Bushcraft Magazine Free Article

The survival kit that nature provides

By Joe O'Leary, Wilderness Survival Skills

As a young squaddie with a prior history of running feral in the woods from an early age, a survival kit was one piece of equipment that permanently lived in my pocket. This little tin box put together lovingly contained a number of tiny, life saving bits and bobs, serving as my perennial comfort blanket when living and working out in the field. In the event of an emergency survival situation the tin would be deployed and my troubles would be over. The ‘what if’ box had been well and truly ticked.

Several decades later, with some interesting experiences under my belt, I have a slightly different perspective on survival kits and being prepared. This stems from several occasions where my survival kit might have been useful, but was nowhere to be seen. My approach nowadays is one that primarily focuses on training and knowledge over equipment; the development of the ability to readily improvise or adapt equipment and the study of ancient techniques, skills and crafts that once helped people to live in a world without survival tins.

This is an approach that does away with the worrying feeling of a total dependency on kit. By tracing everything back to its bare bones we also begin to understand the intricacies of a particular survival skill. Once you’ve managed to light a fire using the handmade bow and drill friction method, you can light a fire with anything. The focus switches from the seemingly, all important method of ignition to the careful preparation of the materials.

Fire lighting is actually all about the preparation; normally it’s only when you start rubbing sticks together that this becomes apparent. Being able to utilise the resources that nature offers may take a little more time and energy than just reaching inside a tin for a match, snare or fishing hook, but it’s a more sustainable, long term solution. After all, you don’t know how long you’ll have to wait for rescue (you might not even want to be rescued...) and you can only fit so much in a tin. Also, honed improvisational skills and an understanding of traditional wilderness living techniques are far more likely to be of use when the brown, sticky stuff hits the fan, as sods law dictates you won’t have anything that even resembles a survival tin in your pocket.

Before continuing further I should point out that I still carry a survival kit but have tailored its contents to realistically help me or somebody else survive an unexpected overnight situation in an exposed, outdoor environment and get back to safety. Even with the obvious advantages of having a good working knowledge of natural resources and how they can assist us, you would have to be barmy to head off into the wilderness ill-prepared. My standard kit nowadays consists of:

This kit is slightly larger than the classic tobacco tin, instead now living in a small waterproof drybag (can also be used to carry water) which can be carried easily in a belt pouch or packed as part of an ultra-lightweight hiking kit.

However, it’s not enough just to carry a survival kit like this one. The wise and well prepared bushcrafter understands the importance of each component and knows how to use it effectively, but more importantly, has the knowledge to improvise a replacement if needed. What follows is a natural alternative option for each of the above essential survival items. The important thing to remember is that these are last resorts that will only be an effective option if practiced. Through practice, confidence in the technique is developed and ultimately, a huge amount of confidence in your own abilities.

A method of providing shelter and retaining body heat:

Without equipment, your first priority here is to look for natural shelter of some sort which can provide immediate protection and possibly be improved upon. If you have the natural resources available you could build 48BUSHCRAFT & SURVIVAL SKILLS MAGAZINE Follow Bushcraft & Survival Skills Magazine on Facebook BUSHCRAFT & SURVIVAL SKILLS MAGAZINE49 a thermally efficient, tailor-made home for the night, minimising heat loss through convection and conduction (basically cutting out the wind chill and providing insulation between you and the heat sapping ground). Even without a cutting tool a shelter can be constructed using mainly dead wood and thin, snap-able saplings. For one person, a simple kennel shelter can be knocked up in this way in around an hour. Be wary of setting up home in a dangerous location and consider your site carefully, allowing for maximum energy efficiency. Have your building and thatching materials close by, but remember that if you need to be rescued you must still be able to be seen. Of course, some environments have fewer obvious resources but you can bet that people lived there at one time or another – there are very few places we haven’t set up home in the past. Be inventive and adaptable to your situation and surroundings.

Reliable fire lighting equipment:

Creating fire has huge importance to the survivor, making many other tasks easier and life more bearable. Assuming you have absolutely no way of improvising a method of lighting fire (and there are many!) you may have to resort to rubbing sticks together, creating fire by friction. This involves abrading one dry, seasoned wood component at speed against or into another dry, seasoned wood component, both woods consuming each other in the process creating a hot, black wood dust which is heated to the point where it smoulders and in turn ignites finely teased tinder materials to produce flame. This has quite rightly become the archetypal image of the bushcrafter, as it encompasses so many other important skills along the way. Firstly you must know the differing qualities of wood for carving, burning and using as a tool.

Knowledge of different tinder materials is useful, as is an intimate understanding of how to build a fire from a spark. You must be familiar with working wood and, for the bow drill (the most reliable friction fire lighting method), able to make strong cordage from natural fibres. Additionally you must have a certain amount of patience, perseverance and confidence in the technique. All this comes from practice, getting out there and doing it!

Signaling equipment:

Your only limit is your imagination here, but key to the whole concept of attracting attention is providing a contrast to your surroundings so a rescuer will notice you. This can be achieved by simply using darker coloured rocks or logs to write SOS in sand or snow, but often fire wins out again here. All over the UK you’ll find old beacons positioned on high points, built to contain a blazing fire in order to pass pre-arranged signals from county to county. The smoke from a fire has long been used as a signaling device too. Combining smoke and fire, a signal fire tripod is relatively easy to make incorporating a platform halfway up to hold your pre-prepared fire. Above this, all around the apex of the tripod, arrange a thick thatch of green foliage. This has the dual purpose of protecting your tinder and kindling from rain but also creating plumes of white smoke as it burns, perfect for penetrating the tree canopy and creating contrast with the surrounding darker treetops. In exposed areas, three signal fires in a triangle will be a much more obvious call for help than one (which could just be a beach barbeque). Keep a good bundle of kindling dry and ready to transfer flame from your campfire to your signal fire at the merest hint of a search being conducted in the distance.

