The Art of Manliness - The Survival Myths That Can Get You Killed

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

00:00:11.040 surviving in the wild can seem like a romantic proposition at least as it often plays out in

00:00:16.160 popular culture and our imagination we picture ourselves confidently navigating the obstacles

00:00:20.760 of nature pulling trout out of mountain streams and building a snug shelter inside a tree but the

00:00:26.160 reality of wilderness survival isn't so rosy few people know that better than jim baird jim and his

00:00:31.580 brother won the fourth season of alone a reality show that's actually real and leaves contestants

00:00:36.200 in the wild to face the elements and live off the land today on the podcast jim shares his

00:00:40.880 experiences surviving on northern vancouver island for 75 days and what he learned from them as to

00:00:46.000 what's true about survival what's simply a myth after the show's over check out our show notes at

00:00:50.820 aom.is slash survival myths all right jim baird welcome to the show hi thank you for having me

00:01:11.980 brett so you and your brother were the winners of history channels survival reality show alone for

00:01:18.800 those who aren't familiar with the show what's the setup and how long did you and your brother last

00:01:22.300 on it okay yeah well alone is a legit survival show there's no camera crews you have to film

00:01:31.800 everything yourself one of the things they do is they teach you in depth how to capture footage you

00:01:38.280 have to not only survive out there by yourself but you also have to film it while you're doing it which

00:01:45.660 makes it way harder because you have this other whole task at hand on top of just trying to survive

00:01:52.460 right so it's like another enormous job you have to do and how it works is that there's typically

00:01:59.460 individuals go out there alone film their survival stint and then whoever lasts the longest wins a half a

00:02:07.780 million big ones now on the season my brother and i were on instead each season has sometimes a little

00:02:14.700 bit of a different twist well ours had a big twist because they did teams of family members there's

00:02:20.320 brothers there's father and son there's even husband and wife however those team members had to start

00:02:26.600 separately so they're calling it alone lost and found so literally i'm dropped off by a helicopter

00:02:33.180 in the wilds of northern vancouver island i have a very small amount of rations probably the equivalent to

00:02:41.620 like a light lunch i have a compass i have basic survival equipment on me no map and i'm told you

00:02:50.760 have to find your brother he's at the end of this compass bearing and then the helicopter takes off

00:02:56.880 and i start walking through some of the craziest terrain on planet earth that you can possibly walk

00:03:03.420 through and that has a lot to do with the logging there and the regrowth let alone the many many lakes

00:03:09.380 and ponds and streams and undulating mountainous terrain and anyways so each group had to do this

00:03:16.420 one person had to find the other and when you find them you had to survive together as a team which you

00:03:23.420 know is is good in some ways because you're not alone but you know also sometimes you know two people

00:03:29.880 hungry you know we can all get a little hangry can start to drive each other crazy bit and also it's

00:03:35.220 taxing because there's only a finite amount of calories in a given area and when you're hungry

00:03:41.500 you don't really have that energy to move too far potentially to find no more food if you do move

00:03:47.960 so anyways my brother and i ended up surviving out there all in we were out there for 75 days

00:03:55.460 through the late fall and winter basically you know all the food you have you can bring limited

00:04:02.640 rations we brought i think two pounds of pemmican for 75 days but other than that absolutely everything

00:04:09.080 that we ate was forage you know harvested somehow off the land and we ended up winning after a 75 day

00:04:18.200 stint it was the rainiest november on record and we're talking about one of the rainiest places in

00:04:24.920 the continent and it was the coldest winter in 30 years so when you have that really damp you know

00:04:32.860 northern rainforest dampness and that cold you know it's it's the opposite of a dry cold man and you

00:04:40.460 just feel that right in your bones but we managed to pull it off and come home with the w i think i

00:04:46.300 lost about 26 percent of my body mass man that's a lot of weight so did you have any survival experience

00:04:52.820 before you went on alone so that's interesting because i i didn't think i really did but it kind

00:04:59.300 of turns out that i did and by that i mean you know you think of survival for me was something i learned

00:05:05.240 and practiced to an extent because as somebody who has a kind of a background in more expeditionary

00:05:13.440 travel so my big thing is you know i'll take a canoe and enough gear and some food to be in the

00:05:20.940 wilderness for a month and i'll travel you know in extremely remote areas in alaska and the canadian

00:05:27.620 arctic on point a to point b expeditions that include you know serious demanding whitewater rapids

00:05:35.040 to be run portages or portages as they say with the english pronunciation of the the french word

00:05:41.200 that can take multiple days and you know upriver travel all this kind of stuff sometimes i'll do those

00:05:48.040 alone i'll tackle some of the most demanding whitewater rivers for example in the yukon territory

00:05:53.000 i've traveled across northern quebec and labrador well off of the road system so you know i do this i've

00:06:00.920 i've walked you know solo in the arctic in winter on remote trips that have taken up to 36 days so you

00:06:10.180 know that same year before going on alone i walked solo across the northern ngava peninsula essentially

00:06:15.600 arctic quebec and that was a 36 day solo expedition in the winter so but i'm not like lighting bow drill

00:06:24.380 fires i'm not you know completely i'm not eating lizards and and uh you know flint napping arrowheads

00:06:31.540 and i'm not doing these kind of core sort of skills and activities out there that you typically might

00:06:37.540 relate to survival so i wasn't really sure how well i would do against people that have those

00:06:43.960 sort of raw traditional skills however it turned out that you know really just having real bush time

00:06:52.740 real outdoor time in real in real places where you're forced to you know get a fire going or

00:06:59.460 you're pooched or you're hypothermatic where you can't just kind of go back inside or walk back to

00:07:05.060 your truck so those real situations and the drive to push on when you know things are scary and things

00:07:12.040 aren't going well and you don't have any way to get out of there other than you know on your own two

00:07:18.420 feet so those things prove to be the survival skills that um that were really helpful for me out there

