Essential Wilderness Survival Kit

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• Welcome to the "Survival Kit Essentials" episode, where we delve into the must-have gear for your outdoor adventures. In this segment, we'll break down the key components of a well-prepared survival kit, ensuring you're ready for anything Mother Nature throws your way.
• A survival kit is your lifeline in the wilderness, providing essential tools to keep you safe and comfortable in challenging conditions. From maintaining body temperature to staying hydrated and nourished, every item in your kit plays a crucial role in your well-being.
• In our discussion, we'll explore various types of survival kits, from compact shoulder sling packs to larger backpacks suited for extended excursions. The key is to find a balance between portability and functionality, ensuring your kit is both convenient to carry and equipped to handle emergencies.
• We'll discuss the importance of prioritizing your needs, focusing on essentials like shelter, water, fire, and signaling devices. You'll learn about the significance of lightweight yet durable gear, such as reflective blankets, para-cords, and multi-tools, in building a versatile survival kit.
• Throughout the segment, we'll share practical insights and real-life anecdotes to illustrate the importance of preparedness in outdoor activities. Whether you're embarking on a short hike or a multi-day camping trip, having the right gear can mean the difference between an enjoyable outing and a potentially dangerous situation.
• So, join us as we explore the ins and outs of building the perfect survival kit. Remember, the perfect kit is the one you have with you! Therefore, consider a kit that is convenient and one you will regularly carry. Stay tuned for expert tips and recommendations to level up your outdoor preparedness game.

Please consider leaving a rating and/or review wherever you listen to the podcast. Don't forget to share a good episode on social media too. The mid-roll ad on this podcast includes the song entitled House of Mirrors, by Chad Clifford (Pete Meyer on flute).

Chapters

• 0:57 What is a surival kit
• 4:03 The best survival kit
• 4:52 Examples in the field
• 9:12 One tool for survival
• 12:36 Size of kit
• 15:16 Pockets & water proofing
• 16:33 Contents of kit
• 28:38 Recap

Transcript

Survival kit 


Welcome to the "Survival Kit Essentials" episode, where we delve into the must-have gear for your outdoor adventures. In this segment, we'll break down the key components of a well-prepared survival kit, ensuring you're ready for anything Mother Nature throws your way.
A survival kit is your lifeline in the wilderness, providing essential tools to keep you safe and comfortable in challenging conditions. From maintaining body temperature to staying hydrated and nourished, every item in your kit plays a crucial role in your well-being.
In our discussion, we'll explore various types of survival kits, from compact shoulder sling packs to larger backpacks suited for extended excursions. The key is to find a balance between portability and functionality, ensuring your kit is both convenient to carry and equipped to handle emergencies.
We'll discuss the importance of prioritizing your needs, focusing on essentials like shelter, water, fire, and signalling devices. You'll learn about the significance of lightweight yet durable gear, such as reflective blankets, para-cord, and multi-tools, in building a versatile survival kit.
Throughout the segment, we'll share practical insights and real-life anecdotes to illustrate the importance of preparedness in outdoor activities. Whether you're embarking on a short hike or a multi-day camping trip, having the right gear can mean the difference between an enjoyable outing and a potentially dangerous situation.
So, join us as we explore the ins and outs of building the perfect survival kit. Remember, the perfect kit is the one you have with you! Therefore, consider a kit that is convenient and one you will regularly carry. Stay tuned for expert tips and recommendations to level up your outdoor preparedness game.


Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. 

(0:00 - 0:22)
Welcome to the Reverie Nature Podcast. Get ready to explore a series of episodes on the nature experience, from engaging bushcraft, reading animal tracks and sign, exploring the world of nature soundscapes and much more. But before we dig in, a big thank you to our listeners.

(0:22 - 0:46)
Please take this moment to subscribe and offer your support to the podcast. I'm Chad Clifford, your hosting guide, and today we are continuing along the theme of staying safe in the outdoors. This episode will be on the essential survival kit for your outdoor hikes and adventures.

