The Art of Manliness - The 5 Priorities of Short-Term Survival

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:10.540 while we all wonder how we would fare if we had to survive for months in the wild like brian does

00:00:14.640 in the book hatchet the reality is that most survival situations only last a day or two

00:00:18.780 you get lost or injured in the woods and have to spend a night out that you hadn't planned on

00:00:22.560 as my guest dave canterbury says as long as you know some basic skills and pack the right gear

00:00:27.120 you can turn a potentially life and death situation into what's just a night of inconvenient

00:00:31.380 camping dave is the author of numerous books on wilderness survival including his latest the

00:00:35.860 bushcraft essentials field guide today on the show dave unpacks the five priorities of short-term

00:00:40.320 survival and what you need to pack know and do to deal with the risk of venturing into the wild

00:00:44.500 we discuss the biggest concern when it comes to first aid the three elements of a proper shelter

00:00:48.840 dave's favorite method for starting a fire the safest bet for water purification what to look

00:00:53.880 for in a perfect survival knife the five knife skills you should master the essential knots every

00:00:58.360 outdoorsman should know and more after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash survival

00:01:03.800 all right dave canterbury welcome to the show hey buddy glad to be here so you've been teaching

00:01:21.520 bushcraft and survival skills for over two decades i'm curious how did you get interested in that and

00:01:27.340 when did you realize that you can make a career out of starting fires and building shelters in the wild

00:01:32.120 you know it was kind of a strange happenstance i guess i i started doing 18th century reenacting back

00:01:39.220 in the early 90s and you know going out and doing the woods with basically loincloth and leggings and

00:01:45.420 moccasins and all that stuff and a flintlock rifle and hanging out with other guys that did the same

00:01:50.020 thing and so i learned a lot of those old time survival skills while i was doing that and then

00:01:55.020 my brother-in-law actually asked me one day i was napping some flint arrowheads in my kitchen

00:02:00.100 and he asked me one day today have you ever thought about making a youtube video this is back in 2008

00:02:04.760 and youtube was brand new then and i was like i don't even know what youtube is and so he kind of

00:02:09.920 explained to me i made a couple videos and the videos just kind of took off and then people started

00:02:14.520 sending messages asking me you know hey do you teach in person and can you teach me that can you

00:02:18.680 teach me this will you make a video on this and that and it just kind of exploded from there

00:02:22.540 to where i i started kind of doing i opened like an online shop where i sold some of the gear and

00:02:29.640 things that i was using in videos because people were asking where to get it and i was like well

00:02:32.800 if they can get it for me then they'll buy it for me so kind of being an entrepreneur i did that

00:02:38.040 and it kind of exploded to the point where i couldn't do two things at once i couldn't do all of

00:02:43.240 that and work a full-time job as an automotive engineer so i just kind of one day came home and

00:02:48.160 said hey i'm you know i'm gonna quit my job and we're gonna do this and she's like if you think

00:02:53.160 it'll make a living for us then you can do it and i did it and here we are today so one of the things

00:02:58.080 you're doing you've written lots of books about wilderness survival we're going to talk about one

00:03:01.800 of them today but you also you're the uh an instructor the head instructor at the pathfinder school

00:03:06.700 and this is where you teach these skills in person what are the type of people that come to you

00:03:11.420 for for classes you know we get all kinds of people we get military personnel that come here

00:03:17.320 we do some government contracts we've taught people like the michigan dnr guys from the up

00:03:23.180 deep winter survival we've taught some search and rescue teams but we also teach lots and lots of

00:03:28.400 civilians that's our main market really is civilians and we get everybody from the father and son who

00:03:33.860 want a weekend of bonding to learn survival skills to hunters that are wanting to learn better survival

00:03:40.580 skills for longer term hunts and treks that are way off the beaten path to just normal people who

00:03:46.440 watch tv they're like oh survival is cool i'll learn that and they come here to learn well i'm curious

00:03:51.800 you obviously you do you teach these skills and they can help people actually survive in the wild like

00:03:56.060 these are things you can actually use but in your experience when you you talk to these regular

00:04:00.560 people right these civilians or father son what else have you seen happen when people learn

00:04:06.560 these you know how to start fires or build shelter for example you know what happens really at class

00:04:12.360 a lot of times and really what kind of trips my trigger and keeps me doing this and my instructors

00:04:15.940 as well my instructors eat this stuff up and i think what mainly happens is you get people that come to

00:04:21.740 the school that have either never done this kind of stuff before or they're very new to it and so

00:04:27.000 they're very intimidated by a lot of the stuff and it seems like it's a lot of information and it's

00:04:31.440 really hard and the first couple days are really tough on people but as they start to repetitively

00:04:36.600 learn the skills we use what we call an edi methodology here where it's educate demonstrate

00:04:41.240 imitate and they get multiple chances to imitate these skills and then they build on each other to

00:04:47.620 where they start off by doing one thing and end up doing 10 things at once to accomplish what you

00:04:54.420 would need to do in an emergency scenario and they can do that in 15 or 20 minutes or less depending on

00:04:59.320 the weather conditions and the light kind of comes on in their mind of you know i don't have to be

00:05:04.900 worried about this anymore this is now it's becoming muscle memory to me and i can do it

00:05:09.540 without thinking about it and so i'm much more comfortable in an outdoor environment than i was

00:05:13.720 and now that you know you always see things on the internet in a survival situation in a survival

