Outdoor survival isn’t about skills and knowledge alone. These help, but you also need to have the will to survive. Then you need to prioritize. Here are the most important priorities, in order. 1. Attitude One thing you’ll notice right away if you read many stories of outdoor survival, is that many people are alive who shouldn’t be. Perhaps they crash a plane and then wander into the wilderness where they can’t be easily found. Sometimes they almost freeze to death even though there are plants that could be used to shelter and cloth them. Why are they alive? A strong will to...

The outdoor survival tips you’ll find here are not the usual fare. They come from the unusual techniques that myself and others have experimented with. Keep them in mind in case the day comes when you are lost in the wilderness. Outdoor Survival Tips – Fire Making 1. Pull a piece of pack rat nest loose to use for tinder. These are usually found under rock ledges and in small caves, so they are dry even when it is raining. They are commonly full of plant fuzz, dry grass and other flammable materials. 2. Polish the bottom of an aluminum pop or beer can, and you can use it to focus the...

The days of wilderness survival TV have arrived. Never have there been so many programs on survival topics. But can you really learn to survive out there from a television program? That depends. The Will To Survive First of all, there are three important components to survival. The most important may be the will to survive. This is partly innate, and partly a matter of belief that you can survive. What helps produce that belief? Good survival stories can. This is where the value is in a show like “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” (Discovery Channel). It is all true stories of people that have...

Winter backpacking can mean your footprints are the only ones out there. That adds to the beauty of the experience, but also to the danger. Alone and in a cold enviroment, it’s important to know what to do in an emergency. Learning a few basic cold weather survival skills can save your life. Fire Making Imagine slipping into a stream and soaking everything with you, when you are more than a day from the nearest road and it’s below freezing out. What would you do? Start a fire, of course, but can you? Always carry waterproof matches, and practice starting a fire in the cold BEFORE you go...

Why do you need survival tips for winter backpacking? Because even with the most careful planning there is always a greater risk with winter camping. Of course, getting lost or having an accident is always a possibility, but cold weather makes either of these a more serious matter. Winter Survival Tip Number One Stay warm! This is obvious. Hypothermia is the single biggest danger for backpackers, killing far more people than accidents or wild animals. What isn’t always so obvious is how poor planning and not thinking on the trail leads to getting cold. One cold autumn day, a friend of mine fell...

by Steve Thibeault It will be too late, when you find yourself in a precarious position in some wilderness environment for you to be searching for survival sites online. As such, you should make sure that you do this before you even set out and take into account the old Boy Scout motto “be prepared.” Always be sure that you are in possession of the information you need to overcome every eventuality. To help you get ready, a number of qualified survival sites exist on the Internet. You will find a great deal of information, techniques and resources at your fingertips. If you are a true...

To survive – to hang in there – to keep your head while all around you others are losing theirs – to stay in play – is a critical skill of leaders. Let’s face it – even the most astute, successful person will suffer setbacks, and surviving and overcoming those setbacks is the true measure of a leader. To some, survival sounds like a skill for a loser. And, frankly, there are many who try to survive by holding back, by not taking risk, by getting as invisible as possible. Those are not the behaviors of leaders – they are not what survival means in this article...

by Steve Thibeault Who could blame anyone for wanting to get away from the stresses and strains of everyday life, most especially those that we have come up against during the really tough recession of the last year? Whilst we may count ourselves as being very sophisticated when it comes to our standards of living and our methods of communication, we should also realize that we are very vulnerable and have, in large part, created the particularly thorny bed that we find ourselves now having to sleep in! Our modern life does seem to cause more problems than it solves and leaves us confused and...

by Steve Thibeault One of these days we all find ourselves in need of urgent medical care for some reason or another. Whilst we don’t like to think about it, we would be foolish if we didn’t prepare ourselves for just such a thing. If you are a smart homeowner you will keep one of those emergency first aid kits in an easily accessible place, but if you are an outdoor person of any kind you should carry one with you everywhere. Human beings love the outdoors, we are not sedentary and do not like to be stuck in an office location or at home for any period of time. There are so many great...

by Steve Thibeault Imagine if you were unfortunate enough to be injured and incapacitated in some way. For many people, this is the stuff of nightmares and they are glad when they wake up and realize it is all a bad dream. But for others, this nightmare has become a reality and if you’re ever likely to find himself in a wilderness environment of any kind, always be prepared by carrying something as simple as a howler whistle. The rescue howler whistle is not like a conventional whistle and was designed specifically for a purpose. Whilst it is always greatly recommended that you carry a full...