On Surviving Alone in the Wild

On every forum remotely outdoors related, invariably, like clockwork, someone shows up to ask about going off to live by themselves in the woods. And, invariably the spectre of Dick Proenekke is brought up. How awesome it would be to do what he did. One forum I go to has a kid who I suspect isn’t entirely right in the head, who has asked a question along these lines once every 4 months, for years. 



I feel compelled to shout that this is a romantic notion, not very well grounded in reality. Mr. Proenneke was an exception. He was exceptionally skilled in a whole host of areas, had worked towards his goal for decades and saved, and had a support network in place. He grew up on a hard scrabble depression era farm where he had to do all the things he needed to do to survive. And I suspect he was also a realist. Don’t get me wrong. I admire the man immensely, and look enviously upon what he did. But I also grasp that I, with my life experiences, would likely be at a disadvantage trying to emulate his achievements. And I think that I am at an advantage compared to some people I read blathering on about heading into the woods to do what he did.



The early peoples who populated this planet, did it because they worked together in groups. In nearly every tribe, for time immemorial, they shared the workload as a community. The notion of the lone wolf, the rugged individualist using his wits to survive against nature, is just so much fanciful nonsense. Hunter-gatherers lived as part of a tribal unit. They had a social support network. People may have gone off to hunt or check the trap lines or forage by themselves, but they had a familial/tribal  support network that was doing the gathering, gardening, mending, sewing, tanning, tool making, etc., etc., etc. That’s why there was such an importance placed on having lots of kids. More hands to do the necessary chores around camp. Anyone that did live by themselves without benefit of that support, was invariably someone who had been banished. It was essentially a death sentence. 

I lived by my self for three years in an isolated hunt camp in northern Ontario. It was the hardest thing I have ever done - bar none. I had to fix structures, repair roads, prepare meals, bake bread, tend gardens, look after animals, do laundry, mend things, can, cut trees, chop wood, etc., etc., etc., etc. - pretty much entirely by myself. It was absolutely exhausting. And I had people who came up to help me once every two weeks or so, so I had some help at least. And I had running hot and cold water and electricity! Unless you have done this, alone, in less than ideal conditions, with primitive tools, you have absolutely no comprehension of how staggeringly difficult a task this is. Now imagine that scenario if you are really sick or injured.

A lot of the early mountain men dropped dead around forty or so. Not from disease or starvation, but just from having worked themselves into the ground. They were spent by middle age from the rigours of trying to do it all themselves. Tending horses, hunting, drying meat, fishing, running trap lines, gathering wood, building structures, making, mending and washing clothes, etc., etc., - quite often by themselves. While most of them worked in brigades, offering some form of support, largely they were on their own for long stretches of time.

Sorry to burst anyones bubble, but this is a  delusional pipe dream for the vast majority of people, that I know won’t end well. I have absolutely no illusions at all as to the feasibility of living by myself, far from anyone with no support network. And all those prerequisite tasks require skills, mastered skills, not fumbling to learn them along the way. I’ve been roaming around in the wilds for 30+ years. Hiking, camping, canoeing, hunting, practicing survival skills. I think I’m reasonably fit, well equipped, and I think most would consider me quite competent. But I don’t even remotely think that trying to survive on my own is at all feasible. 

I thought there was a guy in Norway doing it. I had seen his blog a few times. Looked him up. Whoops.

This whole concept of “self-sufficiency” is one often touted in the whole outdoorsy/survival/preparedness world. Sure, it’s admirable and frankly fun to learn as many skills as possible, and becoming really good at them even more so. Some people might look at me and think it’s really something that I can make a lot of my own stuff. It’s fun, and I’m proud of what I’ve created. But I have no idea where I would be if someone else hadn’t made the fabric I had. I haven’t learned how to weave. Not that I don’t want to learn, but time and cost prevent me from delving headlong into that pursuit. So I am reliant on someone else for the material I need. Thread. So simple, yet try making your own some time. Needles. I would be screwed if I had to try and mine the metal, process it and then try to create something as mundane, yet as complex as a needle. Again, I am reliant on someone else’s expertise to help me do the things I need and want to do. We are ultimately a social species, reliant on the skills and resources that others have specialized in. Each member of a society has a role to play. This was as true ten thousand years ago as it is today. No one person can possibly hope to do it all by themselves for very long.

And this whole idea of living in the woods by one self really gets tipped on its head when winter rolls in. The caloric requirements to survive in winter, rise steeply over those in summer. Just to sit still in camp would require between 3 to 8 pounds of meat a day, depending on the species. If you didn’t have dozens of kids spending weeks and months in good weather collecting fire wood, you had to/have to do it yourself - in winter. Which burns calories. potentially thousands. Which would require more meat. If you didn’t have time to hunt and process enough meat to get you through the winter during the warm months, you need to go hunting. Which means more burned calories, which means even more meat. Having to process that kill and transport it back to your camp burns even more calories, requiring yet more meat. You may have to move camp to find game. Which burns even more calories. More meat. Trying to survive for long in winter, alone, is a death sentence. Before long the individual will go into a calorie deficiency. Sure, you can burn body fat for a little while, but a hunting gathering lifestyle works against storing much body fat. With a group to spread out the work load, more food can be gathered and preserved, more skins can be processed for warmth, more firewood can be gathered, etc.

