Episode #48： Survival And Prepping With Creek Stewart
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Summary
Creek Stewart is a professional survival instructor and author of The Unofficial Hunger Games Survival Guide. He is also the owner of Willow Haven Outdoor, a survival school in Indiana. In this episode, we talk about how he became a survival instructor, how he built a 72-hour survival kit, and how to prepare for emergency situations.
Transcript
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This episode of the Art of Manliness podcast is brought to you by Huckberry. Huckberry is my
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code art15 to save 15% off your first purchase. Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition
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of the Art of Manliness podcast. Now let's say you were plopped in the middle of the wilderness
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with nothing but your wits. Would you know what to do to survive? Or how about, let's say there's
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some sort of natural disaster. Power's cut off, gas is cut off, water's cut off. Would you know
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how to survive those hours, days, maybe even weeks without those amenities? Well, our guest today
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has dedicated his life to helping people prepare for those sort of wilderness survival or emergency
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situations. His name is Creek Stewart and he is the owner of Willow Haven Outdoor. It's a
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survival school in Indiana. And you might recognize Creek. He's written a lot of articles, some of our
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most popular content on the Art of Manliness, how to build a survival shotgun, how to build a 72-hour
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kit. He's also written a few books. He's out with a new one called The Unofficial Hunger Games Survival
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Guide. So in the off chance, we have societal collapse and we have reality show where it's the last man
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standing winds. This book will tell you how to survive. And we're going to talk to him today
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about his book and also some other advice on how to prepare for emergency situations. Stay tuned.
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Yeah. So, I mean, we were just talking about this earlier. This is the first time we've actually
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talked on the phone like before. I mean, you've written so many great articles for us. We've never
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actually gotten together to chat. So this is a first.
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I know. It's great to put a voice with all the emails that we've sent back and forth. So
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Yeah, for sure. All right. So let's do a little background about you. You are a professional
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survival instructor and that's what you do for a living. I'm sure there's a lot of guys who are like,
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man, that sounds like the dream job. I mean, how did you become a survival instructor? Did it
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started as a hobby as a kid and then you just somehow managed to figure out a way to make a
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living off this? Tell us your story. Yeah. You know, I mean, you're exactly right. It certainly
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hasn't been an easy road and one without hurdles and bumps like most people's stories, I guess,
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who probably pursue their dreams. But, you know, I grew up in scouts, longtime scout, you know,
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Eagle Scout and always loved the outdoors, always had a passion for self-reliant skills and always
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knew I would end up in an outdoor related profession or business somehow, somewhere.
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I mean, when I was in college, you know, really trying to find my way, I ended up writing a small
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self-published wilderness survival manual about the skills I knew at that time. I was 21. So it's
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about 15 years ago. And I took that little manual and I sold it to Boy Scouts. I took out an ad in
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the back of Boys Life magazine and I was going around from troop to troop and, you know, kind of
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hawking this little survival manual about the skills I knew at the time. And that little manual led to
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me holding some two-hour courses on my parents' farm in southern Indiana. And those little two-hour
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courses led to me holding one-day courses. And, you know, then I started doing more and more courses
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and, you know, invested the next kind of five to six years really taking my skill set seriously,
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you know, because you can only teach the skills if you're proficient in them yourself. And so I took
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some time and really invested in training and making sure my skills were up to par. And I was
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a mobile business for a long time. You know, I was an old explorer with a trailer and I would drive
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from rental land and farmland and state parks and, you know, for the longest time while working
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a full-time job and sometimes two full-time jobs. And, you know, about three or four years ago,
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I decided to really, to really go deep. And I invested in a facility and a building. And so
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I have 21 acres and a beautiful lodge. And, you know, that's when, you know, my business really
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changed, you know, when I had a facility and I could hold three-day courses and people could spend the
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night. And so that's kind of my story in a nutshell.
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That's a really inspiring story. I mean, it just seems like it's a lot of hustle that went on there.
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So now you have, um, this facility so people can come out to your places in Indiana, right?
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And basically learn how to be a mountain man, essentially.
