Other Survival

More on Preppers

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:10:50 -0400

by David E. Petzal

If you’d really like to depress yourself some evening, watch “Doomsday Preppers” on the National Geographic Channel. The show details the plans of normal, well adjusted people to cope with the aftermath of fiscal collapse, nuclear holocaust, the eruption of Yellowstone, solar flares, and so on.

The New York Times noted with outrage that many of these people were accumulating guns and ammunition in order to defend their 1,500 pounds of MREs and dried brown rice, but stockpiling guns is fine with me. My concern is that most of them seem pretty inexpert with guns. One prepper was counting on a Ruger Number One single-shot which, despite its many splendid qualities, is not what you’d pick to blast the mob at your door. Another managed to shoot off several fingers during a practice session. Yet a third, a resident of the Oligarchy of Bloomberg, took lessons in knife fighting because he was unable to get a gun, ignoring the fact that everyone in the Oligarchy of Bloomberg who wants a gun has one, or several, and when the pistol-waving mob comes to this fellow’s apartment I don’t think that he and his knife will last long.

A dose of reality was interjected into prepping recently when a resident of Washington State, one Peter Keller, shot his wife and daughter to death and then retreated to a heavily fortified bunker which he had spent 8 years digging into a hillside in the woods. The cops found his hole and waited him out. Then, after a 22-hour standoff, they brought in a breeching team and blew the door off his dugout. Inside were copious guns, ammo, body armor, and everything else a good prepper should accumulate. There was also the body of an apparent suicide whom the police believe is Mr. Keller. There went 8 years’ hard work in the time it took a couple of blocks of C-4 to go off.

I have nothing against prepping. I think a certain degree of preparedness is not only worthwhile, but necessary. Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, ice storms, and Congress are facts of life that are all too real, and we must be able to deal with the havoc they wreak.

But if you have visions of accumulating tons of .223 ammo and dried corn and toughing it out by yourself after Life as We Know It ceases to exist, I suggest you watch a film called Threads, which was made by the BBC in 1984, and shows what life after a nuclear attack is bound to be like. You will not want to be around after the Big One arrives, your 5,000 rounds of 9mm ammo and food dehydrator notwithstanding.

Hunting, Fishing, and Camping Tips from Field & Stream Readers

Online Editors — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:08:57 -0400

Some of the best hunting and fishing tips that appear in Field & Stream every month don't come from the editors or writers at the magazine. They come from you, the readers. We get so many good tip submissions, in fact, that it's sometimes tough to select the winners for our "Reader Tips" section. But there were never any doubts about the tips in this gallery.

If you have a good Reader Tip for the magazine, e-mail it to fsletters@bonniercorp.com, or post it on The Tip Board. If it appears in the magazine, we'll send you some great outdoor gear—free!

How To Avoid Freezing to Death by Finding Dry Firewood

Online Editors — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:10:09 -0500

Shortly after I moved to Montana, two local elk hunters froze to death in a snowstorm. The drainage was a place I’d hunted only days before, and the tragedy registered so deeply in my psyche that for years I avoided the area. Today, the ill-fated trip floods back to me in a series of images: two hunters, stumbling lost through a forest; friends, overcome by panic, splitting up in the dark; two human figures, curled dead on a cold breast of snow.

It’s a story that is repeated with minor variations every year, and searchers commonly discover spent matches and charred sticks where the hunters, hikers, or fishermen failed to build a fire big enough to keep body with soul. The failing is seldom one of neglect; most of us pack fire--sparking tools and tinder. Rather, it is being unable to find dry wood to feed a flame in wet weather. The irony is that it is within sight, and that those two Montana elk hunters would be alive today if they had only known to look up.

Find the Fuel
In any forest, the driest wood is the dead underlimbs of green trees, the insides of standing dead trees, and fallen trunks propped on logs, safe from earth rot. If you happen to be stranded where there are lots of the first, you are lucky indeed. Otherwise, your job is to render finger- to wrist-thick kindling “splits” from a trunk’s core, the darkly colored heartwood that is most resistant to rot.

