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New Book and an author I've never heard of before.

M

mrappraisit

Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
524
So saturday my wife and I went to a local antiques mall and I actually found a really cool bushcrafty type book titled "Outdoor Survival Skills" by Larry Dean Olsen. I noticed the book was like new and was only $4.50 so it went home with me. Well I have been busy and have only read about twenty pages but it's a pretty amazing book. This book really focuses on using primitive stoneage tools, with what looks to be pretty comprehensive lessons on stone napping, weaving and cordage, shelter, basically everything you need to actually live in the wild, not just till you get "found". The plant identification and use sections seems especially large and was written in southern Utah and Idaho, so it deals with plants that I can actually find here in the West, instead of the Hardwood forests of Canada and so on.
Anybody else ever read this book? Any thoughts on the author Larry Dean Olsen?

Link to book:
http://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Survival-Skills-Larry-Olsen/dp/1556523238
 
I'm fairly certain I have the book somewhere, though I don't recall the contents. May have to hunt it up now.
 
Larry Dean Olsen is the real deal. I first bought his book back in the 60s, lent it to someone, and it never came back.
Then I bought the second one, and at that time, I vowed I would never lend a book out again, and I don't.

Back in the 60s, it was one of very few books available on the subject.

Best $4.50 you'll ever spend! :thumbup:

Doc
 
One of my favorite outdoor books. As I recall, a lot of the material he taught eventually went into the Air Force's SERE program. Native American skills had a strong influence on him.

DancesWithKnives
 
DOC-CANADA said:
Larry Dean Olsen is the real deal. I first bought his book back in the 60s, lent it to someone, and it never came back.
Then I bought the second one, and at that time, I vowed I would never lend a book out again, and I don't.

Back in the 60s, it was one of very few books available on the subject.

Best $4.50 you'll ever spend! :thumbup:

Doc
Click to expand...
Doc- i'm already getting that impression. I was reading in bed last night and I kept saying Wow, so now my wife wants to read it.

DWK2 said:
One of my favorite outdoor books. As I recall, a lot of the material he taught eventually went into the Air Force's SERE program. Native American skills had a strong influence on him.

DancesWithKnives
Click to expand...
I can totally see that, especially with his methods of grinding seeds and nuts into flours, and the medicinal plant list is pretty huge in this book. I have seen many of these methods demonstrated on the Navajo and Apache reservations before, for us tourists.

Talfuchre said:
Olsen was quite essential in a 'return to primitive' movement that has taken place after his book.

TF
Click to expand...

It does seem that way. I have read more about him now that he's "on my radar", it's pretty interesting that his book came from a course he taught for a major university (BYU). I wonder if any other universities still have programs like this?
 
Christopher Nyerges had courses out in California. I forget which one but there were run out of a major university. Exchanged letters with him and he was quite nice and had a lot of knowledge to share. His books were available thru the old "American Survival Guide" magazine..might still be some around and of interest to you.
 
I recently attended the Dirttime 2009 wilderness skills gathering, of which Chris was one of the prime organizers. He's a very capable instructor with a wealth of knowledge. Publishes Wilderness Way magazine. www.christophernyerges.com

DancesWithKnives
 
Anrkst6973, DWK2 – Thanks for the info guys. I checked his website, it looks very interesting. My mom lives in SD so come springtime I may be able to do a combo long weekend trip to take one of the classes. For now I looked up an Edible/Medicinal plants walking tour at really good local Arboretum. I included a link below in case any other people in the valley are interested:

Boyce Thompson Arboretum – Edible and medicinal plants guided walk:
http://ag.arizona.edu/bta/events.html
 
One point Chris made about our local vegetation is not to eat something that looks like carrot tops or parsley. Apparently we have a lot of hemlock growing wild in the foothills and it can take you out pretty quickly. Of course, most of it is probably now "roasted" hemlock....

DancesWithKnives
 
Excellent book. A lot of people have respun Olsen's work and called it their own over the last three or four decades. Here's to the wickiup! Some might think that is gorging on Wikipedia or something. :D
 
DOC-CANADA said:
Larry Dean Olsen is the real deal. I first bought his book back in the 60s, lent it to someone, and it never came back.
Then I bought the second one, and at that time, I vowed I would never lend a book out again, and I don't.

Back in the 60s, it was one of very few books available on the subject.

Best $4.50 you'll ever spend! :thumbup:

Doc
Click to expand...

Thank you! You beat me to it Doc!
 
I, too, bought this book back in the 60's, and I, too, loaned it out. You can guess the rest, of course. If I remember correctly, it was one of the first books of its type that I bought (it was either that or Bushcraft by Richard Graves, which I still have). The only other book I had back then was an old (really old) military survival manual. I thought the survival manual was pretty cool, until I got Olsen's book. Wow! Entire new worlds opened up for me with that book! I loved it.

If you managed to score Outdoor Survival Skills for $4.50, you got a truly great deal. It's easily worth ten times that in good, solid information.
 
He's a pretty awesome teacher from what I heard. I got this book back in the 90s (be quiet ya'll, I was like 10 then :P ) and loved it. Just recently a buddy of mine showed me a osage rabbit stick that Larry carved for him. Utterly FANTASTIC.
 
That was the 1st survival book I bought when I was 13:thumbup:
I think I am going to give it to my nephew when he turns 13

It is one of my fav survival books to this day...........
 
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