Wliderness and Survival Skills

[LupaWolf]

This is an excellent topic.

When I was young, many of these things were called "life skills," at least by my parents. Today there are so many conveniences to make life easier, people see no need to learn life skills, just how to operate technology (like the aforementioned GPS).
When my Dad helped me get my first car, I was not allowed to drive the old thing until I knew how to check the oil, tire pressure, pump gas, ect. I also learned how to put up wall insulation, sheet rock, and paneling... we built a house when I was 12 and all us kids had to finish out our own rooms. Fishing, hiking, and such were part of life when I was young, but my oldest siblings quickly walked away from such things to pursue easier lifestyles. Their current health and dwindling common sense are testament to the problems of rejecting basic skills.

In today's society, what people call healthy is usually more about appearance than actual health and strength. It is a sad state of affairs, but true.

We are happy and fortunate that our daughter is interested in basic life skills. She enjoys learning new ways to make fire. She really enjoys getting to borrow Ghostwolf's Busse to learn all the different things one can do with a good knife. She is learning that part of choosing a quality blade is what you intend to use it for. She is trying in earnest to get us to purchase one for her to have of her own. (or to give her one of ours ) She enjoys going hiking with us, loves to go fishing, loves to cook both indoors and out. She knows about food and water storage, emergency procedures, first aid, cleaning game, ect.
We are doing our best to keep life skills educated people from being a dying breed. Hopefully, she will pass it on to the next generation.

 

[Guyon]

When I was young, many of these things were called "life skills," at least by my parents.

My folks called them "common sense," but they were definitely learned activities--just embedded into day-to-day life.

 

[XMP]

My folks are great and taught me alot about life. My Dad was great with tools and mechanical stuff, but they are really city folk and taught me virtually nothing about outdoor skill. We did camp in a travel trailer and went fishing some. But they didn't really teach me outdoor skill, and I desperately wanted to know. Through lots of experimenting, a military enlistment, and personal investigation (including BF's Wilderness & Survival sub-forum) I've developed some moderate outdoor skills. BUT I still wish whole-heartedly I'd had a mentor in these areas.

So, let me just say to those who don't find their own kids interested, there are kids who'd love to know those skills and would be thrilled if you took an interest in sharing. I know, because I was one.

 

[RussMo]

Xmp said it pretty good i think, "So, let me just say to those who don't find their own kids interested, there are kids who'd love to know those skills and would be thrilled if you took an interest in sharing. I know, because I was one."

I for one never had kids, and all of my family is still in LA & TX. I grew up outdoors, playing and then working. Had my first knife when I was about 6, first gun when I was 9. Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Explorer, then 15 + years military. Still hunt, fish, camp and maybe I should join a group or club and see if any of these kids want to learn about such stuff. Get them away from the joy stick and that eyed monster.

Just thinking outloud!

 

[silverdragon33]

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.

yeah, it is difficult to learn that stuff when you grow up in the city. i've started to develop an interest in these skills since becoming a knife nut.
anybody know of a good way to learn this stuff? don't really know anyone who's into this, but i suppose i could take some classes. i do live in a good area for it.

 

[Ken44]

You said it Mike:thumbup:

I was raised with woods all around and was taught by my older brother and father how to hunt, fish, etc.. at a young age. Me and my buddies were hunting alone by the age of 10. Started alot of backpacking and conoeing in my early teens and got stranded on the river at Dark many times(our concept of time was not so great in those days). We knew what to do and how to get through the night and never thought about it being called wilderness skills, were just doing what we knew to do.

When I built my house(did hire someone to do rock work) a neighbor let me use his well for a few years untill I could come up with funds for my own. Dug a ditch by hand over 300 yards across this rocky mountain. My nephew calls a few weeks ago needing to earn a few bucks so I tell him I need a small ditch dug, only about 15 feet. He come's up, I hand him the tools and he looks at me funny and says " by hand!???". So he got to hear my 300 yd ditch storey He still didn't want any part of it, so I told him I would call my sister and tell her not to be handing him out money when he's turning work down,LOL. He got on it, and when finished told me "that wasn't to bad", told him it never is once you quit whinning and get started.