(0:47 - 1:10)
I will talk a little bit about the kits I use in the outdoors, and what some other folks have used too, and some of these ideas they have will surprise you, at least I think it will. So, what is the importance of a survival kit? Well, a survival kit is that thing you drag along with you, assuming that you won't ever need it. So there is a tendency not to bring it.

(1:11 - 3:05)
However, when you do need it, it is that aid, that thing to keep you safe, to look after your needs. Remember, wilderness survival is the perceived threat to life or limb. There is stress involved, and if you want to learn more about that, check out the episode on Wilderness Survival 101.

Do not panic for those sorts of details and topics. But, just a reminder, this is a podcast for entertainment purposes, so if you do need survival training, go and get it. That said, this is the sort of topic I do teach to students from various backgrounds over the years, and let's start by talking about your needs.

So continuing from Wilderness Survival 101, I did talk about what are your needs? What do you need to focus on? And, in general, in a survival situation, after the first aid and your rescue considerations are taken care of, or considered, you need to worry about your body temperature, your hydration, and then afterwards fire and food, depending on the context. So let's remember that. Shelter, which helps your body temperature, water for hydration, followed by fire and food, depending.

Before we continue on, I'd like to just take a jump back here and talk about some other types of survival kits. There's things called the good bag, also called get out of dodge bag. There's the bob, the bug out bag.

There's the emergency bag, the survival bag, the first aid kit. There's a lot of similarities among these types of kits. But just for reference sake, the get out of dodge bag, or the good bag, that tends to be more for natural disasters.

(3:06 - 3:29)
Well, it could even be for a zombie apocalypse, for that matter. But the point is, there's a bag in your closet, usually like a full-on backpack, where you need to escape the tsunami coming, or whatever it is, there's a disaster, and that's an escape bag that you get out and you can survive with. And it might not necessarily be a wilderness context at all.

(3:29 - 4:03)
It could be urban, whatever, it's an escape from that area anyway. That's your get out of dodge bag, good. And the B.O.B., the bob, bail out bag, that comes from the military, military pilots, back in the world wars, they'd have a little bag, I don't know if it would be under their seat or where it would be, but generally behind enemy lines, you go down, that's your kit, probably had a pistol in it for protection against enemies, and that was your survival kit in that context.

(4:04 - 4:52)
For today though, we're talking about survival kits. With that in mind, what is the very best kit you can have? Well, I'm not trying to be smart here, but the best kit you can have is the one that you bring with you, the one that you have at the time. And the reason I mention that is because these are often left behind.

They have to be convenient. Remember, if you're just going for a two minute hike in the woods, just to check out a peak from your campsite, these are the times when trouble happens. These are the times when you get lost when you're not thinking it will happen.

You need a kit that you're willing to take on those short little excursions. So, this kit needs to be convenient. It needs to be small, small enough that you're willing to bring it with you.

(4:54 - 6:10)
I was snowmobiling one time in the Arctic, and we had four or five snowmobiles. One snowmobile was dragging a sled, and in that sled, most of our packs were in there. And I usually keep my survival kit on my back, or at least on my sled, and it goes with me.

However, the snowmobile that was pulling the sled that day decided to kind of go off on his own, take another trail or a shortcut. There was no trees, so you could kind of see for a long ways. But there was quite a bit of distance between that person and everyone's packs and the rest of the group.

Poor decision at the moment. Nothing came of it. I was sure to keep my eye on that person, make sure they didn't just disappear off into the distance, leaving the rest of us to chance our luck without our kits and survival packs.

So, it needs to be on you all the time, right? You're going off to the woods to, you know, to check out a stream, just to look around the corner, just to do a very quick exploring or a little quick walk around the pond. Yeah, this goes with you. And this pack can be extremely small.

(6:11 - 6:35)
There's a true story of a man named Charles Horton near Colorado cross-country skier doing some backwoods stuff, only three or four miles from his car when his leg broke. It was spring skiing, I believe, and the temperatures were dipping down into the freezing points. So, you know, cross-country skiing, your clothing, lightweight athletic clothing, tends to get damp from the exercise.

(6:36 - 8:08)
He had minimal supplies with him, as I understand it, but he did have a whistle and some water. He ended up spending, I think it was about a week in these conditions, damp, broken leg with a whistle. He also had some matches.

