Take Responsibility for Your Own Survival
WHILE TEACHING SURVIVAL COURSES, early in the week I would announce to
my students that we were going for a wilderness hike the next morning.
When they asked me what they should take along, I would casually tell
them, “Whatever you think you need for a hike in the bush.”
The next day, midway through the hike, I would stop and ask every
one to show me what they had brought. There was always one person
armed to the teeth with survival gear. A few more would be carrying a few
basic survival items, and others would be carrying almost nothing.
I was often struck by how many people would go out not expecting
the unexpected. Here they were, hiking into the bush, and most were
carrying very little to help them if disaster struck. When you’re in the
wilderness, you never know when or where or how an emergency may
occur. Disaster often strikes in mysterious ways. And you may be sepa
rated from your travel companions at any time. Just as you shouldn’t rely
completely on your guide, you shouldn’t rely completely on your partner
or partners.
This kind of wrongthinking was never more obvious than when
couples took my course. They were usually proud to show off their one very
wellequipped pack, invariably carried by the husband. In those instances,
I would pull the wife aside and say, “So, now . . . what do you have?” Only
then would it occur to her that she had nothing that would help her in a
survival situation. She was relying on her husband, not on herself.
Creating a survival kit is a personal undertaking and one that should
never be left to someone else, no matter how close you are to them. To be
left alone without a few basic survival items is to court death.
Make It Yourself
WHEN IT COMES TO SURVIVAL KITS, most of us are faced with two options: buy
a prefab kit at our local outdoors store, or make it ourselves. To my mind,
there is no question which route to go: Make your own.
There are a few reasons I feel this way. First, the primary motiva
tion for the company that makes the prefab kit is profit, not necessarily
(^18) | Survive!