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Yeah. I mean, we definitely teach manly skills. So, I mean, we teach primitive survival skills,
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you know, how to meet your basic core human survival needs, shelter, water, fire, and food.
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Yeah. And one of the things I like about, uh, your style and your approach, I mean,
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you're just very approachable with this material. Cause I know for a lot of people,
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sort of the layman, uh, who, who's completely new to prepping and survival stuff, it can be kind
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of intimidating, um, to, cause it's, it's a different kind of group of people who are interested
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in it. Uh, but this stuff's important for everybody. I just love how you make it accessible
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to everyone. So, um, kudos to you for doing that. Um, what do you, let's talk about some,
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let's talk about that sort of barrier, that intimidation. There's a lot of prepping terms
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that, um, like jargon, right? That if you didn't know what it meant, you're like, what,
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what is that? You know, for example, like bugging out is a common one and then bugging in, um,
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what's the difference between bugging out and bugging in and how do you prepare for those type,
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different types of situations? Yeah. Well, I mean, they're opposite ends of the spectrum.
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You know, the, the definition of bugging out is when a disaster of any type, whether natural or
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man-made strikes your area and it's no longer safe to stay at home, the decision to stay at home is
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actually, you know, life threatening. So in response to that, you have to evacuate your home
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in search of a safer destination and head from point A to point B. And that decision,
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is what, what we refer to in the survival industry is bugging out. Um, now bugging in is,
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you know, an ideal scenario in a disaster situation because it's, it's the exact opposite. It's,
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you decide maybe in a severe storm, it's not life threatening, but your lights are out.
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You may not have electricity. You may not have gas. You may not be able to drive around. Maybe
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there's ice covered roads. And so your decision is to hunker down, close your doors and provide for
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yourself inside your own home for, you know, anywhere from, you know, extended period of time,
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anywhere from maybe 12 hours to three days, maybe even two weeks. Who knows?
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Yeah. We, uh, in Oklahoma, we get like these really wicked ice storms. And a few years ago,
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there was one and the electricity was out for over a week and, uh, you couldn't go anywhere.
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And it was kind of scary cause like you had, we had, you know, stuff on hand, but then you started
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getting to that point where like, Oh, you know, we're, we're reaching that limit where we should
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have had some more. Um, so yeah, being prepared for that was, I guess that would be a bugging in
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situation. It would absolutely. And you know, Oklahoma had a bug out situation. What about a
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week and a half ago, you know, those tornadoes came through people, you know, all of a sudden
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staying in the path of a tornado is, you know, a life threatening decision. So people had that kind
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of bug out. Yeah. So part of the, the essential part of bugging out is having a bug out bag.
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And it seems like there's just, people are just talking about this, you know, all over
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the internet, what, you know, you got to get your bug out bag. And you in fact wrote a just
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a fantastic, uh, article post about how to build a bug out bag. And you even published
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a book on, on how to build a bug out bag. Um, which I highly recommend you guys get. It's
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awesome. I'm using it to build my own, my family's bug out bag. You know, Creek has these
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awesome lists where he like tells you exactly what you need, how many of you, of those things
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you need, um, based on the number of people. So we, my wife and I've been slowly putting together
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a bug out bag with his book, but Creek, can you give us kind of a, just like a basic rundown of
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the sort of items you'd want in a bug out bag? Yeah, absolutely. You know, the most important
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aspect of a bug out bag is that it's a bag, it's a backpack, you know, it's gotta be something
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mobile, uh, because just because we're leaving our home doesn't mean that we may be able to do so
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in a vehicle, you know, and especially in big cities, when everybody leaves their residence
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at the same time, um, it ends in nothing short of traffic jams. And so traveling by foot may be a
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necessity. So, um, the bug out bag first and foremost has to be mobile. You gotta be able to
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carry it. Um, all, all teaching I do and any survival kit I think about, or, you know, talk about,
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it always starts with four categories and that's what I call the core four. It's shelter, water,
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fire, and food. So the first four categories of any survival kit, including a bug out bag,
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should include tools and gear and things to help you meet your core basic survival needs
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in the shelter, water, fire, and food categories.
