Reel Life Survival

I will admit it right up front: I am a survival show junkie. I love programs that demonstrate survival skills. I love learning from them and matching my knowledge against the people on the program. On the other hand, I’m not blind to the faults of these shows, however much I enjoy them.

I’m not talking about misinformation, although I have seen ‘experts’ make errors, and occasionally make beginner mistakes (one expert and his spouse contracting giardia leaps to mind) that make you cringe. Generally, the information that gets presented on these shows is fairly accurate, since no one wants to get sued.

The problem with many of these shows is that almost all of the situations are hopelessly unrealistic. For one reason or another, these programs present a best case scenario of someone’s ability to survive in a variety of wilderness situations, and are often misleading. Let’s look at a few of the unpublicized facts about these shows that make them less than ‘real life’ situations.

The first of these is the pick of season in which the show is filmed. Often our professional survivor is shown harvesting local plants as food sources. This is okay if you are there at the right time to harvest that resource. But if you are too early or too late, the ample harvest they demonstrate may have not appeared or already vanished. Seasonal availability also applies to animals. Hibernation or migration of a species might make it unavailable to you, however many of them you see frolicking in the woods on the television.

Additionally, while a plant or animal may indeed be found generally in a particular region, local microclimates or other conditions such as soil salinity or lack of habitat might mean that the flora and fauna you want just doesn’t hang out just exactly where you are.

Another issue of season is that these programs are often filmed in weather that is not at the extreme that might be experienced by an actual survivor. It is one thing to survive on a deserted Pacific island in good weather, another entirely when a storm is pushing four foot waves across the entire island. And really, how many people are likely to be shipwrecked in calm seas and clear skies? There are lots of examples, but the fact is that filming in extremes of weather is difficult and expensive, so it just isn’t done. And thus we get ‘ideal’ weather in many survival shows.

Another issue I have is with tools. Almost always our brave presenters have some sort of tool at hand. Usually the tool of choice is a knife big enough to actually chop down saplings. Otherwise, a smaller knife or a multi-tool seems to be standard. Really, the tool is not as important as the fact is that the average Joe no longer carries even a pocketknife. Demonstrating survival skills using a knife to someone who may not have one seems ludicrous when you think of it.

Yes, everyone should carry a knife. I in fact carry two, a Swiss Army Knife and a small fixed blade knife. Neither is suitable for heavy work, but as with most people, a bigger knife is both not legal where I live, nor practical in my every day life. The reality is that unless I’m definitely going out hiking or camping, then my larger knife stays at home, where it will do me no good in the sort of situation portrayed on survival shows. I believe most people carry less than I do, most of the time. So show me some survival shows without the huge beginning advantage of a large knife.

Yet another issue I have with these shows is the level of fitness and acclimatization that the presenters possess. At least one show I can think of has a presenter that routinely demonstrates acts requiring a very high degree of fitness, coordination, and agility far in excess of those qualities possessed by the average person. Most people attempting to replicate those feats have a much higher probability of failure and won’t have a film crew to call for medevac after they hurt themselves attempting it.

Even the degree of acclimatization possessed by people is misleading. One show has a minimalist primitive skills survival instructor. While he seems to manage in all sorts of terrain and climate shoeless and in shorts, most of us would be frozen and crippled long before we ever toughened up and acclimatized.

Finally, there is the issue of knowledge. For example, it is one thing to know the basics of primitive fire making, and another thing entirely to be able to accomplish it. Often, there are details of construction or technique that are not shown, and even then, experts can take hours to get fire, or might even fail entirely. Imagine then the chances then of Joe Average making a fire? The same applies to many other skills.

Granted, the onus is on the watcher to practice and perfect the skills before they are needed, but if you don’t have all of the information; it is magnitudes of difficulty greater to learn the skill. But then an hour long program on the fine points of using a fire plow or bow drill don’t make as interesting watching as some guy jumping out of a helicopter onto a shark.

Another thing about the knowledge demonstrated by the presenters: They are instant experts. While they may indeed be expert at survival in their own area, they are often portrayed in interesting and exotic locales, again to make the program interesting and exciting. There is usually a local expert that gives them the Cole’s notes version of what hazards and resources exist in the area. Like any sort of crib notes, it can mean deeper, crucial knowledge is omitted and the viewer will be unaware that they don’t have all the information.

I still love these shows, and there is much to be learned, if you want to learn. Just be aware that what they are doing is driven more by entertainment than anything else. You need to go farther than the limits of the shows and practice and develop your own skills and most of all, keep the reality of survival separate from the best case fantasy of television.

It’s just common sense

Essential tools: Chopping List

Many people seem to think that in the event of a major collapse, they will repair to the woods and homestead. They will throw up a sturdy cabin and live happily ever after. The hole in their plans is what they plan to do this with. If you’ve ever watched any of the survival shows on television, you will note that the presenter/expert seems to be able to whittle anything, up to and including a grand piano using only the whopping big knife that he carries. The rest of us less talented mortals may need a little more in the way of tools.

