Wilderness Survival for Anarchists

Introduction

While I in no way wish to encourage the rape of our remaining wilderness, I do feel that the
following material should be presented to allow those in desperate straits some options for their survival. The material presented here is representative of a whole school of such knowledge and skills, essential to living in nature, which is all but forgotten in our modern world. The knowledge presented here is freeing and empowering, and it is my hope that somebody may benefit from it. Nowhere is it more apt than in discussions of homelessness and starvation. In the United States, federal and state governments own large portions of land and still other privately owned patches are kept idle for economic reasons. A patch of vacant land a mile square could easily support three industrious homeless people. I emphasis that any who do take this suggestion should be very careful not to disturb the land where they are dwelling. The goal should be to swim through the wilderness without ever making a ripple.

The information which I am presenting here is but a sampling of that body of knowledge pertaining to free existence in nature which vanished from human consciousness too quickly after we stepped away from nature, knowledge so vital to our relationship with nature. This information should be general among all people, no less among anarchists. Yet, this knowledge is freedom, and freedom holds its own price.

More than anything, wilderness survival is about attitude. You have to look past the many
discomforts to discover what is rare and beautiful, in nature and within yourself. Know that nature will never throw anything at you which you can not handle if you deal with it directly. But if you look for disaster, you will surely find it. Embrace the experience and you might be surprised to find that life is embracing you.

Never over-harvest any plant or animal. Instead of taking all of something from one area, take a
little from several areas. Always leave enough for others. Take only what you need, no more nor less. Always be grateful for any food which you may find, and show your gratitude as is appropriate. Feel your full responsibility for that which you feed upon, and understand that this responsibility is the price of freedom. The path will not be easy but, for those who can find it, not without reward.

Aside from the attitude, there are four issues to address in wilderness survival, ranked in order of
importance: shelter, water, fire and food. Though weighty tomes could be devoted to each of these subjects, the essentials can be recorded in a few short paragraphs.

Shelter

This is as simple as piling leaves over sticks, which is precisely that of which the simplest form of
shelter consists. Find a dead log wedged between a couple of other trees so that it angles gently down to the base. Or a fallen tree whose limbs or root ball afford a potential frame. Perhaps a dry patch beneath the under bows of some standing tree. Potential shelter sites should be no problem, once you know what you are looking for.

You will need an area at least big enough to allow you to sleep comfortably. On the other hand,
the larger the area, the harder it will be to heat. If possible, plan to have the opening face east or southeast, never northwest (of course this depends on location and topography). Aside from this, you must consider various factors about the location: a dry, well-drained area, protected from weather and natural hazards, southern exposure, fire safety, abundance of materials and comfort. You will also want to keep an eye open for such things as poison ivy and ant nests.

Once you have chosen an adequate location and improvised a frame, that frame should be ribbed with sticks and branches, cross-woven for strength. Some people use pine boughs for this part of the structure. Over the frame is then deposited leaf litter to a thickness of at least an arm’s length. You will have to work with this over the course of time to seal leaks and drafts. Cork it up with a ball of leaf litter and you will be sealed in tight. Beyond these basics, debris shelters can be as simple or as complex as you desire. Properly built, these structures can be as warm and cozy as any heated bedroom.

These huts can be easily dismantled and all the materials redistributed so that there is little evidence that the area was ever disturbed. In the summer they can consist of little more than the frame or they can be thatched with a little effort and ingenuity. At most, a debris shelter should never be used for more than a season. The ideal is to have three or four debris huts scattered over a territory among which the homesteader can then shift as (s)he hunts and forages. For long term residence, you had probably better look into putting up log walls, but if you are squatting an area, it had better be remote enough to prevent your cabin from being discovered. Remember, the esthetic path is that which leaves no trail.

Water

Don’t ever take the chance. Between parasitic infestation and manmade pollutants, the chances
that your source is tainted are just too great. Fresh water should always be filtered and boiled. Boil for twenty minutes (add five minutes for every thousand feet of elevation). If water tastes dead after this, it can be resuscitated by pouring it back and forth through the air between two containers. Vessels can be placed out to catch rain, which can be drank directly from the containers. In the winter, water is as easy as melting snow or ice. Be careful eating snow or ice because the melting draws a lot of energy from your reserve. And remember, filtering and boiling may take care of dirt and microbes, but chemical pollutants may still be present and can even be concentrated by boiling. Try to be choosy about your watering sites, and always look upstream.