00:05:20.020 situation 99 of what people call survival is nothing more than inconvenient camping and if you get that

00:05:27.180 through your head hey i didn't plan to be here overnight but i'm gonna have to be then you've

00:05:32.100 got it licked because the mental game is a huge part of survival yeah i know when i've done like a

00:05:37.600 navigation course land navigation course or i've you know things like it feels awesome right in a world

00:05:42.760 where you know you have gps that tells you exactly where you are and how to get places it's cool knowing

00:05:47.860 that i can do this stuff without that i mean there's something i don't know like it just it's a big

00:05:53.080 confidence boost there's no question in my mind about it i mean the people that leave here their

00:05:57.920 confidence level is you know a thousand percent of what it was when they first showed up on day one

00:06:03.020 and that happens no matter what the class is whether it's a survival class a bushcraft class

00:06:07.220 a trapping class doesn't really matter what it is it that it seems to be a theme with every class that

00:06:13.800 when they start they seem a little intimidated maybe a little shy maybe a little overwhelmed with some

00:06:19.440 of the information that they're getting and information overload and skills but by the end

00:06:23.480 everything is like man this is the greatest thing i've ever done so in your latest book it's the

00:06:28.620 bushcraft essentials field guide you distill what you call your five by five survival system into this

00:06:34.980 really easy to read and digest book you can carry it in your back pocket that's what's so great about

00:06:39.880 it and i'd like to unpack this five by five survival system for our listeners today and so basically

00:06:45.820 the five by five system there's five priorities you got to think about in a survival situation

00:06:50.280 the first one is self-aid so this is like first aid but for yourself when you're in a survival

00:06:56.740 situation right that inconvenient camping situation what are the medical conditions you have to be most

00:07:02.100 concerned about well obviously bleeding is your is your biggest one right you you've always heard

00:07:09.080 everybody talks about the rule of threes you know three minutes without air blah blah blah right well

00:07:13.800 you can't go three minutes with an arterial bleed before you die so that yeah that has to be always

00:07:20.300 your number one priority is your self-aid and bleeding and stop loss stop blood loss is probably

00:07:26.400 the biggest part of that a twisted ankle you know something like that a jammed finger those aren't big

00:07:32.500 deals i burnt myself pulling my pot out of the fire those are all self-aid items you need to worry

00:07:37.540 about but as far as you know what you really want to know before you step foot in the outdoors is

00:07:42.600 how do i stop major bleeding i love how you're your system with these uh numbers and lists that are

00:07:47.920 really easy to remember you've got the five b's of self-aid and first one is bleeding what are the

00:07:52.860 other b's of self-aid so they're really not in any particular order other than bleeding being the first

00:07:58.600 priority but these are just five things that are the most common types injuries that happen in the

00:08:04.340 outdoors obviously you're not trying to cure some chronic illness out there you're trying to attack

00:08:09.500 things that are going to happen to you on the fly while you're hiking while you're camping while

00:08:13.600 you're hunting so you've got bleeding you've got break sprains and strains you've got blisters

00:08:19.120 burns and then bites and stings those are the most common things that are going to happen to you

00:08:23.620 so if you take a wilderness first aid course or study material that teaches you how to address those

00:08:30.220 type things you're going to be much more prepared in the beginning to go outside so like what do you

00:08:35.340 think you should pack so you're ready to treat some of these five b's like what's like the

00:08:38.620 essential you think you should have if you want any outdoor expedition you know i think that depends

00:08:44.380 on your skill level i think that depends on the setting involved and how many people are there you

00:08:50.880 know if you're from an instructor standpoint it's a little different than from an individual standpoint

00:08:54.760 and depending on your skill level your emergency kit or your ifac your individual first aid kit could

00:09:01.620 amount to a lot or a little for me really it boils down to i want a tourniquet first and foremost handy

00:09:10.820 i want to be able to stop bleeding immediately if i have to from an arterial bleed then i want things

00:09:16.260 that i can use for pressure dressings so your shemag will work for that there's plenty of things that

00:09:21.820 you can carry in your kit that'll work for most of that stuff and then you know things that you can

00:09:25.800 use to isolate a break or something like that obviously you can get things off the landscape and you

00:09:29.780 have a shemag duct tape those type of things in your kit the majority of things that i carry in

00:09:34.680 an actual first aid kit what i would consider a first aid kit would be something like a tourniquet

00:09:42.040 and israeli bandage and some kind of blood clotting agent gotcha and with a tourniquet it's something you

00:09:49.360 you probably need to practice you don't want to do it all the way right but like you want to know you

00:09:53.600 want to be comfortable with how to use that thing when you need to yeah i mean that's probably the

00:09:57.760 biggest problem that i would say in the world today of everything that you read on the internet

00:10:02.120 is everybody understands that a tourniquet is an important piece of kit to have because it can save

00:10:06.700 your life how to use it effectively in a short amount of time to save your life and having it

00:10:13.040 within reach is a whole different ball game so you have to understand you have to practice putting

00:10:19.520 this thing on you have to force yourself to carry this thing at close proximity it's not really good

00:10:25.140 enough i would say to most people it's not good enough to have it in your backpack because your

00:10:28.900 backpack could be over leaning against a tree when you cut yourself 15 or 20 yards away chopping wood

00:10:35.500 right so if your tourniquet's not right there and you've got to take time to get to it that's time