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Gotcha. So just like have an extra pair of clothes, um, maybe have a tarp for shelter.
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Yeah. So if, if you want to, if you want to kind of delve in a little bit more specifically,
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like shelter category for my bug out bag, I use a lightweight backpacking tent. You know,
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I like the idea of a tent that closes you off from the rest of, you know, what might be happening
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around you, but you know, definitely a sleeping bag, definitely some kind of a tarp, maybe a backup
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emergency survival blanket, um, uh, maybe a backup, uh, rain poncho that could be configured
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into the shelter configurations. So shelter is, you know, in extreme conditions, humans can live for
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three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food.
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So shelter is really important. And hypothermia is the number one outdoor killer in this country.
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More deaths related to hypothermia than any other outdoor related deaths, falling, climbing accidents,
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four-wheeler accidents, snake bites. I mean, it is a, it's a huge silent killer. So shelter is very
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And then I guess water, just have some, some, just kind of the basics, have an extra bottle of water
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Exactly. Exactly. You know, you know, the ideal timeframe for a, the average disaster lasts 72 hours
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where, you know, we're in the absence of the utilities that we depend on so much, like electricity
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and water and food and things like that. So plan for 72 hours worth of water, which a good estimate
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is three liters, you know, and because water is so critical and you can move through it pretty quickly,
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a backup solution to water, whether it's a, you know, affordable life straw or lightweight backpacking
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pump for a, you could source water from a creek or a pond. So just some kind of backup to the three
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Gotcha. And what I find, what I found interesting about the bug out bag is that a lot of people just
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already have this stuff laying around their house.
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It's just a matter of putting it all in one place. So when something does happen, you can
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Exactly. You know, that's the whole concept because, you know, the last thing you want to
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be doing in the sometimes seconds that you have of being notified of a large scale disaster,
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the last thing you want to be doing is trying to pack.
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And, um, it's just, it's a great, it's a great kit to have just in case mother nature or man gives
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Yeah. And I guess the bug out bag can also serve as sort of a bug in bag in some situations too,
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right? Like if water's out, then you can use the resources in your, your bug out bag to, uh,
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Absolutely. I dig into my bug out bag all the time, you know, whether, especially when I,
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sometimes I'll grab my bug out bag. If I'm going on a long trip, you know, I'll have that,
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the car with me and, you know, I'll dig into my bug out bag when I'm at home, when the lights go
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out for, you know, a large storm or a windstorm or something like that. It doesn't have to save
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Yeah, definitely. For sure. Yeah. It's funny. You mentioned the, the car thing. My, uh, my dad's
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man, several years ago, I mean, it's been almost over 20 years ago, he got stuck in a blizzard
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between Amarillo and Oklahoma city and, um, he had to pull to the side of the road and yeah,
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he was there for like a day. Like he had to, but like, thankfully he had a bunch of stuff in his
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car where he was able to, you know, feed himself, stay warm. Wow. Uh, so yeah, kids, uh, make sure
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you have something in your car cause you never know what, when it can happen. Happened to my dad.
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Yeah, exactly. Classic. I mean, just a classic textbook example of what I call sudden and
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unexpected survival scenarios. Cause there's a big misconception that, you know, this doesn't
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happen. This will happen to me. This only happens to other people and people on the news. But, um,
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you know, I mean, I don't, you know, when I teach survival skills, I don't talk about zombies and
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meteorites and alien invasions. I mean, I talk about the real stuff that happens to real people,
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just like you and me on a regular basis. And I guess that must be the biggest barrier
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from, to, in preventing people to start preparing or getting ready for those types of things. They
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just don't think it happens, right? They just think, Oh, it'll never happen to me. It'll
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happen to someone else. So I'm not going to do anything about it. I mean, is that the biggest
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barrier for folks? That is certainly, that is certainly on the top of the list. You know,
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just the mentality that it's not going to happen to me. You know, there's just such a naive,
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we're just so comfortable, you know, in, in especially the U S and I know you have an
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international audience as well, but you know, we're just so comfortable here, you know, and
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it's, it's so hard to imagine that, you know, our basic human survival needs aren't, you know,
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just around the corner or the flip of a switch, but it happens. It absolutely happens to people.