A multi use cutting tool:

A metal cutting tool is of great help to the survivor, but without one you will most definitely have to adapt your expectations slightly. Log cabins and long boats will be out of the question! There are several naturally occurring materials which can be shaped to produce a sharp cutting edge. Bone and antler are both extremely tough materials, just needing to be abraded against sandstone to grind down an edge. Even bamboo has been used to make sharp blades, tools and weapons.

Flint and similarly structured rocks will provide a fantastically sharp edge when broken. Despite there being some incredible and talented flint knappers; to create a simple sharp edge purely requires brute force to break open a nodule or shatter a smaller section, (please wear eye protection at all times when breaking glassy rocks). Even searching around in badger excavations might turn up a good piece of broken flint capable of carving green and seasoned wood or skinning and butchering wild game. A number of different sized and shaped flinty sections make a perfectly good substitute for your multi tool.

Water collection and purification kit:

Without modern water collecting and sterilising equipment you’ll need to fall back on nature’s know how. You must first have knowledge of how and where to find water in a wilderness landscape, but once you’ve found it, generally speaking it should be filtered and sterilised to ensure that drinking it doesn’t make you ill. Nature provides many materials which are capable of holding water, some are ready to use and others will need the touch of a crafts person to help things along. Large leaves, tree bark, cleaned out animal skins, stomachs and bladders, large egg shells, hollowed out wood and even tightly coiled baskets lined with pine resin have been used in days gone by. If possible, filter your wild water through a fine mesh to remove sediment. This can be easily substituted by rolling large leaves or bark into a cone, packing with non toxic moss (sphagnum is ideal), charcoal or sand and just letting the precious liquid drain through. Sterilising water without purification chemicals or a metal pot to boil it in is more of a challenge but can be achieved by adjusting your expectations once more. As long as you have a natural container capable of holding water, rocks can be heated in your fire and carefully placed into the water using wooden tongs to boil it from inside. Brush as much of the ash off as you can first and please be careful when heating rocks as they can split open, sometimes firing red hot shrapnel in all directions. Use solid, granite type rocks and never use glassy, flinty or flakey rocks as they really go off with a bang!

Emergency, high energy food ration:

Most of us have at least a few Mars bars worth of stored energy cleverly built in around our waistlines but it takes a few days of feeling incredibly hungry and low on energy before our bodies start to tap into this resource. Depending on your location and the season at that time, nature can provide a meal if you have the knowledge. An in-depth knowledge of edible flora should provide you with a fairly easy meal, but gathering enough to truly sustain you at most times of the year can be difficult. By combining an understanding of edible plants and how to process them into usable food, with a working knowledge of hunting, trapping, fishing and tracking you’ll have all bases covered. For maximum energy return, edible roots are often your best bet, with seeds, nuts and fruits following closely behind. Edible wild greens are useful to remain healthy and keep everything working as it should. Wild meat often provides a better return of calories than gathering wild plants, especially in the winter months. The valuable by-products of using animals as a food source (skins, bones, antlers, sinews) cannot be overlooked either. Dedicated hunting or fishing trips can be time and energy consuming, also requiring the ability to make specialised equipment so you should aim to be opportunistic in all senses of the word. Adapt your expectations once again; anything that flies, walks, wriggles or swims is potentially fair game (as long as it’s not trying to eat you...). While you’re digging up that edible root, pop a few worms and woodlice into your pockets too!

Basic equipment repair kit:

Often referred to as the fifth priority of survival (after shelter, fire, water and food), the ability to make strong bindings from natural materials is an essential component in the bushcrafter’s arsenal. Teach yourself as many different methods and materials as you can. Twisting green hazel or willow will produce a strong binding known as a ‘withy’ while many tree barks can be stripped from a cut limb to make both binding and finer cordage. Flexible conifer roots make fantastic binding materials. Nettles (amongst many other plants) have very strong outer fibres that can be easily removed, dried and twisted into string. Animal hide and sinews make the strongest natural cordage there is. Twisting fibres into string is definitely a skill to develop as this processing encourages uniformity which is the secret to the cord’s strength.

Navigational equipment:

Telling direction without a compass is really all about the study of your environment. Spend time learning and understanding how the sun moves through the sky throughout the day and how this affects the growth of trees and plants. Additionally, know the important constellations at night and how these can be used to find direction. Even certain formations in the landscape can be attributed to the prevailing wind direction. All of these factors should be considered and used as often as possible in conjunction with modern direction finding equipment to encourage familiarity and confidence with the technique.

As I’m sure you’ve started figure out, each of the above alternative options is a specialised subject in its own right. As you delve deeper it becomes clear that the more you learn, the more you realise there is to learn. A lifetime of learning won’t be enough! However, it is possible to reach a basic level fairly quickly, certainly sufficient for your skills to become a realistic back up option to your carried survival kit. But you MUST get out there and practice. By practicing with and without carried survival kit, your personal survival in an emergency becomes more about what YOU are capable of and less about how good your kit is.