00:10:41.040 you don't really have so you also need to understand stopgap mechanisms things like your belt that you can

00:10:47.140 pull off your waist and throw it around until you can get to a proper tourniquet so those things are

00:10:53.680 important to understand too because nobody that's not a professional in the industry of you know an

00:10:58.800 emt or paramedic is going to carry a tourniquet on their waist 24 7 when they're in the woods most

00:11:04.760 people will not do that they just don't have the discipline so in the book the field guide you go

00:11:09.760 into detail about medicinal herbs and plants what role does that play in your self-aid rubric

00:11:15.620 again i think a lot of that is going to depend on your personal skill level and your knowledge level

00:11:21.180 of the landscape and part of being a good woodsman is to understand what trees and plants can help you

00:11:27.500 with things like stopping bleeding with things like an upset stomach with things like a possible

00:11:32.060 food poisoning with things like some type of burn and there's lots of things on the landscape that

00:11:37.320 can help you with those type issues but you have to know how to use them how to harvest them and how

00:11:42.180 to prepare them and that's you know again that's part of that's a more advanced intermediate level

00:11:47.080 skill than a basic level skill and this book really covers what we teach from the basic to

00:11:51.720 intermediate level it doesn't cover what we teach in the advanced level courses however learning plants

00:11:57.080 trees especially trees and i say i harp on trees a lot because trees are a four season resource plants

00:12:04.060 are not so the chance of you finding the right plant at the right time of year at the right location

00:12:10.000 when something happens to you is much less than the chance of being able to find a tree that will do

00:12:15.420 similar or the same whether it's harvesting the inner bark the root the leaves all those types of

00:12:20.880 things and then preparing them well what's an example of a tree that can be used for a medicinal

00:12:25.440 purpose i think most people when they think trees think well that's just a source of firewood

00:12:28.620 they don't think yeah for sure i agree with that yeah i mean you have to remember that oak

00:12:32.760 is well pine let's just start with pine pine's probably one of the most common trees

00:12:37.540 of eastern woodlands and pine has some fantastic medicinal properties a white pine all pines are

00:12:44.000 antiseptic and antibacterial in nature with a sap that runs through them so not only is it a good

00:12:50.480 accelerant for fire and things like that it's also a great resource medicinally you can use pine sap to

00:12:56.540 actually pack a cavity or a cap that you lost in the woods from your mouth to pack it to keep bacteria

00:13:03.040 out of it until you get where you need to go you can use it almost like a new skin over a large abrasion

00:13:07.840 area you can spread pine sap over that it will protect things from getting into that abrasion and will all

00:13:13.960 so help to give it you know some antibacterial properties and antiseptic properties as well

00:13:19.280 and there are you can use white pine bark for bandages if you take a small sap and cut cut it

00:13:25.360 off you can use it for a bandage you can obviously use all types of inner barks and things like that

00:13:29.660 for splints the inner bark of certain trees does different things for you white oak i talked about a

00:13:36.280 minute ago was the actual symbol for materia medica in europe for you know 500 years like we have

00:13:43.860 the the cross with the snake on it in the united states the oak leaf was that symbol in europe because

00:13:48.900 the oak is such a powerful medicinal tree anything basically that you have wrong with you from the

00:13:54.520 neck up you can address with the inner bark of white oak you know there's a sore throat and stuffy nose

00:14:00.380 all that stuff can be affected with a simple decoction of white oak inner bark and imagine this is the

00:14:05.980 sort of thing using plants as medicinal herbs it's something you need to actually do with an expert so you

00:14:11.500 know you're doing it right you can't just read about it on the internet you probably need to actually

00:14:15.400 do this stuff yeah i mean you can always i would never dissuade someone from self-training most of

00:14:23.280 the 99 of the training i have was self-taught so i would never dissuade someone from that but what

00:14:28.420 happens with training and the reason people go to training is number one they're getting expert advice

00:14:34.660 but number two they're also reducing the learning curve dramatically from how long it takes to learn

00:14:40.180 something on your own so the next priority in your five by five survival system is shelter i'm curious

00:14:46.800 is this in an order so it's like did shelter come before fire for a reason shelter is before fire for

00:14:52.940 the reason that your clothing is your first line of shelter defense it shelters your body from the

00:14:57.880 elements and so clothing has to be a priority very close to the top of the list because if your clothing

00:15:04.840 becomes compromised then your first line of defense against the elements becomes compromised as well

00:15:09.460 so shelter really has to become second over fire because of that gotcha so the first rule there is

00:15:16.580 wear clothing appropriate for the environment you're going to be in exactly and environmental changes i mean

00:15:21.800 obviously i'm not sure where you're out of but in here in ohio indiana kentucky area the weather can

00:15:28.540 change swing 50 degrees in a single day very very easily and you can experience you know three to four

00:15:34.340 seasons in a day depending on the time of year here as well it could be 70 in the afternoon and that

00:15:40.140 night it could snow it's just the way the weather runs here so you have to be prepared not only with

00:15:45.220 the clothes that you're wearing but with the clothes that you have packed in your backpack to be sure

00:15:49.420 that you are prepared for any elements that may come or so beyond clothing what are some like basic go-to

00:15:56.500 shelters that people should know how to make when it comes to shelter more importantly even than

00:16:03.180 shelters to build like what you're talking about like tarp configurations obviously correct right yeah