So what exactly do you need in the way of tools in the woods? What follows is a by no means comprehensive list, but if you have these cached at your retreat, you’ll be in good shape to work the resources around you into everything from a primitive shelter to a snug little cabin. Note that the tools can’t do it by themselves. As always, you’ll need to acquire the knowledge of how to use the tools and the construction techniques involved in creating shelter, furniture and tools out of wood.

Axes – You’ll notice I used the plural. Ideally, you will have a selection of axes, starting with the felling axe, preferably in a variety of sizes. You’ll want at least one full sized one as well as smaller handled lighter weight ones for tighter work. You’ll also want a splitting axe, which has a more wedge shaped head, for firewood. If you are going to be shaping timbers, a broad axe with its single beveled edge would be useful.

Adze - This tool has a narrow, hoe-like blade set perpendicular to the handle. It is used for rough smoothing and shaping of timbers. In skilled hands, it is one of the most versatile shaping tools out there.

Bow Saw - Also known as a Buck Saw or Swede Saw. An excellent tool to section up logs for construction or for the firewood pile. Spare blades are a must.

Frow (Froe) - A nifty little tool used to split planks from larger timbers. It is an L-shaped tool with a long blade perpendicular to a handle. The blade is driven into the end of your log, and then the handle is twisted to split the log.

Hatchet - It has its uses, but don’t obsess if you don’t have one. You can usually do the same job for less effort with a small axe.

Hand Saws - Nice to have, and will make for nicer finished work, but not absolutely essential.

Draw Knife - Again, not critical, but nice to have a few on hand of various sizes. Makes short work of de-barking trees, as well as other shaping tasks.

Rasp - Nice to have, but again not crucial. It is used to shape objects to a ‘rough finish’ stage.

Two Man Saw - a long crosscut saw with handles on both ends. Used for felling larger trees, as well as in the production of boards, usually with a sawpit.

The last ‘rough’ woodworking tool I recommend that you cache is a brace with plenty of bits, especially long bits. A lot of construction in human history has been done without screws or nails, by way of joining pieces with wooden pegs. If you can create the holes for them, you can use pegs to fasten together almost anything.

You might want to add a few tools more suited to clearing brush, such as a machete or even the traditional billhook. With those, you are equipped to deal with most of what you’ll find in the woods.

Finally, make sure you have plenty of files and whetstones of the proper type for maintenance. All of the tools above are useless to you if they are dull, if not downright dangerous. It takes far more effort to use a dull tool than a sharp one, and the more effort you’re expending, the less control you have of the tool. There are plenty of books and videos around to show you the basics of sharpening your tools.

Make sure that you get practiced at this. Make yourself a little log hut in the woods, or start chopping firewood, or even make a little rustic furniture. All skills you might someday need. And did I mention that it is both fun and good exercise as well?

Originally posted June 14, 2011 @ MPN

How long, O Lord?

So today let’s talk about disasters and duration. Most emergency measures organizations recommend that you have a 72 hour (3 day) supply of food, water, medicine and other necessities on hand. Recently, I’ve noticed that it is more and more common to see 96 hour (4 day) kit be recommended, and even one week kits. This is a good thing, in my opinion, as it shows that these organizations are looking at the reality of large scale disasters.

At least in North America, the start of recommendations to longer duration kits had a lot of it’s genesis in the aftermath of Katrina, when the scale of the disaster proved too large for immediate remediation with the resources available. Other disasters in the last decade, such as the Indonesian tsunami of 2004, the Haiti and Chilean earthquakes, and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan this year have given us further examples of how inadequate disaster preparations are when confronted with massive events.

It’s not that the governments aren’t trying to be prepared. The sad fact is that preparations sufficient to prepare for a truly large scale disaster are just too expensive to create and maintain. Disaster preparedness is more and more seen to be at least partially the responsibility of the individual, especially in the immediate to medium term before a government can marshal resources.

For the individual, it means making darn sure that you have that one weeks supply AT A MINIMUM. But give some thought to the longer term. In the aftermath of a large disaster, help might not arrive in sufficient amounts for weeks. Being prepared might simply be the difference between being hungry because only a trickle of food is getting through, or it might mean the difference between life and death.

Even in situations such as the flooding we’ve seen this spring, your supplies can make a big difference. For example, if you’re out of a job because water has flooded your workplace, life is a lot easier if you’re eating out of your larder and not trying to find money for food.

Give some thought to the long term. As the weeks and weeks of flooding have shown us this year, disasters can be of varying intensities and durations. As well, past experience has also shown us that help can be a long time coming. Plan for it not to arrive.

