The Hunting And Gathering Survival Manual
Page 16
DANDELION
Taraxacum officinale
Native to Europe, the dandelion’s flowers, leaves, and roots are all edible. (See item 113.)
BURDOCK
Arctium minus
Native to Asia, burdock has large, edible roots and leaves. (See item 125.)
PLANTAIN
Plantago major
Native to Europe, plantain has edible leaves that also have medicinal properties. (See item 120.)
CHICORY
Cichorium intybus
Native to Europe, chicory leaves make a great salad and the roots can be used for coffee. (See item 126.)
YARROW
Achillea millefolium
Native to Europe, yarrow leaves can be used to make a tea and several medicines. (See item 182.)
SPEARMINT
Mentha spicata
Native to Europe, spearmint leaves are edible and medicinal.
PURSLANE
Portulaca oleracea
Native to Asia, purslane makes a tasty salad green and pickle. (See item 125.)
CATNIP
Nepeta cataria
Native to Eurasia, catnip is a strong mint that can be used for tea and in medicines.
WATERCRESS
Nasturtium officinale
Native to Europe, watercress leaves and stems make for a delicious salad. (See item 120.)
WILD CARROT
Daucus carota
Native to Europe, this wild edible root is the origin of today’s carrot. (See item 126.)
To truly live wild, you’ll have to combine all of your food-gathering skills and survival techniques and then take them to the next level. Becoming self-reliant requires the same diverse and colorful patchwork of skills that many of our ancestors possessed. Think of this chapter as a living history lesson focused on the value of adaptability.
Like all smart survival strategies, living wild starts off with preparation. Getting lost in the woods is no joke—but whether you’re trying to survive three days or indefinitely, whether you’re adding some wild greens to your balcony or completely getting back to the land, you need to know what it’s going to take.
You can use the information in this chapter to stock a survival pantry, become a gourmet camp cook and fire expert, grow a survival garden to feed your family, preserve your goods for the long haul, and learn to make wild medicines with the natural plants growing all around you. In a survival situation, your fire-building and camping kit will help get you out alive—but to me, these skills go deeper: They’re about quality of life.
I can’t imagine letting February go by without making maple syrup or going without my favorite homemade medicine any time of year. These skills have changed my life—and my way of thinking—for the better, and I hope they do the same for you.
144 SURVIVE THREE DAYS IN THE WILD
Could you make it on your own in the woods for three days? With the wild-food knowledge you’ve gained so far, you’re well on your way. But there’s more to surviving than just staying fed. Here’s what else to consider:
Make sure you understand the survival priorities: shelter, water, fire, and food. You also need to know how to find your way back to civilization—or signal for help if you’re unable to move. You’ll need to maintain your morale, take care of any injuries, and stay safe from harm.
No matter how your wilderness trial (or adventure) unfolds, you will need the skills to turn nothing into something. Follow the priorities of survival as we work our way through an outdoor excursion gone wrong.
START WITH AN ADVANTAGE
A survival kit should be part of your gear no matter what you’re doing outside. This kit can give you the items to provide for your basic needs, and it may even give you the tools (like signaling gear) to get out of your predicament on the first day. Pack the following items in a kit and keep it close.
A space blanket and a large garbage bag, for shelter and catching rain
A metal cup or bowl to boil water for disinfection
A compass to help you find your way and guide you in a straight line
Multiple fire starters: a lighter, waterproof matches, and a ferrocerium rod are good choices
Signal gear: a whistle, for an audible signal day or night; a mirror for a visual signal on sunny days
First-aid gear: a small medical pack can be very handy
A fishing kit: monofilament and hooks, to provide food and help pass the time
GET SHELTER
Your top survival priority the instant you realize you’re lost is shelter. Use the space blanket from your survival kit to stay warm or turn the trash bag into a sleeping bag by filling it with leaves. Build a small (barely bigger than your body), insulated “nest” from materials like sticks, grass, and leaves. If your clothes are inadequate, stuff them with leaves, grasses, or any other material that can trap your body heat.
FIND A DRINK
You’ll need to source some water on the first day, too. Lay a trash bag in a hole to catch water from precipitation and look for natural springs—a common way to get reasonably safe drinking water without any tools or materials. Don’t drink any water without disinfecting it—use your kit’s metal container to boil it, or look for bottles and cans that can be used as boiling vessels.
START A FIRE
You’ll spend most of the second and third days looking for food—when you’re not signaling for help. If you’re unsure about the edible plants, stick to animal foods. Freshwater fish, worms, crickets, and other critters are safe to eat—just cook them thoroughly, in case they have parasites or pathogens. Stay strong and focus on calorie-dense foods like fatty animals, tree nuts, and organ meats.
