into a container. Be certain the water boils before drinking it.
Water purification tablets should be in your survival kit. Remember to rotate fresh tablets into your kit at least every twelve months. Water purification systems are inexpensive and should be an integral part of every wilderness experience.
Loneliness and Boredom
After you have met your primary needs of shelter, fire and thirst, loneliness and boredom may creep back into your mind. You must distil in your mind you are going to be rescued. Keep busy. You must be actively seeking rescue. You must learn to signal.
Nature does not make perfect squares, circles and triangle. As seen in our video you can float on a lake, pone or river large triangles, squares and circles from logs that may attract rescuers. these manmade signals may be place in a desert or on open ground so rescue pilots be drawn to your location. Manmade signals stand out, they are in contrast to the natural setting.
Best Methods of Signaling
We tested several devices for signaling in a mountainous environment: whistle, horn, smoke, large brightly colored flags, and a mirror.
The signals that could be picked up at the greatest distance was the whistle, horn and mirror. The mirror was by far the most effective signaling tool. A mirror with a sighting hole helps you aim the reflection of light at the rescue target. Or you may use two fingers on your free hand as a sight to direct the reflection of the mirror in your other hand to the intended target. Practice this procedure.
The problem with smoke is unless you are on the highest most exposed spot it gets lost in the rocks, bluff, trees of the surrounding terrain. A forest fire intentionally set has saved a person's life.
Colored flags cannot be seen from a distance, but they do work for you all day long without any expenditure of energy on your part.
It's hard to beat a fire or flare for a nighttime signaling. Keep a fire going day and night. Fire is a companion, your friend.
After a couple of days you may be getting hungry. You have exhausted your single piece of hard candy , hours, days or weeks ago. Although starvation is typically the last of your worries. There is much to eat around you. You could gnaw on the leather uppers of your boots. Or perhaps eat a little finger, or little toe, or some other appendage you really don't need. You know live off your own body for as long as possible. If you have a friend...Well you can always draw lots. If things aren't so bad you might see what Mother Nature has surrounded you with. Your simplest and most substantial source of nutrition is from wild plants. See our sections on wild plants in this database and you will be prepared to combat the hunger that kills.
Animals around you may be captured and eaten, like crickets, ants, grasshoppers, grubs....That's just for hors d' oeuvres.
Native Americans knew how to use plants to stun fish.
We have covered in great detail wild foods
and wilderness medicine in our videos below.
Traps, Weapons Snares
After eating a dozen grubs and a week of cattail pancakes, you may be getting hungry for bigger game. In our video we cover numerous tools for capturing prey: Dead falls, throwing sticks, spears, digging sticks, flint knapping, elastic propelled projectiles, atl-atl and more.
Once again our video does a good job covering emergency environmental injuries. Take a first- aid class. Carry along a small medical book like William Forgey's Wilderness Medicine. Always pack a first-aid kit. Know how to use clothing as compresses and bandages. Learn how to immobilize orthopedic injuries (see video). If you get diarrea stay well hydrated. Drink plenty of water. Keep wounds clean and protected. A plastic bag filled with water can be used to irrigate wounds. Snow can be used to keep swelling down on orthopedic injuries. Compresses wet from a stream, placed in a plastic bag over a covered wound or orthopedic injury may keep swelling down, and slow the spread of infection. If someone has a neck or back injury do not move them without professional help. Keep them protected, warm and hydrated. After 24 hours of immobilization if the injury is not serious they may be able to move on their own. A few aspirins in your survival kit may be helpful as an analgesic. A few wilderness physicians prefer Tylenol for pain.
Native Americans and other indigenous people
have much to offer in the way of survival medicine. You may want to see
our videos: Native American Medicine
and Little Medicine.
Well this treatise is okay for openers. But only practice and real wilderness experiences over many years will provide you with the confidence and skills to survive. So stop reading and get out there.
Videos we have that cover Survival Topics:
Native American Medicine
Natural Health with Medicinal Herbs
Edible Wild Plants
Trees Shrubs Nuts & Berries
Cooking with Edible Flowers
Diet for Natural Health
Excellent four color book, field guide for Edible