Introduction: A Series of Beyond Basics in Survival: by Robby Oddo
Topics I will go over will be:
1. Situation Awareness:
2. Evaluate:
3. Time:
4. The Gatherer:
5. Shelter:
6. Elemental:
7. H2o
8. Hunger
9. Roughing It Living Comfortable
Step 1: How to Survive the First Night
First night, You pull your kayak over to the side of a bank, up on the beach.
“Situational Awareness”
You scan the area around you, looking for Tree Types, Soil Type, Plants, Type of Weather, Sun Position – Time of Day, Area Clearing away from water, Felled Trees – Rotten – Dry Trees.
“Evaluate”
By now you will have begun to think about prioritizing your Goals, in regards to the Current Weather, Season, Temperature, Expected Departure. Always remember the Rule of Three’s: Air: 3 min Cold Weather: 3 Hours Water: 3 days Food: 3 weeks
Step 2: Picking Your Camp
Stay at least 100 Ft away from water, on dry flat land. Water levels can sometimes rise unexpectedly during rainfall or tide. You do not want to be asleep when this happens.
Look around for Tree Saplings that are as wide as your thumb, These can be of very important use of making waddle huts, a crane for your pots, a grill for your food, a spit over a fire.
Dry Wood, It takes a lot of wood to feed a fire. And you will need to find and separate your found supply into 3 piles of varying sizes. Keep these piles close to the source of fire by at least 5 ft.
“Time”
Your first priority will be shelter. Cold weather is a silent killer. Fire may be your first thought, But the type of shelter, is largely dependent on how much time before dark, and gathering at night time isn’t a wise way to start out the first night. Figure out how much time you have to spend on constructing a shelter.
Step 3: “Shelter Types” Along With General Times to Erect Them
Temporary:
Overhang = 10 min
A frame = 15 min
Lean to = 30 min
Double lean to = 30 min
Dug out = 30 min
Hammock w/ sheet = 30 min
Debris = 2-3 hr
Semi Permanent:
Igloo = 6 hrs
Thatched = 6 hrs
Wattle = 4-10 days
Daub and wattle = 4-20 days
Permanent:
Stone and Mud = 6-8 weeks
Adobe = 2-3 months
Stone = 2-3 months
Brick = 2-4 months
Step 4: Think Minecraft !xx!
“Starting out in Minecraft, You don’t want to build a castle on the first night.
There wouldn’t be anything to keep you from becoming Creeper Bate! “
The same goes with jumping into a Daub and Wattle build, before the nights end.
Start out with a Temporary Shelter.
There are many to chose from, that will keep you warm until your camp is complete.
Step 5: Wasting Daylight
Things you may need to think of is:
•Build a fire about an hour before the sun starts to go down.
•Having all the wood gathered enough for the shelter you chose, and
enough wood to last till noon.
Step 6: Think Ahead
Nothings worse than running out of wood in the middle of a cold night.
Start collecting fuel around the parameter of your camp, and work your way out in a circle.
This helps keep your camp clean, and clear, should embers fly when a
piece of moist wood starts to crackle, and blow sparks in the wind.
Always have a quick way to put out, what you build.
Ash contains carbon, that is kryptonite to a flame.
Step 7: “Elemental” Ways to Start Fire - Not an Exhaustive List
Lighter
Magnesium Ferrocerium Rod
Hand drill
Bow Drill
Refraction Lens
Ice: to be focused
Tin Can and Chocolate: chocolate polished the bottom of a tin pop/beer can to be focused
Glasses:to be focused
Condom: filled with water to be focused
Matches
Magnesium Pregnant & Anti-Freeze: chemical reaction, powder can be found in select flower food packets
Flint & Steel
Quartz Rocks
Knife and Ferrocerium Rod
Flash Powder: burns fast and hot
Steel Wool: in conjunction with 9 volt battery
Battery: short Circuit to make sparks
Laser Pen: green pens taken apart can be converted and be used to burn char cloth
Flashlight: Cone used to focus light
Sodium Flakes and Drops of Water...Careful, Sodium and water is dangerous
Disposable Camera: Compositor used to spark Char cloth
Stun Gun
Wood Plough
Cell Phone: Inside wire short circuit battery over char cloth
Gun Powder: powder lined in a strip of rolled cloth
Shotgun Shells: powder lined in a strip of rolled cloth
Lithium: inside a battery with a few drops of water flames up violent and fast
Step 8: H2O: or the Art of Water
Many years ago; Walking up to a stream, and take handfuls of water was a fairly safe
and reasonable thing to do, given the type of stream, and walking it to be sure
there where no dead animals polluting the waters.