Crap, I'm starting to sound like my parents, but I am much softer than they were. Living in the deep south through the depression they had no choice but to quit school and help the family live off the land.

 

[EAGLE1028]

Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”

Where you walk, your children will run.

I was blessed with active parents who loved the outdoors and I have shared the same joys with my kids since they were in diapers. It is our responsibilty to invest in them and teach them to survive outside the concrete jungle of suburban life.

 

[MikeH]

Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”

I thought it was, "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; he'll tell lies and wear funny hats."

 

[Grandsuave]

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

.

I wish I had a dad who would teach me those things too.:grumpy:

 

[hlee]

Where do kids learn about outdoor skills? The same place the majority of them learn about drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, bad manners, poor eating habits, and how to surf for porn... From their parents.

Got a kid? Take him or her fishing, hunting, camping, hiking, kayaking, scuba diving, etc.

I grew up in the city (Austin, TX). I live in the city now (Sunnyvale, CA). When I was growing up, my parents had 15 acres of land in South Texas (2 hr drive from home) where we ran a few head of cattle. We didn't live there, but we were there every weekend, building/repairing fence, clearing brush, and doing the things that one has to do to make a hobby ranch the money pit that it is supposed to be. A few years later we bought some more land, and leased a lot more than that.

My parents were not into camping and hiking and "roughing it." They openly joked that their idea of roughing it was no room service at the hotel. But, Dad likes to hunt, so he started taking me on deer hunting trips when I was about 5 or so. He got me into hunting, and I got to return the favor a few years ago (after graduating from graduate school) by getting him into bow hunting. I had a friend in the scouts, and I joined his troop. Ironically, shortly after attaining the rank of 1st class, the new scout master told me that I had "to get my priorities straight... [I could] go hunting or be a boy scout." (a hunting trip conflicted with a camping trip) I've continued hunting to this day.

When I first started dating my wife, she had never even been in the same building as a firearm (as far as she knew). Her dad had steered her toward team sports, but was not a hunter so she had no exposure. It did not take long to make her as much of a hunting fanatic as I am.

My son is 3.5 year old, and next year we are going to start camping with him. Car camping at first, then move onto short hikes. Last deer season he went out to the deer blind with me for the first time. He's got a short attention span so it didn't last more than a couple of hours, but it was on his initiative that he went with me.

It is amazing how little it takes to impress a woman. Tune up her car. Install a window air conditioner unit. Put together some furnature. Change your own oil. Till your yard. Build... SOMETHING, most anything will do.

This is an overly rambling post, but the short answer is... If you are concerned about the fundamental wilderness/outdoor/technical/automotive/agricultural knowledge of the next generation... do something about it. Take a kid hunting. Teach a shop class. Volunteer, somewhere. Organize a Busse Forum Camping Trip and Chopfest- Parents and children only. As for me, I will endeavor to take my son and one of his friends on all future camping and hunting trips- once they are of age, the friend/s is/are screened by me, and with parental approval.

Other than that, be glad that your son chose to be an athlete and not sit in front of his computer and play WoW or Second Life all day and night.

 

[Guyon]

Other than that, be glad that your son chose to be an athlete and not sit in front of his computer and play WoW or Second Life all day and night.

Good post, hlee, and this is exactly what I thought earlier in relation to MikeH's son.

Our satellite feed went down on the television a couple weeks ago. I'm thinking of leaving it down.

 

[I'mGatMan!]

yeah, it is difficult to learn that stuff when you grow up in the city. i've started to develop an interest in these skills since becoming a knife nut.
anybody know of a good way to learn this stuff? don't really know anyone who's into this, but i suppose i could take some classes. i do live in a good area for it.

Silver...you have a crapload of guys around you that are very much into the survivalist thing. Post a thread here and in W&S and you'll find plenty of help. I wish I had it that easy here in my neck of the woods. Florida is so damned flat anyway...

