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Bear is also a superb climber, having made it to the summit of Mount Everest,505 and he did this after he recovered from breaking his back in three places from a parachute accident. Good for him!
In one episode, he was in Montana, and climbed about 150 feet up a ladder on a railway bridge. At the top he found that there was a protruding cement lip preventing his climb onto the bridge. He threw a chain with some piece of metal fitting on the end over the cement protrudement, which caught. He pulled on it and it held, then he swung out into space and pulled himself up. It was breathtaking 504 Les Stroud, Survive! Essential Skil s and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere - Alive (William Morrow, New York, 2008) p. 86; J. Hunter, “The Worst Bear Gryl s Survival Advice,” December 16, 2015, at www.primalsurvivor.net/worst-bear-gryl s-survival advice/.
505 Bear Gryl s, Two All-Action Adventures (Macmil an, London, 2012).
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television. However, in a genuine survival situation such high-risk movements should never be attempted even if you are an excellent climber, as you can always slip: maybe at that moment you pull a muscle and it goes into spasm? Or a bee decides, in its wisdom, to sting you in the eye. The same can be said about many of Bear’s attempts to quickly get down cliffs (e.g. by swinging over trees) and his journeys into caves to find abandoned items. It is better to take the long way around and be in one piece. He seldom found anything of any value in the caves and entering them was a high risk move.
Caves, like civilizations, do col apse.506
Les Stroud’s Survivorman (2005, 2007-2016), was an earlier excellent TV program, where this Canadian survival expert survived alone in remote locations with no backup crew, no production crew with him and a minimum of gear, apart from the camera equipment.
Apocalypse Man (2010) (History Channel), hosted by former US
marine Rudy Reyes, took survivalism even further, explicitly exploring post-doomsday themes. The program had some good tips about urban apocalypse survival, except it was not explained why one would be in a city at all at such a time, or why no snipers had shot him whilst he was running around in plain daylight. Like Bear Gryl s, there was a climbing episode involving Reyes swinging by a rope over what he said was probably a contaminated river, a high risk move. He also exited a building via an elevator shaft: good tv but crazy for most of us to try in a survival situation where an injury could mean death. As wel , much of the episode involved getting electricity (from a hospital back-up diesel generator), to power a car battery, so that the survivor could meet other survivors, whom he contacted via a cb radio broadcast. Although he mentioned that one should take the precaution of getting to the meet site a day earlier 506 Bear Gryl s, Great Outdoor Adventures (4 Books, London, 2008), Man vs. Wild: Survival Techniques from the Most Dangerous Places on Earth, (Hyperion, New York, 2008), Born Survivor (4 Books, London, 2007), Living Wild: The Ultimate Guide to Scouting and Fieldcraft (4 Books, London, 2011).
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to conduct surveil ance, zmbs may do the same, and either take you out, and any good guys who also come.
Wilderness survival has been exhaustively covered in two broad genres of books. First, there are army/navy/air force survival guilds such as the US Army Survival Manual fm 21-76;507 the Royal Australian Navy , The Survival Manal 508 and the Royal Canadian Air Force Survival Training School, Down but Not Out. 509 This school of thought has flourished into a large number of sas and commando-type books which cover the same basic topics of: the psychology of survival (can-do positive attitude and all that), shelter, water, food and dangerous animals and poisonous plants. These books outline primitive skil s to help one live off the land (or maybe even the sea), including hunting, trapping and fishing. The classic book in the field is John Wiseman’s SAS Survival Handbook. 510 But, more recently there have appeared a number of other superb texts,511 with the sas and Elite Forces Guild series by Chris Mc Nab being particularly good.512 The second genre of wilderness survival is the backwoods, or for Australia, bushman traditions.513 The great American magazine The Backwoodsman (“The Magazine for the 21st Century Frontiersman”) has been published for over 30 years and all of this 507 US Army Survival Manual FM 21-76, at http://www.equipped.org/fm21-76.htm.
508 Royal Australian Navy, The Survival Manual (Navy Office, Canberra, 1968).
509 Royal Canadian Air Force Survival Training School, Down but Not Out (Queen’s Printer, Ottawa, 1970).
510 John Wiseman, SAS Survival Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere (Collins, London, 2009).
511 Barry Davies, The Complete SAS Survival Manual (Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2011); Colin Towel , Survival Handbook in Association with the Royal Marines Commandos (Dorling Kindersley Ltd, London, 2012); Christopher Nyerges, How to Survive Anywhere: A Guide for Urban, Suburban, Rural and Wilderness Environments, 2nd edition (Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, 2014).
512 Chris McNab, SAS and Elite Forces Guide: Wilderness Survival: Military Survival Skil s from the World’s Elite Military Units (Amber Books, London, 2011), SAS and Elite Forces Guide: Prisoner of War Escape and Evasion: How to Survive Behind Enemy Lines from the World’s Elite Military Units (Amber Books, London, 2012), and Chris McNab, SAS and Elite Forces Guide: Preparing to Survive: Being Ready for When Disaster Strikes (Amber Books, London, 2012).