How quickly you accomplish the task depends upon the tools at hand. By far the best for felling a tree, blocking the trunk into 20-inch sections, and then splitting those blocks, is an ax. One whose handle fits under your armpit when you hold the head in your hand is a good compromise length to strap to your pack, and in my opinion the most versatile of all survival tools. Know your ax and you ought to be able to drop a pine snag, block it, and get a fire roaring within 40 minutes.

Use Your Knife
But what if, like many hunters, all you carry is a knife? You can still save your butt if you know how to make wood wedges. To shape a wedge, place the edge of the knife at an angle against a log or broken limb and pound on the spine with a heavy stick. Your goal is to slice off a piece of wood that is roughly the shape of a small ax head, 1⁄2 inch or more wide at the top, tapering to a sharp edge.

Because you cannot make blocks with a knife, you’ll have to crack off sections of dead tree trunks or limbs and split them lengthwise. Most downfall has natural crack lines. Insert the wedge in a crack and pound on it with a stout stick. Things will go a lot faster if you insert several wedges a few inches apart along the crack line and pound alternately on them. Once you’ve split off a piece of wood, you can pound on the wedges or the back of your knife to crack that piece into splits. Don’t try to split the block in half each time, but work from the outside in, cleaving off smaller splits from the edges.

Save Your Life
Once you have a good bundle of splits, clear an area of snow, lay down your tinder, and start a tepee fire from the splits. Keep adding wood until the fire has dried the ground beneath and is hot enough to start burning wet and green logs. Only after that can you rest assured that, by looking toward Heaven for the source of your salvation, you’ve managed to stay out of Hell at least one more day.

British Outdoorsman Attempting 1-Year Survival Challenge Found Dead in Scotland

Sarah Smith — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:53:55 -0500

--Chad Love

A British survival enthusiast attempting to live off the land for a full year was recently found dead in Scotland.

From this story in the (UK) Daily Mail (hat tip to the Southern Rockies Nature Blog for the find):

A man found dead in a remote mountain hut was an adventurer who had planned a year-long Bear Grylls-style survival challenge in the Scottish wilderness. David Austin, 29, from Derby, was found dead in a 'bothy' by a track worker near Corrour, a remote railway station in Highland Perthshire, on December 31 at 9.50am. His body is believed to have been lying there for several weeks when it was discovered. A post-mortem found there were no suspicious circumstances behind his death, which is understood to have been as a result of hypothermia.

In November, Mr Austin had told his family he was heading north to live rough off the land - something for which survival expert Bear Grylls has become famous. He is believed to have attended several courses in outdoor survival and bushcraft skills over the past couple of years in order to realise his dream, despite being urged by family and friends to reconsider his plans. It is thought Mr Austin had not even taken a mobile phone with him, leaving him entirely at the mercy of the harsh winter. A number of personal possessions including a knife and a daily journal were found next to his body.

We all like to think we're consummate outdoorsmen and that we'd survive where less experienced others wouldn't, but are we really? Putting aside the question of whether this was a smart thing to do in the first place, do you think you'd fare any better in the same situation?

Jim Baird’s Arctic Adventure: Calculating Weight vs. Mileage

Sarah Smith — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:17:06 -0400

It’s the Big Question: How much gas do we need? Too much gas is definitely better than to little gas—to a point. If you carry way too much, you will stress your machine and you are more likely to run into mechanical problems. Good jerry cans are key, or you may have to deal with spillages and leaks, which will definitely knock back the miles you travel. At the end of the day you will have to narrow it down as much as possible until you have to make an educated guess.

The main reason I was successful at bringing the right amount of gas was because I did not just ask the Big Question to myself—I asked everybody I met who had traveled part of the route. How much gas did you bring? If there is a precise equation to figure this out, I don’t know it. Besides, I doubt it would be very accurate. There are just too many variables that affect your gas mileage.

Here are some things to mull over before you have an answer to the Big Question.

• Call the manufacturer to get the exact gas mileage of your machine.

• Is your machine new? New machines burn more gas.

• How much weight are you towing? The more weight you pull, the more fuel you burn.

• What king of country are you travelling through? The flatter the country you are traveling, the less gas you’ll burn.

• Are you using a two stroke or a four stroke?

• How tough will this area be to navigate? Will you travel off your route for a length of time or have to choose a longer route if you find your initial one is unsafe?