SCROUNGE A MEAL
By the end of the first day, that fire-starting gear in your survival kit will be worth its weight in gold. But many fire-starting methods can be inadequate in wet or windy weather, so be sure your kit is stocked with some tinder or fuel. Cotton balls, dryer lint, curls of birch bark, and even greasy snacks can help build the flame. Fire is also a great way to signal for help.
KEEP IT POSITIVE
A positive attitude and a generous streak of mental toughness can be literal lifesavers, especially under dire circumstances. The nights are usually the worst time during emergencies: It’s just you and your thoughts. Find little ways to maintain your morale and remain motivated to survive. Think of family, friends, and loved ones, and fight to stay alive—not just for yourself but for them.
SIGNAL FOR HELP
The skill of signaling is your ticket home. The whistle from your survival kit can signal your distress to others, day or night, as long as you have breath to blow it, and a mirror can give you a signal range much farther than the sound of the whistle can carry. Don’t forget about the power of a smoky fire, either.
STAYSAFE
You may face dangers in the wilderness, so arm yourself for survival as best you can. Carry a spear, club, knife, or whatever you can find, in case you need to defend yourself. Consider all of the sources of harm that could befall you, and make plans to avoid becoming one of their victims.
145 FOLLOW THE SIGNS
Water is one of your top survival priorities, but where to find it? Start by walking downhill, looking for natural drainages where water will flow. You can also use vegetation as an indicator, looking for reeds, cattails, sedges, and other aquatic vegetation. Listen, too, for aquatic animals like water birds and bullfrogs, and observe where the big animals are going to quench their thirst. Remember that rain, snow, sleet, hail, and dew can all be potential water sources. Always melt any frozen water source before drinking, and treat it as if it could be contaminated.
146 KILL THE VARMINTS
You can disinfect your drinking water safely and effectively with common household chemicals. Just be aware that this type of chemical disinfection doesn’t remove salt, toxins, or radiation—it just kills the living pathogens that could make you sick. Here are some simple and effective methods for doing this.
TINCTURE OF IODINE Use 5–10 drops of tincture of iodine 2% per quart (1 l) of water. Flush the threads, wipe down the bottle, and allow it to sit in the shade for one hour. Use 5 drops tincture of iodine for clear warm water and up to 10 drops for cold or cloudy water.
POVIDONE IODINE You’ll need 8–16 drops per quart (1 l) of water with povidone iodine. Add 8 drops for pleasant-looking water and 16 drops for swamp water. Clean the bottle threads and then wait an hour, as you would with the other methods.
147 USE A QUALITY FILTER
One of the best investments in survival and outdoor gear is a top-of-the-line water filter. There are many great ones on the market that have a filter element to screen out larger organisms and a disinfecting element to kill smaller biologicals that could try to weasel their way through the filter. Pick a model that can be cleaned in the field, offers a long life and high-filtering capacity (thousands of liters, not hundreds), and has received rave reviews.
148 BUILD A WATER STILL
The most complete disinfection solution is water distillation. When water is heated into steam, the steam can then be captured to create pure water. Distillation won’t remove all possible contaminants, like volatile oils and certain organic compounds, but most heavy particles will stay behind—including radioactive fallout. A quick way to make a steam distiller is by using a pressure canner and some small-diameter copper tubing.
SET IT UP Locate a canner and about 4 feet (1.2 m) of 1/4-inch (6-mm) copper line. Set your canner pot on your stove top, over a camping stove, or over an improvised cinder block fireplace. Fill your canner pot two-thirds full with the questionable water (salt water, muddy water, virtually any water except any tainted by fuels, which evaporate at low temperatures). Screw on the canner lid.
ADD THE COIL Make the coil, also known as the worm, from copper line coiled in a downward spiral. Use a stick or some other support for the coil to avoid stress on the joint at the canner’s steam vent. Ream out one end of the copper tubing and force it down over the steam fitting on top of the canner lid if it’s smaller than the steam vent. Compress the line if it is bigger than the vent. Tie this joint with rags or dope it with a paste of flour and water once everything is in position.
BURN THE FLAME Whether a stove or a campfire powers your still, you’ll have to play with the size of the fire for best results. If you run it too hot, you’ll just blow steam out the coil. If you run it too cool, nothing will happen. Start out with a small amount of heat and work up if needed. Once the pot gets close to boiling, water should start to pour out of the coil. The surrounding air will cool the copper, and the steam will condense into distilled, drinkable water.
149 FIRE IT UP
Boiling your water kills 100 percent of unwelcome living organisms—it’s not fancy, but it works. Make sure you have a heat-safe receptacle; place glass bottles on the edge of the fire to avoid breakage, and never use galvanized metal. Let it boil for ten full minutes, starting your count when the first big bubbles jump to the water’s surface.
