preparation for your journey, including planning your route and the food
required. What could be more important than the clothes on your back?
To figure out the most appropriate clothing to take, spend time talk-
ing with the people who know. Whether it’s the staff at the closest out-
doors store, your experienced outdoorsy friends, or local guides at your
destination, try to get as much information as you can from people who
have first-hand experience with the area you’ll be visiting or the activities
you’ll be doing.
In the case of boots or shoes, you can help prevent blisters by wear-
ing them around town to break them in before you go on your trip. You
want to know before you go whether they’ll actually work for you. The
same goes for your clothing. Find out now whether your new raincoat will
keep you protected in a downpour.
Dressing for survival is easy when you’re taking a survival
course, because you know what’s coming. The trick is to
dress appropriately for your adventure activities (hiking, fish-
ing, hunting, kayaking, et cetera) and still be prepared if you end
up in a survival ordeal. It’s a matter of fashion versus function. A lot of
high-tech clothing is not adequate when you’re fighting to survive.stroud’s Tip
In the Arctic, I arrived with all the high-tech gear I could get my
hands on. In the end, though, I traded it to a local Inuit hunter for his cari-
bou parka and pants. It was then that I truly realized how clothing can act
as your first shelter, your primary line of defense against the elements. In
those clothes, I could literally stand still in the wind and cold and not feel
a thing. The clothing was my shelter. So don’t close your mind to the effec-
tiveness of traditional clothing, which though it looks rustic, may work bet-
ter than anything you could buy in a store.
What you wear really depends on where you are going, the activ-
ity, and the season. But with few exceptions, layering (as opposed to using
just one layer, like a snowmobile suit) is the best bet. With layering, which
means three to five layers of clothing from your skin to your outer shell,
(^288) | Survive!