http://outside.away.com/outside/culture ... 42210.html

Question:
What are the best places in the U.S. to test your backcountry survival skills this spring?



Answer:
Choose a place with a good trout stream! If talking about long-term survival, I always look for a place with water, either in the form of a lake, river, or small creek. This not only provides me with all-important water for staying hydrated, it also provides fishing opportunities, edible plants, and a place for hunting small game.

I'd also look at what the daytime and nighttime temperatures are going to be and if the region is very windy for prolonged periods of time (the Southwest is notoriously windy from March-early June) as this will determine whether campfires are an option.

I recently taught up in the Pacific Northwest and think that this region may offer the absolute best of both worlds--the bounty of the ocean and the resources of the forest. If you don't have luck with hunting small game in the interior, you can head out to the shoreline and go beachcombing. Plus, the seasons are rather moderate. Next to this, you might want to consider Hawaii. Life doesn't get much better than that--but then it might not be considered "survival" there.

If you are actually going to test your skills, you may want to do it on private land and contact a rancher or farmer who will probably be more than interested in your unique undertaking. Applying survival skills (trapping, hunting, foraging without the necessary permits) on federal land is considered illegal in most states, unless you are in a true life-and-death situation.

Good post Johnny. What good are we doing if we acquire and learn these skills without practicing them. If you are in a situation where you need the skills you will be unprepared. I like to spend time in the swamps and woods arond our home to practice what I know and hone new skills.

Join a Boy Scout Troop as an adult leader.

Greetings, Johnny,

Great ideas for wilderness survival dress rehearsal!

I've found that a good, long, brisk walk in suburban and even urban areas can be a mini survival exercise. Not only do you lose weight, increase indurance, and strengthen the heart and lungs, but if you look around, you can identify and learn sources of edible, or at least usable flora and fauna in the wild.

In the course of.my walks, I often see the following:

* Pine trees (with needles for a Vitamin C-rich tea, tasty pine nuts in the cones, and water-resistant fire tinder in the form of sap;)
* Oak trees (with acorns, which you can grind to a flour after boiling out the tannic acid;)
* Dandelions (whose roots are boilable and whose flowers can make dandelion wine;)
* Wild Plum trees (Good fresh fruit or prunes if dried;)
* Crabapple trees;
* Wild blackberries and raspberries;
* Wild muscadine vines;
* Plantains;
* Clover;
* Wild onions;
* Kudzu;
* Honeysuckles;
* Poke plants (Generally poisonous, but young shoots are edible if picked at the right time and properly cooked, also the berries can make a purple dye;)
and many other plants, when assisted by a good full-color guide like Petersen's.

Animals and birds I see include:

* Squirrels;
*Jack-Rabbits;
* Chipmunks;
* Racoons;
* Opossums;
* Foxes;
* Mice;
* Frogs and Toads;
* Salamanders;
* Lizards;
* Snakes;
* Fish from minnows to largemouth bass;
* Robins;
* Cardinals;
* Bluebirds;
* Chickadees;
* Pidgeons;
* Wild Turkeys;
* Seagulls, Cranes, and Pelicans (blown inland, no doubt, by Hurricane Hugo and other tropical storms;)
* Eagles, Falcons, Hawks, Vultures, and other birds of prey and carrion birds;
and even
* mini-herds of about six Deer (unsure about the group name for deer.)

You get to see lots of rocks and minerals on daily constitutions as well, all of which have useful applications:

* Marble;
* Slate;
* Flint (uasble for primative tools;);
* Quartz (usable to make sparks);
* Iron Pyrite (a.k.a. "Fool's Gold" usable as a diode for a crystal radio;)
* Silica;
* Agate;
* Gypsum (in the form of sheet-rock, of course, but still technically a rock, also used in hydroponics;)
* Limestone;
* Soapstone (wonderful heat-retaining properties);
* Bits of Coal from old spots where it was once sold (also usable a a diode for a crystal radio);

and, if you're prospecting or panning like my Uncle on occasion, you might get

* a tiny flake of real Gold!

Truly, the whole world is a potential pantry and store if you just practice some situational awareness and have openness to learn new things.

m47dragon

That's the differance between Boy Scouts and the army..........Adult Leadership!

Alberta, Canada lots of open space to roam and plenty of game. It's just one small undeffended border away.

you can practice your survival skills all most anywhere.

When you go camping. when you go fishing. even a walk in the woods with your dog.

You see you don't have to practice all of the skills at one time. (You do need to get out there on ocaassion and make sure that you can indeed actually survive on what you know and have practiced but the practice itself doesn't take a specific site.)

You can practice recognizing wild edibles on your walks and camping trips. ( you should be doing that anyway)
You can practice firemaking skills in your own backyard or on your camping trips.

The more you use those skills the better you will get at them and be able to reliably use them in an emergency.

Cutts Island, Puget Sound...




This is a small island that's just what you see in the picture at high tide. At low tide there are tidal pools, often with resident fish, including some kepl greenling and flounders (small) there use to be clams like mad in that sand and mud, including almost every type in Puget Sound, crabs definitely to the South, maybe some to the Northwest. We'd land there and the problem was, we'd load up so fast on clams and things that the fun got cut short. I've no idea how healthy everything is out there, chemicals and all, but it was probably worse in the late 1970's and we'd no ill effects.

When I was young and stupid I wanted to go out there with a my butt pack based survival kit, Ka Bar, full canteens and have someone come back after three or four days, one of those things were you get weighed going in, weighed coming out. It'd be cheating to bring a surf casting rod or anything like that. I never got to explore the island away from the rocky and sandy shore. I've no idea what's up by the trees, and the there's a high rise all the way around, but I'm sure there's gotta be a way up there.

Now, How would YOU know about Cutts' Island? You were skulking around on the RIGHT side of the Bridge....WE usually Don't allow Your Kind over here! (Just Kidding!) You live over here when Young?

I was prowling that island as early as the late 1970's...back when the Sound was full of fish other than Dog and Ratfish.