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And I would say the number two barrier is people are busy. Their schedules are hectic and it's hard
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to carve out time for yourself sometimes, let alone putting together a kit, which is certainly
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an investment of time. Definitely. Um, let's talk about you. So you mentioned, um, the, Oh,
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well I was going to talk about, yeah, like that whole mentality. I love the, uh, the phrase that you
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use to sign off on posts and your emails. It's like, it's not if, but when, right? I love that.
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Cause yeah, you always think, Oh, you know, if it might happen, then I'll do this. But it's
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like, it's, if it's so conditional. Um, and it, when you think about, you know, when it's
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more immediate and more pertinent and it brings things, that sort of mentality, uh, I guess
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it gives you like lights a fire under your butt to get, get things going. Um, yeah. I really
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believe that too. I really believe that, you know, we have a pretty high probability of at
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some point in our lives, finding ourselves in some kind of sudden and unexpected survival
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scenario, you know, just like those cruise ships that bring, you know, two huge cruise
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ships in the middle of the ocean shut down for seven days, you know? And I bet those
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people never thought in a million years when they left on their vacation, they'd be fighting
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for their basic human survival needs for a few days.
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Yeah. Cause I mean, yeah, cruise ships, like it's like mad, everything kind of magically
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happens for you. You have like all the, all you can eat buffet you've got, I mean, it's
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just, everything's catered towards you. And like, as soon as that's gone, you're like,
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That's gotta be scary. Um, so you talked about, uh, for your bug out bag, you need to think
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about the core four. Um, let's take that concept of the core four to skills. I'm guessing the
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most important skills that a person should work on developing, um, center around those core
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four. So fire building, uh, shelter building, are those like the most important?
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Absolutely. You know, I mean, top three hard skills are understanding basic sheltering principles,
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you know, understanding what your dangers are, what your threats are, uh, with sheltering
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and how to kind of combat those in a, in any type of a situation, whether it's wilderness
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or urban. Um, number two set of skills, you know, the top three, it depends on the circumstances,
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what's one, two, or three, but the top three are shelter, water, you know, understanding
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how to purify water, understanding how to find water, how to track water. And number
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three, fire, because fire can be so relevant to shelter and water. You know, if for some
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reason you don't have the resources or the knowledge to erect or configure a suitable
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shelter, all of a sudden fire becomes your number one resource for regulating core body
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temperature. So your fire building skills are really important. And on the same line
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against water, you know, if you can't, if you don't have a modern pump or chemical purifiers
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or a life straw and you don't have potable water, all of a sudden boiling becomes your
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number one way to purify drinking water. And obviously you need fire to boil water. So
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those three are the, definitely the top three skills to focus on. Um, fire building is probably
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the most time consuming because it is truly an art, but regardless of which survival skill