The only way you can ever be sure about water is by using a solar still. Dig a hole in the ground
about three feet deep and wide enough to let in the sun, and place a can in the middle. Then cover the hole with a clear sheet of plastic, secured around the edge with the dirt from the hole. Lastly, place a rock in the middle of the plastic, pulling it down over the open can. Then go about your daily business and check the can later. You will have to move the still every five days or so, as the area you are tapping dries out. Do not worry, the water you consume in this method will make no impression on the area water table or ecology, and the result is pure, sun-distilled water.

At this point, I wish to discuss trash and sewage. First, in regards to trash, not only does it breed disease, it also attracts animals. If that is your desire, then I suggest you lay your bait some distance from your home. All unrecyclable trash should be buried with sewage in latrines dug at some reasonable distance from camp, no less than one hundred feet from any water source. No trash or sewage should ever be poured into open water or tossed into sinkholes or swamps--particularly manmade chemicals--as this will only serve to compromise the ground water throughout the area. Latrine pits should always be filled back in once their operation is complete.

Fire

Always be careful with fire. Treat it with full respect but never let it out of your control. Pick a
special spot for your fire where it cannot consume anything other than what you feed it. Dig a fire pit and clear the area around the fire. Line your firepit with a circle of dirt or rocks (beware rocks found in streams or along lakes, they may explode when heated). Be careful to extinguish the fire when you are done with it. Keep sufficient water handy to douse the flame. Don’t build a camp fire when you need a cooking fire.

For a cooking fire, you need hard wood: oak, maple, hickory in sticks and branches never much
bigger than kindling. Feed the fire copiously and then let it burn down into a nice hot bed of coals. You can place rocks in the coals (see the warning above) if you don’t want to cook directly on the burning embers. If you lack metal cooking utensils, you can cook in wood, hide or clay vessels by dropping heated rocks in the vessel. If you have access to a variety of stones (and most old farmland has a ridge of stones marking property lines) you can even build a wood stove.

The Bow Drill

The easiest way of making a fire with natural materials is by use of the fire bow drill. This
technique takes practice, but do not give up in frustration. Like riding a bike: once you have it, you will never forget. The bow drill has four parts, the spindle, the fireboard, the handle, and the bow. The spindle and fireboard should always be made out of the same sort of wood (similar hardness is the key factor here). The wood should be dry but not rotten and should be of medium hardness. Cottonwood, willow, aspen, sassafras, sycamore, and poplar are best. Avoid hard woods like oak and hickory, as well as soft woods like pine. This being said, any wood can be used in a pinch, providing that it is dry.

The spindle should be a smooth cylinder about an inch thick and eight inches long. You will find
that the straighter the spindle, the better. Taper both ends to blunt points. The fireboard should be about half an inch thick, a foot long, and at least twice as wide as the spindle. The handle must fit comfortably in your palm. It will hold the drill in place while you apply the bow. The handle can be made of hard wood, stone, or any other suitable material. The bow should be a two- to three-foot stick strung loosely with braided cordage, leather, sinew, or even a shoelace. Choose a branch which is strong enough so that the cord will not slip on the spindle.

Now, measuring in from the edge of the fireboard a little more than half the diameter of the spindle, score the board with a knife to begin the socket. Likewise the handle. Cut a notch into the fireboard almost to the center of the socket. Grease the handle and the upper end of the spindle, but be careful not to lubricate the working end of the spindle or the fireboard. (You can use pine pitch, animal fat , or even oil from your hair or the sides of your nose.) Twist the spindle into the bowstring and take the proper position. If you are right handed (I am not), kneel on your right knee with your left foot across the fireboard. The socket should be just beside your instep and your chest should be firmly against your left knee. Bracing your left hand firmly against your shin, grasp the handle and keep the spindle perpendicular to the fireboard. Take the bow in your right hand and move it in line with your body. Move the bow with vigorous, long strokes, gradually increasing the pressure from the handle. Be sure you have tinder piled around the notch of your fireboard so that the center of the tinder is directly beneath the notch.

Soon the board will begin smoking and you’ll see dark powder forming in the notch. Apply more pressure and drill faster until the board is smoking copiously. When burning dust begins to pour into the notch take a dozen more double strokes and carefully remove the spindle from the fireboard. Use your knife to carefully tip the burning coal into the tinder. Gently blow on the ember and pack the tinder around it. As the coal spreads, blow harder until flame erupts. Feed the fire on kindling, gradually increasing the size of the firewood until you have a roaring campfire.

