Improvise 10 things from a Douglas Fir Tree

Greg Davenport

Greg Davenport

Joined
Nov 29, 1999
Messages
632
Note: Try to answer this before reading the responses of others.

You find yourself in a longterm survival situation (reasons unknown). You have limited resources...yet you still have to meet your "five survival needs".

Following my survival step by step process you:

1. Stop and recognize the situation for what it is.

2. Recognize and prioritize your "five survival essentials" (listed below) in order of importance.

3. Improvise to meet your needs ("five essentials").

while going through the steps of improvising you inventory your manmade and natural materials. One of the things in this inventory is a forest filled with Douglas Fir trees (evergreen). Each tree has dead branches at the bottom 1/6th of the tree.

Question:

List at least ten things you can improvise from the various parts of the Douglas Fir tree. With each improvised use...list which one of the "five survival essential" category it falls under.

Five survival essentials"

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire)
2. Siganling (manmade and improvised)
3. Sustenance (water and food)
4. Travel (with and without a map and compass)
5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries)

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Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
????????

Considering that I have never had any around me, this should be a HIGHLY instructional thread for me!

OK, guys! Let me know what one can do with one of these trees!!
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Plainsman :)
primitiveguy@hotmail.com


 
Mmmmm.... Fir....


The branches, cut green with needles on, make great ground cushions to sleep on, and tolerable overhead rain protection when laid right in a shelter. The rest of the tree would be rather nice as a framework too...
smile.gif


If you are lucky enough to find a tree killed by lightning, or other sudden, traumatic death, and old enough to have thoroughly dried, look for one of the best natural firestarters in the US. Pitchwood. Old, dried, sap-laden wood is highly flammable, and when shaved fine, with a knife at almost a 90 degree angle to fuzz off almost a powder, burns like oil, but lights as easy as old dryer lint. Fantastic. Take some home with you. A big chunk.

The needles can be made into a great tasting tea, and I've been told it has vitamins in it too.

Bark from a large old tree can supplement your shelter roof, or cover it entirely if you have enough. It also works well for a plate, and tolerably for plank cooking.

When piled high on top of a loose, large log cabin fire lay, with a supply of good tinder/kindling nearby, the green branches make for a _great_ smoke-fire, easily lit in a few minutes, to signal rescuers.

Old dried sap chunks on the tree can be used for many things, from water-proofing drinking containers, to glueing camp gadgets, to chewing gum. (don't chew as gum until you've tried the tea. Your mouth will taste like Tree for at least a day. Only bad if you don't like Tree.)

As depicted in the Martin Deadfall thread, trees of many kinds can be turned into deadfalls.

And last, but never least, they make fairly nice christmas trees.

Stryver

 
1. shelter should be easy enough, either use spaces under trees where the branches hang near the ground(should work especially well when snowy) or break off some of the longer dead branches, and kinda make a frame out of them, and use live branches(with needles) for cover.
1. dry needles should provide decent tinder, and all the dead branches should provide good, dry, quick-burning easy to gather fuel.
1. use a bunch of branches for bedding(might be slightly pricky)
2. branches and needles should make decent fire signals, maybe green stuff for smoke? or just needles? if its snowy out, you may be able to write a message in the snow by scattering a bunch of needles, or using branches
3. i thinkyou can eat the needles, or maybe the inner bark like they were talking about with pines before, maybe the seeds on the cones? anyways, there is bound to be bugs around/in/on the trees...
3. could probablly use needles to make tea
3. use larger dead branches(with sharpened spikes maybe?) as deadfall traps, maybe use smaller trees as pop-up snares. make spears out of branches.
3. may be able to find bird nests in tree, if in season either with eggs or baby birds?
4. use branch as digging stick for bugs, maybe rodents?
4. might be able to fashion poor snowshoes out of branches, by looping ends around or soemthing.
4. use a dead branch/twig for the stick in the ground shadow compass type directional thing.
4. could climb up in tree to look around(maybe not if there are lots of other trees), they should be fairly easy to climb
5. people were talking about extracting turpentine from pine bark, not sure if there is any in fir or not. could use sticks as splint material, perhaps?
5. pinecones could be fun to play with, throw around, burn in fire for mental health?

few other things, not sure what category
possibly boil sap to create a pitch type substance for gluing/sealing?
maybe use smaller roots as cordage?(braided together if needed)

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AKTI member #A000911

 
Greg,

I really like these excercises, by the way!

