Go Ahead ... Just Do It!

I am asked occasionally if I teach people how to survive.

My response is that I can’t teach anyone to survive … that I teach skills that people can use to help them survive in a bad situation … but, ultimately, it’s up to every individual to discover within themselves the will to survive.

People can have all the gear in the world, be well rehearsed in a myriad of skills to go along with their stock of tools, but survival is as much a psychological challenge as it is a physical one.

The “will to live”, or lack thereof, is going to play a huge role in making it, or not making it, especially if a bad deal turns into a long-term situation.

A lot of things can be bought and learned. The psychological thing? That’s something else altogether. Even well trained people can break down and give up under pressure. The psychological factor is a biggie.  

So I’ve been thinking over some things after doing a skills training camp this past weekend. Kind of mulling this over in my own mind and thinking about some of the basic stuff associated with the craft.

Here’s those thoughts in a nutshell.

Tools

It is relatively easy to prescribe a basic list of proven tools to carry in a kit.

The 10-C’s outlined by Dave Canterbury [Cover, cutting tool, cordage, container, combustion, compass, cotton bandana, candling devise, cloth sewing needle, cargo tape] is a list hard to improve upon. Most of the items on the list have been around longer than any of us modern folk have. Duct tape is a modern thing that has no historical heritage but it is certainly handy to have and has multiple uses. Canterbury outlines the items in a way that they all start with the letter “C” so folks can easily remember them.

The main question, where these C’s are concerned, is whether you will procure them in high dollar fashion or in common man fashion.

I am, as a common man, a fan of the common man. Most common folk can assemble a kit simply by scrounging around home through the extras of this and that and not have to spend so much as a dollar. You can go the high dollar route and spend a lot of money. I mean A LOT of money on these items.

Out of the shed and kitchen drawers … bought from the high dollar dealers. Those are the two extreme ends. There is a lot of distance between those ends. The truth of the matter is that for a couple or three hundred dollars a person can put together a really good kit that will go a lot of miles. And that includes buying a good pack and adding some items (without overdoing it) that are not part of the 10-C thing.

The important thing is to just do it … assemble a kit and get started. Improve the kit as you go. Make some upgrades when something needs replacing.

Techniques

Here is where the rubber begins to meet the road and keeps hitting the road step after step.

You can have all the gear in the world … all the high dollar gear that’s on the market … but without knowing how to use it, without knowing how to identify natural resources, and without knowing how to utilize natural resources … all you have is a nice looking pile of weight.

It takes a generous amount of time to develop skills. Developing skills requires a lot of getting into the dirt … into the woods … into the bush … down on the creek … time after time after time after time. Even then, after all these times after times, there’s still more to explore … still more to learn … still more to develop.

There are several disclaimers that I present up front when working with people.

One of the disclaimers is that I do not know everything there is to know on this subject. 

There is a lot that I do know but I do not know everything. Another disclaimer that I present up front is that I cannot teach someone everything I know in a long weekend intensive course. I can’t teach all that I know in a week. I can’t teach it in a month. Some of what I know I have been taught by a few others. Some of it I have learned reading and studying books. Some of it … a lot of it … the woods and wilds have taught me through over five decades of getting out there kindling fires, camping, hunting, and fishing. I am still learning. There is yet a lot left for me to learn.

I can show and teach a lot in a weekend intensive course. Folks can get a good start on some important skills. But perfecting those skills until the skills are owned and operating as part of their first nature is something that comes in time and only after a lot of personal time in the dirt and in the woods on their own in the weeks, months, and years to come.

Now about this first nature thing.

I don’t want my skills to belong in my second nature. I want my skills to be so owned that they move out of the second nature realm and into the first. Things that are second nature are things that you have to think about before you do them. That’s ok. Second nature is better than having only a slight familiarity with something … one of those “Oh, I read about that.” Or “Hey, I saw so-and-so do that one time on that survival show.” 

When things go really bad it’s very unlikely that anyone will successfully duplicate something they have only read about or watched someone do.