So, his survival kit, if you call it that, was minimal, but there was thought put into it. It was the matches and whistle that ended up saving his life, although he was near its end by the time rescuers came. He did find shelter under trees and he made a bow bed, a tree boughs, for bedding to keep the coldness of the ground off him.

He was able to make a fire with the matches or lighter he had with him. That certainly helped. And then when he did not have the strength left to call when the rescuers were nearby on snowmobiles, he was able to blow that whistle.

Mustered up the strength to blow the whistle and they heard it because their snow machines were off at the time as they were listening every once in a while. They'd drive along on their snowmobiles, the rescuers, they'd turn the machines off to see if they could hear anything and sure enough, as luck would have it, he was within distance and was rescued. So, although it's fair to say that Charles went with the bare minimum and other folks did not quite know where he was as far as his travel plans were, that little kit he did have made the difference.

(8:11 - 8:50)
So, one talk I have with my students, with my outdoor students who I'm teaching survival to, I'll usually ask them, just for interest's sake, if there was one tool you could have in the woods in a survival situation, what would it be? And you can choose the context, winter, summer, boreal, forest, desert, whatever. What would that one tool be? And you get some very interesting answers. Last year, an interesting answer was a garbage bag.

They could have one thing, it would be a garbage bag. And that garbage bag would add a little bit of wind protection because you could put holes in it and turn it into a coat. It would offer rain protection.

(8:51 - 9:06)
And I guess before you put the holes in it to make it into a coat, you could also carry water in it. You could even treat water in that if you know how to do it. And I'll get into those sorts of camp craft and details in another episode.

(9:08 - 9:33)
One interesting tool that a person mentioned one time was this survival expert I really looked up to.  Mors Kowhanski, he's passed on now, but he lived in Alberta, and a few of us went camping with him one time. He mentioned that one tool that he would bring in the boreal forest, and I think he was referring to summertime, would be a steel cup.

(9:35 - 10:49)
And of course, bush craft and survival skills, novice, or we weren't novice at the time I guess, but you know, enthusiasts at least, we were quite surprised at a steel cup. And yeah, so for him, he could go days without food. That wasn't a priority.

He could start fires. I don't think he really needed a knife to start a fire with the friction fire. You can get by without a knife doing that.

It's much easier if you have one. But water, he was concerned about hydration. And it so happens in the boreal forest with all the mosses and sphagnum moss that you can or he says he can dig down under this moss and grab some of that moisture, squeeze it out into a cup, and that is safe drinking water.

At least he has found it to be so. So that would be very convenient for him. Plus, you could also boil water.

If you have a steel cup, you can boil the water. Now, what about warmth and whatnot? I thought, you know, shelter and your body temperature is number one in the priority list. So how does a steel cup play into that? Well, I think the answer here would be, Morris was always thinking about those sorts of things, and the way he dressed was his primary shelter.

(10:50 - 12:20)
Actually, that time we went camping with him. I don't think he even made a shelter when we stayed out. He more or less just leaned up against a tree or found a nice little place to rest.

He had clothing layers that he could put on or off to really handle the elements of the context of that situation, which was the boreal forest just north of Edmonton. Going back to some of my students and the ideas that they would bring, if they could have one tool for survival. You know, of course, there was the more obvious things like the filter straws or the purifying straws you can get for safe drinking water.

There was multi-tools and, of course, knives. If you want a long discussion about knives, you just talk to a bushcraft person or folks who practice wilderness survivalism and you'll get a lecture on knives. I guarantee it.

But let's move on to the actual survival bag or kit. I already mentioned that this survival kit needs to be lightweight and it needs to be convenient. So, this has to adjust, obviously, your survival kit.

If you're not by yourself, you have your family to look after or you're in charge of a group, this survival kit needs to grow with the size of your group. But I'm going to focus more today on a personal size survival kit. And the type of kit I would typically use is a shoulder sling kit.

(12:20 - 13:03)
It barely holds a one litre water bottle and it's in the teardrop shape. If you can picture these, they tend to go over the one shoulder across the chest and the little pack on the back. Pretty small.