• How fast are you planning on going? The slower you go, the less gas you burn.

• Ask people who have traveled your route or parts of it about their experience with mileage—how much weight they had, how fast they drove, how much gas they burned.

• Bring some communication equipment in case you run out. You never know what may happen, you could loose your toboggan or travel the wrong way a couple of times.

Jim Baird's Arctic Adventure: Keeping an Eye on Your Buddy

Sarah Smith — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:18:02 -0400

We were making good time over the hard-packed drifts on Great Bear lake . I had to focus all my attention on the drifts I was hitting; I got air on a few of them. Meanwhile, Ted’s toboggan lashing had broken and needed to be retied so he stopped. He watched me ride into the distance and disappear. We got split up another time on the trip, too: Ted said he was going to drive over land. I said I was going to follow the coast. We both took off thinking the other one was following. It was pretty scary. With the muffling effects of the helmet, combined with the noise of the machine, and howling winds, it’s tough to hear a word anyone says. There are a few key things you can do to avoid getting split up and steps to insure that you will reunite if you do.

Plan. Part of the stress of being separated is wondering what the other person would do. Are they going to the finishing point? Would they have gone back to last night’s camp? Are they driving around aimlessly looking for me? If you start out with a solid plan your worries become far less.

Communicate. I didn’t carry walk-e-talkies on this trip, but I will on the next one. This can be all it takes to very easily find each other especially if you both have a GPS device. Yell. No one can hear you over the noise of the machine, you have turn the machines off or scream.

Signal. Go over some hand signals. You don’t have to learn sign language or signal like a baseball coach—just a few basic signals like a water skier uses will go a very long way and will be easier on your voicebox.

Follow the route. Before you start the trip make sure you’re both on the same page. If you do get separated you should be able to follow your trail back to the point where you split up and then begin following your buddies trail until you find him. If both of you are doing this you will be reunited faster.

Know the destination. Whether you have walk-e-talkies or not, both people should know where the final destination for that day is. It would also help if you have a rendezvous spot picked out half way to meet at incase you get separated. Make sure you both know where to meet if you get separated.

Turn around. As you travel, look over your shoulder every few minutes. You have to stand up and rotate your body to see behind you, which is kind of annoying, but it’s an important safety measure. If your buddy is far behind wait up a bit. Everyone will be safer if you stay closer together.

Navigate. Carry a GPS, map, and compass in both machines. This way if you get separated, you’ll both have the means to navigate confidently.

Search Continues for 7 Missing Americans in Mexico Boating Accident

Online Editors — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:14:42 -0400

--Chad Love

U.S. and Mexican authorities are still searching for survivors after a chartered fishing boat carrying 44 passengers and crew capsized after being caught in a storm off the coast of Mexico.

From this story on ABC News:
The U.S. Coast Guard and Mexican Navy are scouring the Sea of Cortez by boat and helicopter in a continuing effort to locate the seven U.S. tourists still missing after the sinking of a charter boat off the coast of Mexico Sunday. One U.S. tourist died. The Coast Guard will be using a larger aircraft in its search today that is capable of covering greater distances, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Pamela Boehland said. The Coast Guard expects to be up in the air over the Sea of Cortez around 10:30 a.m. PT. The Mexican Navy is expected to deploy the same two helicopters it has been using.

Seven Americans are still missing, according to Mexican officials. The identity of the dead man has yet to be released. The boat, carrying a total of 44 passengers and crew, capsized when it was hit by two giant waves, according to Capt. Benjamin Pineda Gomez of the Mexican Navy. Twenty-seven Americans and 16 crew members were on board the 115-foot-catamaran, which was called the Erik and was operated by the tourism company Baja Fishing. The vessel was supposed to take the group and crew on a week-long vacation -- an annual Fourth of July outing for a group of friends from Northern California -- but it was caught in a thunderstorm and capsized around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, about 60 miles south of San Felipe, in the Mexican state of Baja California.

