Wilderness Survival

[C-Mag]

@Hdarylon

If you want to get good at fires, start a fire everyday. Pick out different techniques, try to become proficient in different techniques, all of them take some work, you can do this in your backyard. I've seen people fail to make a sustained fire with gasoline and matches................ (eaglescout)

Get used to living outside, sleeping outside, you can do this at home. Start to understand your environment in a different way.

There's an old school survival book by a guy name, Kerchardt or something like that. It was writtin in the 19th C. very good, and I think it would suit what your after. I'll get you a link to a free download.

[TheReal_ND]

start a fire everyday

Now I know what I'm going to be doing with all these lawn clippings.

[C-Mag]

start a fire everyday

Now I know what I'm going to be doing with all these lawn clippings.

That's one of the challenges of living in the wilderness, taking what you are given in nature and finding a use for it. If you were in a desert you might kill for lawn clippings.

But figuring out how to use trash is just as important today. There's trash everywhere. Plastic bottles, aluminum cans, paper cups, etc.


The Book I was talking about was Woodcraft & Camping by Horace Kephart
https://archive.org/details/bookofcampi ... ph/page/n7

[C-Mag]

When you watch these vids, it is inspiring. In some cases it took these dudes years or even decades to get to where they are, but I want to at least get a taste of some of this stuff. Camping is fun. I don't know why I stopped. I've only caught brim and some small crabs, but I want to take up fishing too. Cool skills to learn.

I kind of love the shit, I haven't any serious woodcraft shit in a while, but I'm in the woods a lot, it does take years to build skills. I'd take some poor hillbilly over an Eaglescout Every Single Day of the week and twice on Sunday. Like all skills, it's repetition and focus. I'm going to riff through a bunch of stuff talked about here. You may have a handle on this stuff, if so forgive me.


A. Nukes right, your state, local and federal gov sites have all the info. Also, find your local park office and stop in, tell them you are going camping and ask what you can and can't do.

B. Try shit out at home before you go to the woods. Doesn't matter if its starting fires, sleeping outside or using a knife.

C. Mental skills are you're biggest asset.

D. Your knife is your second biggest asset. Get a decent fixed blade knife, you don't need to spend over $50, you can get them much cheaper. Get at least one good two sided stone and learn how to sharpen a knife. Keep a sharpened small folding knife in your pocket.

E. Hydration. Have it figured out, are you packing it, are you filtering it, how much do you need?

[TheReal_ND]

Ten bucks

https://www.knifecenter.com/item/FT1214 ... mer-handle

[C-Mag]

Ten bucks

https://www.knifecenter.com/item/FT1214 ... mer-handle

Nice

Mora's have a decent reputation too. I've never had one, but I like the looks of it. It's not a club and it's not a saw pretending to be a knife.

Horace Kephart talks quite a bit about knife selection

Men who dwell in the woods the year 'round are practical
fellows who despise frills and ostentation. Many a
tenderfoot has had to pay double prices for everything,
and has been well laughed at in the bargain, because he
sported a big bowie knife or a fake cowboy hat...………………………...

The conventional hunting knife is, or
was until quite recently, of the familiar dime-novel
pattern invented by Colonel Bowie. Such a knife is
too thick and clumsy to whittle with, much too thick
for a good skinning knife, and too sharply pointed to
cook and eat with. It is always tempered too hard.
When put to the rough service for which it is supposed
to be intended, as in cutting through the ossified false
ribs of an old buck, it is an even bet that out will come
a nick as big as a saw-tooth—and Sheridan forty miles
from a grindstone! Such a knife is shaped expressly
for stabbing, which is about the very last thing that a
woodsman ever has occasion to do, our lamented grandmothers
to the contrary notwithstanding.

A camper has use for a common-sense sheath-knife,
sometimes for dressing big game, but oftener for such
homely work as cutting sticks, slicing bacon, and frying
"spuds." For such purposes a rather thin, broadpointed
blade is required, and it need not be over four
or five inches long. Nothing is gained by a longer
blade, and it would be in one's way every time he sat
down. Such a knife, bearing the marks of hard usage,
lies before me. Its blade and handle are each 4j
inches long, the blade being 1 inch wide, J inch thick
on the back, broad pointed, and continued through the
handle as a hasp and riveted to it. It is tempered
hard enough to cut green hardwood sticks, but soft
enough so that when it strikes a knot or bone it will,
if anything, turn rather than nick; then a whetstone
soon puts it in order. The Abyssinians have a saying,
"If a sword bends, we can straighten it; but if it breaks,
who can mend it ? " So with a knife or hatchet.

The handle of this knife is of oval cross-section, long enough
to give a good grip for the whole hand, and with no
sharp edges to blister one's hand. It has a | inch
knob behind the cutting edge as a guard, but there is
no guard on the back, for it would be useless and in
the way. The handle is of light but hard wood, } inch
thick at the butt and tapering to h inch forward, so as
to enter the sheath easily and grip it tightly. If it were
heavy it would make the knife drop out when I stooped
over. The sheath has a slit frog binding tightly on the
belt, and keeping the knife well up on my side. This
knife weighs only 4 ounces. It was made by a country
blacksmith, and is one of the homeliest things I
ever saw; but it has outlived in my affections the score
of other knives that I have used in competition with
it, and has done more work than all of them put together.
For ordinary whittling a good jackknife is needed.
It should have one heavy blade 2f or 3 inches long,
,, . tempered hard enough for seasoned
* hickory, but thick enough not to nick
or snap off; also a small, thin blade that will take a
keen edge and keep it. The best pattern is an "easyopener,"
which has part of the handle cut away so that
one can open it without using his thumb-nail, which
may be wet and soft, or brittle from cold. There
should be no sharp edges on the handle, which is preferably
of ebony...……………………………


A woodsman should carry a hatchet, and he should be as critical in selecting it as in buying a gun. The notion that a heavy hunting knife can do the work of a hatchet is a delusion.

[Hastur]

Ten bucks

https://www.knifecenter.com/item/FT1214 ... mer-handle

Can't go wrong with a Morakniv.

[heydaralon]

@Hdarylon

If you want to get good at fires, start a fire everyday. Pick out different techniques, try to become proficient in different techniques, all of them take some work, you can do this in your backyard. I've seen people fail to make a sustained fire with gasoline and matches................ (eaglescout)

Get used to living outside, sleeping outside, you can do this at home. Start to understand your environment in a different way.

There's an old school survival book by a guy name, Kerchardt or something like that. It was writtin in the 19th C. very good, and I think it would suit what your after. I'll get you a link to a free download.

Thank you for your advice. That was my plan to start simple with fires. I can whittle sticks and we used to make the teepee or log cabin type fires in Boy Scouts, but I want to get good at starting one without matches only using friction. Once I get that skill down, I will start attempting to build simple shelters out of logs and sticks.

[Hastur]

I like this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/user/recall5811/videos

He doesn't complicate things. Just good advise on the basic stuff. You can tell he's got a ton of experience.

[C-Mag]

I like this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/user/recall5811/videos

He doesn't complicate things. Just good advise on the basic stuff. You can tell he's got a ton of experience.

Yeah, it took me a minute to confirm that was the guy I watched make a cast bronze frying pan a couple years ago. Found this great video on his page that should fit what HD is working toward.



One of the underlying things that no one talks about with this bushcraft stuff is that you need to be good with your hands and you need to be able to use some very basic tools really well, and for extended periods. Knife, Hatchet, Cordage. You are just required to use that stuff all the time.