Is Wilderness Survival 4 Me?

A Wilderness Survival Topic

By

Paul Andrulis

Copyright

Copyright ©2013 by Paul Andrulis

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my beautiful wife Melissa for her patience with me during the long hours and trials which come with professional writing.

Without her support and encouragement this work would not have been possible.

I would like to thank my three adorable children Joe, Tiffany, and Annabelle that light up my day and bring a smile to my face when I need it.

I would like to thank my fans for their encouragement and kind words.

Above all I would like to thank God and his Son for granting me life, salvation, and the ability to write.

To all, thank you.

Introduction

About the series

I welcome you to the first mini-book in my open ended e-book only series concerning wilderness survival. I use the term ‘open ended’ as this series does not follow the standard marketing model which places a host of different topics together under one volume. The finished book is then fixed in content and is generally quite expensive.

I have designed a nonstandard model to impart this information to my readers, which allows flexibility and choice. My model is designed to be a system where the reader has a choice and can then read about only the subjects they are interested in or need without the necessity of paying for information they do not desire. Each e-book will be small, and inexpensive with the cost reflective of both the length and complexity of the work.  The goal is to provide targeted information and value.

With each inexpensive mini-book in this series I give you the chance to buy what would be either a chapter or a section of the bigger expensive book, but only for the cost of that chapter or section.

Due to exorbitant printing costs, I shall offer these books in paperback volumes only when I have written enough books for a compilation. Otherwise, the cost would be prohibitive on a piecemeal paperback book by book basis.

About this book

This book is undoubtedly the shortest of the entire series.

The topic of wilderness survival is quickly gaining a huge interest in today’s society. More people than ever before are becoming both aware of and concerned due to real or potential world events, weather, and natural phenomena. This awareness has led to a boom in survivalism, prepping, bushcraft, and interest in wilderness survival.

Survival in any sense is becoming highly commercialized, and that translates to expensive. Whatever the reason a person has for the basis of their interest, the question naturally follows whether you should spend a ton of money on the subject. Is the topic of wilderness survival even for you?

This book shall ask several poignant questions and provide the answers you need to know.

1.        What is wilderness survival?

2.       Is wilderness survival knowledge important?

3.       Do I have a desire to learn wilderness survival?

4.       Will I have to buy a bunch of gear to practice wilderness survival?

By answering these four questions above, you should be able to come to an understanding of what wilderness survival is, and whether or not it is right for you.

Chapter 1 WHAT?

What Is Wilderness Survival?

If you have been researching the subject on the internet very long, you will find yourself swamped with a ton of information about survival, bushcraft, and prepping. Most every source encountered puts themselves forth as an expert, and the sources quite often conflict with each other on almost any topic.

The problem here is that wilderness is a very specific topic to being with.

In a nutshell, wilderness survival is the knowledge base and skills set people acquire to keep themselves alive in a wilderness emergency.  What you learn is the knowledge base, and the skills are gained with hands on practice. The concept is very basic and the knowledge needed is not modern, but is in fact ancient in the extreme.

Wilderness survival is about staying alive in the wilderness without modern supplies or conveniences until either wilderness living is achieved, or the person in the situation is rescued or can return to civilization.

What is Wilderness Survival NOT?

There exists a huge amount of confusion even over the definition due to modern concepts which have all adopted the generic term ‘survival’. It is often confused with prepping, military S.E.R.E. combat survival training, bushcraft, camping, and the modern concept of ‘bugging out’ among others. To make matters worse, people practicing many of these things are all lumped together under the term ‘survivalist’, when most of these concepts are highly dissimilar in nature.

We find ourselves having to understand what these concepts are, so that distinction can be made between them and wilderness survival.

         Prepping:  Prepping is the acquirement of knowledge and supplies (called preps) to maintain a standard of civilized life after a catastrophe. The knowledge set is broad covering from farming techniques, medicine, very basic mechanical engineering, food preservation, self-defense to security. Needless to say it is not connected logically at all to the concept of wilderness survival.

         Military S.E.R.E. training: The S.E.R.E. acronym stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. It is a training course given to specific member of the military such as pilots, officers, and members of the Special Forces. Its purpose is to enable the trained military personnel to survive long enough in a hostile combat environment to rejoin the main force, or to carry out a specific assignment behind enemy lines with a minimum of gear. The ‘S’ in S.E.R.E. stands for wilderness survival, and that is the only connection between the two. Wilderness survival has nothing to do with human combat in and of itself.