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we're talking about, there is only one way to learn a skill and it is through practice
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and repetition. You can read all the books, you can watch all the videos and even train
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with some of the best instructors in the world. But until you get on your hands and knees and
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start doing these skills with your O2 hands and trial and error, it is the only way to learn
00:19:04.560
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to the show. So that's a great point. But how do you, you talked about being busy, right? That's
00:20:21.080
one of the things that prevents people from doing that. Any suggestions you have for the average
00:20:25.960
person out there who's listening? They're like, man, I really want to practice. I want to develop
00:20:29.360
these skills. How do I work those in to my schedule? I mean, do you have any like suggestions on
00:20:35.500
that? Absolutely. You know, there's a huge misconception that in order to practice survival
00:20:41.940
skills, you have to go into the remote wilderness for two weeks and put yourself in a survival
00:20:49.480
situation to actually practice the skills. I get that all the time. Why don't I have 80 acres? How
00:20:54.220
do I, how can I practice? Well, you practice this stuff at your backyard. You know, you don't need
00:20:59.500
any, you could practice it. If you live in an apartment, you could practice 99% of the skills
00:21:03.820
you need to know to save your life in the wild can be practiced on a five square foot patio
00:21:09.400
in the back of an apartment. You know, the misconception is that you need wide open spaces
00:21:14.040
and all this land to practice some of these skills. And it's just not the case. And quite
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frankly, they're not really that time consuming, you know? And I've never ever, for anybody who
00:21:23.640
has kids, you know, or young people in their life. I've never, ever met a kid who doesn't
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absolutely love spending time with someone learning outdoor skills. It is an excellent way to just
00:21:37.040
bond with people. And, you know, if you go camping, you can incorporate some of these fire building
00:21:42.020
skills or shelter building skills in a camping trip. It doesn't have to be a dedicated survival
00:21:48.540
skills weekend. You know, a lot of these things can be incorporated into activities that we do on a
00:21:53.300
regular basis. You know, instead of, instead of starting the fire and, and the barbecue with the
00:21:58.600
lighter this week, maybe you do something a little bit different. Maybe you do something a little
00:22:02.960
primitive and can try to strike it with a ferro rod or a, or a piece of man-made or a piece of
00:22:08.200
natural found tender or something. That's a, that's some great stuff right there. That's just
00:22:12.200
giving me some great ideas. I've got some ideas bubbling in my mind right now. It's to do with like
00:22:16.200
my son's two, but he's, I mean, I'm like one looking forward to the age when he gets a little bit
00:22:20.080
older where I can like do stuff with him and just going to the backyard and just like, Hey,
00:22:24.880
we're going to set up a tent today, or Hey, we're going to learn how to start a fire with a magnifying
00:22:29.640
glass. I've never met a boy who doesn't want and love to build a fort. Oh yeah. That'd be awesome.
00:22:38.380
You know, and you follow the fort instead of a survival shelter. And all of a sudden I start
00:22:43.120
lighting up. Okay. Well, so those are the hard skills, uh, shelter building, fire building,
00:22:49.680
uh, water, but are there any like soft skills, like, you know, any things you need to do to
00:22:55.880
mentally prepare for a survival situation or psychologically or socially? I mean, is there
00:23:01.280
a soft component to survival as well? Sure. Absolutely. You know, I mean, I don't know the,
00:23:08.720
the percentage, but you know, a high, high, high 90% of survival is mental. You know,
00:23:15.680
what, what your mind decides your body will do. And so if I had to pick, if I had to just pick two
00:23:22.400
kind of mental survival skills that people can work on, you know, as they go about their daily routines
00:23:29.740
or daily activities, number one, and I believe your most important survival skill is this. It will
00:23:37.420
always be your ability to improvise. Because if there's one thing I can promise you about a sudden
00:23:45.660
and unexpected survival scenario, it's that you won't have everything you need. That kind of defines
00:23:52.880
the survival scenario, kind of gives you the definition of that scenario. So you all of a sudden
00:23:59.600
have to make do, have to meet your needs with what you have. And oftentimes that's with what you have
00:24:06.240
in the car, like your dad did, uh, in your pockets, in a purse, in a backpack. And it's using