 

[roughedges]

Silver...you have a crapload of guys around you that are very much into the survivalist thing. Post a thread here and in W&S and you'll find plenty of help. I wish I had it that easy here in my neck of the woods. Florida is so damned flat anyway...

Except for the millions strong horde of competitors, south Florida would have to be the easiest place to survive in the lower 48. Food is everywhere; cabbage palm, saw palmetto, coconuts, and enough native and carib fruit trees and shrubs that you could just about live on that alone. Heck, the invasive kudzu that is spreading all over down here has edible tubers. Just so long as you boil them first. And, as far south as you are, I imagine cocoplum, sea grape, tropical cherries and even papaya and avocado are growing wild all over. Plus, seafood.


Surviving in Miami, if it came to that, might be something else entirely. I'd consider getting a good canoe or kayak and making plans to head for the swamp.

 

[Raymond1000]

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

.

Were you guys made of money? Ammo is expensive. You can open as many bottles as you want with a claw hammer.

 

[knife hunter]

I wish I had a dad who would teach me those things too.:grumpy:

I thought skunk was your dad?:thumbup:

 

[Helle]

I've been around woods my whole life and was always fascinated with hunting, fishing, and camping but I was the only one in the family. My dad did make me take firearms safety, I remember that being a real arm twister.
A good friend of mines dad started inviting me to go duck hunting with them when I was in high school and I've been hooked ever since, I owe that man a lot. My grandfather took me camping a couple times but nothing big. Locally in MN we have tons of state and federal land and of course the BWCA so when I was able to drive things got WAY better in the camping department for me. One more check up by the doc and I'll be off playing catch up for the two canoe trips I had to cancel already this year, "torn muscles."

As for the kids there's still hope, I see examples all the time.

For instants the wife and I wanted to takes the girls camping for a few days not long ago so I went to make a reservation at a state park, I stopped checking at 12 parks, they where all booked.:grumpy: Dang families taking their kids camping.

Another one, my oldest had the option to take a primitive survival skills course through the local public school, I about fell over when that form came home. And the youngest did about a month on Native American life, they even had them making arrows, "sticks with paper broad heads and feathers, yarn, and glue." Cool for a five year old though.

Also the county I live in actually has a nature preserve that butts right up to the same school and has three little field trips, one for each season, with a Park Ranger pointing out plants, trees, insects, animal sign, and of course wild life, haven't missed one yet, good times.

One more, one of the gun clubs I belong to was approached by 4 public high schools as a place for them to start a high school trap league, we made it work for them and things have been running like a top and this is just over 80 kids.:thumbup: The club also employees around a dozen teens every year as trap help, loading traps, score keeping and pulling targets, trash, club house cleaning, etc. we pay them $10.00 hour and in the past 10 years I've been there of which 8 have been on the board we've only had to let one go for being a bum, the rest listen and work really well.:thumbup: again.

I will say are club doesn't get more then 6 or 8 kids a season when it comes to gun safety training, but when we go to range day multiple groups test together and their are a lot of kids there.

As for my ladies, they think your average summer day is canoeing around a lake fishing with with frequent swimming breaks and a bike ride.

I'll stop rambling now.
Helle

 

[Progunner]

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.

Mike, as a 34 year old who went through many years of watered down scouting and who doesn't do heights or springy ladders, I can seriously say I wish I had someone to teach me all of that stuff growing up. Heck I wish there was someone around I knew who could teach me all that now, but alas I am left trying to absorb it from written sources. I do have a familiarity with chain saws, lawn implements, manual digging tools and the like. My dad was over 300 pounds and on the weekends he had custody of us, he got his yard work done, if you know what I mean. I can also lay brick side walk in various patterns. My step mother had a walk way around her fountain and pond that we must have laid and taken up a half dozen times before dad said if she wanted it different she could get out there and do it herself because we were washing our hands of it. Dad also gave me some time with his oxyacetylene cutting torch, but no time with the arc welder. Funny how he'd turn me loose with all those tools I could lay waste to anything I set my mind to, but for some reason he didn't trust me with a gun.

