There are quite a number of
variables to take into consideration in a wilderness setting. A good many of
these can be somewhat duplicated in a backyard, developed site setting, or
patch of woods close to home.
Somewhat. But not totally.
We find ourselves in a very different
world when we leave development behind and wander off into the wilderness with
a few modern material-goods on our backs. Even if it is only a half-day or a
good-day hike back to some means of getting back to the settlements.
Wilderness is wild.
Wild is completely foreign to the
vast majority of folks these days.
That wildness is something that
once called to a lot of people. A good many answered its calling and off they
went exploring, pioneering, hunting and running trap lines, hewing out little
clearings, using the natural material to construct shelters, making clothing
and other usable materials from animal hides, and living out their days and
years respecting and cooperating with the wild. Those earlier than our times folks had developed skills-sets that made it
possible for them to leave settlements behind and live well in the wilderness
for extended periods of time.
Times have changed a lot with the
progress of modernity. Are we better off or worse off? I say we are both. Our
gain contributes to our loss. One of our challenges in these modern times is to
rediscover and recover what we have lost in all this progress. We are, at least
we can be, as much explorers and pioneers in our times as they were in those
earlier times. If we want to be and if we will only accept the challenge.
Going bare bones … going
primitive … at least going primitive in a modern-primitive sort of way …
involves a major psychological adjustment for folks accustomed to their
cravings for electronic entertainments and the comforts and conveniences that
comprise life in these modern times. Not many are willing to trade their gizmos
and gadgets for the scree of a hawk, the chatter of a squirrel, the breeze
blowing through the trees, falling leaves, the sound of a chiseling woodpecker
beak, and the myriad of other sights, sounds, and smells that fill natural
environments.
Whether out for a day hike, off
on an overnight camp, doing a long extended woods trek, or discovering yourself
in a dire long-term survival
situation … there are some rules that always apply.
Rules of Three
Three minutes without air.
Three hours without shelter.
Three days without water.
Three weeks without food.
Beware of small air-tight spaces.
Making fire, if you have the
tools needed to generate the combustion of some fine tinder material, is not
all that difficult. It can be, given marginal or adverse conditions, a bit of a
challenge. But it is still doable.
Shelter shades us from the sun, breaks
the chilling effects of the wind, turns water from the sky, and offers protection
from the dew that forms at night.
Without adequate hydration we are
toast.
Fire, Shelter, Water, Food
We come now to this business of
staying adequately fed and there is a lot more to this item on our list of actual needs than can be dealt with in a
brief article on the subject. So what follows is not an exhaustive summary and does not take into consideration the plethora of packables that we can purchase ready made or manufacture in our kitchens.
A planned outing always takes food into consideration. It is easy to
accommodate this need when you have the space to pack a cooler and room for a
few shopping bags of goods picked up on the way. It gets a little sticky when
your means of conveyance becomes your feet and legs and that pack on your back.
Weight and space become a major issue … not nearly as big a one for a weekend
as it is for longer treks or long-term survival in wilderness settings.
Wild Edibles
I mention wild edibles because
they are a resource that surrounds us.
No. I do not consider myself an
“authority” on the subject of wild edibles. What I have done though is educate
myself regarding what is local to our area. Some of it grows in other areas.
Some of it does not. Other climates have offerings that are not available in
ours. The fact of the matter is that there is nutritious wild food growing
around us wherever we are … food that could be essential in sustaining our
lives … food that can, at the least, be foraged as a supplement to what we are
carrying.
IMPORTANT NOTE: There are plants
that will make you violently ILL if ingested. There are plants that will KILL you
if ingested. Some plants require particular types of processing to render them
edible. Do your homework before you eat a wild plant. You are the one that is liable
for your health when you swallow it.
Eating a “weed” is a little scary
at first. Even with a good field guide with color pictures. It is just not
something we are accustomed to doing. Once you have positively identified a
wild edible and tasted it a few times you find yourself doing quite a bit of
grazing even when grazing is not necessary.
Part of the challenge is learning
to identify and utilize wild edibles. Another part of the challenge is to
adjust to the seasonal nature of things, just like that garden of raised beds
that we tend. Things in the wild are seasonal also. As seasons change so do the
available resources.
Regardless of the climate region
one lives in, a mental page of a selection of wild edibles ought to be embedded
in a memory bank.