         Bushcraft: The most common confusion is with bushcraft. Wilderness survival is not bushcraft, but it uses bushcrafting skill sets extensively and those practicing bushcraft should know wilderness survival. Bushcraft is more keyed to wilderness living than to wilderness survival. Wilderness survival is actually the basis for bushcraft as a concept, but bushcrafting tends to blend wilderness survival with modern conveniences. Ultimately bushcraft is a natural extension of the wilderness survival concept.

         Camping: Camping is not wilderness survival, and surprisingly enough few camping skills and tools equate to survival counterparts except in the most general sense. To equate camping to wilderness survival you would have to take away all of the comforts, gear, and supplies of camping, then make it a ‘succeed or die trying’ situation.

         Bugging Out: The concept of bugging out is an extremely modern thing. It assumes that a person will have to travel on short notice from one location to another in a catastrophic and potentially hostile environment. The concept involves the survival use of whatever gear you can carry in your vehicle or a ‘bug out bag’. Bugging Out is an extension of the prepping movement, and usually involves bugging out from wherever you are to a place where you have made preparations to survive said emergency. Like prepping, it has nothing to do with wilderness survival.

The confusion is made clear when you buy books or pay for a class on the subject, since most of them detail ways and means of some form of combat. Whether detailing techniques of hand to hand self-defense, means to evade other humans or camp security makes no difference as S.E.R.E. is actually being taught, and not wilderness survival.

Chapter conclusion

You now know what the concept of wilderness survival is, and just as importantly what it is not.  Readers of my books will find information concerning wilderness survival and bushcrafting skills. I will teach my readers survival concerning man verses environment and nature.

In none of my wilderness survival series books will you find even one reference where I teach combat in any form. If you want knowledge of escape, resistance, or evasion techniques, you will have to look elsewhere. This type of information is survival concerning man verses man.

Next we need to explore whether there is any reason at all for you to spend any more time or money on the subject. Is there any real need or value to you for this information?

Chapter 2 WHY?

Is wilderness survival knowledge important?

There are tons of people telling you to buy this or that, and that you cannot live without this or that. Concerning books or gear for survival, it is to be expected that the author is going to tell you that you have got to have their product. As the author of this work, I am not one of those types.

I am a cheapskate by nature, and I do not expect anyone to buy anything just because I said so. I am in fact going to objectively ask you some questions and discuss things which may make you decide you do not need my product!

Who really needs knowledge of wilderness survival anyway?

You might be surprised at the answer.

As stated earlier in Chapter 1, wilderness survival is the knowledge base and skills set people acquire to keep themselves alive in a wilderness emergency.

Realistically, for such a survival situation to occur you have to be:

1.        In the wilderness.

2.       In a life and death situation.

You don’t learn wilderness survival to be better at anything. As a concept, wilderness survival is for those random and unpredictable situations which happen where everything goes very, very wrong, and it is doubtful that you may live through the duration of the event. Bluntly stated, such happenstances are often easily avoided by using some common sense beforehand. The times when that is not the case are extremely rare. Not to be ungenerous, but most true wilderness survival scenarios are forced by someone doing something which was out-rightly stupid to begin with. However, we are humans and as such we all do tend to do stupid things.

If you never leave the city and live in an area where natural disasters never happen, then you do not need the information from this series. They are of no value to you, except as possible entertainment. I just saved you beaucoup dollars you might have wasted on buying my e-books.

If your idea of travelling and seeing nature involves driving from one town to the next on high traffic roads, then you do not need the information from this series. They are of no value to you, except as possible entertainment. I just saved you beaucoup dollars you might have wasted on buying my e-books.

The question is who needs the information, whether they know it yet or not?

Who Really Should Know Wilderness Survival?

If you spend a lot of time in the wilderness, then I seriously advise learning wilderness survival. If you live in an area prone to natural disasters, then I seriously advise learning wilderness survival. Not one person who has endured a survival situation wanted to be there. Even those people whom romanticize wilderness survival as a means of getting back to nature discover sooner or later that it was a huge mistake. There is nothing romantic about death, and just knowing how to survive will not ensure your survival. A working knowledge of wilderness survival drastically increases the odds that you will survive in a life or death situation.

There are two things you have no control over when out in nature. You cannot control the weather and you have no say concerning what a wild animal will do. You have a modicum of control over accident by applying the concepts of prevention and common sense, but occasionally stuff happens. The weather can radically and quickly change, just ask any weatherman. Animals are predictable, but only to a point. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty over what we should have done verses what we actually did.

If you do any of these activities, then there is a chance that you may need wilderness survival knowledge and skills:

         Camping

         Backpacking

         Hiking

         Hunting

         Fishing

         Wintersports such as skiing or snow-boarding

         Watersports such as boating, jet-skiing, or water-skiing

         Like to drive on little travelled roads or take ‘shortcuts’

         Drive out of state or through the mountains

         Bike cross-country

Then come the natural disasters.