I would say I can... I really pack it with other things to fit around the water bottle. But you get the idea of the size of a water bottle. More or less fills most of it.

Anyway, that's the size I use for hiking and walking. And when I go off on short hikes even if we're just stepping out of a vehicle and going to look for a particular thing that we know is only a few minutes away or a 15 minute walk or even an hour walk, that stays on. I'm bringing that with me.

(13:04 - 14:14)
It's small enough that I don't mind dragging it along. You know, there's a bit of size to it but I'm really happy to have it and if I ever need it, I will certainly be happy to have it. And if I'm ever on a four wheeler or a canoe or something larger, this pack certainly grows from there.

I actually bring the same pack. I just literally put that small pack into a slightly larger pack that's usually waterproof. So if I'm canoeing, I have a waterproof pack that's about the size of, you know, like a day pack.

So not very big small, something you could picture putting in a couple of jackets and a couple of water bottles. That sort of size. And I'll just put my smaller pack right within that one and then I'll add a few more supplies because it's easy to transport.

You're in a canoe or a four wheeler and what have you. So, you know, the extra weight and size is not a real concern. However, when I'm walking or whatnot, that little pack comes back out and that's the one I use for convenience.

(14:16 - 15:06)
It comes with me. Am I emphasizing that enough? It stays with you. Okay.

What I also appreciate with the small pack is the one I use has about four pockets in it or subdividers inside. That is pretty important. When you do need it and when I've used it, you don't want things falling out.

You don't want to have to pull everything out just to find a flashlight or just to find your compass or whatever it is you're looking for. You know, have different compartments so you don't have to explode the pack out onto the ground and things are bound to get lost that way. Especially if you're in a bit of hurry or if you're a little flustered because of your situation.

Or if it's dark out or whatnot. Keep it simple, keep it divided and you'll be happy to have those pockets. I guarantee it.

(15:08 - 15:30)
As well, you'll want waterproof bags in there. Keep things waterproof. You don't have to keep everything waterproofed obviously.

I would suggest Ziploc bags or at least milk bags that you have zip ties on. That'll work mostly fine even if you overturn a canoe. You might want to double bag it if that's the context.

(15:31 - 15:46)
Anyway, waterproof what you need to. Keep it small but large enough that it's useful and small enough that you will keep it with you all the time. So what goes in these bags? Let's finally get around to the nuts and bolts here.

(15:49 - 16:02)
Remember the needs of survival. You got to keep your body temperature where you need it and you have to be hydrated. Fire and food, that's further down the list unless your fire is used for treating water and whatnot.

(16:03 - 16:18)
So there's a few general things I keep in this pack. And when I go camping or in outings, I always have a knife. In this pack, there's another knife.

It's a second knife. I hardly ever use this knife. It's there as part of the pack.

(16:18 - 16:32)
So if my other knife does not make it with me on this short little hike I might be doing, there's one in the pack. And I'll get into the types of knives I prefer in another episode. Another general use item is a flashlight.

(16:33 - 17:40)
I tend to use headlamps, just the cheap ones, with a few extra batteries. If it's winter time, there will be ice picks in that bag too. And what I mean by ice picks are a little wooden handle with a nail sticking out the end and straps for the wrist.

So if I do happen to be on Icy or not Icy, but I mean frozen lakes or streams those are out and they're already on my wrist. If I'm going in, I'm having something to get me out. And I tend to stay clear of any water I'm not pretty certain about.

Okay, so those are a few of the general things. A knife, flashlight, with some extra batteries. Now getting on to priorities.

How am I keeping myself warm? What's in here to help? Sometimes I will bring a little tarp of some kind. A very very lightweight tarp. One that you can almost fold into a deck of cards as far as size goes.

Usually this is just a reflective blanket. I have a tube blanket. A tube blanket which you can pretty much be used as a sleeping bag really.

(17:41 - 19:38)
But anyway, if in this situation where I need warmth I can just pull that over myself to keep myself warm or I can adapt it into a shelter where I have a nice reflective surface to reflect some of the heat to my backside from a fire for instance. Along with shelter building with this plastic which I can use as a ring tarp as well I have paracord. And paracord is, what I get is the paracord 550 I think it is.