Jim Baird’s Arctic Adventure: How To Rope-Rig a Toboggan for the Open Ice

Dave_Maccar — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:29:17 -0400

At the beginning of my snowmobile expedition in the communities of Tulita and Delene, Ted and I learned that the tow bars on our Equinox Boggans probably would not last for the duration of the expedition. We saw a graveyard of broken steel tow bars in Tulita. It was recommended that we use ropes to tow our toboggans, because the steel tow bars would have broken when pounding along on the hard packed snowdrifts of Great Bear Lake. So that’s exactly what we did.

How It’s Done: First, you’ll need to drill holes in the steel brackets on each side of the toboggan —just in front of where the tow bars hook into them. Clip a carabiner to each hole. Next, tie the ends of a 60-foot-long length of rope to each carabiner. Then, tie the middle of the rope to the hitch of your snow machine. Make sure each side of the rope is an equal length (as shown in the video).

The setup worked excellently and outperformed the tow bars. When using ropes to tow your toboggan, the tow bar can remain attached and left up for use at another time.

Now, all of this isn’t to say that you should never use a tow bar. Here’s a list of pros and cons to help you decide which towing system is right for you and your environment.

Tow Bar
Pros:
- Good for tight turns
- You can control the toboggan while reversing
- It will stop when you stop and not crash into the back of your machine
- It will not catch up to you if going slowly down a steep hill

Cons:
- They break
- They put more stress on your machine when braking
- They do not stretch or give
- They will cause the body of your toboggan to take more of a beating
- They will drag your toboggan into the ice if your machine goes through
- They can dig into the sides of your toboggan and cause damage to it if turning tightly with a heavy load, especially in rough conditions

Tow Ropes
Pros:
- They have a little stretch in them and allow for a smoother ride on hard packed drifts
- They can be cut to save your toboggan before it goes through the ice
- Easier on your snowmobile

Cons:
- Tougher to maneuver in tight places
- Will cause your toboggan to slam into your machine if you stop at a high speed.
- Can fray from wearing on the front edge of the toboggan if each side of the rope is not an equal length.

Jim Baird’s Arctic Adventure: Why I Did The Trip

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:45:41 -0400

Why did I do this trip? That’s a question that I don’t actually have a solid answer for. There are several reasons, but I always find myself sputtering when asked. I know that sounds a little odd. I traveled 755 miles through the frozen Arctic by snowmobile while camping out in sub-zero temperatures with polar bears, dangerous ice conditions, and blizzards all constantly looming, and I can’t think of a solid reason why.

George Mallory said it beautifully when he was asked: “Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” His reply: “Because it’s there.” Mallory died attempting to climb the mountain. I am not a mountain climber and I can’t relate to his fate. It does remind me to stay safe. I can relate to his answer, though, and I’m going to roll with it.

Why? Because it’s there—the Arctic with its punishing winds and spans of treeless wild country and its challenges and mystique. Being part of it makes me feel alive in a way I think few will ever experience. The 50-pound lake trout are there and waiting to be caught in one of the most massive and beautiful lakes in the world. The pure water is there, and while I was there I drank straight from the Great Bear several times. It’s a great feeling to eat fish out of that lake while sipping ice-cold water straight out of a cup you dipped through a hole in the ice. To me there is nothing so pure.

Why? Because I wanted to spend more time with the people of the North who taught me a little bit about their way of life and the lives of their grandfathers. I’m intrigued by the stories of survival I hear. There are a lot of skills that can be learned from people who rely on hunting and fishing for food and not sport. One of the reasons I decided to go to Ulukhaktok was to meet up with my friend, Pat, a hard-core Inuk landsman who always has a story of a successful hunt to share. He is a wealth of knowledge and was the one who spawned the idea of this snowmobile trip.

Why? Because this trip gave me the chance to do something that very few people have done. Few people get to witness Arctic scenery as I did. The towering cliffs on western Victoria Island with a sparkling dusting of snow on them, the sun setting over the frozen Coronation Gulf as winds blew snow past seemingly endless snowdrift formations, or the herds of muskoxen running across the frozen tundra.

The icy grip of winter can be beautiful. Few people ever cast their eyes on such things or understand the feeling of satisfaction I got from being able to complete a trip of this magnitude. Few will learn what I learned, feel what I felt, or live as close to the land as I did.

But I’ll do my best to share the experience. Over the next few weeks I’ll share a series of video clips that’ll give you a good look at the wilderness I traveled and the lessons I learned along the way.

