Table of Contents Making Fire
Building Shelter
Catching Food By Keith McCafferty
Last November, my son, Tom, and I weathered a snowstorm in Montana's Crazy Mountains while hunting elk. At the height of the storm, when whiteout conditions made it difficult to see where we were going, I found a sheltered spot and gathered some downfall to build a wickiup, a primitive half-teepee. I sparked a fire by glancing the back of my knife blade against a piece of flint and lighting some bark tinder. With shelter and warmth, we rode out the storm, easting sandwiches and talking elk.

At the same time, a 49-year-old hunter was lost and in serious trouble in the Absaroka Range a few dozen miles to the south. Rescuers with search dogs unraveled a 6-mile scent trail the man had left before finding him collapsed on a logging road, hypothermic and barely breathing. Despite their attempts to warm him, he died six hours later. Apparently he had been unprepared for the storm, but it was not a terribly cold day, and had he been able to build a fire or construct almost any kind of primitive shelter before sweating through his clothing, this tragedy might have been avoided.

Most sportsmen rarely find themselves in life-or-death situations. But it can happen. Could you survive the way your ancestors did? Read this, and you just might make it.

About the Artist:

P.S. Mueller has been drawing and selling cartoons continuously since he was a teenager in the late sixties. He is very bald and has been so since he was in his middle twenties. His cartoons have appeared in dozens of alternative and mainstream publications including The New Yorker, The Chicago Reader, the Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest, Funny Times, Field & Stream, and on and on and on.

In recent years Mueller has assumed a second identity as news anchor Doyle Redland and can be heard five days a week on various radio stations throughout the U.S. and Canada as he loudly pronounces the Onion Radio News. You can hear samples at: americancomedynetwork.com

Check out more of Pete's cartoons at http://www.psmueller.com

Ever since we started offering a SureFire flashlight for our Game Faces contest, hero shots from readers like you have been streaming in. Check the latest out here, and be sure to send in your own photo (click here for the rules).

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These six methods for helping your injured buddy out of the woods could help you save his life.