Very strong cord it's excellent. You can get it in bulk usually. I get it by the spool.

Like the large spool. Like a thousand feet a bit at a time. Because I go through it and I give this stuff away.

I tend to carry about three rolls of fifty feet. And that sounds like a lot but if you are in a survival situation you can go through rope so quickly. I can go through that in no time.

And I know how to use rope efficiently too. So you want at least a hundred feet of paracord and it packs up pretty nicely and small as well. Don't substitute paracord get good quality cord.

There is some nice webbing you can use too. Paracord 550 you want about a hundred feet. I carry more than that and I guarantee if you are camping and you start using cord for anything, a hundred and fifty feet can go pretty fast.

So you might even want more. Anyway, that's shelter. So I tend to have in my very small pack a reflective blanket and some paracord knife, flashlight and let's move on to water now.

That's my shelter. Water, I tend not usually to have the water purification tablets. I don't really like using them but those are an excellent option.

(19:39 - 21:28)
And they don't take up any space. So water purification tablets I think are a great idea. What I tend to do, even though my kit is quite small, I tend to have, besides my one liter water bottle in there, I tend to have a small metal pot, small camping pot.

If I really am stuck I will use this pot and I will boil water. Why not just bring a small filter? Well, this pack is convenient. I don't like fussing with it.

I use it all year round. A small water filter in the winter time, it could be convenient, but what's happening in below freezing temperatures? You have a physical filter and purifier. I should have said water purifier because the purifier has the added component of water not only going through a filter but also being treated through something like a charcoal disc or what not.

But what happens to these filters, or the charcoal purifier for that matter, when it's saturated with water and it goes below freezing, it's probably going to damage it. It's probably going to crack and now you have water just blasting through. You might not even see the crack, it might be so small, but it will not protect you anymore.

So that's why I tend not to have the purifier in there because in the winter time, it wouldn't be much use. Hence the steel pot. Okay, so that's my water.

For fire, now fire could be used for keeping warm, it could be used for treating water, of course. It could be used for psychological safety at night. Anyway, I'll bring two lighters.

(21:31 - 22:26)
So two sources. Within this one kit, I have two lighters or maybe I'll have a lighter and some matches, but there's two different sources in this kit for fire. In fact, actually, I have three fire sources when I'm with me.

I'll have a lighter, either a second lighter or matches, and I will have a flint and steel. I happen to be a person who's pretty handy with a flint and steel. In most situations, I can get a fire going very quickly with a flint and steel.

A lot of people cannot. Some of the flint and steel uses I've seen out there are just really basic. A lot of people really don't have that skill, or if they do have it, they have to bring cotton balls or a petroleum-filled whatever to get that spark to work.

Now I have it so I can use just the flint and steel with what I can find in the woods, typically. So that's three or four fire sources. And I'm a person who can do friction fires, too.

(22:26 - 22:42)
I'd say there's probably over a 60% chance that if you throw me out there, I can get a friction fire going. That's pretty good because it's not an easy thing to go cold into the woods and find the right wood. So I take fire seriously.

(22:43 - 23:18)
Let's move on to food now. My survival kit doesn't have food in it. One of the reasons is, because this thing's always with me, I never tend to use the food that's in there.

I'm sure I'd be happy to have it if I was in a survival situation, but you can go a long time without food. And you're inviting the mice and whatnot, even in storage, to try and they'll be nibbling through that bag to get at your trail mix or whatever. But on the other hand, having some high-energy snacks, granola bars, trail mix, stuff with good fats in it.

(23:19 - 25:01)
That'd be a great thing to have in there. I just don't tend to have it in mine. Although on some trips I do stuff in a few little things along that way.

I don't have much room left in my bag typically. One last thing that does take up a fair real estate within my survival kit is my navigation and rescue stuff. So what I'm predicting is for me to slip into a situation where I get stuck out there, I'm almost hesitant to call it survival.

It's really just spending some extra time out there. However, I will have my navigation and rescue portion of the kit. And that will include not necessarily a map.

There could be a map. There will certainly be GPS with extra batteries. There will be a compass because I don't want that GPS, I don't want those batteries wearing out.

