Wliderness and Survival Skills

[MikeH]

I decided to put this in a new thread, rather than to hijack
the other one. An issue has bugged me for quite a while, and my 31 year old son is an example of it.

I grew up in the country, on a small farm in a family of cotton mill hands. There were so many things that we just seemed to grow up knowing. About most of them I have no sense of a beginning or learning point, they were just part of our lives. Things like: how to use tools, how to sharpen knives, how to build fires and cook, how to trap, sleep out at night, run a trot-line, tree and plant identification, outdoor navigation, slaughtering and butchering animals from chickens and rabbits up through hogs. I cannot remember a time, even when very young, when I did not carry a good knife and have ready access to firearms.

Where do kids learn these things anymore? Some people might consider them anachronisms but they can still quickly become essential life skills in the right situations.
My son decided eary in life that he was an athelete. Physically gifted, he tried it all, from team sports to track and wrestling. That was his only interest. I could never interest him in hunting, fishing, the outdoors. Tried Boy Scouts one year but he was indifferent to it. I have skills that he might one day badly need, and he has absolutely no desire to learn them.

The best possible sources I can think of for such experiences are, to grow up surrounded by it as I was, an interested adult or friend (but you have to have the desire to absorb it), and Boy Scouts (which in some locales has been terribly watered down), and possibly the military.

My former employer, a large electric utility, had a procedure for testing possible new hires into labor classifications. It is amazing how many physically impressive specimens wash out because they do not know even the most simple tool use. I watched a large, athletic looking young guy as he was totally baffled trying to dig a hole with hole diggers, and healthy young people who could not cope with climbing a high platform on a long extention ladder and lowering a bucket full of rocks on a rope to ground level, things that I have no doubt I could easily do even now at age 62. It was unbelievable how many people that somewhat 'springy' ladder washed out.

It is great that some people are still interested and that such resources as "Wilderness and Survival Skills" exist, although they do tend to deal inordinately in minutiae.
More power to them, I just wish that more people (like my son) cared about this stuff.

 

[barrabas74]

I agree with you, I have worked on my familys farm/s since I was kid. Spending my summers there cutting hay, putting up fence, tending to the animals, hunting, fishing, trapping etc. My brother did not do much of that and as such does not have half the skills I have. He also doesnt seem to have the love for the woods or nature that I do, he does love photography though and that gets him out with me. I also was in the cub and boy scouts and have rafted/kayaked for years.

I am not sure what to do, it baffles me as well that people dont do simple things like change there sparkplugs or oil or know how to use simple tools. Most of my friends consider me a "redneck" and what not, even though I work in the IT department and live in the suburbs:yawn:.

I have a freind that wants to learn these skills and it baffles others that he wants to learn them. But I think he see's them as useful while others do not. Most people think they'll never need things like land navigation, map reading, I mean thats what a GPS is for right?

 

[Jeepnut22]

Very good points...

I wasn't exposed that much to this kind of stuff when I was growing up (Mom brought me up, and father is a bumbling idiot). As a young adult, I was more interested in women and cars...

Only now, am I starting to really take an interest. And I am trying to instill this in my son. So far, I am lucky as he really likes being outdoors and investigating nature. Too young to start with knives and tools, but it's a matter of time for sure.

 

[knife hunter]

well we have a fairly safe place to learn in WV


but the area can get ugly, hard, cold and uninhabitable at times in a hurry.

Knowing that you can build a fire quick if ya fall in the river or get an unexpected shower
can save your life.

Luckily the place is covered in Birch trees. Just pull the paperbark off. It comes off in threads and will burn normally even when wet.

Incredible natural fire starter.

Now resinguy will chime in soon and bust me for using lighter fluid and newspapers this last weekend


but when you have to take everything including the kitchen sink in two truck/van loads for three kids anyway.

A little paper and lighter fluid is easy

 

[Cutshaw]

My youth was spent as the semi-urban hoodlum. Playing in creeks, junkyards, climbing fences and trees. Lots of other general miscreant activity that I won't go into here.

My actual wilderness/outdoors experience came later when I moved to East Tennessee from Florida in my late teens. Years of whitewater kayaking, wilderness rescue classes, and general outdoors meandering gave me a lot more exposure. I still need to flesh out more hunting/field dressing time.

My kids? 4 year old is on his way but the 7 year old girl has begun to be the outdoors companion. Ya gotta limit that video time, in my opinion.

What was once a way of life for the rural resident, now has to be sought out. Too many kids spend their time glue to the tube - PC or TV.

Camille thinks a healthy enjoyment of mud is important too.

 

[moonwilson]

It's very difficult to learn wilderness or survival skills when you live in the city, or even practice the ones you already have. I had the benefit of summers spent on family farms in West VA and southern VA when I was growing up, and my father and grandfather taught me a lot. I am going to make it a point to pass on what they taught me to my son, whether he's interested or not. I plan on taking him camping often once he's old enough. And send him off to grandpa's farm to learn what he can't by camping. There is no excuse for not knowing how to start a fire, how to shoot, or how to skin and clean a rabbit.