00:07:24.880 so you mentioned contestants on alone are able to bring a certain number of items with them you guys

00:07:29.620 brought some pemmican like what else did you guys choose to bring and did they turn out to be like

00:07:33.660 what turned out to be the most helpful and useful yeah so you know every everybody can bring stuff so

00:07:39.940 you get 10 items you also get some items that you automatically are allowed to bring to like

00:07:46.160 clothes i think a sleeping bag was one that you automatically were allowed to bring but then you

00:07:51.180 have to pick 10 items and you can't just like pick any 10 items like you can't bring like a shotgun and

00:07:57.120 a case of scotch you know what i mean you have to bring on items unfortunately but you have to bring

00:08:02.040 items out of a specific list right so you can't just bring any pot if you choose a pot it has to be

00:08:07.400 x you know so i can't be bigger than you know what what specified i forget what that was so we brought

00:08:15.240 a fishing line and hooks we brought snare wire or trapping wire we brought a bow and arrow we brought a

00:08:24.500 tarp we brought a pot and what else did we bring oh yeah we brought an axe we brought a saw we brought

00:08:34.120 a net a gill net but it was only it could only be like two meters long you know which is barely any

00:08:39.320 over two yards long right and not very tall so very limiting um the size of gill net you could bring

00:08:46.140 but you know one of the things that i kind of learned about is that a lot of kind of emphasis

00:08:51.980 is put on what did they bring and the show kind of emphasizes what survival items are they bringing

00:08:58.060 out there right but you know what we learned is that even though there's a lot of emphasis

00:09:01.980 on these things what will they bring at the end of the day i don't think they really make that big

00:09:07.800 of a deal i mean i think that the fishing line and hooks definitely helped us you could have picked

00:09:13.520 parachute cord but you were only allowed like 50 feet of it and so even though we weren't allowed to

00:09:19.300 actually actively trap and because there are rules right you can't it's just not all no holds barred

00:09:24.880 survival like you can't catch seagulls because they're protected we were canadian so canadians could have

00:09:31.440 got their trapping license in british columbia because but we're we're the only canadians on

00:09:36.960 the show and americans couldn't so in order to make it fair there was no trapping on top of that

00:09:41.560 there's no rabbits there's very few squirrels and there's not really a lot to trap for food there

00:09:47.420 anyway so we brought this snare wire trapping wire and we used it because we were allowed a significant

00:09:53.820 amount and all different gauges of it we're we're able to use it to build a tarp canoe we're able to use

00:10:00.700 it to build our shelter and a bunch of other things and the other thing that came in handy that

00:10:05.440 we brought was just fishing line and hooks and you know our gill net we did catch some stuff with it

00:10:11.380 for sure but because of the tides and the waves bringing in all this bull kelp and the barnacles

00:10:18.020 everywhere you know really to set up this gill net was honestly at the end of the day might have been

00:10:24.480 even though we did get some food with it might have been more work than it was really worth

00:10:29.100 gotcha so yeah fishing net the fishing line came in handy sounds like the saw and the axe came in

00:10:34.460 handy for firewood that looked like it that was very useful that's true actually yeah that's true

00:10:38.760 we we brought this big saw i don't know how good it really was in the end we should have brought

00:10:43.140 the saw i had more experience with but yeah i think you know cutting wood because it was so cold out

00:10:49.720 you know just be able to cook warm up dry stuff out i i think and just for morale i think that was

00:10:55.840 pretty important uh the bow and arrow not useful well you know what it's like so the rules were

00:11:02.940 when we were out there is that first of all there's very few deer on vancouver island right so we could

00:11:08.960 get a deer but we're only allowed to get a buck and you weren't allowed to get a doe which greatly

00:11:14.420 reduces your odds and then we were allowed to get bear however we weren't allowed to bait bear

00:11:20.260 you know which we could have gotten some you know rotting fish or whatever and baited bears which is

00:11:26.200 you know the way to do it really and so that's pretty much a shot in the dark also you know on a

00:11:33.160 lot of other seasons on vancouver island there's bears everywhere well you know we caught in a little

00:11:38.440 later than other seasons significantly and you know bears are smart they knew that it was probably a cold

00:11:45.580 winter on the way and they decided to i think to just shut her down so you know they don't sometimes

00:11:51.240 they don't even really hibernate on vancouver island because it's you know warmer climate but

00:11:56.400 i i feel like they did that year because they knew that you know the coldest winter in 30 years was upon

00:12:02.420 them so you guys were dropped off separately how far apart were you separated and how long did it take

00:12:08.020 you to get back to each other yeah so we were only 10 miles apart which seems like you know the thing

00:12:14.840 you can kind of bang off in an afternoon but what most people don't realize is how far that really

00:12:22.240 is you know it's quite far north and daylight was already minimal so we weren't getting much daylight

00:12:28.820 it wasn't safe to travel at night so we weren't even allowed to travel at night and the terrain was so

00:12:37.540 crazy that 10 miles took me eight days and you know you're talking about i remember one time i was

00:12:46.600 traveling and there was a bunch of trees that have fallen down on top of each other and we're all

00:12:51.040 crisscrossed and then there was this salal dense salal bushes growing up everywhere that's hard to

00:12:57.880 penetrate and i'm using all my energy carrying a pretty heavy pack and i climb way up all these

00:13:04.140 crisscross trees stacked on top of each other on the side of a hill and i climb way way up this thing

00:13:10.100 probably 20 feet in the air and i step over and i climb all the way back down and into the bushes and

00:13:17.060 you know i'd made it like three yards and that to get up and down probably took me like 20 minutes

00:13:23.140 then i i struggle pushing myself through trying to stay on my bearing you know climbing up like there

00:13:30.260 is one part where it would have been considered a technical climb for me to just get up a cliff

00:13:35.960 that i couldn't really get around to stay on my compass bearing so you know if i'd fallen i would

00:13:41.780 have gotten severely injured and i'm climbing up this thing with a heavy pack right then i hit a lake