00:24:13.580
oftentimes everyday items and trash in a different way. It's looking at things, what I call through
00:24:21.420
survival tinted goggles. So a good, just kind of a fun exercise to do with your family or your buddies
00:24:29.180
is to throw a random product, a random product from a table and then just brainstorm as many
00:24:34.460
things as you can think of as how, how that product could be used to meet one of your core
00:24:40.600
four basic human survival needs. That's awesome. You'd be surprised. Yeah. And you'd be surprised at
00:24:46.760
the list. You know, the first few to come out are always a little crazy, but once they start coming
00:24:51.520
and people start brainstorming, you'd be surprised at all the crazy ways, regular everyday items that
00:24:58.260
we see in the, you know, in ditches along the road can be used to meet our core basic survival
00:25:04.500
needs with a little bit of creativity. Well, you've actually written some articles for the art of
00:25:08.940
manliness, this sort of thing. Like it's one of some of our most popular articles, the, uh, the
00:25:12.960
survival tampon, uh, is an example. Classic example. Yeah. I mean, who would have known that this is like
00:25:19.260
the, what do you call the tactical survival tool? What does tampon mean? Yeah. I, uh,
00:25:25.360
comfort did exactly what it was, definitely tactical outdoor adventure tool or something
00:25:30.120
like that. Yeah. And then you also did it with the cell phone, right? Like you have a busted cell
00:25:33.940
phone, like here's different ways you can. So yeah, I mean, so I guess your, your suggestion is
00:25:38.900
like, just take stuff you find in your house, plop it on the table and say, all right, find as many
00:25:44.240
ways you can to use this as a survival instrument. Exactly. And it's actually pretty fun to do,
00:25:51.100
you know, and, and like any skill, whether the hearts, you know, we talked about the hard skills,
00:25:55.920
how practice is important, you know, thinking outside of the box and being creative is a skill
00:26:00.900
and if that's encouraged, and if you encourage your mind to think that way on a regular basis,
00:26:05.840
you'd be surprised at how quickly you start develop the ability to improvise and kind of look at
00:26:13.000
products through that, through those survival tinted goggles that I talk about.
00:26:17.800
That's awesome. All right. So let's talk about your new book. Uh, you got a new book out. Uh,
00:26:21.740
it's the unofficial hunger game survival guide. Uh, who's this book geared towards? What's your goal
00:26:27.780
with this book? Well, I tell you what, I always told myself I was never going to write a primitive
00:26:34.140
survival skills manual. Um, there's so many on the market and quite frankly, I didn't really feel like
00:26:40.820
I could add to the content that was already out there. I mean, there's only so many different
00:26:46.340
ways you can present how to build a shelter and how to do a bow drill and how to start fire with
00:26:51.400
sticks. And, and there's a lot of great primitive survival skills manual in the market. So I always
00:26:57.200
told myself that's been done numerous ways before, and I'm never going to write one. And then the hunger
00:27:03.340
games came along, which if no one knows what the hunger games are, then I don't know what to tell
00:27:09.620
you. Yeah. You've been sleeping under a rock. Yeah. Seriously. That's putting it lightly. Um,
00:27:16.200
it's huge, huge young adult survival themed fiction book series. There's three books in that series.
00:27:23.640
Number one book series in probably the world for the past year and maybe even a couple of years.
00:27:30.760
And it gave me an opportunity to reach, to present primitive skills in a totally different
00:27:39.620
way and reach an audience that necessarily does it, that doesn't necessarily go out and pick up,
00:27:45.640
you know, your traditional primitive skills survival manual. So while this book does have a hunger
00:27:53.260
games theme, it is certainly not, it is certainly not only for hunger games fans. You know, it, uh,
00:28:00.420
it is at its core. I teach all of the survival skills and more mentioned throughout the book series,
00:28:07.320
the hunger games book series, but at its core, it is a primitive skills manual. You know,
00:28:12.480
these are real, these are not fictional skills. These are real skills for real people in real
00:28:17.740
situations. So whether you're a hunger games fan or whether you're a survival fan, it's an awesome
00:28:24.320
read. It's, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's not, it's full pictures, which I love.
00:28:30.880
Yeah. And it's, uh, it's not heavy reading, you know, it's real light reading. Uh, I, I'm a very
00:28:36.320
light kind of, you know, very light writer and my, my writing is easy to read and, uh, and this fits
00:28:44.700
right in there. So it's presenting primitive skills in a really different and unique way that's never been
00:28:50.900
done before. Awesome. What sort of skills, um, inspired by the movie will we find in the book?
