Some photos from a 2-night survival course in Sweden

G

Griffon

Joined
Mar 25, 1999
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I'm just home from a 48h, two nights, course in Sweden, which followed two evenings of theoretical classes. <a href="http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/tmp/kurs0105.html"><strong>The photos from it are here.</strong></a>

It was a basic course. But we sure got to know the effects of lack of food+work! And it was very good as to what practical things we learned.

A sample of the photos:
_kurs0105-g.jpg
_kurs0105-j.jpg
_kurs0105-k.jpg
_kurs0105-n.jpg
_kurs0105-s.jpg
_kurs0105-u.jpg


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Urban Fredriksson www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/

[This message has been edited by Griffon (edited 05-21-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Griffon (edited 05-21-2001).]
 
Awesome! I love seeing trip pics, at least I can PRETEND I'm not at work!
 
Nice photos, fun trip.
What did you use for fire starting? Everything looks too wet to me for fire drill. Am I right?
Nice pics.

HM
 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by HM:
What did you use for fire starting? Everything looks too wet to me for fire drill. Am I right?</font>
Click to expand...
I don't think it's "wet" which makes the bow drill impractical in Sweden, I think it's got more to do with what kinds of wood are available. We had one demonstrated, but it seldom actually lights a fire. There was also flint, steel and tinder as well as a chemical way to start the fire (but I can't recall what the substances are called in English, one's used to sterilize water with making it faintly purple).

We use ferrocerium rods. (Although actually the allowed equipment list included one match per person, but we didn't use them.) After trying out some different ones I'm going to replace the small one I've got as well as the one combined with magnesium with a larger one, as it really makes a difference in how good sparks you get.

The equipment list was basically
whatever warm clothes, sleeping bags and pads we wanted to bring,
a sharp knife,
a 1.5 liter PET bottle with ordinary water,
a 0.5 liter aluminium can (empty)
the survival kit we made before the outing (minus all but one of the matches), consisting of
two fish hooks,
fishing line,
a needle and some thread,
tripwire (thin steel wire),
waterproof(ed) matches,
a tiny first aid kit including four water purification tablets,
all packed in three film cans taped together and wrapped in a plastic bag.

 
Nice pics, Griffon! Looks like you guys had some fun.
smile.gif


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Hoodoo

I get some pleasure from finding a relentlessly peaceful use for a combative looking knife.
JKM
 
Griffon, thanks for the answer and the kit list.
The purple substance that is used for both desinfection and fire starting is most probably KMnO4 (potassium permanganate), a strong oxidizing agent.
What did you try as tinder? What would work well as natural tinder in Scandinavia?
Did you try flint and steel? How did it work? What tinder was used?
Thanks in advance.

HM
 
Pine needles for tea. I'm surrounded by pine needles
smile.gif
Which species ? What is the taste?
Here I go with Labrador tea. Any of that in Sweden ( jeeze first start tradng knives, what's next ?)

Yours in Conservation
Ken
 
Pine needles for tea. I'm surrounded by pine needles
smile.gif
Which species ? What is the taste?
Here I go with Labrador tea. Any of that in Sweden ( jeeze first start tradng knives, what's next ?)

Yours in Conservation
Ken
 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by hstdist:
Pine needles for tea. I'm surrounded by pine needles Which species ? What is the taste?
Here I go with Labrador tea.</font>
Click to expand...
I don't know what Labrador tea is.
Pine needle tea taste just fine, but you can't boil it too long.
The most common pine around here is Pinus sylvestris.

 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by HM:
What did you try as tinder? What would work well as natural tinder in Scandinavia?
Did you try flint and steel? How did it work? What tinder was used?
</font>
Click to expand...
What you can find is usually the outer layer of the bark of birch and yew. What you can make is from the fungus Fomes fomentarius which you treat a thin layer of, and is the only tinder which'll be practical with steel and flint. Takes too much practice, so none of use could get it to work.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
Last, what edible plants are around there?
</font>
Click to expand...
Depends on the time of year and theoretically there are probably more than we are taught to find and recognize, but training focuses on a small number of plants which are relatively easy to recognize and likely to exist over most of Sweden.

I've already mentioned the lichen <a href="http://fuv.hivolda.no/prosjekt/espelra/lavisland.htm">Lichen islandicus</a>, which you boil three times and throw away the water and then a fourth time for 20 min. There's also one long, stringy one growing on trees which we didn't find.

We also dug up roots from <a href="http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/apia/anthr/anthsyl2.html">Anthriscus sylvestris</a>, which is easy to confuse with two similar but poisonous plants (don't try it unless someone's taught you to recognize it) and <a href="http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nordflor/36.html">Taraxacum vulgare</a>.

The only berries or similar available this time of year is last year's <a href="http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/rosa/rosa/rosadum.html">Rosa dumális</a> (with the advantage that you don't have to remove the seeds as for fresh ones). 250 per day needed...
We also boiled som shoots of <a href="http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/urtica/urtic/urtidio.html">nettles</a>. Best tasting of it all.

<a href="http://home.swipnet.se/gillis-nordin/vaxter.htm">Our instructor's web page</a> with a longer list (I think the Latin names can be at least a bit of help, but the rest is of course in Swedish).




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Urban Fredriksson www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
 
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