Today, over the years we have ruined that luxury.
Through spillage, dumping and poisons and pollution's, being poured into our sewers,
and bodies of water that flows down our rivers.
Hexavalent Chromium was one such incident that caused
a plague of cancer among a large rural town.
Step 9: Boil It Out
Today we need to boil out any bacteria while backwoods traveling.
Filters can be made from many natural and unnatural materials.
The simplest can be made by filling a sock by, layering grass or leaves,
sand, broken up Charcoal made from burning wood.
Make two layers of the three materials, and pour fresh running
“not still/Stagnant” water, into the mouth of the sock, and collect into
a metal container or a clay pot that you have made. “More on Pottery later”
And Boil the water to rid water of impurities.
Step 10: Making Vessels
You can take your knife, and cut out a sheet of Birch Bark from a tree.
Roll it gently into a cone, hold together by making a cloths pin, Made from a stick.
Shove some cotton, or cloth at the bottom of the cone to stop the Charcoal and
sand from emptying out. And run into a boiling container.
Take a log and hallow a bowl into it by alternating hot rocks.
Fill with water and place the log on the fire.
Step 11: Wilderness Tip
Fact: Pine trees have a high content of Vitamin C, And sugars through
Carbs that your body breaks down into energy.
Just scrape with knife, till you reach the inner bark of the tree. Flake off and eat raw,
Or boil in a pot to make fibers softer. Drink the tea from bark, or of a handful of Pine needles.
Willow Bark contains aspirin- Drink in a tea, or chew on bark to Aleve back pain or headache
“Survival Tip” Cut Pine Sap off a tree.
Place on a hot rock near the fire to melt to make bush craft glue.
Step 12: More on Water Purifying
Best to drink from rain water, or fast running water.
Drinking unprocessed water may cause diarrhea, causing dehydration.
Are you near the ocean, and all you have is salt water?
Dig a hole 6 in by 1 foot deep. Dig another hole 6 inches from the hole you just dug.
Pour salt water in the first hole, as the water is soaked into the earth, it separates the
salt running through the dirt into the other hole. Boil and drink.
Find a vine? Cut the bottom of a vine and hold it in your mouth.
Grab high on the vine, and cut above it. Water will run though the vine like a straw.
Step 13: Even More on Water
Fact: Cocoanut water causes
Diarrhea! But makes great bowls for boiling water.
A solar still can be made by digging a hole 3 ft by 3 ft, and placing a bowl in the center.
Take a clear tarp and cover the hole, holding the rim with rocks.
Take a small rock and place in the center of the tarp, and let sag a little.
Leave over night, and in the morning the dew will be collected into the bowl.
“ To speed the process, Dig a small hole next to it and feed salt water beside it”
If you ever come across Spider Moss, Water collects in it like a sponge.
Just wring it out into your mouth for a large swallow.
Step 14: Do's and Donts
Do drink ½ gallon min water a day
Don’t go on a trip without two people knowing your route
Do bring extra socks incase
feet get wet,
Foot rot is a real thing
Don’t put camp over a natural hot spot “ Hot air escaping earth ”
You will wake up wet and cold
With hypothermia
“Follow the poison wild edible test”
Step 15: “Wild Edible Test”
1.Take the plant in question, and rub it lightly on your forearm
“Wait 30 minutes to see if a rose color appear”
“or you feel a burning sensation”
2. If no reaction, Touch on tongue for a second
“Wait 30 minutes to see if you feel a burning sensation”
3. If no reaction, Hold in mouth for 2 min
“Wait 30 minutes to see if you feel sick”
4. Swallow a small piece
“Wait 60 minutes to see if you feel sick”
If no reaction, it is safe to eat
Step 16: “High Living Bush Craft”
Roughing It or Living Comfortable
I once read a quote from a guy that stated:
“When I go out into the wilderness, I don’t go there to rough it.
I go there to live comfortable”
This made me look at Survival and Bush Craft differently ever since.
Just because to go to the forest, or kayak a wild river,
Does not mean you have to stay there uncomfortable, bugs biting,
Cold nipping at your feet, rocks digging in your back.
And living comfortable in the wild don’t mean, Top of the line tent with dome lights, and an electric battery powered fan to keep you cool.
Comfortable to me now means just this.
A proper raised bed crafted neatly out of limbs.
A spit over a fire with a back log reflecting wall.
Pots and pans crafted out of slate stones and clay.
A fireplace made from earth.
A shelter with a heated floor, made from an underground fire trench,
With rock and a clay bed hardened over it to keep me warm in my bed.
~I hope this short guide helped you~
By Robby Oddo