00:13:48.180 and it's a big lake with all kinds of bays and steep mountainous thick dense hills all around because

00:13:56.640 this part of the island had the crap logged out of it right so you know so then you got to pick a

00:14:02.160 bearing you got to pick an object that's on your bearing on the other side of the lake and then

00:14:06.940 you got to walk around the lake to get to where that object is but you'd be surprised at how hard

00:14:11.840 it is to tell where that object is when you're on the other side of the lake so then you you typically

00:14:18.760 what i would do is i'd mark the other side where i take the bearing from but you know some of these

00:14:24.620 lakes were big and it's hard to see things across the lake so i'd get sticks or i'd look at my back

00:14:29.840 if there's a tree that was you know obvious it stood out i just used that but i'd be stick sticks

00:14:35.780 in the water and bows and i try to mark that and then i go unweave my way all the way around this

00:14:41.080 walking on the shore and then you know try to pick up my bearing and i just walked this enormous

00:14:47.140 distance out of my way and to get to the other side of the lake which might have been

00:14:51.640 you know 300 meters right and so 10 miles walking through this is extremely different than what one

00:15:02.440 might think in a typical situation walking 10 miles would be plus you also are dealing with

00:15:08.320 the lack of food all i was eating out there was wild mushrooms and i just grabbed like a gator because

00:15:15.080 one of the things we're allowed to bring is like ankle gators so i use that as a bag and i tied the end

00:15:21.360 together and i clipped it to the strap of my bag up by my shoulder upside down as i'd travel i'd collect

00:15:28.040 oyster mushrooms and winter chanterelles i'd be throwing like banana slugs in there i had an

00:15:34.640 opportunity to try to get a grouse and i whipped the stick at it and missed by one inch which was you

00:15:42.080 know devastating and yeah man and that's what i do every night i get to camp i'd set up my tarp

00:15:50.180 and then you got to make a fire and when everything is soaking wet soaked it's very hard to get a fire

00:15:58.240 going i can do it it just takes time you don't have a lighter so you just have a ferrocerium rod which

00:16:03.920 throws out sparks so what you got to do is it's driving rain you're soaked you got to find a standing

00:16:11.540 dead tree because anything on the ground is going to be pretty much soaked right through a very

00:16:17.060 challenging work to whittle out the dry center so it's the inside of the tree you want so the inside

00:16:22.720 is dry you got to bring that under your tarp you got to split it out you got to whittle little feather

00:16:28.580 sticks like little curls that'll light from a spark you know i'd be taking a ustnia moss which is called

00:16:34.940 old man's beard drying that out keeping it with my sleeping bag in a waterproof pack to try to like a

00:16:40.500 waterproof compression sack to try to keep that dry to use that as tinder you know but you're looking at

00:16:45.620 like a long process to get a fire going probably a couple hours to get a fire going because you got

00:16:51.740 to whittle your tinder then little you know matchstick size pieces then cigar size pieces then bigger

00:16:58.980 then bigger and then eventually you can start putting the wet stuff on so it was a process and

00:17:03.200 then i cook up all my mushrooms at night and i'd eat a whole bunch of these soggy boiled mushrooms

00:17:09.960 the other thing i tried eating was lily pad tubers out there and i re-boiled them a few times but they

00:17:14.400 still almost made me barf because they're just so bitter and yeah and then i put them in my hat

00:17:19.940 and i'd wake up the next morning and i'd just eat these like soggy ice cold mushrooms the next morning

00:17:27.000 there'd be like the odd slug in there i'd just eat it i called it the breakfast of champignons

00:17:32.380 and then yeah and then i'd pack up i usually set my tarp up in such a way that it would collect water

00:17:39.280 because it was always raining so i'd be able to scoop rain water out of the back of my tarp i put

00:17:44.280 rocks there to kind of make a little catch and then i just keep going the next day but it was very

00:17:49.660 mentally challenging because you don't know if you're going to get there that day like you don't

00:17:55.320 have a map right and i guess this is kind of the reality too of a survival situation you don't know if

00:18:00.140 you're going to be saved that day or or never right it could be the next minute it could be

00:18:06.660 you know years it could be never so it can plays with you mentally and so i keep traveling traveling

00:18:11.760 traveling and thinking that i was going to get there and i think what they thought when they gave

00:18:18.420 us this mission was going to be like four days so they kind of alluded that you know it might be

00:18:22.740 like a four-day hike i don't think they realized it was going to take us this long and be that

00:18:26.900 challenging so yeah it was really really really really hard you know yeah it looked hard and i

00:18:33.020 think the thing i learned from that is never underestimate a hike in a survival situation

00:18:37.720 because i think people typically think like oh i've been on a 10 mile hike before not a problem

00:18:42.140 you're on a trail you guys didn't have trails you didn't know when the hike was going to be over

00:18:46.480 you had to deal with the weather like sometimes i saw some people they didn't even hike on some

00:18:50.960 days it just rained too much it was just downpour yeah and then the food the food the calorie

00:18:56.100 element really came to play i mean you could see you know a lot of the contestants they'd start off

00:19:00.340 strong but as the days were on it just they got slower and slower because they didn't have the

00:19:05.400 calories yeah yeah like no way i could have done that survival hike on day 75 right you know but

00:19:12.860 because at the beginning i could really push myself despite the fact that i wasn't eating anything

00:19:18.200 for you know other than these mushrooms right so you know and i'd try fishing but you know it's

00:19:24.260 it's kind of like you think you don't have a boat right and you come up to these ponds and there's

00:19:29.940 you know probably trout in them there's probably small rainbow trout in them right but you know

00:19:36.280 the spot that you come out in it's it's like the water's like six inches deep for many many feet out

00:19:43.820 from shore and there's not going to be any fish there you don't have a boat really how do you get

00:19:47.640 out to where there might be fish you know without putting in a lot of effort and then potentially

