Wilderness Survival Techniques is a blog dedicated to compiling and exploring all the ways to get yourself out of danger if lost or stranded in a survival scenario whether it be in urban or wilderness regions.

The information found in these pages is for entertainment and educational purposes only.  That means don’t try to get yourself into a survival situation on purpose and then try to see if these techniques work!  There are many tragic, real-life stories where a survivalist thought they were on the Discovery channel and wound up dead.  In other words, “don’t try this at home”.
 
Here are some other aspects about my site:

• I  do not advocate extremism on the right or the left.
• I have no political agenda or affiliations.
• There are many that use their sites to promote and sell firearms.  I do not.

Here’s a little background on how I became interested in writing about wilderness survival techniques and related prepping subjects.
I have to confess I’m a bit of a survival show junkie.  If you’re a fan of “Dual Survival”, “Survivor Man”, “Man Vs. Wild”, or “The Colony”, then you’re in good company here. I find it fascinating to envision how I would survive if I were stranded with no tools or resources. How would one survive in an urban environment?  How would I make a shelter, or exploit my surroundings to stay out of the elements.
Moreover, I have a special connection with the woods that can’t be put into words. Some of my most favorite memories of childhood are of hiking and fishing around the woods of The American River just under South Lake Tahoe. I could never imagine the forest as a frightening place, as  portrayed in so many Grimm Brothers fairy tales.  Living in New York City for the last 13 years has intensified those memories and longings to just “be” in nature, and is partly responsible for the creation of this blog.
I don’t want to ever purposely put myself in a survival situation, with no back up plan and safety measures in place. However, I do believe that training yourself in survival techniques such as fire making, water procurement, shelter building, and basic survival psychology will give the practitioner a higher chance for survival.

Many times the illustration of what is possible isn’t going necessarily be practical .
Many of the techniques discussed on this site, like water procurement and purification, apply in urban situations as well.
In performance psychology, which is highly studied, it is common knowledge that your state of mind can drastically affect your performance.  It is a common phenomena in baseball to see a pitcher, who was having a great game before, start to slump after a batter hits a home-run.

Your psychology (state of mind) is the most important variable of your ability to survive if stranded in the woods, or in a disaster situation.  If you lose your mind you will very quickly succumb to the elements and die of a number maladies.  If you don’t you still can die easily, so let’s focus on what we can proactively control, the present.

Many times in our lives we are totally paralyzed by a temporary setback or misfortune.  Setbacks lead people to try to find a remedy to reduce the uncertainty of the future.

The driving force for early mans quest for knowledge was survival, not bragging rights as to who knew the most.  Knowing what plants and animals were edible, knowing  how to prepare them for consumption, knowing how to make a fire. These were the building blocks of civilization and science.

In each community it’s healers, seers, and shamans all emerge.  These people sought to find remedies for the common problems affecting their tribe, first and foremost basic survival and medicinal treatments.

Because our western model of civilization of the past 600 years has been geared towards technological innovation, it has diverted the focus of humanity away from the self and to the external creating civilizations with language systems that value and reward duality and monetary worth over emotional connection and the experience of reality.  The irony is that I’m writing about emotional connection and experiencing reality through the aid of a computer.

This has led to a stripping away of the personal power of each and every person.

The struggle for autonomy and personal power continues with symptoms of discontent like the “Occupy” movement, and the “Anonymous” meme (although ridiculed).  I find it quizzical how many  people get outraged at “Occupy” protesters peacefully exercising their freedom of speech privileges.

The popularity of “Survival” reality shows for the last 7 years is a testament to the primal urge to retain personal power and to resist homogenization.

This blog is an expression of that desire that exists at some level for all of us.