I simply think that the crafting skills necessary to get along well in the woods, bush, or wilds of wherever are important enough to rehearse until they move into the first nature realm of who we are. Any of us, even then, can encounter challenges in the wild that will test the temper of out metal.

Temper

I’m not referring to the kind of temper that causes people to get mad and fly off the handle. 

There’s a lot of that sort of temper in the world today. I see a lot of it in public forums and social media groups on the internet that focus on this subject matter. I see way too much of what I call bushcraft bravado. Mix some bushcraft bravado and temper together in a discussion and the result is generally always the same … nothing positive or productive comes out of the collision. Somebody is going to get a bent bumper or fender and somebody is going to walk away with their ego brimming over. 

I tend to avoid arenas where this sort of thing goes on.

The temper I’m referring to is the kind of tempering that comes from regular use over time. Like what happens to a rail after all those tons of weight hauled on iron wheels rolls over it year after year. It gets denser and tougher over time.

We need physical conditioning.

Even something as simple as whittling sticks into fine tinder or into snare triggers uses muscles in our hands and arms that pecking on keyboards and pushing pencils leaves weak. Most men these days no longer work at trades that builds callouses on their hands. Most of us can easily lift and move 30 or 40 pounds from one spot to another. Shouldering that same weight and walking 5 miles with it is another story altogether. 

Physical conditioning is best done gradually and consistently. Here again is a commitment of time that just doesn’t happen without making it happen.

We also need mental-psychological conditioning.

There are some scenarios that we can never be fully prepared for.

I’ll go to my grave with the belief that it was a cougar that was soft-stepping its way toward my tent at 2:00 in the morning on that mountain in Tennessee a few years ago. I’ve heard a lot of animals walking in the deep dry leaves. But never anything like that. I had no frame of reference in my mind to liken it to. It honestly rattled me. One of the local residents told me later that the big cats had been seen.

Start small. 

First a day hike or two. Build up to doing an overnight and hike out the next morning. Do a few overnights and a few long weekends before you attempt some extended trip. In our day and age 3 nights in the woods is an extended trip for most people. It takes 3 nights to just begin settling in and acclimating to the woods life.

I say it often. Most people view the wilds as some kind of foe that has to be survived. People need to get beyond that mentality and begin seeing nature as an ally to help us get along well come what may.

We put together our kit (tools). We develop a broad range of techniques (skills).  We condition ourselves psychologically and physically (temper).

For what?

So we can survive some possible something?

Sure. Being able to survive come what may is a good thing.

I like to think there is more to it than just being prepared in the event some crisis launches us into a survival situation.

If all we are doing is waiting for a some crisis then what we are doing is missing out on a lot of opportunities right now around and in front of us to get outdoors … do some outdoor adventuring … break with the monotony of modernity … do some reconnecting with nature … and do it all without having to take anything more than what we can carry with us in our kits.

Preparedness and Survivability

I remember the big scare that was supposed to shut the world down in 2000 … Y2K. All the computers were supposed to go belly up at the stroke of midnight as the year 2000 ticked its way into reality.

I think I first learned of the proposed looming disaster in 1997 and got serious about it in 1998.

It worried me some.

Well, more than some. The computer-crash deal certainly sounded like a real possibility.

It worried me enough that I spent an active and focused year getting ready for the grand finale … TEOTWAWKI. It was something that I invested a lot of thought into as well as a fair chunk of money covering all the bases that I could think of including building a pond and putting down a well for a hand pump. Sacks of grain and a hand turned grain mill. I bought canned goods by the case and had a room stacked full of food ready to eat.

Three 5 gallon buckets of open pollinated seed for the garden. Two full. One half full.

Hand tools. I already had all the normal homestead stuff like hoes, shovels, rakes, axes, and forks. I already had a large flock of chickens. 200 hens and 40 roosters. Why so many roosters? I enjoyed listening to them crow. Goats for milk and meat. I did order in a scythe so I could cut hay for my small herd of dairy goats that I milked morning and evening. Seven milkers. By hand. Every day.

There was a half dozen new dome tents stored to house folks that I figured for sure would come wandering in and need something to shelter in. Plenty of gear for hunting and self-defense. Gear for fishing.

