Worth reading -"Forgotten Camping Skills: Backwoods Tips From A Boundary Waters Guide"

“Forgotten Camping Skills: Backwoods Tips From A Boundary Waters Guide” -By Cliff Jacobson

A good way to prepare for possible emergencies is to read and learn from informational books. “Forgotten Camping Skills: Backwoods Tips from a Boundary Waters Guide” is one such resource.

First published in 1992, author Cliff Jacobson is an Eagle Scout, teacher, and guide in the Boundary Waters. He has written 11 other books related to nature.

Jacobson writes that it is important to have high-tech equipment and to know how to use it. But (and this is where we get into the common sense philosophy of survival) what happens if you detach yourself from your stove when your canoe capsizes? How will you repair a large tear in your tarp or awning? Can a fire be started to prevent hypothermia?

This book is full of tried and true old camping and wilderness survival techniques, and adult Boy Scouts will recognize some of the techniques. The book shows skills such as how to make a shed and a bed out of pine branches. And it is interesting to see how to make a metal rectangular reflector furnace with gasoline or vegetable oil.

Other little-used skills include improvising camping implements out of cans, a backpack with one leg of a pair of jeans, and a tent with a tarp.

But, you might think, I already have the equipment and setup for survival in the wild and shouldn’t need to improvise anything. Why read this book? Isn’t it the common sense approach to have the equipment and know how to use it?

The common sense answer is: when it comes to saving your life, you can’t know enough. This post fits the Boy Scouts’ “Be Prepared” mantra, and improvisation is something everyone interested in survival should know.

Realistically, there isn’t enough wilderness left to spoil it, no matter how remote the area is. Go camping and make a bed of branches or a shelter by cutting down a tree and you will have an enraged madman (like me) in your face.

But you may end up with bits and pieces of equipment when your canoe capsizes in the middle of a roadless desert. Or you may have to flee an office building that is on fire or collapses due to an earthquake.

In these similar survival situations, the only tools you will have are the ones you have and the ones you can improvise. This book can teach you some skills that can prove invaluable.

Now perhaps your idea of ​​survival is to become primitive. Your survival kit will consist of a survival knife carved from flint, and you will rub two sticks to make fire. You will drill and search for food, and you will become one with nature in the tradition of the original inhabitants of this country.

Good luck with that. I admire people with a dedication to learning and preserving those Aboriginal skills. But this book is not for you.

For the rest of us, “Camping’s Forgotten Skills” would be a valuable addition to any prepper or wilderness survival library.

(I borrowed a copy of “Camping’s Forgotten Skills” through the local library interlibrary loan program, but copies are available through Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ? url = node% 3D16384 & field -keywords = Camping% 27s + Forgotten + Skills & x = 17 & y = 22. The ISBN number is: 0-934802-79-3. For used paper, it will cost around $ 5, plus Shipping costs).