00:28:59.260
We've got some pretty cool ones. I mean, we definitely talk about twitch up snares. We
00:29:04.680
definitely talk about how to build snares, but I've done a great post for you for the art of
00:29:09.400
manliness on snares too. Yeah. Oh, we, we definitely talk about wild edibles. Um, a big theme of the
00:29:19.180
Hunger Games is Katniss, this main character, actually Katniss is named, that name is named
00:29:25.860
after a wild edible tuber, the Katniss plant, also known as the Arrowhead plant. So the, the Hunger
00:29:31.620
Games book series has a wild edible theme. So I talk about a lot of the wild edibles that those
00:29:36.300
characters might have been harvesting and gathering, a lot of different hunting tools and techniques.
00:29:42.860
Um, there's kind of a cool scene in the book where Katniss is preparing a, a warm soup for this other
00:29:49.180
named PETA. And she heats this soup by putting in sun warmed rocks to heat this soup. And there's a
00:29:58.220
part in the book where I teach people how to make a coal burned container out of wood and then use
00:30:04.960
hot rocks to actually boil and purify water in a wooden container.
00:30:09.860
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. So it's, uh, applying a lot of those skills mentioned and, you know, really fleshing
00:30:16.940
them out so that people can, you know, practice them and understand them. And hopefully one day
00:30:23.640
Well, speaking of which one day, what are the chances, you know, as a survivor expert, um, what
00:30:31.840
are the chances you think will end up like Panem where, you know, there's societal breakdown in the
00:30:37.400
United States and the country's divided into 12 districts and we make teenagers kill each other.
00:30:43.200
Um, what are the chances that, uh, that'll happen that your, your book will actually, you know,
00:30:49.800
the skills you teach will actually be applicable in, in the, the arena, so to speak?
00:30:53.960
Yeah, seriously. Well, you know, I mean, I'm the kind of guy that never says never. So, um, you
00:31:01.540
know, probably slim, you know, but all, all great superpowers have fallen. And, um, you know, one,
00:31:08.820
you know, the chances of maybe Panem are pretty slim, but the chances of being thrust into a sudden
00:31:18.380
and unexpected survival scenario are not so slim. You know, I really, I really, I really,
00:31:23.960
I really believe that this stuff, this stuff happens to people on a regular basis. I mean,
00:31:29.000
we see it on the news and I really believe that these skills are important. You know,
00:31:33.760
we're not the society that we were 150 years ago, where a lot of this is common knowledge.
00:31:40.200
We have become accustomed to our basic needs being provided for us rather than us providing them.
00:31:48.300
And a lot of people are very uncomfortable when, when faced with a scenario like that.
00:31:53.960
So, you know, even though it may not be a complete societal collapse, it only takes three
00:32:00.640
hours to die and then sometimes less. So basic primitive skills and modern skills with tools
00:32:08.460
are, will always have their place regardless of what society is like or what the world is
00:32:13.720
like. As long as we're on planet earth, mother nature will always be our greatest adversary.
00:32:18.100
For sure. All right. So Creek, um, final question. What, what can we expect from you in the future?
00:32:25.140
I mean, I'm always amazed that you've, you seem to get all these projects going on. What are some of
00:32:29.020
the, the ones we can look forward to that you got coming down the pipe?
00:32:33.280
Well, I, I try to stay busy. I always try to put out good survival content, man.
00:32:38.520
And so I'm, I'm constant, I'm trying, I'm constantly just trying to come out with,
00:32:42.820
you know, good writing and good, good content for people, you know, that's going to make a
00:32:48.620
difference someday. So I, I try to be entertaining at the same time and I try to, I try to do stuff
00:32:54.440
that's valuable. Um, you know, one of the product projects I'm most excited about right now
00:33:00.300
is I've, I've written my first, it's my first survival fiction novel. It's a, it's a young
00:33:08.580
adult novel. Um, it's probably one of the, one of the projects that I've found most excited about
00:33:15.060
my whole career. Um, it's a, it's a really great story. It's, it's about a, it's about a boy, 17
00:33:21.760
years old. Uh, the name of the book is Rugosa. Um, it'll, it'll be out in a few months. Uh, you can
00:33:27.660
obviously get more, more information on my website, but, uh, it's about this 17 year old boy
00:33:32.620
in kind of a collapsing society travels from Eastern West Virginia on foot to save this girl
00:33:40.600
that he loves who's trapped in Philadelphia. And it really goes through everything that this kid's
00:33:50.120
experiencing, both hard skills and soft skills that we talked about to get her and
00:33:57.260
start that journey back. It's the first of the three book series. And it is just everything
00:34:02.600
that I ever wanted to read in a survival fiction story. So I'm, I'm really super excited about it.