Do not grow discouraged if you fail to even produce smoke on your first hundred attempts.
Eventually you will learn the trick and never forget it. This is a skill best learned before you need to apply it; however, necessity may produce the resolve to persist until you have succeeded. More details of the fire bow drill, as well as other methods of starting a fire, can be found in Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival, which I highly recommend.

Food

When obtaining food, the prime consideration is the amount of energy expended in exchange for
the food gathered. For this reason, foraging, trapping, and fishing are all preferred over active hunting. Big game should only be sought when you need to stock a supply of winter meat. Stocking meat also requires drying and smoking to keep the meat from spoiling, whereas grains and nuts simply have to be kept dry.

The Four Survival Foods

There are four different groups of plants which are easily identified, easily obtained, and which
provide most of the nutrients necessary to sustain life. They can be found throughout the North American continent, and at least one of them can be obtained in every season. These four plant groups at one time provided the basic sustenance for more indigenous peoples on this continent. They are: grasses, cattails, acorns, and pine trees.

All grasses are edible. Young shoots up to six inches tall can be eaten raw. The cellulose of
mature grasses render them indigestible (this is why cows chew cud, and why rabbits eat their feces). Some of the nutrients can be steeped out by using the grasses to produce a tea which is not unpalatable. Grass seed is a valuable source of protein. Shake ripe grasses over a blanket or hide to collect the seed, rub it between your hands to remove the chaff, toast it lightly over a fire to destroy parasites and improve the flavor. Do not use seed that is purple or black, as these may be tainted with toxic fungus (ergot poisoning is nothing with which to take a chance). Seed can be eaten raw, boiled into an oatmeal-like porridge, or ground into flour and then used for baking.

Cattails are edible in all seasons and provide a variety of foods from different parts of the plant. In early spring the young shoots and stalks can be peeled and eaten raw or boiled. Later, the green flower heads can be husked and boiled (they are rather like maize). In early summer, the pollen heads can be eaten raw or dried into flour. From late summer clear through winter, horn-shaped sprouts found on the tangled rootstocks can be eaten raw or boiled. The rootstocks themselves are loaded with starch. They should be crushed, dissolved in cold water, and then drained and dried into flour.

“Did you ever eat a Pine Tree?” as Euell Gibbons used to say. Because trees take so long to grow, I recommend that this food source is only utilized where it is plentiful, and only as necessary (this advice applies in general to all items of forage; the rule of thumb is: leave some for other foragers and to perpetuate the species--take only what you need). Tea made from the needles are a precious source of vitamin C (more than an equal serving of orange juice). How many old prospectors suffered the ravages of scurvy even while they camped in the middle of a pine forest? The needles should be diced finely and steeped for five minutes in boiling water. In spring, the male pollen anthers are high in protein. The red squirrel knows how delicious are the seeds of mature pine cones. They can be opened by placing them near the heat of a fire. In desperate circumstances, you can even eat the tree’s inner bark, though this is not recommended because it will kill the tree.

Wherever there are oak trees, you will find a plentiful source of Acorns. A handful of acorns has as much nutritional value as a pound of beef. Acorns of the white and pin oaks can be eaten raw. All other varieties are rather high in tannic acid, which should be leached by boiling in several changes of water. Indians used to bury them in the bed of a stream and leave them there for a day or two. The nuts can then be eaten as is or ground into flour.

Beyond these four foods, every open area is loaded with edible plant life which it is beyond the
scope of this paper to list. There are a number of good foraging guides available. I recommend the
Peterson Field Guides (Edible Wild Plants, Medicinal Plants, and Wildflowers). Euell Gibbons’ books are interesting reading but poor field guides. While acquainting yourself with edible and medicinal plants, you should also learn to identify the poisonous varieties so there is no confusion between the two. If ever you are uncertain, pass it up; a case of accidental poisoning is at best debilitating, at the worst it can prove fatal.