So I'm using the compass most of the time. I will have flagging tape of all things. Like surveyors flagging tape.

The stuff you can get at a local hardware store. I keep a roll of that along with the permanent marker. I use that for various ways of finding my way out or to leave messages for searchers.

And I'll get more into these sorts of things in an episode called lost proofing. So keep your eyes and ears open for that one because there will be lots of tips on finding your way. But anyway, map, compass, maybe not the map in my case as much.

GPS with batteries. The flagging tape with a permanent marker. I will have a signal mirror too.

(25:02 - 26:18)
I don't mind the extra weight of a glass signal mirror instead of the plastic ones. Lastly I'll have a Fox 40 whistle or a good quality whistle. Very lightweight and certainly a good way to help rescue the flagging tape, the Fox 40 whistle, and the signal mirror.

And that is mostly it. I do tend to have a few first aid items in there as well. Some things aren't really needed, others... I don't have anything fancy in there but I'm thinking any little cut when you're out and about.

You gotta keep those things clean. If you're out for three days or stuck out there for three days and you have a cut with dirt in it, you want to get that clean. If that three days turns into five days infections start to matter.

So keep the basic supplies with you. I bring not just some of the basics. I'll bring a couple of the larger pads too because if you're out there working with a knife it's foreseeable to have a larger cut or wound even though you're extra careful with those sorts of tools.

(26:18 - 26:38)
When you're out there having a larger bandage, not a bad idea. One thing that I don't really need that I do bring is something called a tick lasso. If you do get a deer tick on you out there, it's fine.

You can leave it embedded in you. They're hard to get out with a tool. You can leave it in there.

(26:39 - 27:10)
Yes, it's better to get it out sooner than later. Anyway, not really needed for first aid but I don't want a tick hanging around in me so I have this really fancy little tick lasso that looks like a big pen almost. There's a little piece of what looks like fishing line come out when you press the button and that goes around like a lasso around the tick and then you release the button.

It tightens up and just a quick twist and that tick comes right out. It really works well. I also bring that.

(27:11 - 27:36)
I don't bring painkillers and things like that. That pretty much does it for my kit and like I said when I have the convenience of being in a canoe or something where I don't have to carry it on my back, this kit does get a little bit bigger and certainly if I'm with other people or if I'm looking after other people, this kit grows considerably. I'll have a bigger pot to boil more water efficiently.

(27:36 - 28:29)
It takes forever to treat water in a small pot or a cup or whatnot. Anyway, that's about it for this episode. So, just to recap the perfect survival kit is the one that you have with you.

Even if it's small, it needs to be convenient. You have to take it with you. When you're just going for that five minute hike, do you really need it? Probably not, but it's the unexpected that happens.

That's why you need it. It has to be convenient. If you're the sort of person who thinks they can always drag something much larger with you and always have it with you, great.

You'll make use of it. But for me, that's about the size I use. But I've been practicing bushcraft and survival skills a long time, but it's more than what most people carry already.

(28:30 - 28:56)
So, yeah, like I said, mine's just a little teardrop bag. You sling over your shoulder. It's typically what you might have in town to put maybe a large wallet in and some small supplies for your day.

Very small. Very convenient, I should say. Otherwise, within that kit you need to, depending on where you are and what you're doing, you certainly want to look after your needs in a survival situation.

(28:56 - 29:49)
And when we're talking survival, we're talking generally wilderness survival. So your body temperature, hydration, fire if needed, and food, and then a few extras like a flashlight and whatnot. And I'm sure there's many of you out there listening who are thinking, what about fishing hooks and line? It doesn't take up any room.

What about duct tape? And things like that. Yes, those are great additions. I did forget to mention that around my water bottle, I typically do have duct tape that I take off the roll and I put it around my water bottle for use later.

I tend not to have fishing hooks. I can make that on the go myself with the paracord and the lines within the paracord. But, yes, I'm sure there's a lot of other great ideas that I've overlooked here.

(29:50 - 29:59)
The important thing I'd like to stress, though, is that it's the kit that you have with you that matters. So make it convenient. Be sure that… .