00:34:08.640
That is, that's really awesome. Did you ever think that you'd, you know, like six years ago
00:34:15.840
No, never. You know, I always have enjoyed survival fiction. I mean, I grew up reading
00:34:21.240
My Side of the Mountain and Hatchet and, you know, I mean, Wolf, you know, what's, uh, White Fang?
00:34:31.160
You know, just, I just loved survival fiction and those, you know, it's, it's just a, such a part of
00:34:37.100
how I think and who I am and kind of what shaped my childhood. And, you know, I never thought that I
00:34:45.000
would, you know, be writing survival fiction, but it's been a really fun, it was a fun, fun,
00:34:53.020
it's been really fun writing, writing those stories, man, because you don't, you're not
00:34:57.320
necessarily, you know, confined by facts and things. So it's just been, it's just been really,
00:35:05.240
I'm looking forward to it. We're going to, we're going to take down The Hunger Games and then
00:35:09.140
we'll have a movie made based, made based off of your books. We're going to, we're going to make
00:35:15.340
Yeah, well, I tell you what, I got to give mad props to Suzanne Collins, who wrote The Hunger
00:35:20.960
Games, because it's only because of that book series that, you know, I had the opportunity
00:35:25.820
to write this book and she has opened up the doors of opportunity for so many other people,
00:35:31.240
as have you. And, um, you know, exposed an entirely new audience, the young adult audience
00:35:37.700
to survival skills that I believe are important that may have not otherwise had an interest in
00:35:43.660
those. So I've definitely seen a spike in young adults and teenagers at my courses. And, uh,
00:35:50.080
and I think that's huge. And I give a lot of credit to her in that series. So.
00:35:54.060
Very good. All right. Well, Creek, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much
00:36:00.520
Hey, Brett, man, I appreciate all that you do. I'm a huge fan of you and your site and, you
00:36:06.360
know, I, I eat up your content. So the pleasure is all mine.
00:36:09.900
Well, thank you, sir. I'm, I'm humbled and honored.
00:36:13.480
And just so you know, I'm at the blade show and I've met probably five or six. I was only
00:36:18.980
in there for a couple hours. I'm at the blade show in Atlanta, Georgia. And I've met five
00:36:22.720
or six guys who come, who've come up to me and said, dude, are you, are you Creek from
00:36:27.680
the art of manliness from the guy who writes on the art of manliness? So you have got art
00:36:31.560
of manliness fans walking around at the blade night show in Atlanta, Georgia today, Brett.
00:36:35.860
That's awesome. Well, tell them, well, if you're serious, man, that's all. If you see
00:36:39.520
any more, give them a, a firm handshake for me.
00:36:43.260
I certainly will. I certainly will. I told him, I said, I'm getting ready to get on the
00:36:47.320
phone with Brett from the podcast. And I think they were, I think they were a little jealous,
00:36:51.720
but I couldn't fit them all in the, in the conference room.
00:36:55.300
Our guest today was Creek Stewart. Creek is the owner of Willow Haven outdoor. You can find
00:37:00.040
more information about a survival school at willowhavenoutdoor.com. And his latest book is the unofficial
00:37:05.660
hunger game survival guide. And you can find that book on amazon.com.
00:37:12.100
Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,
00:37:17.280
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And Hey, did you
00:37:21.640
guys know we have a store? We do. It's store.artofmanliness.com. You'll find all sorts of art of manliness
00:37:28.160
goodies there, t-shirts, posters, um, with illustrations by Ted Slampiak stationary, and we're adding new
00:37:35.100
products. So love for you to check by, pick something up. It'll help support the podcast
00:37:40.040
and the website and keep it going. So thanks. So until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to