00:19:52.520 not catching anything so i i tried to fish in these lakes but i think maybe the fish were just

00:19:58.540 deeper you know and then maybe maybe oh over on the other side of the lake that could be a good spot

00:20:02.980 and then you you bushwhack all around the lake and you're going through mud and you're trying to

00:20:08.780 follow the shore but there's boulders and you you're on the side of a steep bank and it's super hard

00:20:14.040 using a ton of energy and then you get over to the spot that you thought would be good for fishing

00:20:18.560 and you look down and it's too shallow so you know i was trying to fish i maybe had one spot i put a

00:20:24.280 lot of time trying but i couldn't even get a bite and you know i think maybe by that time it had just

00:20:30.200 gotten colder and the fish had moved to a deeper water far away from shore so i think yeah i think

00:20:36.440 that a lot of people think oh yeah we're going to catch fish i think sometimes because of those

00:20:42.300 logistics like i explained you know it can be more challenging than you assume it might be to

00:20:49.240 actually catch fish in a survival situation we're going to take a quick break for your words from our

00:20:53.580 sponsors and now back to the show so if you read survival books they had to talk about the survival

00:21:05.680 priorities like one of the first ones is shelter yeah what did you guys use for shelter for your stay

00:21:11.280 there yeah i think that's for sure you know shelter fire water food you know sometimes fire and shelter

00:21:20.680 can be maybe arguably interchange but uh yeah i think that's super important my brother and i we

00:21:27.940 actually we didn't really like we're not in an area where we get those winters of minus 20 you know and

00:21:34.900 we had decent winter sleeping bags too that were good down to minus 30 of course they don't really block

00:21:40.680 wind so we just we basically ended up building my brother was more or less sleeping in a tarp tent

00:21:46.580 then we had a more substantial shelter going and my brother was you know mostly focusing on trying to

00:21:53.320 fish trying to get food and when i got there he'd already started building a boat but he hadn't put a

00:21:57.860 ton of time in the shut into a shelter so he had something more substantial going and we found that

00:22:05.900 we just didn't have the resources at hand in our site to complete that shelter because you know

00:22:14.420 everywhere else it was this you know stuff had been logged for the most part and but as we got to where

00:22:20.180 our specific site was on the coast there were no small trees everything was these gigantic trees right

00:22:28.280 so you know thousand year old two thousand year old cedars and probably dug furs and hemlocks a lot

00:22:35.140 of massive old hemlocks and you can't chop those down and drag them over to build a shelter so you know

00:22:42.600 just to find the wood that we had and then we started everything's like an underground stream there

00:22:47.380 so we had torrential downpour for days and days and days and like you know even where we had our fireplace

00:22:54.520 under the fireplace there was like a stream going through and when our fireplace dried out that dirt

00:23:00.320 so much it like collapsed into an underground stream so like there's so much water everything's

00:23:05.520 so wet and if it rains enough that underground stream starts to come above land so it's really

00:23:11.560 crazy if you're not used to this kind of environment you can be you know set your tent up on a spot that

00:23:16.480 looks perfectly dry and flat and be sitting there you know all tickety-boo and you got a ton of rain

00:23:23.660 and all of a sudden your tent is in the bottom pitched on a creek bed right so this started

00:23:31.000 happening to us and in watching the show a lot of other people got swamped out so my brother and i

00:23:37.060 saw this was going to happen and in the middle of the night we ended up basically building a raised

00:23:43.480 platform so no matter what if it flooded and if the bottom of our shelter turned into a stream

00:23:49.320 we would be off the ground but i think it took 21 logs to build that platform and that was all the

00:23:58.620 small logs we had in our entire area right so i'm talking about hemlock is heavy man like hemlock is a

00:24:07.580 heavy heavy wood it's it's technically a soft wood but you know it's it's the probably the heaviest soft

00:24:13.940 wood so you know imagine you're already gassed i already walked you know uh for eight days

00:24:21.520 bushwhacking through hell eating freaking nothing but mushroom to show up and still have you know

00:24:28.260 minimal minimal food rations working a lot expending energy to try to get more food and then you know

00:24:35.420 putting whatever time we have into building this shelter and then all of a sudden having this push

00:24:40.520 because we're about to get flooded and at night you know probably two weeks into this with never

00:24:46.840 having really a proper meal yet and expending a ton of effort i'm bushwhacking in the dark going through

00:24:53.640 like steep up and down hills like abrupt steep up and down hills through dense bush trying to find

00:25:00.740 smaller trees chopping down these hemlock and dragging them back you know trying to keep boughs on

00:25:06.920 i'm trying to keep branches on too because we utilize those boughs as kind of a bedding mattress

00:25:11.280 pulling them through cutting them up laying them down it took over 21 of these logs and we're talking

00:25:17.580 about you know two four maybe five inch thick logs to just make a platform for both of us to sleep in

00:25:24.460 and then you know stakes and a ridge pole and after that there was like no other material really for us to

00:25:31.640 build a proper shelter so we ended up basically just deciding that uh what we do is we just pull

00:25:38.620 back on this bigger kind of shelter idea sort of like a smaller kind of cabin idea and we would just

00:25:46.200 build this raised bed and then make like a tight a frame so we didn't really we just had like a sleeping

00:25:52.820 platform and it was open at both ends so we'd have to crawl in from either ends but it was like an a

00:25:58.900 frame with a tarp right so we and then we had another tarp just adjacent to that outside where

00:26:05.600 we would have our fire and that's basically all the shelter that we went with for the entire time

00:26:12.580 now we we planned on getting out there and not going crazy with the shelter sort of maybe getting

00:26:17.840 more established before putting a ton of energy into building a shelter because we're you know we're

00:26:23.840 not we don't need the comforts of home so much my brother and i we don't really care about that

00:26:28.880 so much right about a good shelter like we'll just sleep outside on the dirt really right

00:26:34.100 so it ended up kind of becoming okay but what we did because we had this really cold winter