Jim Baird’s Arctic Adventure: Cliffs in the Dark at 40 Below

Online Editors — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:58:29 -0400

With the trip winding down, Ted and I knew we’d have to make a long push through the night to reach Ulukhaktok in time to spend a few hours with our friend Pat and, more importantly, catch our flight home. Fortunately, the weather was good enough for such an aggressive travel plan, and Ted and I left Rymer Point and headed straight overland, northward for Prince Albert Sound.

We passed many herds of musk oxen, including one that was 17 strong. In the late evening, Ted and I stopped to do some fishing in a spot where we were told the ice was thin and the fishing was good. But the ice was not as thin as we’d hoped, and we drilled through 6 1/2 feet straight into rock and damaged our auger blade. The dull blade made second hole we drilled was quite difficult and required every bit of strength Ted and I had to get through the ice. We fished for a while, but got skunked. Overall, the fishing on the trip wasn’t nearly as good as we’d hoped.

By the time we got back on our snow machines, it was pitch black and the terrain got rougher. We began traveling up and down some huge hills. At times it was a bit unnerving because you’d crest a hill and see nothing but darkness before the headlights picked up the grout. Ted warned to be careful not to fly off a cliff

He was right.

We were following a river—the final pathway to Price Albert Sound—and to save time, we drove over the bank to cut off a large bend in the river. Then, all the sudden, I saw a huge canyon in front of me. I turned away just in time.

I jumped off my machine and waved to Ted for him to stop. He pulled up and stopped beside me.

“What,” he asked.

I pointed to the canyon below us.

“Holy s---!” This is crazy. We shouldn’t be traveling at night like this.”

It was a good thing I wasn’t blindly following my GPS—or we would’ve plummeted over the 100-foot canyon wall...with the end of our journey in sight.

***

While we crossed Prince Albert Sound, the sky lit up in the east as the sun started to rise. As big as Great Bear Lake was, traveling on the sea ice is more daunting. There is no cover, the weather is colder, and the ice conditions are less reliable. This leg of the trip was the coldest yet—40 below zero, not factoring the wind chill. The sweat in our base layers from auger-drilling hours earlier chilled us to the bone. Ted started to shiver, and I wasn’t far behind. As the winds howled, we broke into our clothes bag and dug out some sweaters and fleece pants. Ted even took of his boots to stick a foot warmer in there.

None of this helped. He started to worry about frostbite on his toes, while I could start to feel it on my nose, cheeks, and ears. But once the sun got up, and the temperature rose, it got a little warmer. We turned west to follow the northern shore of the Sound, putting the strong east wind at our backs.

***

As exhausted as we were, we kept pushing. We stopped to refuel 100 miles from Ulukhaktok and called Pat to let him know we were close. We made good time on the last leg of the trip as we passed through the Safety Channel. The scenery was dramatic: Rugged, snow-sprinkled cliffs shot straight up out of the sea to our right and to our left we could see the horizon on the frozen Amundsen Gulf between the islands of the Channel. Finally, 26 hours and 225 miles after leaving Rymer Point, we could see Ulukhaktok.

It’s tough to describe the feeling of pulling up to a community like Ulukhaktok. Where everyone is so friendly and helpful. Where people are immediately interested in you and make you feel welcome. Where visitors are a big deal.

Pat and his wife, Jean, came out to meet up and brought us into their home. We told them all about our trip and ate delicious muskoxen until our bellies were full. Pat shared a couple amazing stories about how he had avoided death. Jean joked that he has nine lives. It was nice to share my stories with Pat—a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. I wish I had longer with him, but Pat would leave for a hunt late the next morning; Ted and I later that afternoon. I think Pat was proud of us for making the trip. We had traveled a very long distance and completed an epic journey through a land that has claimed the lives of many travelers. Very few people can say they’ve accomplished what we did, and I wonder if anyone has ever done the full route in one shot like Ted and I did.

When took off from the ice runway in Ulukhaktok to begin our string of flights back home, I thought about the deep satisfaction I felt when we first saw Ulukhaktok. We’re going to make it, I thought. And we did. We made it. —Jim Baird