513 Richard Graves, The 10 Bushcraft Books (CreateSpace, 2015).
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wealth and knowledge and wisdom can be purchased on dvd – to be done before “power down.514 There are many informative books515
and websites.516
For example, Bob Holtzman’s Adventure Survival Handbook: How to Stay Alive in the Wild with Just a Blade and Your Wits,517 gives a minimalist approach to wilderness survival showing the importance of a good knife for making shelter and in fire and food preparation.
He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of fixed blades and folders, and plain vs serrated edges. (I prefer a fixed blade plain edge and a serrated edge folder to have the best of both worlds). Holtzman gives a guide to sharpening knives and axes, as well as basic axe use, such as how to fell a tree, climbing, sectioning, splitting and hewing.518
After close to 50 years chopping wood, preparing fire breaks and clearing feral trees on my folk’s Texas ranch and then my own, I prefer a good handsaw to an axe, and even to a chainsaw, especial y on slippery hil sides and in the wet. I don’t agree with the machete school of wood chopping either, for anything beyond a basic campfire. If you need to cut up literal y masses of timber by hand, don’t use an axe, use a biomechanical y superior saw.
A great wilderness survival book from the editors of Stockpiles books is Survival Wisdom and Know-How: Everything to You to Know to Subsist in the Wilderness. 519 This is a large format book with three columns of print per page and ful y adequate line drawings giving 7,845 skil s and instructions on topics including animals, insects 514 See
www.backwoodsmanmag.com.
515 See Michael Pewtherer, Wilderness Survival Handbook: Primitive Skil s for Short-Term Survival and Long-Term Comfort (McGraw-Hil , New York, 2010); Dave Canterbury, Advanced Bushcraft: An Expert Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival (F + W, Avon, 2014).
516 See in general: https://survivalpulse.com/top-50-survival-blogs/.
517 Bob Holtzman, Adventure Survival Handbook: How to Stay Alive in the Wild with Just a Blade and Your Wits (New Burlington Books, London, 2012).
518 On the merits of a relatively thin-bladed knife for camp work (e.g. food preparation) see T. M. Trier, “Choosing an Outdoor Knife,” at http://www4.gvsu.edu/trier/cache/articles/t1/
outdoorknife1.htm.
519 Amy Rost (compiler), Survival Wisdom and Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Subsist in the Wilderness (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, New York, 2007).
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and plants for food; packin
g and cooking food; water; hunting and fishing; fire; shelter traveling on land and water; weather and climate; navigation and first-aid – principal y for a North American and Canadian audience. This book is essential y a wilderness survival encyclopaedia and is a clear “must have,” as is John and Geri McPherson’s Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living,520 which deals with surviving with just your bare hands and what you can scab in the woods. Here you will learn about making primitives tools, working flint and stone, and making wooden bowls and plates and primitive pottery and cordage. The McPherson’s deal with the construction of basic shelters such has learn-tos and wickiups and more complex shelters. I have given this book to my three youngest kids to make up shelters for themselves in the hil s on the farm while I have been scrub-clearing. They did fine in making both summer and winter shelters for themselves, although they got all manner of crap on the book.
Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Living with the Earth 521 and Tony Nesters’ The Modern Hunter-Gatherer,522 also cover wilderness survival fundamentals, such as traps and snares, fire making, shelter construction, bow and arrow making, weaving stone and bone tools, hides and tanning (making buckskin), clay pot making and living simply without the trappings of civilization. These are classic books, well worth obtaining and studying.
Tony Nester in The Modern Hunter-Gatherer has given a very useful dot point list of the bushcraft skil s which a complete survivalist will need to know. They are:
• How to make a fire in any weather (wind, snow, rain,) using modern fire making devices.
520 John McPherson and Geri McPherson, Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living: Surviving with Nothing but Your Bare Hands and What You Find in the Woods (Ulysses Press, Berkeley, CA, 2008).
521 Tom Brown with Brandt Morgan, Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Living with the Earth (Berkley Books, New York, 1984).
522 Tony Nester , The Modern Hunter-Gatherer: A Practical Guide to Living Off the Land (Diamond Greek Press and Ancient Pathways, LLC, Flagstaff, AZ, 2009).
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• Be proficient with a knife, axe and saw.
• How to dress properly and understand the insulative values of different garments and footwear.
• How to handle common backcountry injuries and deal with trauma.
• How to construct natural and improvized survival shelters as well as hogans and cabins for long-term living.
• How to id, harvest, and know, how to use a dozen of the common edible plants of their region.
• How to use medical plants for healing injures and have made an herbal first-aid kit.
• Able to cook delicious (or at least, edible) meals over the campfire using variety of modern and primitive cooking methods.
• id common animal tracks and have ability to follow the trail of a wounded animal.
• Be skilled in hunting small game with a pistol and rifle.
• Able to make primitive deadfal s and snares and successful y procure wild game with them.
• How to skin, clean and process wild game and fish.
• How to preserve meat and fish through smoking and air-drying into jerky.
• Be proficient at primitive methods of fire making such as the bow-drill and hand-dril .