00:26:39.820 is we would cut firewood and then as we were cooking our food we'd heat up all these rocks around the fire

00:26:47.680 i don't think they showed this in the show but we'd warm up all these rocks and then we just tuck all

00:26:53.140 those rocks in our pockets at the you know the small of our back down by our feet and we'd have

00:26:59.180 a toasty warm sleep because we had this wonderful heat source keeping us warm all night the shelter

00:27:06.000 thing was really interesting to watch all the contestants you're trying to figure out because

00:27:08.920 you're it was basically you're always doing these calculations like okay we can invest a lot in a

00:27:13.240 shelter but if you invest all that time and energy in a shelter well and you're gonna you're gonna wear

00:27:18.140 yourself out yeah but then also as you said there's the risk of okay you build this nice shelter

00:27:22.560 but then it's gonna get flooded out and so i one of the takeaways i got there maybe when you're in a

00:27:27.220 survival situation simpler is probably better when it comes to shelter i think i think yeah as simple as

00:27:33.840 you can do it but it really depends right like when the overseas alone when they're up on the great

00:27:39.520 slave lake in the northwest territories north of 60 you know you need that or you're gonna freeze to

00:27:46.060 death you need a much more as simpler as you can build it you know the faster as long as it's

00:27:52.040 efficient it's about efficiency is what it's about right you know that that is is mandatory but you

00:27:58.920 know we won the show so you know obviously we did something right as many things as we felt we could have

00:28:04.640 done better we obviously did something right and i think the takeaway there is that you are reduced

00:28:11.020 to the resources that are available in your area and one of the things that we don't realize is when

00:28:19.300 you get there you very quickly become hungry and you very quickly lose energy and you don't have the

00:28:28.960 energy and maybe at certain point this is like a shipwreck scenario at this point you don't have the

00:28:33.900 energy to just get up and bushwhack through hell to try to get somewhere over there where the grass might be

00:28:40.660 greener only for the the odds on finding a spot that is just the same as where you just were in all

00:28:47.820 likelihood you think oh we're gonna build a shelter oh well there's all these wild edibles you know you

00:28:52.660 can pick this is great are there any of them are there any of those things around you you're gonna

00:28:57.460 build a shelter great are there any materials available to build that shelter around you right

00:29:02.940 if the answer is no well you know the answer it's it's the other thing too that we think that if

00:29:09.360 you're this really good survivalist that if you have all these skills and abilities you know

00:29:14.540 you remember like in the movie rambo right he was this like crazy badass that could you know you could

00:29:20.480 drop him off naked at the north pole and he'd show up with a dog sled team and a you know polar bear

00:29:26.120 jacket and all this kind of stuff you know the issue with that is that that would take like magic

00:29:32.520 right because it doesn't matter how good you are if there's a finite amount of resources in your

00:29:39.600 immediate immediate area no matter how good you are you can't manifest any more calories you know

00:29:46.300 that that are going to be harvestable right so you really are limited to that to that reality

00:29:53.180 you know when you're out there in a survival situation so sometimes you just you have to adapt

00:29:59.000 you have to do the best you can with what you have but even no matter how good you are at times

00:30:05.220 you know you might not be able to get a sufficient amount of food and we we've forgotten so much

00:30:11.660 how much food we eat right we've really lost touch with how much we eat because you don't realize that

00:30:19.000 if you're expending all this energy and time goes by you can't just get one more big meal and be right

00:30:25.580 back where you were a week before after eating nothing right you need a sustained amount of

00:30:31.820 significant meals day after day after day to not feel very weak and to be on a slow decline to

00:30:39.120 starving to death yeah yeah that was i think the biggest challenge was food for the contestants who

00:30:44.620 made it past the first few weeks what i mean i thought was amazing or what i thought was interesting

00:30:49.000 is a lot of the contestants they washed out really fast because they just weren't mentally ready for it

00:30:52.480 but also some they just got there's like little things like they just slipped and you fell and you

00:30:56.660 think if you were in civilization that wouldn't have been a problem but when you're out in the wild

00:31:00.620 that's a problem that's a big problem yeah so it's so easy to kind of be an armchair quarterback

00:31:06.320 because there's things you hear and you learn but you don't really know them there's only so far the

00:31:12.560 language can go in articulating these things you don't really know them until you're really out there

00:31:18.080 right so let's when i went out there i remember watching a previous season and it took a guy 21

00:31:23.940 days to build a boat and he built a really nice boat like a nice kayak i guess it was maybe a little

00:31:29.460 tippy but it was just freaking beautiful so i remember thinking well you know geez we want to build a

00:31:36.540 boat but we're going to go out there we're going to build one not as pretty but we're going to build

00:31:40.480 it faster you know so then we have a boat right away geez why did it take him so long to build

00:31:46.200 that boat and when i got out there and we built it my brother was doing most of the boat building

00:31:52.180 it took him 21 days the exact same length of time and that is because i didn't realize the amount of

00:32:00.620 time it takes each day to find food catch forage you know prepare that food you know cut firewood

00:32:10.080 cook and eat and so then at the end of the day you have a couple hours maybe to work on a project

00:32:16.600 one of the things that me and my brother built which you didn't see or that i made was really

00:32:20.600 nice cedar paddles i did a really nice job of building these beautiful paddles and then you just

00:32:25.420 saw us using them and i think people thought we were one of our items but i built these paddles

00:32:29.720 but yeah and then and then so you're limited where if you're at home you're working on a project in

00:32:35.060 your garage you could bang off in three days what would take you two to three weeks out there

00:32:41.860 no yeah what i mean yeah yeah so that's the difference so that's that's my calculation from

00:32:47.100 my experience three days a project okay so me and my brother just for another little video that we did

00:32:55.780 we did for field and stream magazine building a tarp boat that we shot it took us two days it was a hard

00:33:02.780 two days but it took us two days basically to build to find the materials and build this tarp canoe