00:16:07.880 okay more important than that is understanding the elements of a shelter that's not as simple as just

00:16:14.500 putting up a tarp a tarp's just like putting on a raincoat or a wind jacket it's going to keep you from

00:16:19.520 wind it's going to keep you from rain and keep you from snow but it's not going to do anything for you

00:16:24.000 as far as being able to sleep because you have other elements you have to think about so when you

00:16:28.680 learn to build a shelter there's really three main elements you have to understand and that is you need

00:16:33.280 something to sleep in something to sleep on and something to sleep under and the under becomes the

00:16:39.000 tarp something to sleep in becomes a sleeping bag or a bivy bag and the on becomes something that you can

00:16:45.920 sleep on top of on the ground that will insulate you from conduction from the ground in cold weather

00:16:51.320 so you need all three of those elements within a shelter it's not as simple as i'm going to carry

00:16:55.460 a tarp or a space blanket and i have a shelter to build a proper shelter it takes three elements

00:17:00.500 so for the sleeping on what do you recommend for for that for the installation you know it depends

00:17:06.220 again on your on the situation if you are obviously if you're going into the into a wilderness area or

00:17:12.980 into the country or whatever you call it with the intention of camping then you're going to take all of

00:17:18.500 your camping stuff you're going to have a sleeping pad you're going to have a sleeping bag you're

00:17:21.680 going to have a tent it's the problem that you run into is when you don't have that kind of stuff

00:17:27.000 and everyone should carry a certain amount of emergency gear with them even if it's just for a

00:17:32.460 day hike and so the three things that we usually tell people to carry is we tell them to carry an

00:17:37.480 emergency space blanket a large contractor trash bag like six mil trash bag and that becomes your

00:17:44.480 mattress if all else fails you can stuff that thing with debris and get that four inch offset

00:17:50.800 of insulation from the ground and then obviously you need something to sleep inside of and that could be

00:17:55.720 as simple as a small bivy a stuffable sleeping bag that becomes very small something that will protect

00:18:01.960 you you know we make a survival bivy that will actually take it down to about 40 degrees if you're

00:18:06.880 wearing proper clothing that you know is the size of a baseball it's not the optimum thing obviously but

00:18:12.180 for one or two nights you could use it and you can always stuff that with more insulation if you need

00:18:16.720 to and just slide into it like a squirrel's nest on the space blanket you pointed out i thought this

00:18:21.380 interesting in the book you want to get an actual like an actual good quality space blanket not like

00:18:25.220 those like cheapo ones that you can get at walmart right that fold up into like a little square

00:18:29.940 yeah i mean those origami blankets i call them you're never going to get that thing back to where it

00:18:35.780 came from in that bag nobody's going to be able to do that and they're very flimsy they're they're not a

00:18:41.240 trashy piece of gear they're not something that's not worth having one of especially because it's so

00:18:46.240 small you can put in your pocket however if you're building an emergency kit that wouldn't be my first

00:18:51.360 choice my first choice would be a reusable emergency space blanket that's going to be more robust if i

00:18:57.280 have to use it for a ground sheet if i have to use it for some type of rain gear in emergency if i have

00:19:03.060 to hunker around a fire with that thing and wrap it around me to trap body heat i want it to be more

00:19:07.820 robust than just that thin piece of mylar all right so we talked about shelter so if you just

00:19:12.460 got something you can like you talk about that trash bag the space blanket and maybe just an

00:19:16.980 emergency bivy bag you're going to be good for most situations we're going to be better off than not

00:19:21.660 having it that's for sure right well so beyond that like let's say you want to start thinking

00:19:25.620 about more complicated shelters like a lean-to or whatever is there one that you think that it's good

00:19:31.260 to know once you understand the elements of the shelter then it's shelter design and we teach

00:19:36.820 five shelter designs here at the pathfinder school as our mainstay so you have you know and you can do

00:19:42.560 all of these with emergency space blanket and a trash bag so you have a lean-to which is basically

00:19:48.800 two points on the ground two points suspended you have a plow point which is a triangular shelter

00:19:57.440 where you've got three points on the ground and one point suspended to a tree or a pole you have a fly

00:20:04.040 which allows maximum airflow if you're trying to keep yourself cool in hot weather which has no points

00:20:09.220 touching down and two points suspended and then you have a raised bed which you can use your trash bag

00:20:16.320 for this to suspend your bed completely off the ground on tripods and then last but not least you

00:20:20.900 have the typical a-frame where you have four points touching the ground and two points suspended and

00:20:26.000 that's going to give maximum trapping of heat if you can stuff one in there with your backpack or

00:20:31.040 whatever and we have one open then you're going to trap more heat that way in cold weather environment

00:20:34.900 we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:20:37.380 and now back to the show let's start with the next priority which is fire why is fire so important

00:20:47.260 in a survival situation even if you're in a warm climate well number one for water disinfection

00:20:52.760 i mean groundwater disinfection is important for any time and you can carry filters and things like

00:20:59.940 that obviously if you are just hiking around and you're carrying some of my water filter with you

00:21:04.520 but the problem with water filters is they have a lifespan and if you don't have a brand new one in

00:21:09.560 your emergency kit who knows what the lifespan is going to be the one you've been using for the last

00:21:13.420 10 hikes so you need to plan to be able to boil water and so that's the number one priority of the fire is to

00:21:20.280 be able to boil water then number two is obviously signaling for rescue because fire is a good way to