 

[barrabas74]

One thing I noticed its not really worth it to trap anymore, in my dads day he trapped for money. When he taught me to trap it was for a skill, and now people really seem to frown upon doing it even for control purposes. It is seen as barbaric. I can trap with anything from a figure 4, snare to a conibear but its really hard to practice or even impliment in most places.

 

[mhawg]

Tell it Mike!! I spent 30 years working outside in some capacity not to mention as you said growing up outside and in a rural setting. Posthole digger!! These kids can't, or won't dig a decent hole in sand with a shovel. Unfortunately it includes my kids but I think some of them just do a crappy job no matter how much help and instruction you give them so that you won't ask them to do it again.

I grew up in the country, on a small farm in a family of cotton mill hands. There were so many things that we just seemed to grow up knowing. About most of them I have no sense of a beginning or learning point, they were just part of our lives. Things like: how to use tools, how to sharpen knives, how to build fires and cook, how to trap, sleep out at night, run a trot-line, tree and plant identification, outdoor navigation, slaughtering and butchering animals from chickens and rabbits up through hogs. I cannot remember a time, even when very young, when I did not carry a good knife and have ready access to firearms.

Except for having ready access to firearms (Hey, my parents weren't CRAZY!*) I was involved in all of the above for the most part as recreation. My mother and my grandfather worked for the South Carolina Wildlife & M. R. Dept. and I truly can't remember how many times when I was young I would leave my house at 4:00 am with a Game Warden and a few black workers and build and repair fences, benches, boathouses, sheds...anything and after all that I got to go shoot dove or paddle a boat around the stocked pond at the Fish Hatchery and catch fat Bream and many other activities. That meant a fish fry or dove pie and a nice watermelon to bust open and gorge yourself on in the late afternoon. Even when I was older and worked summers at the state fish hatchery we helped built pole buildings with whittled pegs and mortise and tenon fittings which usually had to be cleaned up a bit to fit so that meant being up on that shaky ladder with a hammer and chisel. I know maybe somebody still does stuff like that but it sure isn't the punks I see wasting time around here. They think you're a chump for working that hard when you could run a cash register at the music store and live at home with M&P. They come running inside from a summer shower if they were outside at all. I have taught my sons to clean a fish and they know if you caught it you clean it. Face it, we're antiques, just old and in the way as far as they are concerned. Those were the days, now back to my CRT.

*I was a little crazy when I was young but I'm MUCH better now...

 

[tsiloics]

It's an interesting line of thought, to be sure.

I grew up in a largely outdoor/wilderness/woodcraft context, but generally sought that environment out on my own, as my parents and sibling had no interest. So I know what it's like to be the "outdoor" kid in the family.

Over the last 20 years or so, there seems to have been a lot of growth in the SHTF sort of mentality, with the BOB's, lots of guns, etc. Maybe it's just me getting more exposed to that thinking. I see this differently than I do basic outdoor skills, which I think are just part of a person's holistic development. Don't necessarily think the system's going to collapse, or even that my skills would suffice if it did, just think it's good to be tuned in on what you might call the 'wilderness engineering' level. Same as it's good to know how to build a motor, frame a house, wire basic circuitry... that sort of thing.

Our culture has definitely become less well associated with the outdoors. One big reason for this is the large shift from primary and secondary, to predominantly tertiary workers. Increasingly, we do vocational work involving abstract intellectual and technical tasks - as opposed to things like agriculture and construction. Another factor is the preponderance of electronic devices and other technologies. GPS, the Internet, cell phones... all these things have guided people into a more passive posture than they used to be in. Your car breaks down on the mountain pass, hey, call 911 on the cell. They'll come get you. That's not the way it was in 1975, let alone 1955.

Another trend is the downfall of physical fitness. Many otherwise fairly well-adjusted folks are so far out of condition that they wouldn't be able to perform basic tasks in the outdoors. Certainly a healthy adult ought to at least be able to run 5 miles, do 10 chins, climb rope, swim a mile, etc. Part of wilderness craft is simply being able to cover distance and perform manual labor.

In terms of the "survival" question, I guess my general thought is that we're all going to die sometime. You don't know what's going to get you. It does seem more likely than not that in our world, death will come from disease, accident or illness. Less likely that it will come from the failure to survive in the wild, although that certainly does happen to people all the time. Still, I look at all of this more in terms of personal style than survival. We only get one life to live, and my opinion is that one ought to live in a state of relative fitness and awareness.

 

[Hogwash]

Being a City Boy, I have decided to take the path of the bad guys in Water World.

When the SHTF scenario happens I will either be vaporized in the blast or I'll have enough small arms to take what I need. That is the easiest way to prepare so that's what I did.