00:33:08.520 on a loan that took us three weeks right and and and just just kind of let that sit with you for a

00:33:17.240 minute and and compare that to so many other things and that's something that i think we really don't

00:33:23.680 understand and so and so that brings us into kind of one of the myths which is in that article um for

00:33:29.720 field and stream magazine that i wrote and this is sort of a myth that i've never really i've read

00:33:35.600 other articles on survival myths but i've never seen this expressed probably because most people

00:33:42.080 have never wisely have never fallen into a situation where they need to survive long term like i did

00:33:49.840 and sure as hell didn't do it for fun to test these things out you know because they didn't have a

00:33:56.040 500 000 reward so yeah you look at these survival books then they have all these cool things in

00:34:02.300 there you know what i mean and they have all these different kinds of shelters and they have all these

00:34:06.640 different kinds of traps right and you look at them and you're like oh maybe we'll build two shelters

00:34:12.120 you know we'll build a shelter like this here and then you know it's good to know all these different

00:34:16.860 kind of shelters don't get me wrong because each shelter might take different materials to build and

00:34:22.280 those materials may or may not be at hand so the more different types of things you can build with

00:34:26.820 the better but we're maybe we'll build a shelter here then if there's a good fishing spot down the

00:34:31.180 coast maybe we'll build a second shelter there and you know and then we'll we'll build the boat and

00:34:35.780 we'll build this and we'll do but in reality it's like you can pick one or two of those things you can't

00:34:41.520 do all these things right and so it's kind of a myth that you look at this survival book and you think

00:34:46.520 in a survival situation there's all these things that i can do but in reality you can't really you

00:34:53.240 can do like one or two of them and you have to choose wisely because it could what you spend your

00:34:59.740 energy on will potentially waste all that energy and then you won't have the energy left to do

00:35:06.560 anything else that actually would help you right so it gets to a point where you're constrained by the

00:35:12.620 walls of your own weakness yeah i mean it was interesting to see the all the contestants like

00:35:18.460 the last three like when they started doing things they just talked in terms of calories like well

00:35:22.900 that's gonna take a lot of calories totally so maybe i don't do that yeah and so you mentioned

00:35:27.040 so one of the myths so you wrote this article talking about the myths of survival you mentioned

00:35:31.600 one of them there is like you can complete a whole bunch of uh survival projects or like these

00:35:37.340 bushcraft projects and you're saying no you're limited it's going to take you a lot longer because

00:35:41.660 the calorie restrictions is going to prevent you some from doing that the calorie the calorie

00:35:46.220 restriction but also the amount of time that it takes you to get those calories to find those

00:35:52.240 calories and then eat them you only you can't you can't just work all day day after day on projects

00:35:59.160 right right maybe at the very beginning you have for me all that energy was soaked up for my hike

00:36:04.940 right so i think the takeaway here is that a lot of people think when they're out in the wild

00:36:09.540 they're going to be be able to do all these survival projects but projects they take energy

00:36:13.800 energy takes calories and then getting calories when you're out in the wild that just takes a

00:36:18.300 really long time i mean it's like most of your day trying to get food so you're just not going to

00:36:22.420 have either the energy or the time to do very many things you and your brother did attempt a couple

00:36:28.400 survival projects you built a crab trap and that it seemed promising but then it ended up you ended up

00:36:33.700 losing it it sunk and then you also built this really cool tarp boat but then you found out using

00:36:38.600 it took a lot of effort and then the fishing didn't turn out to be as effective as you hoped so beyond

00:36:45.500 the fish you did catch what did you and your brother subsist on the other thing we could get was

00:36:51.300 limpets and we learned that limpets are like these sort of half-shelled snails that cling to rocks and

00:36:57.820 they're very hard to pry off and you can't see very many of them in the daylight but what we learned

00:37:04.180 was that at night at night is when you get these kind of super tides and the tide would go way out

00:37:09.340 so we ended up spending a lot of time at night because what would happen is the limpets we learned

00:37:15.300 are nocturnal and they'd come out from under the rocks and when they're on the move you can just grab

00:37:20.380 them and pick them off with your hands instead of having to like pry them off with a knife right

00:37:25.580 so we'd come out and i get these like we use our gaiters as basically foraging bags these like ankle

00:37:32.100 leg gaiters and we just pick these pick pick pick and just throw them all in in these things and then

00:37:37.840 we get these other things called chitons or gumboots they're also called which have this like these

00:37:43.340 shells across the top but they almost taste like chewing one of those super super bouncy balls and so

00:37:49.320 they were like super hard to chew but they were edible and i actually cracked two molars and i had to

00:37:54.100 have a root canal when i got home from biting into one of these shells too hard that i didn't see

00:37:59.640 because it was dark and then the other thing that so but the thing is that you know there's there's

00:38:04.420 kind of this myth too that you know on vancouver people say oh you'll never starve on the coast

00:38:09.780 but unfortunately it's just not the case like these limpets you know they'll get you somewhere but

00:38:17.400 there's no fat in them and we're eating shore crab shell and all even we just gave up on that because

00:38:22.560 we realized it wasn't worth our effort so there's no nutrients in it because you know the the french

00:38:27.140 canadians call it mal de caribou caribou sickness it's also known as rabbit starvation uh but the

00:38:33.340 word the technical word for it is protein poisoning and you know it means rabbits are so lean no matter

00:38:39.400 how many rabbits you get and snare or even lean venison or or a moose you know you will still starve to

00:38:47.880 death because your body will not be able to digest the protein if you get a moose like early in the

00:38:54.040 rut like late august there might be fat on it but yeah if you get a caribou you know with with not a

00:39:01.020 lot of fat on it you could eat that freaking caribou you could be eating steaks every day and you will

00:39:05.600 still starve to death so it's there's another myth for you is that you think that you get out there and

00:39:11.000 you harvest a moose that you're good well not really and so you know that's why you realize how

