Priorities in a Real Survival Situation

In the past five years, two men have disappeared into the forest surrounding Paradise, Michigan, and were never seen again. With Michigan's various hunting seasons upon us, and more people heading into this state's huge and vastly underestimated public forests (several times the size of Colorado's), a repeat of this short article seemed to be in order:

Priorities in a Real Survival Situation

Submitted by Len McDougall, Author/Survival Instructor

Authorities on wilderness survival have always tried to come up with hard-and-fast rules about
coping with a real-life survival situation. People like rules, because rules provide the security of
knowing what to do without thinking.

Problem is, the wilderness doesn't abide by rules that we humans invent. Nature is fluid, always
in motion, always changing, ever evolving. Animals deal with those changes by having on-board
tools, weapons, environmental protection, and super-acute senses.

Humans have virtually none of those things. For us, the fight-or-flight instinct is self-destructive;
we can't outrun even a raccoon, we have no claws for climbing to safety, we carry no bodily
weapons, and pound-for-pound we're the weakest species on the planet. A simple rainstorm can
kill us with hypothermia.

Our weapon is that great big brain we're all born having. Fight-or-flight is useless to us, but being
a chess player can save your life. By planning and strategizing, we can see into the future; we can
look at a tree and see shelter, a boat, snares, fishing poles, bow-and-arrow, spear... A victim sees
only what is there, but a survivor sees opportunities to create.

What is most important in a survival scenario? That depends entirely on the situation. You can't
shoot your way out of a blizzard. The old saw about food being least important because it'll take
three months to starve doesn't have much meaning to someone on the verge of passing out from
hypoglycemia while traversing a narrow cliff ledge.

No human is tough enough to go toe-to-toe with nature, and the naked-into-the woods philosophy
has never been subscribed to by any humans who actually live in the wild. And the slogan "The
more you know, the less you carry" isn't entirely realistic, either. "The more you know, the better
equipped you will be" would be more accurate. Nature can be a harsh judge, unforgiving of
inadequacies, and unforgiving of weakness.


Len McDougall, author of the books: Practical Outdoor Survival, 2nd Edition * Tracking & Reading Sign * The Encyclopedia of Tracks & Scats * The Log Cabin: An Adventure in Self Reliance, Individualism, and Cabin Building * The Field & Stream Wilderness Survival Handbook * The Complete Tracker * Practical Outdoor Projects * Practical Outdoor Survival * The Snowshoe Handbook * The Outdoors Almanac * Made for the Outdoors

Contributor to: Consumers Digest * Traverse Magazine *Tactical Knives * Woods-N-Water News * Fur-Fish-Game * Michigan Country Lines * Backwoods Home, and other fine magazines.

Wilderness Guide/Survival Instructor for Timberwolf Wilderness Adventures, Paradise,
Michigan USA timberwolfwildernessadventures@yahoo.com Tel. (906) 553-6001