00:21:25.600 signal for rescue if you're trying to be found then there's a multitude of other things that fire will

00:21:30.760 do for you from you know obviously keeping your body warm rapid rewarming from the inside if you can

00:21:36.080 heat water up and drink it things like creating a hot pack with your water bottle that you can put

00:21:41.200 against your body while you're sleeping or down at your feet if your feet are getting cold you can use that

00:21:46.240 fire to sterilize instruments that you have to use to like pick thorns out or stingers or splinters or

00:21:51.860 things like that out of your skin you can use the ashes and the charcoal the charcoal is good if you

00:21:56.420 feel like you've been poisoned you can basically mix the charcoal in a slurry of water and drink that

00:22:00.960 and it will absorb some of those toxins and make you throw some of that stuff up the ashes are

00:22:05.380 antiseptic in nature they're a good styptic and they'll stop surface bleeding and capillary bleeding

00:22:09.940 very well like from a shaving cut or something like that so there's a multitude of things that fire

00:22:14.660 can do for you in a survival scenario so the very important aspect of survival in general is to be

00:22:19.960 able to start a fire on a moment's notice do you have a preferred fire lay you know what

00:22:24.760 my preferred fire lay is a pile of sticks i i think i think that i think that most people

00:22:31.840 overthink the fire lay unless you are purposely building a fire for a certain reason like you're

00:22:38.200 trying to build a top-down fire where the thing burns from the top down so it burns longer overnight

00:22:43.060 with bigger logs and things like that that's a purpose-built fire but to get a fire going

00:22:47.200 immediately really you just need a good large tender source and a pile of the smallest

00:22:52.900 driest sticks you can find because fire loves chaos so if you've got enough airspace underneath to

00:22:59.160 create a venturi effect or updraft so that that fire sucking air from the bottom and pushing it up

00:23:04.580 and you've got plenty of airspace for it to breathe and you've got dry sticks that can catch fire quickly

00:23:09.500 with lots of surface area because they're small you don't have to have a particular fire lay

00:23:13.720 you just need a pile sticks on the fire what about fire starting methods do you have one that you

00:23:18.080 recommend for a survival situation yeah it costs a dollar 79 it's called a bic lighter yeah that is

00:23:24.280 always going to be my number one priority or my first choice because it gives you instant flame

00:23:29.300 and bic lighters are very robust i mean you can get them cold and you can warm them up you can get

00:23:33.280 them wet you can dry them out you can pretty much run over them with a vehicle and you're not going to

00:23:37.060 break them and even if they run out of fluid they'll still spark so they can still start a fire for

00:23:41.360 you if you've planned ahead then i would say probably next to that would be a ferrocerium rod

00:23:46.600 only because of the longevity of the rod versus the longevity of the flint and the lighter and the

00:23:52.700 longevity of fuel that you have that should be your next choice would be the flint and steel

00:23:56.400 or the what people call flint which is a ferrocerium rod and then the last choice for me would always

00:24:03.980 be a magnification lens probably on my compass that i could light charred material with off the

00:24:08.500 landscape once i have that next fire mentality in place i start my first fire and i immediately

00:24:14.340 char something off the landscape or a piece of clothing like cotton material so at the next fire

00:24:19.200 any of those fire starting elements will give me a burning ember well you mentioned char what for

00:24:23.920 those who don't know what that is what is char and how do you make it okay so char is a very

00:24:27.980 important thing that's very underrated in the survival world char material is basically carbonated

00:24:33.880 natural material so whether it's a cotton piece of cotton bandana a piece of your blue jeans that

00:24:39.520 are made out of cotton or something off the landscape that will readily char like punky wood

00:24:44.540 something that has lots of surface area where the wood's starting to rot away those things can be put

00:24:49.280 into a sealed container and your water bottle and cup will work for that without the lid on it cover

00:24:54.020 them up put them in the fire and you're basically carbonizing that material and not allowing oxygen

00:24:58.840 in for fire to happen you need fuel heat and oxygen if you don't get any oxygen in you're just creating

00:25:05.000 a large lump of coal just like they make charcoal now like they made charcoal pencils in the past and

00:25:11.580 that material will readily take a low temperature spark and create a live ember so whether it's a

00:25:17.840 magnifying glass in the sun a small strike off a ferrocerium rod or even the spark from a

00:25:24.000 spent beck lighter will light that material and give you a live ember to put into a bird nest

00:25:28.240 to give you the next fire what's your take on things like the bow drills is that more just

00:25:32.780 interesting to know as opposed to that wouldn't be your first go-to no i mean we teach the bow drill

00:25:39.300 fire here we teach hand drill we teach pump drill and all of those things have lessons built into them

00:25:44.220 of how to handle material off the landscape and variability within a process i don't really teach them

00:25:49.200 as a survival technique per se because i think if you've gotten yourself into a situation where you

00:25:54.480 have to make a bow drill fire you've done so many things wrong already you i mean yeah it just should

00:26:00.000 never happen and the chance of someone being able to build a fire like that off the landscape are very

00:26:05.280 very slim if they haven't done it hundreds of times all right so we've talked about self-aid we've talked

00:26:10.220 about shelter we talked about fire the next part of the five by five survival system is hydration

00:26:14.980 so how long can we go without water like what is it like three days or what's the rubric the the rule

00:26:20.320 of thumb is three days it's like the rule of threes which in my opinion doesn't really count for much

