The Basic Wilderness Living Skills
This page is more about longer-term wilderness living skills. For short-term wilderness survival skills (such as you would need if you got lost in the wilderness), see Survival Essentials: How To Survive In The Wilderness.
My own focus for the year is in four categories: Fire, cordage,
plant food and animal food. Of these, plant food and animal food are
the highest priority—since it would be possible to carry factory-made
firelighting tools and cordage (and other basic tools such as
knives). In the animal food category, traps are the highest priority,
since
all the survival experts say that trapping is by far the easiest
and most efficient way to acquire animal food.
I have left out water, since in the area where
I live it is very easy to find water. It
would be good to know some of the basics of finding water though,
if you do not already. I have left out shelter, since I think
it
would
be possible to make
some
kind
of
shelter
without a lot of knowledge. I think I could figure out the essentials
of shelter if I really needed to, and more than that can be learned
later.
The following is taken from "Naked Into the Wilderness 2" -
Primitive Wilderness Skills, Applied & Advanced, by John and Geri
McPherson, pages 199-205. Note that the first volume of "Naked Into the
Wilderness" is one of my Top Two Essential
Wilderness Survival Books.
The second volume is currently (at the time of writing this) out of
print. I have placed a link to it at Amazon.com
on the right of
this
page, where
you can see the best available second hand price for it. If you can
find it at a similar price to what it was worth new (about $25USD), it
would
definitely be worth getting, (although I would recommend other books
ahead of it as a third essential book to get).
Note that I personally would add (at least some basic knowledge of)
plants to the list of essential skills.
So, what about the skills? Well, we consider that there
are five basic skills that one needs as a pool. All other skills derive
from these.
1) Fire, 2) cordage, 3) traps, 4) tools, and 5)
shelters. Fire not only comforts but is a
tool. Cordage is vital
in many projects including many traps which is what will be
feeding you.
Tools, most notably
a sharp cutting edge of stone, are required for just about all projects.
Shelter will protect you from the elements.
If you were to use the term survival, these are the basics
to have down. Being proficient in these can save your life. The basics.
Most other skills or projects require the use of one or more of these.
So, if one desires to be a well rounded all American aboriginal, this
is where to begin. Get a good grasp of the basic wilderness survival skills.
If someday, for whatever reason, you were to want to place
yourself in a long term primitive living situation, they you would certainly
want to add to this list. Tanning, pottery, bows (& arrows), more & better
methods of food procurement, containers (& more containers), cooking
skills, navigation, biology, geology. The list is long. Of skills,
This is what I want to stress. Skills.
Face it, if you can't stay alive, there's nothing to live
for. And what will keep you alive are the basic skills mentioned earlier.
To live comfortably, the advanced [tanning, pottery, etc.] living
skills come into play.
Of the number of people whom we've come into contact with
over the years in this field (many thousands), in our opinion, only a
very small handful would qualify as being capable of actually heading
"naked into the wilderness" with any chance at all of surviving even
the first week, much less any extended period of living.
A handful out of thousands...... Why?
Well, it's because there's just too much emphasis placed
on what we refer to as woo-woo.
Head to any primitive gathering. Look at many books
on the subject. Encounter just about any man on the street who is into
primitive life-styles. Where do you find the majority of people and time
spent? On basic non-essentials.
Much past experience has shown us that as a general rule,
the more fluting, drumming, chanting and storytelling one is involved
in, the less one knows about the actual living skills......
Paint and beads may look pretty but they won't fill your belly.
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