00:39:17.520 important fat fat is life right like beaver to a lot of indigenous people in north america beaver is

00:39:24.720 very very fatty and not just for the meat and the beaver which is good but that fat could be used in

00:39:29.980 other things right black bear has a lot of fat on it right waterfowl that's one thing i forgot to

00:39:35.840 mention in the article a lot of people once uh people got shotguns too especially like the northern

00:39:40.820 cree on james and hudson bay where there's a lot of migration paths would focus on you know a lot of

00:39:46.320 them would eat geese and fish you know they wouldn't even you know sometimes they get some meat some

00:39:51.160 caribou some moose but they'd focus mostly on their diet for you know waterfowl fish because waterfowl are

00:39:56.840 really fatty but without that you know you'll starve and so that's what was happening to my brother and i

00:40:02.660 we were focusing on these these chitons and these these limpets and shore crabs and one night i went

00:40:08.860 out and i picked a thousand limpets and we would eat we'd boil them and we'd eat and we'd eat and we

00:40:14.160 eat and it just wasn't doing it for us it was the weirdest feeling but one thing we did have was we got

00:40:21.020 into these things called gunnel fish which are basically these gross writhing eels that can kind of

00:40:27.980 breathe out of water and uh they'll kind of hide you know and breathe just through the kind of

00:40:34.020 moisture on their gills and they'll hide under the rocks at low tide so we go out when the tides are

00:40:39.420 out and we'd lift these huge boulders and flip them over and we you know but close to the end we'd be

00:40:45.120 like literally blacking out we'd have to sit down because our energy levels were so low and there'd be

00:40:51.000 nothing and you'd lift up a huge boulder and there'd be nothing you'd sit down then you'd lift up a huge

00:40:55.960 boulder and there'd be like five or six of these gunnel fish and you know some of them were not

00:41:00.820 longer than your pointer finger and some of them were were some of the biggest we caught fish we got

00:41:05.500 the whole time like some of them were a foot long and you we try to stab them we just start stomping

00:41:11.100 on them that's how we figured we kill we figured how we kill them the best way is you'd stomp on all

00:41:15.900 these things so that was actually some fish and it was like a sour tasting fish it wasn't good

00:41:21.180 but that's actually was still fish so i think even though we weren't able by angling methods

00:41:27.540 really to get as enough fish to sustain us as long as we did we're able to eat all these gunnel fish

00:41:33.960 and that's what probably won us the show okay so that's i think it's interesting even if you're

00:41:39.340 eating food it doesn't mean you're getting nourished necessarily because you gotta have that fat component

00:41:43.480 yeah and that's definitely one of the myths like who who thinks that you couldn't go out there you know

00:41:49.300 especially after the rut which is a moose which is the you know ungulates uh you know of the deer

00:41:54.680 family their mating season moose elk caribou and all the different types of of uh deer white-tailed

00:42:00.860 deer mule deer black-tailed deer you'd think that you know you get a moose and you're good you know but

00:42:08.780 it's just unfortunately not the case because you need more fat or you just cannot digest that protein

00:42:15.220 and you will still starve over the winter so something you've said you found out through this

00:42:19.940 experience on alone is that practicing survival skills is not the same as practicing survival

00:42:24.800 what do you mean by that yeah absolutely that's you know and that's kind of what i was getting

00:42:30.440 into when you know my concerns about going into this well am i really like a survivalist i do i plan

00:42:37.840 my trips and i do these extreme remote wilderness trips but i'm bringing a good fishing rod with me

00:42:44.100 fishing rod reel a backup one i'm bringing you know good quality store-bought manufactured lures i'm

00:42:50.160 bringing a shotgun with me for bear protection or food if i in season if i have to and you know all

00:42:56.380 these all these things i'm bringing lighters i don't just bring one lighter i bring like 10 lighters i

00:43:01.020 throw them all in each bag just in case right but what i realized is that you know so put it this way

00:43:07.920 you can practicing survival skills and real survival are two very different things we could head out into

00:43:15.380 the backyard and and we could practice lighting a bow drill fire that would be fun but you know an

00:43:21.880 enjoyable kind of skill to learn but try that when you're exhausted soaking wet you have to source all

00:43:28.840 the parts you just walk through hell for days on end you haven't eaten a thing on days on end and if you

00:43:35.600 don't get this fire going you're going to die of hypothermia like that is terrifying it is not fun

00:43:41.840 it's not a situation you want to be in so what happens is that somebody can learn a lot of different

00:43:47.880 really cool survival situations survival skills and bushcraft skills but if they're never actually

00:43:54.280 using them in a real scenario in a scenario where they can't just walk back to their truck or walk back

00:44:01.120 into their house instead if it starts raining they're never actually going to learn the actual

00:44:06.660 mindset that survival actually takes and so i remember i was on this trip and we're getting the

00:44:13.180 tail end of hurricane irene in labrador and we're living like off of fish and berries for almost a third

00:44:19.880 of our calories and we did hunt some wild geese and stuff and we're on a you know 33 day expedition

00:44:26.140 and it was we were soaking wet we're cold it was miserable out um and i said uh i said to my buddy

00:44:33.360 marty i said marty's like oh my god how are we gonna get a fire going and i'm like don't worry marty

00:44:37.540 this is a good opportunity to practice how to rig a tight camp when it's cold and raining and he looks at

00:44:44.220 me he's like this isn't practice man this is the real thing jeff and i just remember that being so

00:44:53.220 funny but sure enough because i'm a nerd about this stuff you know i cut down that standing dead

00:44:57.580 tree i set up the tarp we get a fire going under the tarp and we eat under in the smoke and everything

00:45:02.840 like that and that situation those situations i was in you know are the situations that give you

00:45:09.420 those survival skills that you can't learn from a book that you can't learn on youtube and and that

00:45:15.000 skill is just being able to not give a crap and not giving a crap is probably the best survival skill