 

[I'mGatMan!]

I come from an urban background. Aside from living in England as a young boy (where I tramped around in the woods and mud-filled fields) I have always been in a city. Now, as a 30 year old, I am hungry to learn a lot of what you are talking about.

My family hails from Puerto Rico and a lot of the ones there are still "Jibaros" (mountain, rural folk). They kill their pigs, grow fruit and veggies, ride around on atv's, etc... Whenever I am there, I feel soft.

And that's what too much "civilization" does to us. My grandfather, were he alive, would be proud that I'm an educated man, but he would be embarassed at what else I've become: soft, pudgy, unable to work with my hands. I think a lot of our forefathers would look at us and wonder what the hell had happened to men in general.,

I want to move away from that. I want to know how to live off the land, and work with my hands, to have the hardened sinew of a man who spends days in the sun working. There won't be much of that happening in Miami, however. That's why wifey and I are hoping to get up and out when the housing market corrects itself.

These skills are valuable ones, no doubt, and it's a shame we have to pick and move in order to learn them.

If anyone knows of wilderness/surival schools in Florida, please share that info with me.

 

[norcalblacktail]

There are still some of us young bucks that care about all that stuff. In fact Im off to mill some wood right now in order to build some raised beds. Pics later.

 

[idahoskunk]

mike i know exactly where you are coming from. living in idaho all my life we never had access to even the simplest bottle opener. we learned at an early age how to shoot the tops off our whiskey and beer bottles...

even to hand load the ammo to do it... you either loaded or stayed sober.

kids nowa days don't stand a chance

.

 

[westllen]

good post Mike!:thumbup::thumbup: near to the same here, my dad had me in the woods when I started to walk and remember like it was yesterday I was sitt'n on one of his knees work'in the sticks/levers of an old CAT or backhoe. Even driving out an old corn binder/International! And man those were the days ...wish I can go backwards!

I'm lucky all my children love the outdoors and hunting, fishing, camping, shooting and etc. The only sad thing lately is it's hard to get everyone together, either working or still in school.

excellent post Mike, thanks for making me think back!:thumbup:

Jules

 

[Rok]

... or I'll have enough small arms to take what I need. That is the easiest way to prepare so that's what I did.

You'd better be really good with your guns. You know, the people you'll have to take stuff away from are the ones that are prepared for survival, and you can bet that it also includes owning a firearm and being able to make use of it. So if I were you, I wouldn't rely solely on armament and try to develop some other useful skills as well. That's what I'm doing (aside from being armed), despite being a city dweller.

Just my 2 € cents.

Cheers,

Rok

 

[Tony G]

Being a City Boy, I have decided to take the path of the bad guys in Water World.

When the SHTF scenario happens I will either be vaporized in the blast or I'll have enough small arms to take what I need. That is the easiest way to prepare so that's what I did.

You are nuts

 

[Hogwash]

No, there will be plenty of other city dwellers running around with things I need, no guns and no clue.

 

[Guyon]

mike i know exactly where you are coming from. living in idaho all my life we never had access to even the simplest bottle opener. we learned at an early age how to shoot the tops off our whiskey and beer bottles...

even to hand load the ammo to do it... you either loaded or stayed sober.

kids nowa days don't stand a chance

.

dadgum fish shootin' Idahoans.... :grumpy:

I've tried to help my little boy be mechanically inclined and enjoy the outdoors, but you never know. He might have different ideas on down the road. I show him how things work, and he already has plenty of tools of his own. We went fishing yesterday, and he caught 11, including a nice sized catfish. He's excited about Thursday because we're camping out, and I promised he could cut some bacon with the Swiss Army knife he knows I keep locked back for him. I might not can give him much, but as long as I'm around, he'll know how to use post hole diggers and climb a ladder. Maybe I'll devise a test he has to pass before he can get his driver's license.

I value my practical knowledge as much or more than my academic knowledge, and I hope he's the same way, but who knows?

Now resinguy will chime in soon and bust me for using lighter fluid and newspapers this last weekend

Pics please.

 

[I'mGatMan!]

You're tryna get a rise out of us, right Hogwash? It's that sentiment that's got me going NFA before the next Katrina.

 

[kdstrick]

I am not sure what to do, it baffles me as well that people dont do simple things like change there sparkplugs or oil or know how to use simple tools. Most of my friends consider me a "redneck" and what not, even though I work in the IT department and live in the suburbs.

Hahahaha... I get the same thing! I never really considered things like varmit calling "redneck", but it sure the hell freaked out some of my... um... less cultured buddies. I think it scared 'em a lil' bit. I'm not sure if it was the prospect of a predator coming in to the call, or the high-pitched squeeling that freaked them out. They still talk about it to this day. I just thought that kinda stuff was normal...

...and then there was this time I stomped a possum and told them it was a big rat... heehee.... now that was funny!