From the Survival
Blog
This letter is in response to your link to a post by XXXX: Living Off The Land: Delusions and Misconceptions About Hunting and Gathering. It's a well-written article and I'd like to expand upon it.
I've been teaching Stone Age skills
for 29 years and I've spent most of my adult life in the backcountry of Idaho
and British Columbia. I never purchased meat or fish from a store for
about 20 years, though I consumed a lot. I've lived Stone Age for short
periods of time, living completely off the land using only the skills and tools
of long ago... handmade longbow with obsidian-tipped arrows, stone knife,
cordage snares and deadfall traps, etc.
I've now moved to the other
wilderness, Los Angeles, where I'm sharing my skills and learning new lessons
every day... but that's another story.
Meeting one's caloric needs directly
from the land is an idea filled with Dances with Wolves romanticism.
Most people have no idea what it's really like. I have been reduced
to such a weakened state from lack of calories that walking 100 yards required
stopping to rest, and that was after only a week of living off the land.
That experience occurred in the mountains of Oregon in the Hell's Canyon
Wilderness in May, "springtime." Spring in the mountains there
meant that I was snowed on, hailed on, and rained on, and water froze solid
every night. I was likely burning through at least 7000 calories per day,
and my main source of calories, bisquitroot (Lomatium spp.), provided 2-3
calories per gram. Now, 2-3 calories per gram is very high for most wild
food, but I still required about 15 pounds of it per day to break even! I
couldn't eat that much.
However, something that Ross Gilmore
doesn't point out is that there is a transition period during which our bodies
acclimate to new foods. Much of that acclimation takes about a week,
after which a person more efficiently processes wild foods and more efficiently
utilizes the energy. We adjust. Part of the adjustment comes from
our flexible metabolism: our metabolism shifts to match food intake. When
there is inadequate food, we have a desire to move slower and sleep more.
That's why "Naked and Afraid" people lay around so much.
However, a person getting close to adequate calories after the transition
from conventional to natural food sources will feel more energized after that
weeklong adjustment.
Trapping is the way to go for
efficient harvesting of calorie-dense food. My success rate for traps is
1 kill for every 3-4 traps set, per night. However, most of the survival
instructors that I've met lack the experience to set traps in the best
locations, quickly and efficiently. Paiute children were reported to set
up to 75 deadfall traps in a day, using trap sticks previously made. Now,
at my success rate, that means about 20 critters per day. The ground
squirrels in Paiute country are huge, but let's figure a mix of ground
squirrels, pack rats and mice and estimate half a pound of meat, organs and fat
per animal. That's 10 pounds per day. An average adult needs about
2 pounds.
But let's be realistic. Most
instructors cannot set more than a dozen Paiute deadfalls in a day and their
success rate is dismal. And I'm talking about the people who teach this
stuff for a living.
Understanding local resources
intimately is key, as Ross pointed out. So is timing. Harvesting
and storing acorns at the appropriate time means food is always available, and
some of the California tribes consumed up to half of their year's calories via
acorns. However, most tribes did not store huge amounts of food during
pre-agricultural times. They didn't have to. The keys are intimate
knowledge of the environment, timing, extensive knowledge and skills, and
action. Rise early in the morning to stand hunt, then set traps in the
mid-late morning while opportunistically hunting, forage easy items as you go,
middle of the day process food/work around camp/make traps and tools, then during
the evening hunt or set more traps while opportunistically hunting. Each
day cover 2-5 miles, depending on your environment.
When I lived in areas with chipmunks,
setting a deadfall trap resulted in almost 100% success within a few hours.
In the Midwest during summer, a day in the woods covering 5 miles while
carrying a bow would yield way more calories than required in the form of
snakes, frogs, chipmunks, perhaps a grouse or larger animal, and a wide variety
of plant foods that are consumed on the go.
In the mountains of Idaho and British
Columbia, one elk provides 350 pounds of meat. When you include the fat,
organs and bones (lots of fat is stored within the bones, which must be smashed
and boiled to extract) and take the time to properly preserve the animal, you
can leisurely enjoy the rest of your year! Most of the meat I preserved
in Idaho was simply cut thin and laid over bushes where it dried just fine in
one day.
In Ross' example of living off the
land, legally, in New York, conditions would be tougher. Killing 12 bucks
is illegal and keeping to the hunting season would be difficult, but there are
many other easier sources of calorie-rich foods. Raccoons,
beaver, cats and dogs (during the Zombie Apocalypse), and rodents... these
animals are easy to trap in abundance in the right areas. Remember, 1
success out of every 3-4 traps set by a skilled individual. Imagine a
marsh with muskrats and beaver, plus raccoons working the banks, and an
abundance of cattail roots, shoots and seeds (yes, you can fluff up the dry
seed heads and flash burn the fluff from the seeds. Very tasty and high
in calories.) Marshes also have waterfowl, possibly fish and crayfish,
frogs, snakes and turtles. FYI, every animal in North America can be eaten,
including skunk. I've done it.
My point is that living off the land
is easy under certain conditions and with a lot of skill, and that it requires
specific actions. My point is also that most survival instructors do not
have the skills or experience to teach it well.
What really doesn't work is the
idealized notion that "I'll just go out and find food." I have
many years of experience in identifying plants and learning how to efficiently
harvest and process them. I've learned by doing. I've set traps
that fell down before an animal found it, or the animal stole the bait.
I've spent countless days watching deer trails and walking back to camp
empty-handed. You have to put in your time.
I have yet to see a television show
in which the participant/s follow an intelligent course of action for long-term
living. Most of the shows are about toughing out the conditions until
they get back to the safety and abundance of civilization. What a shame.
The outdoors are portrayed as a dangerous place to get out of. That
mentality does not provide good information for someone who is serious about
meeting his needs directly from the land in ways that are easy and efficient.
Eating a few willow buds, as "Survivorman" Les Stroud did on
one of his episodes, and proclaiming, "Mmmmm... this will give me some
energy" is inexcusable. It's lying.
One last comment about Ross' article:
dried mashed potatoes are nice if you want a tasty conventional addition to
your wild foraging, but it's not the most efficient food to bring. Fats and
oils contain 9 calories per gram. That's the food to carry if you are
wanting maximum calories.
Get outdoors, get dirty, practice
real skills in real situations, and bring a lighter and "back up"
supplies... just in case.
JWR Replies: I agree with you
and Mr. Gilmore! In many of my writings over the years, I've warned that the
"Batman in the Boondocks" approach is foolhardy. Anyone who thinks
that they can a carry all that they need in one backpack to survive in
the wilds for extended periods is fooling themselves. That would be perilous
even in the present day. But to expect to be able to do so in the midst of a
societal collapse is just plain laughable. Just think how many other people
will simultaneously be attempting to "live off the land." Except in
very remote regions, the streams and rivers will be fished out and the wild
game will be largely shot out and trapped out, in less than a year. And what
little game remains will be quite spooked. A self-sufficient farm with a
variety of crops and livestock, hay cutting ground, and an adjoining woodlot is
a much more realistic solution
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