The idea of anyone who has spent most of their life in a city, walking off into the wilderness, alone, with everything they think they’ll need on their back, with no definitive means of resupply, and most importantly, if they have little to no experience......is fooling them-self.

Hipster Bushcraft

I’ve recently begun to notice what I can only describe as “hipster bushcraft”. It’s the outdoorsy equivalent of chocolates or bath products or sea salt being sold at ludicrously high prices because it has a fancy label.

Came across a company yesterday called Bush Smarts. They seem to like red a lot. It’s their motif.

I’ll grant them that they have a clever little device for storing your bear bag line that doubles as a throwing device and has a line clip. $85. I’ll let you decide if it’s worth it or not.

I’ll concede they have wool base layers (in red of course) (long john bottoms, and tops, T-shirt, boxers) that are a decent price, comparable to similar products on the market.

And they sell a crooked knife with a good cover for the blade at what seems like a fair price.

But some of their stuff is just outrageous.

$20 for some birchbark? Sure it comes in a tin, but is that tin very different from ones that cough candies or the like come in? I can find as much birchbark as I want for free whenever I go for a hike.

$30 for a Nalgene water jug? Amazon has the same thing for half the price. Your logo on it adds double the value?

$15 for 10 6" zip ties? Because they’re red? I can buy an entire container of hundreds of various coloured zip ties for less than that. Oh, but in every colour but red....

$15 for 50 feet of red paracord? I can buy a 100 feet of red paracord for $7. Double for half the price.

$30 for a pair of red boot laces? I can use that 100 feet of red paracord I just bought, make boot laces for all my friends, and still have enough money left over for several other colours of paracord.

$40 for 4 titanium tent pegs? Sure, it comes with a little leather cover for the tips, but that isn’t so hard to fashion yourself. Given that I can buy 10 of the same titanium tent pegs for that price, I’ll just spend ten minutes fashioning something out of some scrap leather or ballistic nylon.

Seriously?

They even sell an “insta-beard”. Jeebus. I can just envision the sort of ironic hipster that would wear that.

There is another company here in Canada called Base Camp X that sells axes. They don’t actually make axes mind you. They merely come up with a comforting narrative to enshroud other people’s work in. They sell (the now apparently out of business) Snow & Nealley and Tautahi axes, where they’ve added a paint job to the handle and then sell them for very inflated prices. $75 for a double bit S&N axe at a company that deals with forestry supplies, versus $315 for the same axe at BCX. You can get a Tautahi work axe from them for about $200 to $225, versus the $445 for the same axe at BCX. That’s a lot of money for a paint job.

Come on.

I certainly don’t mind paying for quality. I have and I will. But exorbitant prices for average stuff that has a cute label or a fancy story attached? Get lost. This stuff seems to appeal to a bourgeois demographic possessing more money than sense. It all seems like a desperate attempt at “authenticity”. Doesn’t matter that you have a physique like Olive Oyl and live in an absurdly over priced urban loft. Buy one of these bedazzled, absurdly over priced axes, hang it on your wall and you too can pretend to be a lumberjack.

I’m a proponent of the free market economy. I guess if people are willing to buy your package of boutique label sugar and colour and flavour at a ludicrous price, over the generic brand of Kool-Aid™, hey good on ya. If you can make a successful go at running an artisanal pickle shop, more power to you. If people are willing to pay a premium for what they could easily do themselves, right on. But you’ll have to excuse me for snickering in derision at your effrontery, and the suckers who buy into your marketing over substance.

Ray Mears’ The Twelve Woodlores

From Ray Mears’ 1990 Survival Handbook

1. Don’t challenge nature, challenge yourself:
Occasionally you will hear people talking about beating the elements by conquering a mountain or crossing an ice cap or some such brave deed. The truth is that the challenge is internal. Have you the skill? Can you overcome your fear? No one can beat the elements; all those that fail to heed the warning signs or have the stupidity to press ahead regardless, die. Instead of taking unnecessary risks challenge yourself to know when to turn back; learn to be more skillful; above all challenge yourself to better understand the way nature works.

2. If you’re roughing it, you’re doing something wrong:
Any fool can be uncomfortable, you gain no points for carrying a heavy backpack, or for any deeds of self-imposed endurance. While you may train for an expedition by roughing it, if there is a way of making yourself more comfortable, without the effort becoming a disadvantage, do so. In emergency situations in particular, just a small amount of hardship can prove to be fatal once your level of morale has dropped.

3. Always give 100% effort the first time:
Whether shelter building, fire-lighting, or whatever, if you don’t set about it in the right way the first time you are wasting your energy and will simply have to start from scratch again.

4. Aim to achieve maximum efficiency for minimum effort:
To work you need energy; for energy you need food. In the outdoors finding food is work. When you gather your firewood for your fire do you carry large armfuls to the log pile or do you only fill your hands?