If you live in an area which is, or is prone to:

         Tornadoes

         Floods including flash floods

         Ice storms

         Hurricanes

         Volcanic activity

         Earthquakes

         Mudslides

         Extreme snowfall

         Extreme cold

         Forest or wild-fires

With any of the activity based situations or environmental situations listed above, you can find yourself in a survival situation. Living in a city may not change this either, as I urge you to consider hurricane Katrina or the massive flooding on the east coast as just two obvious examples. But as I said before, the odds are still quite rare that you will find yourself in a wilderness survival situation.

Whether or not you decide wilderness survival knowledge is either necessary or valuable to you is entirely up to you. For me to tell you would require that I know you personally as well as your habits, hobbies, location, attitude and even your health.

It is just not possible. However, I can outlay some realistic scenarios in which the information would be a matter of life and death, without even using including natural disaster.

Scenario1:

You are driving along a mountain road a long distance from home or the nearest town, and swerve to miss a deer or hit a bad patch of ice. Unfortunately your car goes off of the road and you actually live through the wreck. Testing your cellphone indicates it is either broken, or more probably you are in an area with no service.

Scenario2:

You are on a big lake and hit a submerged rock which holes the boat and you are forced to swim to shore in the middle of nowhere.

Scenario3:

You are hiking or camping, and stray too far from camp while looking for firewood. Unfortunately you cannot find either the trail or your camp.

Scenario4:

You went into the wilderness and became separated from your group, and are lost.

I could literally go on and on repeatedly with possible scenarios. Such things happen every day. Most of them are never associated with wilderness survival in the headlines.

The headlines often read, “(put name here) missing (put reason here).”

Sometimes they just say, “(put name here) missing and presumed dead.”

I am not saying these things to scare you. They are just issues which are often glossed over and ignored. They are facts of life which happen to people every day. We live in a society which expects the police, government, and rescue services to save us when in reality they have to know you are in trouble, and have a clue where you are to do anything at all. Most police stations will not even accept a missing persons report until twenty four hours after the person is noticed as missing by someone else.

Realistically, for most people that can be a week or more from the time the survival event started.

         If no-one knows the route you took

         You didn’t tell someone that you were leaving and would be back at a specific time or date

         Your vehicle is not found after an accident

If any of these is true then help may never come for you at all. So, ask yourself if it is worth knowing wilderness survival, or if it is practical information. Personally, I would say yes, but that is just my opinion concerning the matter.

Say you feel you actually need or desire the information then consider the cons first before diving in.

Everything including wilderness survival has inherent pros and cons.

Chapter 3 SHOULD I?

Do I have a desire to learn wilderness survival?

Due to misconception, misrepresentation and media spin, practicing wilderness survival may well get you the title of survivalist. Why this is true make no sense, as it seems to be applied solely because the word ‘survive’ is involved. However, you may be lumped together with individuals you cannot agree with, and do not share the same viewpoints or even morals.

This may be a tougher call than you think.

(Cons)

The term survivalist has gained a somewhat negative connotation since the mid 1980’s. It was sometime in that era that paramilitary militia groups started to adopt and co-opt the term. I am being neither negative nor positive, just stating a matter of fact.

The term survivalist is also rooted deeply in the prepper movement, which has a deep and long history. It really started with the 1920’s stock market crash, and then gained a lot of steam in the late 1950’s through the 1960’s due to the fear of atomic war. The concept of prepping involving an impenetrable bunker stocked with supplies to last months or even years stems directly from this time period. No matter whether any individual prepper’s fears are realistic, or whether they digress to the pure delusional, all preppers are often viewed as the ‘tinfoil hat crowd’.

All survivalists are considered to be nuts and conspiracy theorists.

If you claim the title of survivalist then you should expect some to assume that you are a member of such a group as I mentioned above. You will find yourself explaining your position to someone who cannot get it through their skull that you are not a nut.

This principle is something to consider, especially considering you will hope to never have to use the knowledge and skill sets you will acquire.

I deal with this myself, and sometimes on a daily basis. However, if you are a patient person with a thick skin it will not really matter.

One uncommonly known con is that the knowledge can give you a false sense of security.

(Pros)

A survival incident happening to you is no longer a crap shoot, in that you will have the confidence and capability to actually do something about the situation. Also there is a bonus. The same techniques can be used in other technically non-survival situations, such as providing water for your drinking needs after an ice storm takes out miles of power lines.