Originally posted June 29, 2011 @ CPN

Come Hell or High Water

As I write this, 11,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in Minot, North Dakota. Hundreds of homes are already flooded and id one article I read stated that as many as 4,000 houses might ultimately be flooded. The crest, expected to be a foot and a half higher than the present water levels is supposed to occur this weekend, after which we may assume that an end to the weeks long battle will finally be in sight. Minot and many other communities on both sides of the border have run themselves ragged coping with the flooding.

In fact, they have done a magnificent job, but as in Minot and some other towns, sometimes everything you’ve got is just not enough. And that not enough came with plentiful government assistance from state, provincial , and federal aid in many cases. In some places, there was just too much water and not enough money, manpower or time.

Now think about this sort of disaster in the context of financial or societal collapse. Who will evacuate you, shelter you or build your dykes and levees when there is no money? As we have seen in many towns and municipalities around North America since 2008, when the money runs out, the services stop being delivered. Stories of desperate communities laying off police and firefighters, and cutting services to whole derelict areas are easy to find on the web.

The much ballyhooed TEOTWAWKI may not be with the bang of a Carrington Event or nuclear war; it might be the whimper of bankruptcy, financial disorder, and the slow erosion of services we now see as the bare minimum of civilized living. If you wake up one day to a house full of water, it may be because no-one had the money to maintain levees, not because the water was too high.

Once infrastructure begins to fail, it can result in even bigger crises. Consider the Cooper nuclear plant in Nebraska. Recently, floodwaters had risen to a level of 44.8 feet. At 45.5 feet, the plant would be shut down, and at 46.5 feet, the power plant would flood. If flooded, it is likely that it would be months at least before resuming generation of electricity. Now think what happens if there is no one to help, no one to build dykes and levees, no one to ensure a safe shutdown if necessary.

It’s just that easy. It takes little in our interconnected world to start a chain of failures. Very often, one event will precipitate another, and if you do a little reading of true survival stories, it becomes obvious that it is usually a chain of events that causes a serious problem, not one isolated incident.

Your only defense is to be aware. Stay informed, and make your decisions on the basis of worst case scenarios, not best. Analyze your preps in the light of serial or concurrent failures.

Of course, if you listen to the politicians, the “high water event” we are experiencing comes along once in 300 years, an unfortunate conjunction of saturated soils, large winter runoff and unprecedented rains.

On the other hand, I’m told we’re at the start of a fifteen year wet cycle. I think I’ll keep prepping for now.

It’s just common sense.

Review: Man. Woman, Wild

There is yet another survival show out there. I find it interesting in that it takes a step away from the rugged he-man of some shows (Man vs. Wild, for example) or even two men (Dual Survival). This show features a married couple, Mykel and Ruth Hawke. Mykel Hawke is an American, the usual ex-military, ex-special forces type. Ruth Hawke is a television journalist from England, and apparently a survival newbie.

While the show follows the timeworn and familiar format of “we’re stranded in the desert, on an island,” etc. and most of the principles and skills being taught are basic and familiar to anyone that has watched almost any show in this genre, it has some features that intrigue me.

For a start, there is a female involved. Almost all of these shows involve beefy males showing you why they are manly by eating bugs and why you’re a wuss for puking at the thought. Her reactions to some of the situations have a distinct feminine viewpoint that is somewhat refreshing and interesting. Seeing that half the world is female, there is a good chance you might end up trying to survive with one of the fair sex, and it is worthwhile to see how at least one of them copes.

Additionally, we are seeing how a married couple interacts. Not everything is nose rubs and cuddles, and again, the psychology of a male/female pairing working together is interesting. While at times the Hawkes are so cute together it makes you want to puke, you do get a bit of a look at how their marriage dynamic works in a survival situation, good and bad.

Another interesting thing is that unlike many of the survival shows out there, at least one of the presenters is new to survival. Ruth Hawke is presented as someone wanting to learn the skills, and that works on two levels. One is that often things need to be explained at a very basic level to her since her level of knowledge is so low, and thus we get the actual basics without a subtext of assumed knowledge.

Another thing that is refreshing is her reaction to some of the skills she learns (She takes a childlike delight in boiling water with hot rocks), and her disgust at some of things she has to do to survive.

The show also has going for it the fact that unlike some shows,the Hawkes fail. In the initial season, at least one of their ‘missions’ results in failure when they cannot achieve their goals and Mykel Hawke considers them dead, had it been a real situation. In at least one other episode, one of them would likely have died, had there not been a crew on hand to intervene in a medical emergency.

All in all, it is a somewhat different take on the usual hair- chested approach to survival. While it has its faults, it is worth watching for the male/female dynamic and female viewpoint alone.

Next week it's back to our tool series.