00:45:21.940 and the only way you get that skill is through real bush time and typically that needs to be in

00:45:28.980 areas that are pretty remote right and and where where the weather's not always good where you have

00:45:34.940 to deal with getting tortured by mosquitoes to the point where you don't give a crap about the

00:45:39.560 mosquitoes anymore where you know you might have to because you know you say are you am i cold or

00:45:46.240 you've been this cold before and you know that you know what i am cold but i'm not going to get

00:45:51.560 hypothermia so i'm just going to stop thinking about it because it's not really an issue because

00:45:56.920 you've had that experience where somebody else might be scared right they might be scared that

00:46:01.800 they're in danger they might know all these survival skills but they don't really know if they're in

00:46:06.980 danger or not or they're just not used to the discomfort and a way you can start you start to

00:46:12.360 realize that you're getting this skill is through you know let's say you're out on a long adventure on a

00:46:18.960 camping trip with other people and you're still having fun and they are not having fun anymore

00:46:23.980 you're in the exact same situation as them they're starting to complain they're miserable you're still

00:46:29.480 having a wonderful time you're in the same situation than them it's just that you have learned to not give

00:46:34.920 a crap anymore because of your your experience on being able to rough it and knowing that it doesn't

00:46:43.120 matter and so that essentially is the best survival skill to have and so you know that's why having

00:46:51.100 survival skills as long as you can get a fire going like having all these survival skills from what

00:46:58.080 alone is kind of proven there's all these kind of survival experts on it and some of them it's usually

00:47:04.320 the guys with the the real bush time the longest periods of time spending outdoors that do the best

00:47:10.100 not necessarily the guys with combat training not necessarily the guys in these scenarios with

00:47:16.960 the most primitive skills i don't like to use the word primitive but the most traditional kind of

00:47:23.240 skills aren't always the guys that win it's the guys that can just kind of take it the hardest you

00:47:28.260 know what i mean yeah so yeah that's the the key to the mental game just don't give a crap i think

00:47:32.940 you imply that that's applicable to anything in life just don't give a crap sure yeah i like that

00:47:37.640 actually i should start applying that to other to other like trolls that troll me on my youtube

00:47:41.780 channel right yeah you should trademark that don't give a crap so you mentioned at the end of this

00:47:46.980 thing you lost about 25 of your body weight like what else health wise what were you guys like did it

00:47:51.680 just totally wreck you physically i would say yeah like i was pretty ripped afterwards my brother

00:47:58.140 was like kind of like looked emaciated um like maybe because i might have had just a little more

00:48:04.120 fat and muscle than him going into it even though i was bigger so technically i'd take

00:48:08.620 more calories to go into it so what they what they tell you is they give you kind of a refreading

00:48:14.980 program and this is part of the torture you can't just like get back and just like hammer a freaking

00:48:21.120 pizza right the torture continues because you have to slowly wean yourself onto food you can't even eat

00:48:26.520 anything you'll like vomit if you try right and if you eat like a whole bunch of sugar all of a sudden

00:48:32.080 it can be like really really bad it could trigger horrible reactions in your body that could like

00:48:38.380 you know kill you even so i ended up kind of weaning myself back on but then i kind of went

00:48:44.220 started going a little crazy i had something called iritis which is like arthritis of the eye

00:48:50.120 which is caused by refeeding syndrome the doctors like don't know anything about this because in

00:48:55.280 you know which is testament to our society very few people are starving to death anymore

00:48:59.720 there's the minnesota starvation experiment during world war ii where they starved a bunch of people

00:49:07.220 starved and uh they they tested them and you know they they followed them so we have learned

00:49:12.340 about starvation through that but in general it's not really something doctors understand around here

00:49:17.500 and so i felt like i was hung over i had a headache for like two months coming out of it which was pretty

00:49:23.340 miserable and then eventually i was okay afterwards but yeah i thought probably if i had been a

00:49:29.480 little stricter on on a refeeding program regimen i mean the only thing doctors are kind of used to

00:49:35.240 is the same thing that like a severe alcoholic who's not eating any food who's malnourished

00:49:39.920 might experience when they're when they stop drinking because they've malnourished themselves

00:49:44.860 that'd be like the only kind of comparable thing that doctors might deal with nowadays on average

00:49:49.600 so jim this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about your work and

00:49:53.540 what you're doing these days yeah i've been putting a lot of time into youtube doing some

00:49:58.960 awesome adventures survival stuff and all that check out jim baird adventurer on youtube i'm also on

00:50:06.720 instagram at jb adventurer and facebook to jim baird adventurer so follow me online check out some

00:50:14.400 of my videos and drop a comment and say hi fantastic well jim baird thanks for time it's been a pleasure

00:50:19.400 thank you brad thanks for having me my guest today was jim baird he was one of the winners of season

00:50:25.060 four of alone you can find more information about his work at his youtube channel jim baird adventurer

00:50:29.340 also check out his articles on field and stream and check out our show notes at aom.is

00:50:33.360 slash survival myths where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:50:37.220 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

00:50:48.340 artofmanliness.com where you can find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written

00:50:52.280 over the years about pretty much anything you'd think of and if you'd like to enjoy ad-free

00:50:55.740 episodes of the aom podcast you can do so on stitcher premium head over to stitcherpremium.com

00:50:59.840 sign up use code manliness to check out for a free month trial once you're signed up download the

00:51:04.020 stitcher app on android ios and you can start enjoying ad-free episodes of the aom podcast and if

00:51:08.740 you haven't done so already i'd appreciate you take one minute to give us your view off a podcast or

00:51:11.780 spotify it helps out a lot and if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the show

00:51:15.940 with a friend or family member who would think we get something out of it as always thank you for

00:51:19.720 the continued support until next time it's brett mckay remind you to listen to the aom podcast but put

00:51:24.220 what you've heard into action

00:51:25.600 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

The Survival Myths That Can Get You Killed

Episode Stats

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript