survive

Make a Survival Kit out of an Altoids Tin

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:00:00 -0400

Field & Stream Interview: Les Stroud, Survivorman

fieldandstream-editor — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 05:20:00 -0400

It's clear that Les Stroud is no stranger to abuse. The concept of his hit show Survivorman on the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel makes sure he gets plenty of it. For each episode, Stroud is dropped off in a different climate (ranging from Canadian Arctic to Georgian swamp) and has to survive alone without supplies for seven days-and film himself the entire time. An Ontario filmmaker and angler who grew up fishing in Muskoka, Stroud now ice fishes for lake trout, pickerel, and bass with his family. We tracked him down between wilderness exiles for a few questions.

F&S: A lot of people love your show-you make learning survival skills cool. Why?
LS: The thing that maybe scares people off of learning survival skills is a fear of looking like the ultimate Boy Scout, who shows up with all the gadgets. But people shouldn't think learning survival is corny or overkill. Anything can happen. You just don't know when the boat's gonna konk out, and it's a 70-kilometer walk to the nearest cabin. My film-company business partner was fishing once, went into the bush to use the washroom, got turned around, and was lost for three days.

F&S: What's the one item you find yourself wishing you had the most often?
LS: An insulated sleeping pad and a good butane lighter (matches in high altitude).

F&S: Is there a scenario that you wouldn't take on?
LS: Anything politically unstable, tsetse-fly areas in Africa, and skydiving.

F&S: Has there been a point on any of the trips when you felt you were in real danger?
LS: In the Arctic I woke up at one point on a flat rock and thought, "I may have this loaded rifle beside me, but if I wake up and a polar bear is breathing down on my face I don't stand a chance." The rescue crew was a great distance away and would not have been able to get to me in time.

F&S: So what's your insurance like?
LS: Please don't remind me.

The Outtakes

When we spoke with Les Stroud between tapings of his hit show Survivorman, we couldn't fit all of his comments into our May 2006 issue. Here's the balance of that interview:

F&S: How does hunting fit into your show?
LS: When the show first came out there was a method to my madness as far as what I caught and what I ate. I started off by saying that if you had to survive, you could scrounge for grubs and snails. I wanted to point out that you start small because sometimes that's all you can get. During that period, I'd get emails from people who were into hunting, saying, Come on, why don't you kill something, what's wrong with you? And I'd have to say to them that it ain't easy to kill something with no knife, no bow, no rifle. It's not easy even if you're a skilled hunter to hunt with nothing but your bare hands--it's brutally hard. Now, I'm getting into bigger animals, so I got a squirrel in Utah, and I took a rabbit in the plane crash episode. (As an aside, the reason I showed snaring rabbits is because it's so simple. A lot of survival books give you these big elaborate traps, and the average person can't just pull something like that out of their hat.) Once I started getting these bigger animals, all the anti-hunters emailed saying, Why are you killing a rabbit? And I thought, I just can't win.

The bottom line is, I show what you could do if you had to survive. End of story. It's not about hunting, it's not about tree hugging, it's about survival. And if a spruce tree is between me and survival, I'm going to take the life of that spruce tree and use it to save mine. If catching a rabbit is between me and survival, I'm going to catch a rabbit. That said, I'm a huge, fanatical nature lover. So it's not a light thing for me to take the life of that rabbit when I'm quote-unquote just producing a TV show. But maybe somewhere, thhere might be someone in trouble that actually catches a squirrel because they watched my show, and actually makes it through another day and survives, so there is that instructional aspect to it.

F&S: You don't seem shy about showing yourself messing up on camera.
LS: Well, it's like this. The last thing I wanted to present myself as was survival guru guy who knows it all. That's why I show fumbling and bumbling and failing. It's real to fail. There's three ways I approach my filming. Number one is when I show something easy that I know really well, and it comes across like, Man, this guy knows what he's doing. Number two is when there's something harder that I know really well, but I don't show it fast and easy because it may have taken me three months to learn, and I don't want to mislead the audience into thinking it's easy. And number three is when there's something I'm going to attempt--like the battery wires and gasoline fire on the plane crash show--that I've never done before. At that point, I'm a regular guy just seeing if he can make this work. I like that because you see a skill tried for the first time, and that is the reality of wilderness survival.

F&S: Has there been an easiest episode? A hardest episode?
LS: The desert was the easiest. December in the Sonora Desert is actually fairly pleasant. Cold nights, but the days are around 70 degrees F. And there's lots to eat. The hardest was the arctic. I was caught in between seasons. I asked the Inuit hunter who we consulted for the episode when the hardest time is to survive in the area, and he said right now. It was too warm to make a proper igloo but it was too early for any food to have returned. But in truth my two very hardest experiences were the original pilot versions of Survivorman that I first did, called 'Stranded' on Discovery Canada. On the first one there was a freak heat wave and all the mosquitoes came back out with a vengeance. They brutalized me for days with no screening, repellant, or place to hide. I almost quit. For the second show it was minus-40 every night in 5 feet of snow. Need I say more?

F&S: What's the one biggest mistake you see people making in the wild?
LS: Lack of preparation. But once they're out there, trying to rush.

F&S: Do you have any fishing trips coming up?
LS: I was out ice fishing with my kids just the other week. We have a cottage in Ontario which is in an area with beautiful rocks, trees, lakes, water--just a wonderful wild place. So we're always up there ice fishing, going after whitefish and stuff. I'll be fishing again soon.

Catch Survivorman on the Science Channel Fridays at 10 p.m. EST/PT. For airtimes on the Discovery Channel, check your local listings.

Survival Skills, Part III: Finding Food

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 04:10:00 -0500

Snares
Small-game snares can be made from the interior strands of parachute cord, braided strands of sinew, or fishing line. Snares stout enough to secure game as large as deer need to be made of rawhide or parachute cord.

skill Ground Snare (picture)
Position the snare at head height and tie off the end to a tree, a stake in the ground, or a log that the animal can only drag a short distance as the noose tightens. Make snares from cord, fishing line, or wire if available.

skill Spring Snare (picture)
This set employs a trigger that snatches game into the air as it strains against the noose. It's good for rabbits and game as large as deer.

Deadfall Traps
Deadfalls that use logs or rocks to squash prey are typically baited, but they also work along trails or outside burrows when a passing animal or bird brushes against the trigger.

skill Spring Deadfall (picture)
One of the easiest traps to make and set, the spring deadfall (see page 59) depends upon the game worrying the bait, so it's best used for carnivorous animals and rodents such as pack rats.

Tension Traps
Employing fire-hardened spear points under tension, these can be deadly to predator and prey alike. Always set and approach an impaling trap cautiously from behind and use only in an emergency in remote areas, where another human or domestic animals are not going to blunder past.

skill Spring Spear Trap (picture)
This trip-wire set is effective for wild pigs, deer, or other game that regularly sticks to defined game trails. Make certain the horizontal thrust of the spear is at a level that will impale the body of the game sought. This is an extremely dangerous trap; use it with caution.

Bird Traps
Birds can be much easier to trap than mammals and should be among your first targets for a meal.

skill Ojibwa Bird Pole (picture)
Set this trap in a large clearing where birds will naturally seek it out as a landing place.

Step One Sharpen both ends of a 6-foot pole and drill a small hole near one end. Drive the other end into the ground until it is secure.
Step Two Cut a 6-inch-long stick that will loosely fit into the hole. Tie a rock to a thin cord and pass the cord through the hole in the pole, then make a slip noose that drapes over the perch.
Step Three Tie an overhand knot in the cord in back of the slip noose and place the stick against the hole. Tension should hold it in position. When a bird flies down and perches, it will displace the stick, the rock will fall, and its feet will be caught as the loop quickly slides through the hole.

Fish Traps
Fish swim next to banks at night or move from deep holes into shallow water to feed. They can often be directed into traps from which they are unlikely to escape.

skill Funnel Trap (picture)
Make the walls of the funnel trap with piled-up stones or tightly spaced sticks driven solidly into the river or lakebed. Close the entrance to the trap, roil the water, then either spear the fish or net them with a seine made by tying a shirt or other cloth between two stout poles.

Making Stone Points
Points and blades chipped from cryptocrystalline rocks such as chert, flint, and obsidian make the sharpest knives, arrowheads, and spear tips, although efficiently using the latter two requires lots of practice.

Step One (picture)
Strike flakes from a tool stone by hitting it with a hard rock. This is called "percussion flaking." Some flakes will be suitable as is for knives; others will require more flaking.

Step Two (picture)
Place the tip of an antler tine or bone point against the flake and apply a twisting push toward the edge of the stone. Continue flaking off small cones near the edge until the point of the stone is evenly chipped and razor sharp.

Primitive Survival Skills: Part 1, Shelters

fieldandstream-editor — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 04:25:00 -0500

Introduction:
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-tepee. I sparked a fire by glancing the back of a knife blade against a piece of flint and lighting some bark tinder. With shelter and warmth, we rode out the storm, eating 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.

Primitive is the key here. Our ancestors depended on three basic skills to survive: They knew how to shelter themselves from harsh climates; they were able to spark fire to heat those structures; and they could trap and gather food. Sadly, many of their skills have been forgotten.

Most sportsmen rarely find themselves in life-or-death situations. But it can happen, and not just when you're hunting or fishing. What if your car broke down in the middle of nowhere, or your plane had to make an emergency landing in the wilderness? What if all you had was a knife and your wits? Could you survive the way your ancestors did? Read this, and you just might make it. [NEXT "Body-Heat Shelters"]

Part I: Body-Heat Shelters
In its simplest form, a shelter is nothing more than a shell that traps a pocket of dead air warmed solely by body heat. In tree belts, such shelters are constructed of decomposing leaf litter and other organic debris; in barren, polar regions, they are made of snow.

skill 1 Debris Hut (picture)
Heap up a big mound of duff and detritus from the forest floor, then excavate a pocket that is large enough to crawl into. After getting inside, partially block the doorway to minimize air circulation. If it isn't cramped and dirty, you've made the air space too big for your body to heat it sufficiently.

skill 2 Quintze (picture)
Properly constructed, this poor man's igloo can be body-heated to above freezing on a 20-below day, higher if you light a candle.

Step One: Build up snow to a depth of at least 8 inches and pack it down to make a floor.
Step Two: Heap loose snow onto the floor. Piling the snow over a backpack or mound of branches will let you create a hollow, which hastens the excavation process, but it isn't necessary. Let the snow consolidate for an hour or more, until it is set up hard enough to form snowballs.
Step Three: Tunnel through the mound at opposite ends to dig out the center efficiently, fill in the unused entrance, and crawl inside to shape the interior. Ideally, the quintze should be narrow at the foot end, with a bed long enough to lie down on, and just tall enough at the head end for you to sit up. The walls and roof need to be at least a foot thick (check this with a stick).
Step Four: Poke out an air vent overhead and dig a well at the entrance for the cold air to settle into. Cut a snow block for a door. Glaze interior wallsith a candle to prevent dripping.

[NEXT "Open Shelters"]

Open Shelters
Bough structures that reflect a fire's warmth are the most important shelters to know how to build. They can be erected without tools in an hour provided you are in an area with downed timber-less if you find a makeshift ridgepole such as a leaning or partly fallen tree to support the boughs.

skill 3 Pole and Bough Lean-to (picture)
One of the most ancient shelters, the single wall of a lean-to serves triple duty as windbreak, fire reflector, and overhead shelter.

Step One: Wedge a ridgepole into the crotches of closely growing trees (one end can rest on the ground if necessary), or support each end of the ridgepole with a tripod of upright poles lashed together near the top.
Step Two: Tilt poles against the ridgepole to make a framework. To strengthen this, lace limber boughs through the poles at right angles.
Step Three: Thatch the lean-to with slabs of bark or leafy or pine-needle branches, weaving them into the framework. Chink with sod, moss, or snow to further insulate.

skill 4 A-Frame (picture)
The pitched roof of the A-frame bough shelter offers more protection against the wind than a lean-to and can still be heated by fire at the entrance. One drawback is that the occupant can't lie down parallel to the fire for even warmth.

Step One: Lift one end of a log and either lash it or wedge it into the crotch of a tree. Tilt poles on either side to form an A-frame roof.
Step Two: Strengthen and thatch the roof as you would a bough lean-to.
Step Three: Thatch the lean-to with slabs of bark or leafy or pine-needle branches, weaving them into the framework. Chink with sod, moss, or snow to further insulate.

[NEXT "Enclosed Shelters"]

Enclosed Shelters
These take more time to build than open shelters (at least three hours), but your efforts will be doubly rewarded. Not only can the shelter be warmed by a small fire, reducing the need to collect a huge pile of wood, but the firelight reflects off the walls, providing cheery illumination for sitting out a long winter night.

skill 5 Wickiup (picture)
This forerunner of the tepee remains the quintessential primitive shelter-sturdy enough to blunt prevailing winds, weatherproof, quickly built for nomadic hunters, but comfortable enough to serve as a long-term home. It can be partially enclosed (my son and I made a half-open wickiup to sit out the snowstorm, with a fire built in front of the shelter), or fully enclosed and vented to permit an inside fire.

Step One: Tilt three poles together in tripod form and bind them together near the top. If you can find one or more poles with a Y at one end, tilt the others against the crotch, eliminating the need for cordage.
Step Two: Tilt other poles against the wedges formed by the tripod in a circular form and thatch, leaving a front opening and a vent at the top for smoke.

skill 6 Wigwam (picture)
A complex version of the wickiup, this is built with long, limber poles bent into a dome-shaped framework to maximize interior space.

Step One: Inscribe a circle and dig holes at 2-foot intervals to accommodate the framing poles.
Step Two: Drive the butt ends of the poles into the holes and bend the smaller ends over the top. Lash or weave the tops together, forming a dome-shaped framework.
Step Three: Lace thin green poles horizontally around the framework for rigidity.
Step Four: Thatch the framework, leaving entrance and vent holes.

skill 7 Salish Subterranean Shelter (picture)
Used by Pacific tribes from Alaska to present-day California, pit shelters are impractical unless you have a digging implement, but they offer better protection from extreme heat and cold than aboveground shelters.

Step One: Dig a pit the circumference of the intended shelter to a depth of 3 feet.
Step Two: Build a supporting tripod of poles, strengthening the framework with horizontally laced limbs.
Step Three: Thatch the shelter, leaving a hole at the center to serve as both a laddered entrance and a smoke vent. Use earth removed from the pit to sod and insulate the shelter walls.

Step One: Inscribe a circle and dig holes at 2-foot intervals to accommodate the framing poles.

Step Two: Drive the butt ends of the poles into the holes and bend the smaller ends over the top. Lash or weave the tops together, forming a dome-shaped framework.

Step Three: Lace thin green poles horizontally around the framework for rigidity.

Step Four: Thatch the framework, leaving entrance and vent holes.

Step One: Dig a pit the circumference of the intended shelter to a depth of 3 feet.
Step Two: Build a supporting tripod of poles, strengthening the framework with horizontally laced limbs.
Step Three: Thatch the shelter, leaving a hole at the center to serve as both a laddered entrance and a smoke vent. Use earth removed from the pit to sod and insulate the shelter walls.

Save Yourself

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 11:00:00 -0400

Your life is on the line. Would you rather trust a store-bought survival kit, one in which the components were selected to apply to the greatest number of people while maintaining an affordable price, or a custom collection of equipment that you selected, tested, and assembled yourself? I know what I'd rather have.

In the survival courses I teach, I always recommend that students build their own kits. By doing so, you can ensure that quality and utility are the biggest priorities for individual components. You also get to tailor it to your specific activities and locations. And when you pick your own survival tools, the items become familiar before you need to rely on them in an emergency.

Don't be overwhelmed by the amount of survival gear out there. The following three kits of mine will give you a good idea of what to carry, and the worksheet at the end of the story will teach you three easy steps to building your own.

THE POCKET KIT
Fitting inside a pocket tin, this kit is easy to keep on hand at all times.

This is ideal for anyone who wants to have the essential survival gear along each time they head into the field. Everything fits in the Altoids tin [BRACKET "1"]. It meets all your needs except for shelter and protection, but add a survival blanket to your pocket and you'll be covered.

FIRE AND LIGHT

Mini-Match magnesium fire starter [BRACKET "8"] with steel striker [BRACKET "9"]. One side is magnesium and the other is flint. You scrape shavings off the former and then light them with a spark from the latter.
Waterproof-windproof matches [BRACKET "4"] with a striker [BRACKET "3"], placed in a mini zip-seal bag, then rolled and taped.
5 Tinder-Quik fire tabs [BRACKET "22"], which light even when wet. They're great for stuffing in all the extra spaces of a survival tin to eliminate rattling.
Candle [BRACKET "17"]. I cut a 1/2-inch-diameter emergency candle down to the height of the Altoids tin, so it fits in one corner.
Photon Micro-Light II [BRACKET "6"], a bright LED flashlight.

WATER AND FOOD

Water bag [BRACKET "7"]. A Reynolds Oven Bag does the trick, cut down to fit in the tin, with a 1-quart marking as a guide for using iodine tablets.
20 Potable Aqua water purification tablets [BRACKET "26"], repackaged in a mini glass vial.
50 feet of braided fishing line [BRACKET "27"] wound on a round sewing-machine bobbin.
Fishing tackle kit [BRACKET "13"] in a plastic tube. Inside are assorted hooks [BRACKET "14"], swivels [BRACKET "15"], and split shot [BRACKET "16"].
10 feet of 24-gauge snare wire [BRACKET "2"].

SIGNALING

Custom-made signal mirror [BRACKET "29"]. Commercial versions are all too thick to fit in this kit. I used a durable, ultrathin piece of plastic called mica (locksmiths slide this between a door and jamb to push the lock back). I glued on a piece of Mylar film, rounded the corners, and made a sighting hole.

NAVIGATION

20mm AA liquid-filled button compass [BRACKET "21"]. It's the best-quality instrument that will fit in the tin.

KNIVES AND TOOLS

Commando Wire Saw [BRACKET "5"], a small survival cable saw.
2 X-Acto knife blades [BRACKET "20"], without the handle. You should always have a real knife on your person; these blades are for backup.

MEDICAL

Small packet of antibiotic ointment [BRACKET "23"].
2 butterfly closures [BRACKET "11"].

MULTIPURPOSE

Several yards of nylon string [BRACKET "12"].
2 magnetized sewing needles [BRACKET "18"] for sewing or making an emergency compass (floated in water on a leaf, the needle will face north).
Small piece of glue [BRACKET "28"], cut off a glue-gun stick.
Small laminated card with instructions [BBRACKET "10"] for the water purification tablets and fishing knots.
Fresnel magnifier [BRACKET "24"]. This lens can start a fire by magnifying the sun's rays to a point on your tinder, causing combustion.
Safety pin [BRACKET "19"], for repairing clothes and straps.
2 feet of aluminum foil [BRACKET "25"] for making a cup, signaling, cooking fish, etc.