My scouting career was starting out in Cub Scouts, before all the really young groups like the Tiger Scouts had been formed and I ran it to the bitter end earning my Arrow of Light as a Webelow. My buddy's mom was our Den mother (there's one problem right there in my opinion) and she was one of those nervous types. Suffice it to say I had my BSA pocket knife, but it never got used for any activities related to scouting. Heck, I never went on a camping trip with the scouts until I was a Webelow and then we only went a couple of time maybe. I have to take my hat off to my scout master at the time. He has physical disabilities like one leg being longer than the other and hi arm was mis-shaped, but at least he made the effort to get out with us and do something that resembled what I had in mind when I took up scouting. (I am God father to his first grandson, so we are still close) I was so disenchanted that when it came time to move up to the actual Boy Scouts, I wanted nothing to do with it. I am hoping my son gets interested in it, but right now he is all about super heroes and watching TV. But I digress, good post Mike.

 

[DowntownDM]

I never really considered things like varmit calling "redneck"

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure anyone even using the words "varmit calling" in a sentence is as redneck as one gets... you know?

 

[Guyon]

I've been around woods my whole life and was always fascinated with hunting, fishing, and camping but I was the only one in the family. My dad did make me take firearms safety, I remember that being a real arm twister.
A good friend of mines dad started inviting me to go duck hunting with them when I was in high school and I've been hooked ever since, I owe that man a lot. My grandfather took me camping a couple times but nothing big. Locally in MN we have tons of state and federal land and of course the BWCA so when I was able to drive things got WAY better in the camping department for me. One more check up by the doc and I'll be off playing catch up for the two canoe trips I had to cancel already this year, "torn muscles."

As for the kids theirs still hope, I see examples all the time.

For instants the wife and I wanted to takes the girls camping for a few days not long ago so I went to make a reservation at a state park, I stopped checking at 12 parks, they where all booked.:grumpy: Dang families taking their kids camping.

Another one, my oldest had the option to take a primitive survival skills course through the local public school, I about fell over when that form came home. And the youngest did about a month on Native American life, they even had them making arrows, "sticks with paper broad heads and feathers, yarn, and glue." Cool for a five year old though.

Also the county I live in actually has a nature preserve that butts right up to the same school and has three little field trips, one for each season, with a Park Ranger pointing out plants, trees, insects, animal sign, and of course wild life, haven't missed one yet, good times.

One more, one of the gun clubs I belong to was approached by 4 public high schools as a place for them to start a high school trap league, we made it work for them and things have been running like a top and this is just over 80 kids.:thumbup: The club also employees around a dozen teens every year as trap help, loading traps, score keeping and pulling targets, trash, club house cleaning, etc. we pay them $10.00 hour and in the past 10 years I've been there of which 8 have been on the board we've only had to let one go for being a bum, the rest listen and work really well.:thumbup: again.

I will say are club doesn't get more then 6 or 8 kids a season when it comes to gun safety training, but when we go to range day multiple groups test together and their are a lot of kids there.

As for my ladies, they think your average summer day is canoeing around a lake fishing with with frequent swimming breaks and a bike ride.

I'll stop rambling now.
Helle

Good post. There's hope yet. As for the state parks filling up, you're right. We just happened to catch an empty slot lakeside this Thursday, so on impulse, I booked it. However, some of the traffic is RV'ers or people with giant tow campers. Depends on the park, of course, but that stuff is not exactly my idea of camping. Heck, it's a concession to my wife that we're taking an inflatable camp mattress this time.

Don't know much about the Scouts, but I've wondered about them for my son if he takes an interest.