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire)

Friction fire kits can be made from fir. Obviously, wood for fires. Shelter from the boughs. Wood for traps.

2. Signaling (manmade and improvised)

Smoke signals? How about using logs to spell out "Help!"

3. Sustenance (water and food)

Is fir cambium edible? With all those firs, there's gotta be water somewhere.

4. Travel (with and without a map and compass)

Use the wood to make a sun compass or use the Shadow-stick method to find a direction to travel.

5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries)

Make splints or a travois for transportation.

Mike
 
Mike,

I am glad that you are enjoying the improvising exercises. I believe that a major part of wilderness survival is improvising (lots of things contribute to survival...).

Thinking through these exercises is a great opportunity to develop your improvising brain...so it will be ready to go to work when you need it.

Keep up the good work...

Best,

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
BTTT.

Just wanted to give new board members a chance to challenge their improvising skills.

Best,

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
I have not used Fir for this use but I am sure you could climb up and get a green or semi-green branch and shape it into a decent bow for taking small game.

BTW, if you take the branches and shingle them back and forth the length of your body plus 1 foot and piled 1 foot high when compressed you have one of the most comfortable beds you can imagine, forget that Thermarest!!!!

There have been some great replies and this thread brings back some great memories from training. Thanks Greg!!!

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Yol bolsun,
Jamie
 
Douglas Fir. Hmmm... I've primarily dealt with ponderosa's, so I'll assume there is not a very substantial difference in the materials available.

1. Shelter. build shelter type of choice, leant to, wigwam, curl up in pine needles at base of tree, etc.

2. Use fresh boughs for warm and soft pad to sleep on.

3. Fire. You can burn it. I don't know of any exceptional tinder on firs, but small, dried, twigs always help in firebuilding. The dried sap balls can be used to help start damp larger stuff. Dried needles burn beautifully.

4. You can make tea from the leaves and the inner bark. I think I once heard that you get some vitamin or another from this, but I've heard many odd and assorted medical things, and doubt most of them. regardless, the tea tastes good.

5. You can chew on the old sap balls like gum. Again, no clue about nutrition, but they taste good (then, I like gin too). For this purpose, the older the sap ball, the better.

6. Green boughs can be used for signalling. You can lay them out on snow, or dirt, to form ground signals, and you can pile them hough and build a fire underneath for a smoke generator.

7. Pine cones can be tediously picked over for seeds to eat.

8. Needles can be used to help sew looser woven cloth.

9. Midden piles at base can be dug into after medium or heavier rain to find dry tinder, even if the surface is wet. This probably wouldn't work in Seattle, but it works in Colorado after a heavy thunderstorm. Midden piles also make for great insulation to sleep on.

10. A long branch cut and trimmed slightly will make an expediant make-shift travios, and will double by wiping out tracks (And leaving a big swath of wiped out trail...
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)


Stryver
 
No Fair! You tricked me into posting again on this one! Though at least I posted similar things both times...
smile.gif



Stryver, who does miss the improvisation threads...
 
Douglas fir forest:

Shelter: using poles and branches. Needle leaves and branches for bedding.
Smoky signal fires from branches. Dry leaves as tinder, pitch as tinder/fire starter. Fire drill from dried wood.
Pitch collected for use as glue, trapping small birds, waterproofing things.
Food: inner bark ground into a flour substitute, needles into tea (?), seeds can be obtained from cones by putting them close to fire.
One can dig shelter in snow under lowest branches.

Best,

HM
 
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