The knowledge also has an unexpected benefit of giving you confidence. Just knowing that you can survive in an emergency helps you stay calm in both an emergency and in everyday life.

If you are still interested, then you are going to have to consider the financial cost of wilderness survival.

Chapter 4 GEAR?

Will I have to buy a bunch of gear to practice wilderness survival?

If you decide to become a prepper or something else, you may have to spend a veritable fortune on all manner of junk… err ‘gear and supplies’. If you intend to learn and practice modern bushcraft then it will cost quite a bit, but is comparable to the starting cost of any new outdoor hobby.

So, what is the cost if you are gearing up for wilderness survival?

The Financial Costs and Investment of Wilderness Survival

Wilderness survival has no financial cost. It is absolutely free. I say this somewhat tongue in cheek as nothing is ever generally free and my statements are conditional towards experience.

There is an initial investment in the learning cost which may involve the financial cost of books, etc., but wilderness survival has a very heavy cost in time. Time which is spent learning and practicing various necessary skills is still an investment, it is just not financial in nature. The materials, supplies, and tools needed for wilderness survival for the expert are provided by nature for free.

Notice that I said “for the expert” in the previous sentence.

The gear that you will need will ultimately be determined by the amount of practical knowledge and hands on experience you possess at the time of the survival scenario. If you are a complete newbie, you will need a ton of gear. If you have my level of knowledge, you could survive with practically no gear whatsoever.  The more you learn the less gear you will need, as the more gear and supplies you can locate and utilize from nature.

Realistically though, even I carry gear if possible. I personally use an O.S.K. which is a specialized survival kit for wilderness situations. No sane person will intentionally do without at least some gear if they are given the choice. Making gear takes time and energy. In a survival situation you do not know whether you will have either, so having some gear goes a long way.

All of the gear I carry costs maybe a hundred dollars total (I am being generous), and fits on a web belt. I could survive without gear. However refusing to carry gear reduces anyone’s chances of survival, and I am against any wilderness survival doctrine which is antithesis to survival.

In the next edition to this series I shall outline the basic knowledge you will need and gear you should consider purchasing if you so desire. I intend to write a book in this series to cover the O.S.K. separately for those wanting to know more about my unique and specific survival kit.

Chapter 5 WHAT IS NEXT?

(What can I expect soon in this book series?)

This series is open ended. I will write new titles as time permits, and have already slated numerous titles in my ‘to do’ list. This series may become quite extensive, and will be easily discerned by the cover, as all of the mini e-books in this series will sport the same cover, but with a different title. Below I will list several titles to keep your eyes open for in the near future.

         The Basics 4 Survival – Will cover basic survival knowledge, attitudes, mindsets, necessary skillsets, and basic gear needed for wilderness survival.

         The O.S.K. 4 Survival – Will extensively cover the O.S.K. survival kit

         Fire 4 Survival – Will cover fire, fire lays, and the various uses of fire for survival

         Primitive Fire 4 Survival – Will cover various primitive and semi-primitive techniques for making fire for survival.

         Cordage 4 Survival – Will detail making cordage using natural materials

         Snares and Traps 4 Survival – Will teach about primitive trapping using snares, traps, and triggers.

         Shelters 4 Survival – Will demonstrate techniques for making several types of primitive and semi-primitive shelters.

         Hunting 4 Survival – Will cover primitive hunting concepts, tools, and techniques.

         Fishing 4 Survival – Will cover primitive fishing concepts, gear, and techniques.

Without any doubt this series will expand from this short list of titles. Most will necessarily contain numerous illustrations and/or photos.

About the Author

A devoted and loving husband and father, Paul Andrulis has a long standing love of the outdoors combined with almost thirty years of outdoor experience in camping, hunting, fishing, and wilderness survival.

With a desire to share the knowledge accumulated through many years of practice, he has written numerous amateur how-to articles and stories, and is now bringing his outdoor knowledge and skill set to the general public.

….............................

“Survival revolves around a number. 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit to be exact. Everything about wilderness survival is aimed at that bulls-eye,” - Paul Andrulis

“Wilderness living is fun and rewarding. Wilderness survival sucks, as it is pure hardship and semi-starvation. The longer you are engaged in survival at any one time the greater the chances you will not actually survive. The goal in any emergency is to get from survival to living as fast as humanly possible. However, if you do not know how to survive in an emergency you won't have to worry about living anyway,” - Paul Andrulis

Table of Contents

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 WHAT?What Is Wilderness Survival?

Chapter 2 WHY?

Chapter 3 SHOULD I?

Chapter 4 GEAR?

Chapter 5 WHAT IS NEXT?