Posts tagged survival
A recent question about travelling with dried food where the recipe did not include salt caused the OP some concern. As far as I know salt just dries out food. So if you get the food completely d...
What wild edible plants can be found in southern and eastern China? I have combed through various search queries but keep finding information on North American flora. Are there any good resources...
There are a number of places where salt can easily be found at or near the surface. Notably Salt Lake Utah, but there are also other Salt lick places of note. How would I recognize a natural sa...
Traditional marine advice says that, if one falls into cold water, it is better to stay still rather than try to swim (unless the shore is so close that you are absolutely able to make it) to exten...
If I want to build an igloo to keep me warm in a snowy climate, how can I go about this? What size blocks should I cut? How big should the entrance be? How can I mitigate the risk of the igloo co...
In the comments of the accepted answer to this longstanding question: Water filters - why sand and rocks? the makings of a debate started, but no definitive consensus was reached. I'm going to do m...
Background: This question is motivated by an accident that happened to my sister in a very rural area. She was on a fence and fell onto a t-post which basically impaled her, but which fell out by ...
Questions like these two have made me wonder about my own answer in the first linked question. I have to admit, I haven't 'tested' the kits I put together. I have some wilderness survival trainin...
In movies, sometimes the character will put an ear to the ground and then hear people moving a long ways away example. Does this actually work in the wild at all or is it just insufficient for any...
This question is prompted by a real accident, in which a young, healthy and experienced hiker I knew was found dead from hypothermia ridiculously close to civilization. The assumptions behind it:...
Inspired by a space blanket being included in emergency winter kits, I wonder if there's any rigorous study about whether these things actually work and in what ways to best use them. In my own ex...
I'm keen on learning more about different woods and how they burn in particular in the context of bushcraft. There is a lot of existing literature on all the different woods out there. I started to...
I started harvesting pine nut cones from the piñon trees in my area yesterday and am a bit worried about the crop. From the cones I have been able to open I notice that most of the nuts are undevel...
Jezebel magazine suggests a tampon for your survival kit. I don't question that, if you just happen to have a tampon, you can use it. But at the end of the article they suggest even guys carry on...
This answer has inspired me to a question: say you are a castaway on a desert island. There might be a plane flying casualy but you can miss it. So you want to create some pattern (e.g. put some br...
A thin, heat-reflective sheet (aka “space” blanket) is a popular outdoors emergency item, having a number of uses. See adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/gear/space-blanket and gotimegear.com/blo...
If I am lost in the woods, and I find a trail or a road, how do I decide which way to go? Autumn Veatch was 16 years old in 2015, when her grandparents small plane crashed in the North Cascade Mo...
In this answer at; I am lost, I found a trail, which way do I go? It claims ...logging roads These may extend many miles into the forest, with multiple branches, all ending in dead ends. There...
You see this a lot on films, the hero/heroine is injured and disinfects their wound(s) by pouring whiskey on it. I'm a bit sceptical. If I'm in an emergency scenario and need to prevent infection...
In answering this question I tossed out that a candle lantern can provide as much as 10 degrees (F) of temperature difference while winter camping. I've heard this tossed about before, but is it tr...
Ocean water has about 35 Grams of salt per liter. For the human body salt content in body fluids is about 9 Grams per liter. See related question How much sea water can I safely drink? While it ...
In a survival situation is it actually efficient to eat edible plants? Assume late spring to early fall in a temperate climate. We have plenty of questions about where to find edible plants and h...
My question is prompted by the answer of @Aaron to this question; his answer referenced Geraldine's Largay's death on the Appalachian Trail. Ms. Largay was hiking alone on the AT in Maine. She g...
When the RMS Titanic sank, there were not enough life boats, many hundreds of people went into the cold water and many died from hypothermia. The water temperature in the area where Titanic san...
In recent news reports that all seem to be saying the same things: Jakarta Post Indonesian teenager survives 49 days adrift in Guam waters NPR: 19-Year-Old Survives 49 Days At Sea After Floating ...