All my knowledge came from family. My dad taught me to shoot, fish, fly cast, camp, and use tools. My mother is a plant expert and has taught me a lot about edibles and healing plants. My uncles, all builders, taught me woodworking. I helped them on various jobs and spent a lot of time working in one uncle's wood shop. I've since worked as a carpenter for several contractors, where I really learned how to frame, form, and finish. I hope to pass on as much of this as I can to my son and others.

I shot a lot as a child, had my own .22 by the time I was 10 or so. Guns were just a part of my surroundings. My dad had them, uncles had them. Hell, everyone I knew had them. Safety was stressed, and it no more occurred to me to take a gun without permission as stealing a car would have. (For the record, I never stole a car. There was that attempt with a bus, but that was much, much later. )

My dad, grandad, and uncle all kept bird dogs, and I hunted quail some as a child, but fishing was the real passion. Still is. I've really picked up hunting within the past ten years, and I did it mostly on my own.

My uncle took me deer hunting once at the end of the Georgia season, so I got a feel for the basics. First full season I really deer hunted, I shot a small buck with a muzzleloader while hunting alone on public land. I was out there with a page of directions on field dressing and taking it one step at a time. No one had ever shown me how to do it. I left it at a processor, and that gutted deer looked as good or better than the other ones I saw hanging in the cooler. In the past decade, I've shot and cleaned more deer, turkeys, duck, and dove, but I'll always remember that first deer most vividly. I hope my son hunts, but if he doesn't, that's okay. I didn't really take to it until later in life.

Again, my uncle introduced me to turkey hunting and took me once down in Georgia so I could see the basics. The next year, I killed three turkeys the first season I hunted them in Tennessee. Again, alone on public land. My guess is that a lot of the same skills I had learned and developed as a fisherman--being quiet, being still, stalking prey, watching and listening to surroundings, and just enjoying being in nature--served me well as a hunter.

Finally, some of my best memories are of the unfettered freedom I had during summers as a teenager. By the time I was 14, I was loading a canoe into the back of my father's old Chevy and heading down to the river for to fly fish for bream and bass. Some summers, I almost lived on the river, my only companion a giant chow named "Bear" who rooted along the banks, swam from time to time, and kept an eye on me. I am pretty protective of my son, and I often wonder if I'll be able to allow him the same freedoms I had as a teen.

 

[Ian Allomes]

Great post Mike.

When I reflect back on my young days and compare them to kids of today, the transformation is incredible.

My grand kids get up in the mornings and get ready to go off to school, Their mother drives them to school and picks them up in the evenings. They either come home to their computers, or have their mother running them around to the various sporting activities. If they have any chores to do they think they are hard done by. Pocket money seems to grow on trees.

When I was a kid it was up at 5am to go catch the house cow and bring her back in to milk. Then let put her back with her calf for the day. Winter mornings were the worst.

I then had to catch my horse and give him a feed, some chaff and oats and saddle him in the stall to await for me to ride him to school.

It was then back up to the house with the milk and get cleaned up, have breakfast and get ready for school.

Then the seven mile ride in to school.
The horse had to be tethered for the day where there was grass for him and a water bucket filled and carried over to him. The teacher kept an eye on the horses that were ridden to school to make sure that they did in fact have water.

After riding home and brushing the horse and turning him out for the night, separate the calf off the cow for the night again then help my grandmother by doing some jobs for her.
Usually it was brining wood in for the fuel stove and emptying the ash bucket.
Sport was non existent for bush kids, though meeting up with other kids on a weekend on our horses was a common occurrence.

We often camped out with the horses and made our fun around the camp fires cooking potatoes in their jackets and telling stories. Bush sense was bred into us from an early age, it was nothing to have to track a cow or a horse that had gotten out of a paddock, snakes here are generally bad, but there seemed to be less kids bitten by a snake in those days than we have now. They have never been taught to be aware of things like that, when they do get off the pavements on rare occasions they haven’t a clue about their surroundings.
We made our own fun, kids today wouldn’t know what digging for yams was, what is poisoned and what is not.

It’s a shame really and I wouldn’t swap my childhood for one of theirs for any thing.
Ian.