00:26:25.400 to be honest with you because most of that stuff has so many variables within it that you can't call

00:26:31.880 it you know i'm saying if you 90 of people go to the woods dehydrated to begin with because as a as a

00:26:38.400 race we don't drink enough water we drink milk we drink pop we drink energy drinks we drink beer

00:26:43.840 but we don't drink much water drinking more water is becoming a thing now that we're all feeling like

00:26:49.400 we all want to be healthy the more people drink more water but most of the time people go to the

00:26:53.920 woods already partially dehydrated they'll add to that heat stress exercise and the dehydration becomes

00:27:01.220 that much faster so that three days can be dramatically reduced depending on what you're doing what your

00:27:08.100 hydration level was to begin with that can go down to you know in a sunny arid environment where you

00:27:14.460 have no shade that could go down to hours what are the biggest issues when it comes to hydration in the

00:27:20.060 wild truly speaking i think the biggest issues are people just don't do it enough i think people forget

00:27:26.700 to hydrate i know that happens here at the school no matter how much you tell people to hydrate they

00:27:31.200 forget and we almost invariably get someone who gets at least slightly dehydrated almost every class

00:27:36.720 because they just haven't drank enough water it's not because they don't have the availability

00:27:39.840 it's because they just don't do it so i think that when you talk about in the wild i think that you

00:27:45.200 should plan to at every time you cross some type of water source you should plan to hydrate whether

00:27:51.160 that plan becomes i'm going to use a water filter or i'm going to stop and i'm going to boil enough

00:27:55.160 water to carry with me to the next water source then you need to be collecting water at every

00:28:00.020 opportunity and drinking water at every opportunity because the best canteen you can carry is your belly 0.55

00:28:04.960 all right so make sure we go out into the wild have water on you or then along the way look for

00:28:10.460 water and uh for recommended for water purification boiling water is probably your best bet i mean it's

00:28:16.620 going to be your safest bet is to pre-filter that water through a bandana or something like that and

00:28:21.880 then boil it however there's lots of water filters on the market that are 99.99999 percent effective

00:28:28.900 and there's nothing wrong with that the problem is that they're unreliable sometimes unless they're

00:28:34.940 brand new and even then if you don't filter the water prior to using the filter you those filters

00:28:40.060 tend to get clogged up very badly and then you have another problem so even with a great water filter

00:28:45.220 like the grail which is probably my favorite water filter i tend to pre-filter my water if there's any

00:28:51.140 turbidity in it whatsoever before i put it through the grail so the last thing in the five by five

00:28:56.360 survival system is navigation and signaling what navigation like basic navigation skills you think

00:29:01.740 people should have in order to survive in the wild well i think everybody should learn to use a compass

00:29:08.180 well enough to walk a straight line to shoot a bearing keep the needle in the doghouse leapfrog their way

00:29:14.020 from point a to point b so that they are walking a straight line because that the lateral drift is really

00:29:19.600 the main reason for carrying a compass to begin with if you don't have a map then the only thing that

00:29:24.380 compass really does for you is keep you in a straight line and that's why people walk in circles

00:29:29.180 over time is from lateral drift and a compass eliminates lateral drift so being able to shoot

00:29:34.900 an azimuth follow that travel bearing and understanding how to leapfrog from one point to the next so you

00:29:40.260 don't have to look at the compass continuously is probably the mainstay of skills you need so that

00:29:45.720 you can at least walk a straight line in one direction and like navigation is definitely one of those

00:29:50.140 skills you need you actually need to do it to understand it i've you know you can read about

00:29:54.220 this stuff but i think that the game changers when you actually learn how to you know shoot azimuth

00:29:58.880 things like that that's how it just you you it the light bulb will go on once you do it i agree with

00:30:05.280 that wholeheartedly i mean i think that people don't understand the power of that right there the the

00:30:11.620 power to walk a straight line even is something that people don't understand until you take them out

00:30:16.380 and put them in a squared off coordinate area and tell them to walk straight from one side to the

00:30:20.600 other and they can't do it you know they they're going to be off one one direction or the other

00:30:25.800 once you put a compass in their hand and say plug this bearing in and now walk from this tree to that

00:30:31.400 tree to that tree that are in that same line of travel and get to the other side and you get where

00:30:36.360 you're supposed to be the light bulb automatically goes on hey now i got it or you put them on a

00:30:41.540 navigation course you give them an azimuth from one point to the next and they find it by walking that

00:30:46.040 straight line that's when the light bulb comes on that man this is a tool i need to have

00:30:50.860 we're signaling you mentioned fire can be a good signaling tool any other tools you like for

00:30:54.820 signaling i mean your your compass should have a mirror on it for sighting so you should have a

00:30:59.440 signal mirror readily built into your compass it's not the best signal mirror because it's got a

00:31:03.920 shrouded it's got a shroud around the mirror itself so when you get to that 270 trying to reflect 270

00:31:09.800 you have a problem but it's a good good signaling device fire's a good signal device anything that you have

00:31:15.300 that's orange is a great signaling device within your kit so space blankets should always be bought

00:31:20.760 orange not green or camouflage you're not if you're going to use a space blanket you don't want

00:31:25.160 to be secret squirrel you want to be able to you want people to know where you're at so taking that

00:31:29.360 space blanket that's five feet by seven feet taking it out of the package at your house before you ever