In the answer to Can I get fresh water from ocean fish flesh? I learned that the water I can get from eating fish has a low enough salt content that it will hydrate me, BUT the high protein count w...
I was looking into portable desalination hand pumps. and I found this one one Amazon for $959 it says the Katadyn Survivor 06 is the world's smallest hand-operated desalinator and can easily fi...
I know that rabbits eat their droppings (cecotropes) and I have heard of feeding rabbit droppings to pigs. Rabbits are vegetarians. There droppings do not have the same consistency or negative sec...
I am currently stuck in the wilderness, and I have been out here for a while. I want to focus light. There are various reasons for wanting to do this, with the two biggest reasons being for vision ...
Just for fun, how would I go about lighting a fire with naturally shaped rocks by striking sparks? It might be useful if I were to camp in the far north, where there are no trees. What should I use...
My inexpensive nail clippers are chrome plated steel. All the keys on my key ring are brass or some other non-ferrous metal (I checked with a magnet). The nail clippers have that small nail file ...
We know that you can start a fire with a battery. the better prepared you are the easier it is going to be. I am not prepared and all I have in my pockets is my car keys, which includes a keyless ...
Context: Rope, aka cordage, is useful in many bushcraft projects. Cordage can be useful to hang things up, and it is particularly valuable in constructing tools (e.g. bow drills for fire making, m...
This a question about the outdoor survival show Alone. The teams are allowed to choose 10 items from a list of 40. Currently season 5 has aired as of this writing, I have never seen the show, but...
Fingernail clippers are super helpful in outdoor situations. This is my number one always in my pocket survival tool. But they have a tendency to come apart, there are even videos showing how to p...
Given we are in a non-life-threatening situation, splitting logs is often beneficial. However, I feel things get murkier in a survival situation. I have brainstormed about this for a while, here i...
Some people say it is just a term some people use for wilderness survival, but some people say it is not survival. What actually is bushcraft?
The practice of tickling fish in an attempt catch and eat them has a long history, and is often mentioned in passing in some circles. If I was going to focus building a single skill, I wonder if ...
It is possible to catch fish with a hook and dental floss, and the flies can just be stored stuck in the brim of a hat or very small tin and then one improvises a rod from a stick. The advantage o...
There are animals such as pigs and elephants that wallow in mud which possibly serves as protection from sunburn. There are also some plants such as Aloe vera (Aloe vera) and Jewelweed (Impatiens...
I have seen a survival kit that has been spoken well of by many reviewers: the SERE Air Force Survival Kit. SERE stands for: survival, evasion, resistance, escape. It is a rather small kit fitting...
When I was a boy, my father and I were unexpectedly swept into a log jam (pile of logs the size of a house) on the banks of the Elk River while canoeing near our home. Somewhat similar looking ja...
If a scenario in which you go in the forest or next to one, how are you supposed to craft a containers? All the web-ressources I can find for filtering water thanks to the multi-layer rocks (from ...
I am disabled in the wildness, there are no natural water sources available. I have 2 gallons (7.5 liters) of water. The only practical solution is to sit and wait for rescue. I will be resting i...
We are in a Robinson Crusoe situation where we're stranded on a tropical island (lonely or not). We've to setup our camp. How to determine the right piece of land? For example you might wanna hav...
If I'm out in the wilderness and want to catch fish to survive, what are some ways I can do this without a conventional fishing pole/line?
Is it actually useful to ration food? What is the difference between eating a little bit of food at an interval and eating enough to be full at once? I'm getting the same amount of calories/nutr...
This weekend we went "pole camping". A pole camp site (dutch link only) is a camp site offered by the departments of forestry in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is very basic. What is offered is a ...
As most survival kits come with fish hooks, I am wondering how do I catch fish without any bait?
Say you are in the middle of a desert where there is lots of sunshine, and you are trying to signal for help with a signal mirror. Either in the distance there is a person, or there is an airplane...