Originally posted June 20 , 2011 @MPN

Bang for the Buck

I’m a day late. Generally, I try to post every Sunday, but had a small emergency that delayed me. Anyways, here goes.

I’m a regular reader of many survival or preparedness related blogs. And on these blogs, you’ll often find equipment reviews. Heck, I do a few myself. What annoys me is that with all of these reviews, the reader is often being told that this knife, this rifle, that water filter or the newest bit of load bearing equipment is, if not touted as THE way to go, then at least ‘one of the very best’ out there. And that can lead to gear envy.

Yup, the dreaded gear envy. Sadly, no one is reviewing your old Puma-Tec knife and singing its praises. No reviewer is talking about your old Remington 870 Wingmaster and extolling it as the best thing since sliced bread. And so it goes, on and on in every category of gear you can imagine. The marketplace has or is going to come up with something better than what you have, and aren’t you a schmuck for not having it?.

If you’re smart, you’ll realize that your old 870 will do the job, and getting a 12 gauge with a military styled stock in black or camo will not make you a better shot. Having the latest in ‘combat’ knives will not make you a more deadly knife fighter. ( In fact, two things about that: 1. If there is somebody in arm’s reach trying to hurt you, you’ve already screwed up royally. 2. To quote a novel and a recent TV program: “Stick them with the pointy end”. But I digress….)

In reality, newer fancier gear will not significantly improve your survivability. There is something called the 80/20 principle that runs something like this: 80% of your result is achieved with the first 20% of inputs. The remaining 80 % of input will increase your result only an additional 20%. An interesting business principle, but how does that apply to us?

What it means is that a good, serviceable knife will do the job. The extra ‘oomf’ you get from a bigger fancier knife will cost you a lot of bucks for marginal improvement. The same goes for firearms, water filters, binoculars and almost every piece of equipment I can think of.

The only place I don’t see that being the case is with food and water. There, another week’s worth of supplies is just that. It a definite one to one, where the value received is exactly the same per unit of input regardless of the amount of input.

So think about it the next time you are trying to decide between more storage food and a new rifle, or more water and a shiny Rambo knife: Decide where the best value for your dollar is. Make sure you’re putting out 20% for an 80% result, and not the other way around.

It's common sense.

Originally posted June 20, 2011 @ CPN

I was at a political meeting today. There are elections slated for this fall, and the candidates and those working for them have the opportunity to go to ‘election schools’. These are seminars designed to get everyone familiar with the thrust of the campaign and the ins and outs of the process, and that is what I attended. I returned disillusioned.

Although I’ve been on the fringes of politics before, I’ve been inactive for some time and I had forgotten how much extremism resides in any party, especially among the true believers, those completely and utterly committed to a political idea. Frankly, it sickened me and is making me rethink my commitment to work for the candidate, but it reminded me that extremes are part of everything.

I consider extremism in any form highly dangerous. A party that cannot consider the other side of an issue will, if in power, attempt to suppress those other views by some means. It may be as mild as labeling those ideas ‘unpatriotic’ as we saw done in the USA when people with reservations about the invasion of Iraq spoke up, or it could be as harsh as what we are seeing in Libya and Syria these days.

So it also goes with people. A person that is extreme in their beliefs, whether political, religious or racial, will not see you as fully human, and will think of you as the enemy. If you are the enemy, they will feel fully justified in doing whatever they think is necessary to you in order to obtain their goals. Whether it is a seizure of goods, or money, restriction of rights, or even drafting your services in an emergency, they will do it. It’s a really good reason to stay clear of people, organizations, and if you can, governments that show signs of being too extreme.

If you can do that, there is only one extremist you need to watch for: you. It is too easy in the survival and preparedness game to become invested in a particular viewpoint. The right firearm, the right bug-out vehicle, bugging-out versus bugging-in, the net is overflowing with people who are absolutely sure their way is the right and only way to prepare. In fact, it seems that the more extreme are your views, the more popular your blog will be.

In my opinion, that rigidity of thought is a dangerous thing. When you become wedded to a point of view, there is a distinct possibility that you will not recognize when conditions have changed and that your viewpoint is no longer valid, perhaps invalidating many of your preps. As an example, take the Manitoba flooding this year. Had a major crisis occurred at the height of the emergency, bugging out might have been impossible for some people. Had you based everything on the unshakeable conviction that you would be able to get out in your tricked out SUV or other ultimate vehicle, you might have been stuck before you even started.

A silly example, but what it means is this: Have two (or more) ways of getting out, realize that there is more than one way to purify water, to provide food, or to defend yourself, and that things could go bad in ways that you’ve never thought of and for which you are unprepared. If you are flexibly minded you’ll deal far better with that than someone locked into their own particular world view.

Do as the Buddhists do, and find the Middle Path, that neutral, unbiased state open to all things.


It’s common sense.