00:31:34.820 need it and putting sos or three big black x's on the back of that that are universal signals for 0.97

00:31:40.580 needing help as soon as you erect the shelter you've put up a five by seven signaling device

00:31:45.680 that can be seen from the air on the ground and then really i tell my students that you should carry

00:31:51.340 a triple x 4x something that's two or three times bigger than what you would ever wear t-shirt that's

00:31:57.420 orange that's 100 cotton throw it in the bottom of your pack and if something happens to you put that

00:32:04.040 thing on over everything else you've got so you can be seen so we uh we did the five by five so we got

00:32:10.220 self-aid shelter fire hydration navigation signaling i noticed that food isn't in there why is that

00:32:17.060 well there's several reasons food's not in there number one food's not a priority in the short term

00:32:22.280 of survival it's just not most people have plenty of food in the tank already most of us are you know i

00:32:28.900 don't think there's very many people out there that are five or ten pounds overweight nowadays some a

00:32:33.380 lot more than that so you've got some food storage already and in a 72 hour scenario it shouldn't be a

00:32:40.100 problem for you not to eat other than psychologically it's not going to do your body any harm for you not

00:32:46.860 to be able to eat for two or three days people go a lot longer than that without food the problem

00:32:51.240 becomes the psychological factor of not having food but in a two or three day scenario that shouldn't be a

00:32:57.020 problem either so food should be the last thing that you think about now obviously once you've got

00:33:01.960 all your survival priorities taken care of now it's time to think about the peripheral things okay well

00:33:07.420 can i go over to this pond and catch some fish or catch a frog or grab a snake to eat you know things

00:33:12.860 like that those are your peripheral things that you think about after your survival priorities have all

00:33:17.800 been handled and checked off the list gotcha so yeah again survival it's not like my side of the

00:33:22.580 mountain you're not sam gribbley making a an oven inside of a tree and cooking

00:33:26.440 things like yeah okay you don't have to worry about that it shouldn't be i mean that's long-term

00:33:30.700 survival that's a that's living off the land that's pioneering that's a whole different concept

00:33:35.280 than you know i just flipped my four-wheeler on in a ditch while i was scouting this year's deer hunt

00:33:42.740 area and i twisted my leg and now i'm gonna have to wait for somebody to come and get me because i can't

00:33:48.380 walk so we've been mentioning you know some gear throughout this conversation but one thing you did in

00:33:53.340 the book what i really liked is you provided a a list of five containing like just some really

00:33:57.640 basic essential gear for survival situation and you call it the five c's of survivability what are

00:34:03.800 the five c's so your number one is a cutting tool of some sort and those five c's aren't single

00:34:10.100 necessarily single items they're five categories right so you should have cutting tool or cutting tools

00:34:16.600 right my recommendation to most people is a folding saw a belt knife and some kind of a pocket knife or

00:34:22.580 sak so you got plenty of things that you can use to cut your second c is combustion devices to start

00:34:28.880 fire again we talked about three and most of the stuff falls into those categories should have three of

00:34:33.620 these things your cover element is going to provide in on under so there's three things there

00:34:39.860 your container should be a metal container that's impervious to fire single walled and it should

00:34:47.460 have you should probably have two of those and at least one nesting cup so you've got three containers

00:34:52.460 and then the last one is cordage and cordage is what you're going to use to tie lash and bind everything

00:34:58.520 you can carry one type of cordage or 10 types of cordage but i would say at least some kind of a

00:35:04.020 mariner's bank line or what's called a tarred line and then also paracord would be the minimum

00:35:09.880 and like how much space does this stuff take because it sounds like a lot you know it sounds

00:35:14.740 like a lot but you could put it in a 10 liter dry bag or a 10 liter day pack okay so it doesn't take

00:35:21.400 up yeah i mean if you think about like so like a bic lighter you could just keep that in your pocket

00:35:24.560 correct uh flint and steel that's super small a good knife you're gonna have that on your belt

00:35:29.520 probably yeah i mean you definitely want a belt knife something that's full tang now if you're

00:35:34.200 just going out you know day hiking or something you might be able to get away with a non-full tang

00:35:38.740 knife if you're not going to beat the crap out of it and it's not really really cold weather but i

00:35:43.900 would recommend a full tang belt knife and i would recommend a folding saw and then again like you said

00:35:48.740 an sak will fit in your pocket so you're looking at all these five items you know most of your

00:35:53.640 combustion devices are going to fit in your pocket most of your cover elements are going to easily fit

00:35:58.260 into a small dry bag or day pack and then your container everybody carries a water bottle anyway

00:36:03.540 why not make it metal and so that's going to fit in your backpack on the side of your backpack and

00:36:08.280 then cordage doesn't take up hardly any space at all you can sit on the bottom of your backpack

00:36:11.300 so you mentioned the knife the the full tang knife it's like a good survival knife what are the elements

00:36:16.420 of a good survival knife you think you know what i think is that there's a lot of confusion

00:36:21.440 about knives i think that there's a difference between you know a bushcraft knife and a survival

00:36:28.240 knife a survival knife is something that you could use for a crowbar if you had to and not break it

00:36:33.760 and you could also use it to baton wood with if you had to and at the same time it has to be small

00:36:40.180 enough in size that you can do some fine carving with it in case you have to carve things like

00:36:45.320 tent stakes in case you have to make notches to put things together for shelters any of those types