5. Never pass by an opportunity:
This is very important. As you travel along, should you find suitable water, food or fire-lighting materials, gather them as you pass since you may not have the opportunity later when they are needed. This is particularly true of fire building materials whereby the end of a day’s travel it may be raining or have rained earlier soaking the available tinder. Many of my old shirts and jackets have birch bark pieces in the pockets that I gathered some years ago now.

6. As far as you can, adapt your expectations to a level which you can meet given the circumstances:
If you cannot build a large comfortable shelter, be satisfied with a small shelter. If there is not a wide variety of wild foods available to you, be grateful for the one type you can eat. Make your psychology work for you. Be realistic - make yourself comfortable but do not over-work yourself to achieve this: it’s no use building a palatial shelter if you then collapse with exhaustion inside it. But also do not underestimate what you can achieve.

7. Only eat that which you have positively identified as edible:
Do not trust taste tests or in any way experiment with unfamiliar plants or other materials for use as food. The only real way to eat in safety and confidence is to learn what can be eaten and just how to prepare the food before you set out. If this seems like hard work you should not be eating wild foods.

8. Suspect all water as being infected:
Even the cleanest, coolest most alluring water may well be contaminated; you cannot tell at a glance. Boil or purify all water - check in particular for signs of chemical pollution, this may be concentrated by boiling!

9. The state of your fire is directly proportionate to your level of morale:
Whatever your level of morale, if you can light a fire it will be raised, but if you fail it will plummet like a stone. If you are not confident of your ability to light a fire in the rain it may well be better to wait until the rain stops before trying.

10. Whenever gathering your resources use natural selection as your guide, this is the ‘way’ of nature:
Leave the strong, harvest the weak; when gathering food you should always leave a proportion of healthy plants, shellfish or whatever to continue the line. By this lore stronger healthy creatures will have the best chances for survival and thereby proliferate in the future.

11. Take only memories leave only footprints:
Wherever possible minimize your impact upon the natural environment, and always aim to leave a campsite in a better state then you found it.

12. Be fit, able to swim and do not give in:
Every single skill or technique which follows is easier to learn and master if you are fit. The outdoors is filled with risks and the danger of unpredictable circumstances. Your fitness may well be your last line of defense in such circumstances.

Bush Buddy

On a few different trips recently, I opted to take my BushBuddy rather than one of the usual alcohol stove set ups I use. I knew it was going to be cold, and I knew I wanted to have an actual fire to help stay warm.

Besides its obvious utility as a means of boiling water and cooking food, it’s also a nice self contained fire box.

The pot looks a bit unbalanced, but it’s actually balanced better with it off to the side a little bit given the slight slope of the terrain.

In front of the wikiup. I know it looks precarious, but it really did feel more securely balanced off to the side a bit.

Cupatea.

I was using the knife to split small pieces of wood even smaller. Only twigs and very thin branches are needed to fuel it. It does require almost constant attention though, and a very steady feeding of wood. Which has to be done very gingerly as the slot is small, has flames licking out, and a pot of hot water sits there.

As much as I like alcohol stoves for the convenience on a hike of known duration, not to mention the lack of noise and smell, and lack of sooty pots, a wood stove has the edge when the trip will last an unknown length of time, warmth is needed, water needs to be boiled for bathing, etc. In addition to that, there is something so awe inspiring about a fire. Sadly, I live in a modern city, and a fire is something I get to enjoy very, very rarely. For millennia, a fire was a daily occurrence for almost everyone. Now, our use of an actual fire has been drastically curtailed. Yes, yes, it probably is safer not to have fires in densely packed cities. But I think it’s fair to say, we would never have gotten to the point of even having cities, let alone be able to worry about the safety of the issue, without having attained mastery of fire. I think that connection with fire is so utterly primal, and not experiencing it on a daily basis leaves a void in our psyche, whether we realize it or not. I somehow feel amazingly “right” when I’m sitting next to a fire.

Night in a wikiup

I cobbled this wikiup together a few years back, and it’s still standing. Decided to go and spend a night in it. Spent a lot of hours gathering up bags of leaves to build up the walls. (Not necessarily something that anyone would carry with them, but if anyone ever decides to build one of these for fun, close to home on their property, a leaf rake would be a hugely helpful tool to have. One of those hoops with a handle to hold plastic bags open as well.)

That’s about as far as I got before dark. It would have to do. It really needed two, three times the load of leaves I managed to gather.

I would ordinarily have made a shelter much smaller than this. I opted to work with this framework since it was already standing. It had been a long time since I had built a debris shelter, and I guess I forgot how much work gathering up the leaves required to cover a shelter this size was.

I guess I should have thought to move my stuff out of the way before snapping a photo of the interior. Whoops.

I had good insulation with me, good underpad, layers to wear, but it was still a chilly night. For one person, for sleeping, a shelter this size is probably too big. But if you’re in an area for a length of time, a shelter like this might make sense as a living/working area.

Wikiup

This is a wikiup I built a few years ago. Leaves piled up as high and thick as possible up the sides, ultimately make it a pretty comfortable shelter.