Meat

Before continuing, let me state right here that this section is not for the squeamish. Meat should
only be taken for necessity, and the hunt should be undertaken in full humility and with all respect for the quarry. Taking animals for meat should be avoided unless necessary but, considering the energy and nutrition yield of meat, it should not be excluded from the diet without careful consideration. For reasons of energy conservation mentioned above, meat is best obtained through fishing or trapping. There are a number of methods of trapping using snares, dead falls, and stick traps; to describe them all would take more room than I have available here. A good wilderness survival guide will provide adequate instructions and illustrations. I recommend Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival. When skinning and cleaning animals, the prime concern is to avoid contamination of the meat with feces or urine, or the secretions of scent glands.

The animal should be hung from a tree limb or laid on an incline, head upmost. On a male animal, tie off the penis to help prevent the meat from being spoiled by urine. From the tail upward, make an incision just under the skin and continue it all the way up to the chin. Also make an incision down each leg to the first joint. On small animals, at this point, you can strip off the skin like a jacket. Large animals require a little more effort. Eviscerate the animal by making an incision in front of the anus and sex organs and open the abdominal cavity all the way to the breastbone, being careful not to puncture any internal organs. Now cut around the anus and free the sex organs, tying off any leaks. Cut through the diaphragm and reach up to severe and pull out the windpipe and gullet. Once this is done, everything should come out easily and should be stored for future use. Once the carcass is cleaned and skinned, prop the chest cavity open and leave the meat hanging in the open air for several hours.

In warm weather, meat needs to be preserved. This is easily accomplished by drying and smoking the meat by a warm fire. Butcher the carcass into thin strips, removing all fat (as this can go rancid). Lay the meat on hot rocks around the edge of the fire or drape it from a-frames or drying racks over the fire. Use only hard wood fire for this purpose. Keep the fire going and check the meat regularly. If it is lying on rocks, turn it over when the exposed side is dry. If it is fully dry, the meat will crack when you bend it, otherwise it is not dry enough.

Head, internal organs, sinew, bones, hooves, and hide should all be utilized. If you do not do this then you are wasting the gift which this animal has given to you and you having no business hunting for meat in the first place. I would also like to interject that, if you are squatting on a piece of land, people are much less likely to object if you are only foraging and not poaching meat.

Tanning

Hides can be tanned either with the hair attached or without. If you wish to remove the hair, first
soak the hide in water for a couple days. In either case, the hide should be stretched out and staked over the ground or racked on a frame; tighten and reset periodically. Peel off all fat and other matter, then let the stretched hide dry completely. Using some sort of sharp makeshift tool, scrape off the outer membrane until the hide has the appearance of suede. Rawhide is stiff but useful for everything from moccasins to container vessels. For softening the leather to make clothing, you will need to brain tan the hide. For this purpose, you should have saved the brains when you cleaned your kill. It is said that every animal has just enough brain to tan that animal’s hide. Soak the rawhide until it is soft and pliable. Over a low heat, mash the animal’s brains into a paste and rub them thoroughly into the wet rawhide. If the hair has been removed, treat both sides. Add water to the remaining brains and soak the hide in this broth for several hours. Wring the hide out and stretch and rack it once more. If you have left the hair on, omit the soaking but make sure the hide is permeated by the brain paste. The hide must now be continually plied, stroked, and stretched
until it is dry. Work the hide with a rounded rock until all the fibers are smooth. All of this takes a good deal of time and elbow grease. Be sure to work out all rough areas. Keep this up until the hide is completely dry. Now smoke the hide over a small fire of green sticks and leaves, aiming for a smoky fire--not a hot one. Last of all, buff the hide by running it back and forth like shoe-shine clothe over a smooth pole or large, smooth rock. The final product should be soft and pliable.

Further Sources

There are a number of field guides and survival manuals on the market, all differing to some extent in content. I recommend Tom Brown’s field guides (Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Wilderness Survival, ...Nature Observation and Tracking, ...Living with the Earth, ...City and Suburban Survival, ...Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants, ...the Forgotten Wilderness). This man was well taught by his Indian mentor, scout and shaman Stalking Wolf. I also recommend Tom Brown’s autobiographical books (The Tracker, The Search, and The Vision) which are all compelling reading and present a view of man’s relationship to nature which is vanishing. Unfortunately, many of these books are currently out of print, which is a pity as they are some of the most important books I have ever read.

Another important source of knowledge which we should take advantage of before it vanishes
entirely is our senior citizens. Many elderly people grew up in a world where wilderness lore was common knowledge. Talk to them. You may be surprised at the wealth of their knowledge, and those who possess it are usually quite willing to pass it on if you approach them correctly.

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