Hunting
Hunting has always been a way of
life for me. Not so much in the way it has been commercialized and marketed in
the magazines and mega sporting goods stores where it has become big business.
Mine is more along the lines of subsistence hunting … procuring meat for the
table whether it is small game or deer.
By the time I was ten years old I
was already a skilled small game hunter going solo into the woods and fields
armed with an old single shot .22 and some “shorts” or a .410 shotgun. I had
access to those guns 24/7. They were never locked away in a safe or rendered
useless by trigger locks. I had been taught to use them for their designed
purpose, used them regularly to that end, and often casually wandered miles
from home with gun in hand … exploring … just to see what I could see.
Hunting small game is still my
favorite type of hunting. Maybe because it hearkens me back to my childhood
days when life was a lot simpler, back when a mile or two away from home seemed
like a long way.
Ten? That was over fifty years
ago. Times have changed a lot in five decades. A ten year old kid wandering
miles from home these days with a gun in his/her hand is apt to be picked up by
the police and their parents charged as criminals.
Small game is the most practical
game to procure on a trek where hunting is allowed. Small game is also the easiest
and most practical game to pursue in what is termed a “survival” situation.
There are several reasons that I consider practical requirements here.
It is abundant.
It is easy to kill.
It is easy to
process.
It provides a compact
serving size.
A large game sized animal such as
a deer … though it provides a generous amount of meat and a good hide that can
be utilized … does not readily meet these practical requirements. There is a
lot more meat to a deer, even to a smaller deer that bones out 20 pounds of
good meat. Keeping that extra meat “good” in a wilderness setting and turning
that hide into something useful involves more sets of important skills.
Fishing
A few assorted small hooks. Some
line. Maybe a few split shot weights and a bobber. These take up very little
space and add very little weight to a pack.
Our woodland environment is full
of bait. A little digging around deadfalls and under dead bark will yield grubs
and earthworms. During warm weather there are plenty of crickets and
grasshoppers to be caught.
Walking into our outdoor class
site yesterday I noticed a bird feather on the ground. Blue Jay. Something as
simple as a bit of bird feather tied to a hook turns the hook into a fly that
will catch fish.
A hook baited with some innards
from a squirrel or rabbit and tossed out overnight may very well have a catfish
or freshwater eel on it before morning.
Trapping
We had a few old rusty single
spring traps on the farm when I was kid. I played around with them a little but
was never successful as a child-trapper and lost interested in them.
I must have been in my late 30’s
or early 40’s when an old man in the shipyard where I was working offered me a
piece of coon that he had cooked. One bite and I knew that some traps would
soon be on their way to my house.
Traps involve a small investment.
The nice thing about them is that once you have them you have them and you can use
them over and over. A little care and maintenance and traps will last long
enough to pass on to the next generation coming along on our heels … if some of
them will only take an interest. Otherwise the little pile of steel is apt be
hauled off as scrap iron and that would be a real pity.
There are basically two types of
steel traps … foot hold traps and kill traps. Both types come in various sizes
depending upon the target animal being trapped. One smart invention to come
along in the evolution of traps is the dog proof coon trap. DP’s are good news
for free ranging domestic dogs that their owners ought to be keeping home.
I recently added a half dozen
DP’s to my trap collection and look forward to setting a few just as soon as it
is legal season.
The weight and bulk of steel
traps, with the exception of the small single-spring 110 Conibear style
kill-trap, make them impractical to include in a kit.
Every kit should already contain the items necessary to construct snares … CORDAGE. Along with cordage in my kit I
also carry a dozen or so 18” fishing leaders that make excellent small snares when attached to a length of #36 tarred bank line.
The leaders roll and pack easily in a snuff can.
Two things about snares … .
They
are effective and, in most cases and places, they are not a legal means to harvest game.
If you discover yourself in a survival situation you do what you have to do in
order to stay fed! Legal or not. In
one of those situations I would rather come through it fed and healthy and maybe find myself
paying a little dividend to the State for my legal transgression than for my
loved ones to discover themselves making arrangements with the Undertaker.
Practice is the rule.
Every skill requires
practice.
Practice requires a
commitment of time.
This rule applies to trapping as
well as it does to fire-making and every other skill.
Every skill category involves
learning and understanding its component aspects. Learning and understanding these aspects demands paying attention to details if success is to be an expected outcome.
Neglecting what may appear as a small detail is a sure way to failure. Failure
to succeed in a dire situation is not something anyone can afford.
