At Home In the Wilderness

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Unfortunately, a lot of people avoid learning these skills because most survival schools in this country teach that staying alive in the wilds is a desperate struggle ...that the survivalist must always strive to overcome the threats posed by nature. Indeed, the whole wilderness survival concept has acquired a macho image!

I believe—and teach—just the opposite. A person trying to live in the out-of-doors should experience no need to fight, feel no pain, and endure no hard work. Indeed, whenever humans try to conquer the pure and natural, they are always defeated ...and sometimes killed.

I have a friend who once, as part of a "learning experience", marched across plains and mountains—equipped with little more than a blanket, a knife, and a bag of flour averaging 20 to 30 miles a day and pushing himself almost beyond the limits of his personal endurance. The man suffered plenty of cramps and blisters in the course of doing so, yet he gained almost no real survival skills.

After spending a week at my school, though, this same individual discovered that he had missed the ease and harmony of a true survival experience. He was astonished to feel the spiritualism and the communion that can come when one lives close to the earth ...and even more surprised to realize that after learning survival skills the right way—he had been able to spend a comfortable week in the woods, in the dead of winter, with no "tools" other than the clothes on his back.

You see, I believe nature can provide a person with everything he or she needs. In order to have access to the Earth Mother's gifts, one must simply acquire enough skills and knowledge to make his or her time in the wilderness a rewarding and beautiful experience.

The most important rule, for any person who is suddenly faced with a survival situation, is to keep from panicking. The fear that overtakes someone who has just lived through a major disaster, or has abruptly realized that he or she is lost, can be beyond description. Remember, though, that panic is probably the biggest killer of all in such emergencies. Therefore, having confidence in one's skills during those first traumatic moments sometimes means the difference between life and death.

So when you find yourself faced with a challenging situation, don't act like the fully equipped hunters—in those grisly stories that make headlines every deer season—who panic and then die of shock and exposure a few yards from a highway. Instead, follow the example of a nine-year-old boy I heard of, who confidently weathered a two-day blizzard under a fir tree because he knew rabbits use firs for shelter and figured that their technique would work for him as well.

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