150 LIGHT YOUR FIRE
Fire is one of the most versatile forces that humans have ever harnessed and a vital part of survival. Don’t forget to learn the old- school skills of fire building; you may not always have a lighter on hand, and you may need your flame to last. Study how to make fire in the worst weather, harsh conditions, and with unusual materials so you don’t get caught in the cold.
151 SELECT THE RIGHT TINDER
Your first step in fire building is finding natural tinder—the dead, dry, plant-based materials that can turn a coal, spark, or small flame into fire. Tinder and an ignition source are the foundations of fire making, and all of the tinder used should have several things in common.
DEAD Tinder should be dead but not rotten plant-based materials. Rotten plants usually lose much of their fuel value as they decompose, and though there are always exceptions, you should concentrate on the dead stuff.
DRY It should be as dry as possible. In rainy weather this may mean finding a few scraps at a time, even one leaf at a time, and keeping that tinder dry while you search for more.
FLUFFY It should be light, airy, and have a lot of surface area for its mass. In other words, it needs to be fluffy. Materials that are not fluffy should be processed in some way to increase their surface area so they can reach their combustion temperature as quickly as possible.
152 KNOW YOUR SOURCES
The following are just a few of the many sources of tinder that you can find in the outdoors. Use them individually or blend them together for even better results.
TINDER MATERIALS
Grasses
Ferns
Evergreen needles
Tree leaves
Fibrous inner tree bark
Weed tops and seed down
Fine wood shavings
Coconut and palm fiber
153 STOCK UP ON KINDLING
Kindling, obtained from dead twigs and vines, wood splinters, and bark, feeds the flames sparked with tinder and provides the heat to burn fire-wood. Here’s what to keep in mind.
DRYNESS Like tinder, kindling should be as dry as possible.
VARIETY Collect plenty of different sizes—everything from the bits that look like pieces of wire to the twigs and branches that could almost be considered firewood.
VOLUME It is very important to pack the kindling pieces tightly together. Most dry-weather fire-making failures are due to failing in this regard, so gather a lot.
154 BUILD A TEEPEE
The teepee shape is a perfect architectural style for setting up your fire. It can be set up one stick at a time (laborious) or formed into a cone as you collect the materials (easier!).
Place a slab of dead bark on the ground if conditions are really wet; otherwise, just use a good foundation of tinder to buffer your fire from dampness and cold. Use a lot more kindling than you think necessary, and remember that a good length for the slender pieces is around 10 inches (25 cm).
Light the teepee on the side that any breeze is coming from, to feed air in and drive the fire into the fuel. Light the tinder with whatever fire-starting method you have available, and the rest will soon be aflame.
155 FEEL THE SPARK
There are dozens of methods you can use to spark your fire, but as in so many things in life, the tried-and-true ways are the best.
A butane lighter is generally your best bet, as it will ignite any flammable materials. Matches aren’t bad, either, though you only get a few dozen in a box and they are vulnerable to moisture. Ferrocerium rods (spark rods) are a durable choice, but they won’t light all materials equally easily.
You can also learn and practice friction fire building skills, though these can be very tricky in wet weather or if you’re injured.
My top recommendation is to carry several butane lighters. That way, you’ll be prepared even if you lose one—or two.
156 PICK THE RIGHT SPOT
Choosing a location for your fire is a very important fire skill, not only to make the most of the fire’s heat and light but also for safety. Pick a spot that is at least 14 feet (4 m) away from your shelter, and make sure it is downwind, as drifting sparks can create a hazard. Try to set up in a place out of the wind, while avoiding the natural fire hazards of dried grasses and brush. Don’t build fires next to rotten stumps or dead trees, either—the rotten wood or roots can smolder for a long time, starting a forest fire days later.
157 CHEAT A LITTLE
Don’t be too proud or too much of a purist
to accept a few “cheats” when it comes to fire building. Cotton balls smeared with petroleum jelly are an excellent form of fire-starting insurance, should you get caught in some bad weather. Dryer lint is another helpful item from home. You can use a candle nub to light a fire, or drip wax all over damp tinder to give it a boost. Even corn chips will work in a pinch. Nature has some helpful items, too. Birch bark and fatwood (pine so full of pitch that it cannot rot) will burn even when soaking wet.
158 COOK LIKE A CHAMP IN CAMP
Even if you’re not a pro chef at home, you can cook some phenomenal meals out in the woods. Some of the best food I have ever eaten has been prepared simply and cooked over an open fire—by far the fastest and most direct way to cook solid foods.