It is two days before I head into the wilderness for my summer survival challenge. Unlike all my previous challenges, a larger burden rests on my shoulders for this one. Two of my nephews are coming with me. Jay is 12 years old and Dre is 10. Neither of them have ever done anything like this before.
I promised their parents that I would take good care of them, and that I would make sure they are fed, hydrated and warm. That is a tall order for a survival challenge. I am both excited and scared to death. They are just excited. They have no idea what they are about to endure.
In any survival scenario, there are four pillars of survival. These are food, water, fire and shelter. Without any of these priorities, long term survival is impossible. However, there is a different sense of urgency for each of these pillars. You can only last three hours in cold weather without shelter or fire for warmth, only last three days without water, and three weeks without food. In terms of time frame, this makes food the lowest priority. So why so much emphasis on finding food?
Why Food?
It seems like every survivalist on television is seen fashioning a spear and hunting for meat. Is this for ratings and entertainment or is food more important than we think? Survivalists appear to spend time searching for food from day one. Why is this? If you can survive for three weeks without food, shouldn’t survivalists be spending their time on the other pillars of survivals?
Keeping You Effective
Food has so much more value than just keeping you alive. The first fact to understand is what happens to your body when you do not consume calories. When you burn more calories than you take in, your body is in a state of caloric deficit. Initially, your body will burn fat to give it the energy needed to keep going. However, very quickly the process of your body cannibalizing itself progresses. It starts burning muscle and organ tissue in order to survive. This includes attacking brain tissue.
As your body starts to eat itself, several side effects set in. You will first notice a general weakness and lack of coordination. A constant, splitting headache is a common symptom of this process. Memory loss and confusion are also noticed as the body starts to dwindle. As the brain drastically reduces in size, an overwhelming depression sets in. These symptoms can have dire consequences in a survival situation.
Being weak and uncoordinated makes the physical nature of survival very difficult. It becomes much more likely that you injure yourself with these symptoms. Confusion and memory loss can lead to a victim getting lost while working away from camp, and can make it difficult to even remember what needs to be done. Depression can cause a person to lie around all day and avoid needed tasks, or can cause the person to give up entirely. Food has numerous benefits other than keeping you alive.
Morale
In addition, food is vital to the morale of a survivalist. When you spend your day working to the bone trying to stay alive, a hot meal is a great way to wind down before bed; when you are stressed to the max and on the verge of tears, food can keep you going; when you have hiked for miles and do not think you can take another step, eating can replenish the energy you need to push on. This may be even more important than the physical benefits of finding food.
Why Trapping?
There are several different ways to collect food in the wild. Probably the easiest is gathering wild edible plants. However, this provides a limited amount of calories and almost no protein. You also must have the knowledge to avoid poisonous plants.
Hunting with a spear or makeshift bow is what we all envision ourselves doing, but in most cases, it is not a good idea. Tromping through the woods all day burns a huge number of calories, takes up all of your time, and risks injury from the terrain or the animal itself. Your odds of success are very low as well. Fishing can be hit and miss, plus many forms of primitive fishing require you to get wet. This does not work well with staying warm.
That leaves trapping.
When you are in a survival scenario, you really need protein to keep going. In addition, you need a way to collect it that does not burn up all your time and energy. Trapping allows you to set up several traps and then simply check them once or twice a day. The rest of the day is yours to work on other priorities.
However, trapping is a skill that takes years to hone. In addition, more is better. Many people set one or two traps and are surprised when they do not get any meat. For regular success, I suggest 20 to 30 traps. You do not need to set them all at once, but eventually that should be your goal. Once a successful trap line is established, you can count on having meat on a regular basis.
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