• How to use at least 10 bush knots for lashing.
• Be skilled at navigating with map and compass, gps, and barehanded/celestial methods.
• How to read the clouds and forecast inclement weather up to 72 hours away.
• Make improvised containers for cooking and know how to coal-burn utensils.
• Skilled at basic tailoring for mending gear and clothing.
• How to make improvized hunting weapons such as bows, atlatls, and throwing sticks.
• How to make quickie stone-tools and improvised cutting edges from natural materials.
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• Be proficient at living in the deep snow and extreme cold weather.
• How to sleep well in the wild.523
It is a good, sensible list, especial y the last point about the value of being able to sleep soundly outdoors. But, as a bushman who has living in the driest state on the driest continent on Earth, and the driest parts of West Texas, I would like to add to this list: be proficient at living in the extreme heat and how to find and purify water. Short-term survival methods of finding and obtaining water are well covered in the wilderness survival literature and include dew and rainwater collection, condensation methods using plants, water from plants especial y plant roots, the solar still and improvised distil ation. For both short-term and long-term survival, purification of water is needed to protect human drinkers from waterborne disease caused by parasites, protozoa, bacteria and viruses. Prior filtering of the water will remove large particles of dirt and mud and material that may protect bugs from disinfecting agents. Bleach and tincture of iodine can be used, along with stabilised oxygen products.
Boiling for about one minute at low altitudes, and for several minutes at higher altitudes is a time-proven method of killing waterborne pathogens. Distil ation—boiling water and collecting the steam—is also a way of dealing with salts, chemicals and heavy metals. Solar water disinfection, exposing water in plastic pet bottles to the sun’s uv rays, can be used to kill the organisms causing diarrhoea, including viruses, bacteria and parasites.
Disaster Preparedness, Philosophy
The disaster preparedness literature, primarily manuals and information handouts from government organizations such as fema and emergency services organizations, is of course useful for general emergency preparation. In the disaster preparedness genre, Dr 523 Nester, as above, p. 63.
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Arthur T. Bradley’s Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family 524 is outstanding for its stated purpose of meeting “likely”
threats rather than teotwawki or the zombie apocalypse. Where I disagree is that one of our likely future threats is in fact teotwawki and the zombie apocalypse. Dr Bradley had more recently published Disaster Preparedness for emp Attacks and Solar Storms,525 a truly superb, much-needed book alerting us to this threat and showing how vulnerable modern technological society actual y is to teotwawki and what I call the zombie apocalypse. Consequently, his Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family should not be your only reading in this field, but it is an excellent place to start, because the book is written as if you were with him out in the shed having a few cold beers.
Mathew Stein has published two books, When Technology Fails 526 and When Disaster Strikes. 527 The later book is more in the conventional disaster preparedness genre, definitely an “A” like Bradley’s book and you would do well educating yourself with either .
When Technology Fails through should be given an “A+” because this 439-page book in double columns essential y gives a synthesis of the disaster preparedness and self-reliance, self-sufficiency traditions, the later traditions originating from the “back-to-the-land”
movements of the early 20th century and particularly in the 1960s.
Stein has an engineering background and has hands-on experience with most of the technologies discussed in his book. The basics are covered including fire-starting, food, shelter, water, first-aid, what to do when high tech medicine fails (holistic health, herbs etc., the holistic health section is objected to, predictably enough, by some 524 Dr Arthur T. Bradley, Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family, 2nd edition (The Author, http://disasterpreparer.com/2011).
525 Dr Arthur T. Bradley, Disaster Preparedness for EMP Attacks and Solar Storms, (The Author, http://disasterpreparer.com/).
526 Matthew Stein, When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency, (Revised Edition), (Chelsea Green, White River Junction, 2008).
527 Matthew Stein, When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide for Emergency Planning and Crisis
Survival, (Chelsea Green, White River Junction, 2011).
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on the net), clothing and textiles, heat and energy, metal working, black smithing, utensils and storing, not-so-modern chemistry and engineering, machines and materials. Each chapter concludes with a set of references with a synopsis and a brief discussion of a wide number of topics, such as the selection of sleeping bags which gets one column (but the information is correct as he favors fiber-filled synthetic bags). Obviously, other books mentioned earlier can offer further information. Nevertheless , When Technology Fails is highly recommended because it puts much information between two covers and it does so with the explicit recognition that our present society is unsustainable, and that we are facing a “long emergency.”
I have already mentioned the work of leading US survivalist James Wesley, Rawles on retreats, and his novel Patriots. Patriots may not be great literature, but would be more helpful to a novice survivalist than a work of great literature. The novel is concerned with a group of patriots, who ultimately organise themselves as a militia, who face the socio-economic col apse of America because of crippling US
debt and deficit problems. I won’t spoil the plot. The most interesting read for me were long sections on survival preparations including: a discussion of survival knives and fighting knives, firearms selection, fuel storage, and how to fortify a house. There is a mention of the need for farming, but most of the book deals with the action part of retreatism rather than more monotonous manual labour. The preparation of explosives, Molotov cocktails and thermite use occurs.