It wasn’t difficult discerning and covering the bases. Not with my small farm background and all those years of being a faithful reader of Mother Earth News back in the day before it turned into its modern counterpart. I did not wait up until midnight to see what would happen. It was what it was and it would be what it would be. I admit that I was quite relieved when I got up the next morning and realized that life would continue with all its conveniences.

Did I regret the investment of time, physical effort, and financial resources?

No.

Not one ounce of regret. Not one moment of it. The whole package and process was quite enlightening. It was not only enlightening. It was life changing. It was an introductory course in personal preparedness that caused me to realize just how fragile the whole food, water, and utility supply and demand system is.

There are a lot of factors that figure into this survivability topic. A lot more than can be touched on in a brief article. I doubt a single book could adequately cover the subject.

I think what we are dealing with here is two major categories. (1) Short-term survivability. (2) Long-term survivability.

The short-term (think in increments like 3 days, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, etc.) is fairly easy to prepare for. You simply have to stock up on some supplies. 3 days or a week is no big deal. It’s pretty obvious though that most people around here aren’t ready for a few days of inconvenience. Just let the weatherman start talking about a little tropical blow off the Gulf and the store shelves are emptied. Not only here in the hurricane zone. Happens likewise in the blizzard zone. 30 to 90 days of preparedness (still short-term in the big scheme of things) is a daunting challenge for most people. 

I am of the opinion that 3 to 6 weeks ought to be the minimum level of preparedness for every person in every household. It doesn’t take much of a “natural” disaster to create a 3 to 6 week hardship environment. Water for that length of time might present a problem. That’s a lot of gallons and a lot of weight to store. Here, in our Southern coastal zone, collecting water is not a problem.

Long-term (out there past 90 days and on to whenever and however long) takes some thought and planning. The deal changes considerably when you start thinking in increments of 1 year, 2 years, etc.. There is a lot more to making it long-term than having a well-stocked pantry and a hand cranked can opener. The point will come, regardless of how many cans or bags are stored, when all that will be left is the rusting cans and empty mylar bags. 

Then what?

There are tools and skills for long-term that need to be taken into consideration. These are tools and skills that most modernites are extremely short on … tools that require muscle power rather than electric or gas power. Tools that ultimately assist the living process. Tools that are extremely difficult to manufacture after the fact from raw materials.

Tools and skills … the crux of the matter when it comes to the survivability issues regarding fire, shelter, water, and food.

One of the quaint clichés going around in the woodcraft-bushcraft-survival community is … the more you know the less you need. True enough. It is possible, with the knowledge and skills necessary, to return to the Stone-Age. I do not relish the idea. I’ve got another time-period in mind that I have spent a generous amount of time equipping myself for in my own personal preparedness.

Hello 1700’s.

My mindset, for a good long time now, has been geared around preparedness to be able to live in the 18^th Century. Doing historical reenactments and seriously studying that period are what settled me on the 18^th.  

It started as a hobby. It didn’t take long for me to realize that those folks really had it going on in the realm of self-reliance. Then it became a serious hobby that quickly overhauled and adjusted my thinking about preparedness and self-reliant living. 1700’s. That’s plenty far enough to jump backwards where equipping for long-term survivability is concerned.

The two major categories are affected by an assortment of sub-category variables. Location is one of them … urban, rural, coastal, prairie, woodland, mountains, desert, climate zone. Each one has its challenges. Each one has its offerings. Each one requires attention to its particular nuances and details. Each one can be an ally. Each one can be a foe.

These sub-categories can be further subdivided to address resources and issues regarding them but, like I mentioned, this is a brief article so we’ll leave off with the division where we are.

It is an appropriate saying. I’ve heard it quite a few times over the years and used it a few times myself. I think it fits at the heart and center of any kind of preparation and preparedness. It certainly represents a major aspect of the woodcraft-bushcraft-survival arena.

To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

Short-term or long-term.

Unexpected mishap that places us in a survival situation or a planned adventure in off-grid living.

Think through the possible ramifications ahead of time. 

Acquire the tools and skills needed to encounter the effects of the ramifications before we need them.