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.