They’re not the only skills you need but you have to start somewhere. For example, I left out Navigation. It’s an important skill but not as critical as the ones below. In most cases, you should be sitting still and waiting for help but If I were to make this the Seven Survival Skills you should learn now, I’d put navigation next. On the off chance you really need to be traipsing off into the wilderness, you’ll need to navigate. The problem is that every hour you spend learning how to navigate is an hour you aren’t learning how to keep yourself alive that day. You don’t have an unlimited amount of time, so you have to prioritize things. I’d rather be someone who knows the list below first and then starts working on other things like navigation and plant identification after they get these down. Navigation is an everyday skill that you need when you’re in the wilderness so you don’t need to survive. It’s a survival skill only when you messed something up – like navigating in the first place. Not saying you shouldn’t learn navigation – you should. Just doesn’t do much good to know how to walk your ass out of the woods for three days if you die the first night. Once you have these 6 covered, consider navigation as well as several other skills such as making cordage etc.
That being said, since we don’t know what situation you’re gonna be in, navigation, or any other skill not listed here, may be the most important one to learn to keep you alive someday. You really need to know what you’re prepping for and rebalance as necessary. If you know you’re heading out into somewhere that you may not have rescue coming, you need to pull navigation into your required learning. Or whatever else may be able to help.
Obviously, each of these categories could fill an entire book
There are six top skills you should focus on learning. You should also pack your bugout bag and EDC with equipment to help you with each of these skills:
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Fire
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Water
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Shelter
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Food
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First aid
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Signal
Fire
The first survival skill you need to know is how to make a fire. Why? It’s hard to know exactly which skill is the most important in any situation but in general, I think making a fire is the most important. With a fire, you can keep yourself warm, purify water, see in the dark, cook food, signal for help, make tools, sterilize surgical equipment and protect yourself from critters. Having a fire is also a huge psychological advantage. Plus, it’s a manly-mans skill to know.
You should learn at least three ways to start a fire. If you’re heading out to an area and know this in advance, you should learn how the local people use local resources to start fires there. One of the best people to learn this from are native people who’ve been there for hundreds of years. Actually, this goes for all of these skills except maybe signaling for rescue.
A big part of having a fire is actually building your fire site so it’ll not only catch, it’ll stay lit. You need to know the basics of how to build a fire as well as some local materials that you can use for tinder, kindling and fuel wood. If you don’t get this part right, it won’t much matter what you use to try to light it.
The first method you need to learn to build a fire is using whatever gear you bring with you. Hopefully you have a bugout bag or at least an EDC kit. Hopefully you’ll at least have a lighter. A stormproof lighter
Here’s a video to show you how to use a ferrocerium rod, also called a fire steel:
You need to learn at least two other methods of how to start a fire. Since I don’t know where you’re gonna be when you need to start a fire and your lighter/rod isn’t available, I’d suggest learning how to start a fire with a fire bow and with a hand drill. They’re both a lot of work so go for the lighter if you have one.
How to start a fire with a fire bow.
How to start a fire with a hand drill.
A must-have item in your pack should be a cheap fresnel lens
Water
The next skill you need to have is how to get water you can drink. Depending on your circumstances, this one may actually be more important than getting a fire. You can go 2-3 days without water but you’ll start degrading long before that. You should be thinking about your water situation as soon as you figure out you’re screwed.
I carry a Sawyer Mini water filter
If you have a fire then boiling your water is usually the best way to make it drinkable. It’s not a 100% solution but it’s pretty close. If you don’t have a container that you can put water in and sit in the fire, heat up rocks and drop them into your water.
If you have a plastic bag, you can collect water from plants.
With a little more work, you can create a solar still, which works off the same principal.
Shelter
If you don’t have a tent with you for some reason, hopefully you at least have a tarp. You really should get a tent though. They’ve come a long way and you can get really nice ones that you can fit on or in a bug out bag now.
In case you don’t have anything, you should at least learn how to make a debris shelter. They cost less effort than most shelters as long as you have something available in the area. They won’t stand up to heavy winds though.
Food
Once you’ve gotten fire, water and shelter, you probably want to be thinking about food. You may be able to go a month without food without dying but in addition to the incredible amount of suck there is without eating for several days, you start losing energy to do things. One of these things is thinking. If you don’t have food in your belly, you’ll eventually start making mistakes a lot more often.
Hopefully you brought some MREs with you
If you don’t have food with you, you’ll have to find some. If you have a river, lake, or ocean around, fish are one of the best foods to go after. Obviously, you can make a hook and may be able to find some kind of line and some bait but a basket is usually a better option. Here’s one way to make one using vines.
For small animals, a snare trap is a great thing to learn because it’s not too difficult, can work if placed in the right spot, and you’ll probably be able to find material for. You need to do it a couple times so you know how each piece works in the system. I’d suggest putting it on a path where you can see small animals go through or making a trail funnel with some logs or stones to force them to go where you want.
You should also become familiar with the plants and animals in whatever area you’re thinking about going into. Plants are the safest and simplest way to eat but you have to know what you’re doing. I don’t care what they taught you about the Universal Edibility Test though, it’s crap. You shouldn’t be eating something if you don’t know what it is.
First aid
Hopefully you’ve brought along a first aid kit
For the most part, you need to know the basics of keeping a wound closed and clean, setting and immobilizing broken bones and identifying/treating for shock, hypothermia and heat exhaustion but you need to learn more if at all possible.
Signal
If you’re stuck out in the wilderness, hopefully you were smart enough to let someone know where you’re going and when to expect you to make contact. Or, you may be out there because your car broke down or your plane crashed. In any of these cases, your best bet is to sit tight and wait for rescue. That doesn’t mean that it’ll be easy to find you, even if they know where to look. You need a way to signal someone passing through that you’re there and need some help.
The big key is to be noticeable. If you can’t stay out in the open, put something out in the open that they’ll notice. Try to use movement, color and shapes that don’t fit in the area. Try to make it unusual. If you’re in the US, do things in groups of threes like three logs laid out in a field or three rocks together. In the UK and the Alps, use six.
Also consider building signaling into your equipment by doing something like sewing a rescue signal panel
If your bag has a ham radio, try 156.8MHz or 2182kHz. You’ll want to save your battery so just pop up on the radio occasionally or if you hear or see anyone. Get as high as possible. The BaoFeng UV-5R
Because they use aircraft for search and rescue, it’s a good idea to have a way to communicate with them. A signal mirror
Here’s an old WWII training video on how to use one.
If you’ve built a fire previously then a signal fire is also a good idea. The key is to have it ready to go when you see or hear someone and have it in a place that they’ll notice.
There are a lot of different things that you can do to prepare for being stranded in the middle of nowhere but the key is to start preparing now. You may not have any equipment you need (but hopefully you at least have a knife, lighter and a flashlight) but with the right knowledge and skill (some of this stuff requires practice), you’ll do fine.
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