00:36:50.800 of things you've got to have a knife that's small enough to do that but some of that can be done by

00:36:54.940 the knife in your pocket so that knife that you're carrying on your belt just needs to be a robust

00:36:59.200 enough knife that you're not going to break it if you twist it side to side or if you start beating

00:37:03.840 on it really hard with another log to break into dry wood from a wet log situation or split small

00:37:09.240 wood down into kindling and uh here in the book you list out five criteria that you think you know every

00:37:15.320 belt knife should have the first one is full tang we mentioned that one that's just one continuous piece

00:37:20.020 of material throughout from the blade to the end of the handle you want a sharp spine because it's

00:37:25.380 going to allow you to use it as a striker for a ferrocerium rod you can also use that to process

00:37:30.940 you know make tender with you want your knife to be carbon steel because it's easy to sharpen but they

00:37:36.080 can also be used as a flint and steel ignition you want the blade to be about four to five inches

00:37:41.180 this will allow you to process wood for shelter building or fire lay materials and then you want a

00:37:47.080 simple grind just a blade the single bevel like a v grind or a saber to zero grind and that just makes

00:37:53.920 things easy to sharpen so those are the five qualities you want in a belt knife you also list

00:37:59.760 five essential knife skills you think you should know on how to handle your knives so what are those

00:38:04.680 skills i mean i think that everybody should understand how to be able to cut down a sapling

00:38:10.820 to able to make feather sticks if they need to and do fine carving work i think you have to with any

00:38:20.320 knife you should be able to strike a ferrocerium rod and that comes down to the attributes of the

00:38:25.080 knife because you never use a blade for that you should use the spine of that knife you should

00:38:29.180 understand how to use that knife as a flint and steel device in emergency where you can just pick up a

00:38:33.660 rock banging on that knife and get a spark so that your next fire mentality can be utilized with charmed

00:38:39.620 material and i think that everybody needs to be able to understand how to baton a knife so you're

00:38:45.380 asking for five and i gave you more than five there but i think that the base of that is you know can i

00:38:50.680 cut down a tree can i can i make proper firewood materials can i do carving with this blade can i start

00:38:57.500 fire with this blade in two different ways yeah people would be surprised you think i can cut down the

00:39:01.200 shoe with the knife but you can't it's not you're not going to be felling a big giant sequoia or an oak

00:39:05.940 it's like you know small and you just kind of beaver it right like you kind of you do like what a beaver

00:39:10.460 do you kind of take chunks out of it until absolutely absolutely and that's you know i tell people a lot of

00:39:15.260 times in my classes that when you're talking about survival you're talking about trees and you're talking

00:39:20.900 about cutting down trees you don't need anything over four inches anyway four inches is a big enough tree

00:39:26.800 as a cylinder to make good firewood and four inches on a live tree is structural if it's hardwood

00:39:33.980 so if you're trying to make a structure four inches if you're trying to make fire four inches

00:39:38.080 you don't need anything bigger than that so your knife only needs to be large enough to take care

00:39:42.180 of four inches of lumber what about knots are there essential knots do you think everyone should know

00:39:46.580 for a survival situation yeah we teach several knots here at the pathfinder school but at the basic

00:39:51.120 level you know you need a slip knot that you can turn into a rope tackle you need a half inch that

00:39:56.140 you can tie that off with a slippery half inch you need a bowlin knot so you have an end of the line

00:40:00.600 loop that can be put under any amount of pressure and be able to get it done quickly and easily

00:40:04.980 you need a double fisherman's knot or a single fisherman's knot that you can use to make

00:40:08.940 a prusik loop and then you need to understand how to make a prusik hitch if you can do those things

00:40:14.260 on a marlin spike hitch you can take care of 99 of anything you'd want to do at camp okay well let's

00:40:20.240 imagine let's say someone's uh listening to this stuff like this sounds great but i might not have time

00:40:24.900 to get to a survival school can you practice these skills even if you live in like the suburbs

00:40:29.500 or the city i can practice these skills in your backyard i mean there's no no question about it

00:40:35.660 you can practice these skills in a park you might not be able to sleep overnight in a park

00:40:40.040 but you could surely find some kind of state land somewhere or a campground that you could

00:40:44.540 you can definitely spend overnights outside in your backyard for sure so there's really none of these

00:40:49.920 skills other than part of it which a navigation is a little harder practice you need a bigger area to do

00:40:54.740 it but again i go back to you know all cities have parks and most parks have trees or some type of

00:41:00.520 a landmark that you can use to set up a short navigation course for yourself well dave this

00:41:05.520 has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and your work

00:41:08.820 so the best place to go honestly if you really want to find everything you want to find link wise

00:41:15.700 is to go to my instagram which is pathfinder survival and hit the link tree in my instagram because that

00:41:21.460 has links to my website my school my author page on amazon my amazon influencer page my website where

00:41:28.320 we sell gear and my facebook my youtube and my twitter are all on that link tree fantastic well

00:41:34.380 dave canterbury thanks for your time it's been a pleasure hey buddy i appreciate you man thank you

00:41:38.020 my guest today was dave canterbury he's the author of the book the bushcraft essentials field guide

00:41:42.400 it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere check out our show notes at

00:41:45.500 aom.is slash survival we find links to resources and we delve deeper into this topic

00:41:49.440 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:42:43.760 you

The Art of Manliness - November 09, 2022

The 5 Priorities of Short-Term Survival

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