The Outdoor Survival Handbook: A Guide To The Resources & Material Available In The Wild & How To Use Them For Food, Shelter, Warmth, & Navigation [Paperback]

Raymond Mears (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1993

Whether you are a novice hiker or camper, or a more experienced outdoorsperson who spend weeks or months in the wilderness The Outdoor Survival Handbook will help you make the most of your adventures in the great outdoors. Suvival-skills expert Raymond Mears delivers dependable, thorough, and easy-to-understand advice on every aspet of outdoor survival, season by season. The essential everyday skills you'll learn include how to:

construct a warm, waterproof shelter at any time of the year
build a good fire in all kinds of weather
gather, prepare, and cook wild foods for tasty and nutritional meals
identify medicinal herbs
collect and purify water
track and idenfity animals
orienteer using map, compass, and natural navigational aids
make tools and equipment from natural materials
and much more.

Filled with practical tips and hundreds of useful drawings and diagrams, this book will help outdoorspeople of all experience levels mater the art of taking full enjoyment in the wilderness without violating the natural wonders that surround them.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Mears, who teaches woodlore courses, advocates learning to "see through the eyes of an indigenous native." He emphasizes a back-to-nature philosophy and survival skills that can be applied nearly anywhere. The line drawings are very good; Mears is obviously knowledgeable and writes clearly. The book is a mixture of very basic skills, such as making fire, plus recipes for outdoor cooking, truck identification, basket making, and poisonous fungi identification. Unfortunately, each topic receives just one or two pages, and no references for further reading are supplied. Furthermore, this book was first published in Great Britain, and all the supply source addresses are British. Readers wanting some depth and American specificity would do better with Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival (Berkley Bks., 1984) or Paul Rezendes's Tracking and the Art of Seeing ( LJ 10/15/92). Not recommended.
- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Raymond Mears is a frequent lecturer on outdoors survival skills and an expert on the survival techniques of native people. He lives in England.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (June 15, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312093594
• ISBN-13: 978-0312093594
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Survival Skills

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good general information, January 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Outdoor Survival Handbook: A Guide To The Resources & Material Available In The Wild & How To Use Them For Food, Shelter, Warmth, & Navigation (Paperback)

While Mears' book has clear illustrations and an interesting (seasonal) organization, other books such as Outdoor Survival Skills by Larry Dean Olsen and How to Stay Alive in the Woods by Bradford Angier both provide more in depth, specific information.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Outdoor Survival Handbook, September 13, 2007

By 

Sam Adams (Minnesota. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Outdoor Survival Handbook: A Guide To The Resources & Material Available In The Wild & How To Use Them For Food, Shelter, Warmth, & Navigation (Paperback)

The subtitle of this book is: a guide to the resources and materials available in the wild and how to use them for food, shelter, warmth, and navigation. The author has parceled out his observations, instruction and advise according to the four seasons. So rather than having a single chapter on types of shelter which one could locate or construct in the wilderness within the various climates or seasons, he parcels out this information over the four main chapters of the book. He does this for each category of survival: shelter, fire, water, cordage, and food. His intention seems to be that the reader use the book as an introductory survival course beginning in the spring, focusing on the particular type of shelter shown in that chapter and not getting distracted by other types that either cannot or need not be built then.

There is some sense to this kind of organization, but yet he leaves any discussion of hygiene or cooking, for example, until the summer chapter, when surely this information would have been just as relevant to the spring. If you have to at least selectively read ahead anyway to be better informed, why not just organize the book from the start so that the categories of survival occur as separate chapters, with the special circumstances of each season being discussed within the category, rather than breaking the content of the category across the four seasons? But the organization according to seasons allows the author to focus upon nature as it lives in each season, which seems to be as important to him as the types of shelter or the various methods of starting a fire.

The book is well illustrated and feels quite accessible. There is quite a bit of useful information on tinder and laying out fuel for a fire, even though it doesn't all occur, as it logically should, in a single chapter; and there is much, also, on cordage, but again, not all in one place. Because of the large and clear illustrations, it seems a good enough first book on wilderness survival. It does not overwhelm the reader with detail, but for some readers it is that very complexity of detail and a more rigorous organization that would be missed.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good all around book, November 7, 2006

By 

David E. Lelievre (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Outdoor Survival Handbook: A Guide To The Resources & Material Available In The Wild & How To Use Them For Food, Shelter, Warmth, & Navigation (Paperback)

First, this book is not about wildnerness survival. The recipes that include garlic and butter are well, not practical if your lost in the woods. The book is more geared towards going into the wilderness with everything you need at your disposal, and not lacking the essentials. The information is well presented, and does not deal with emergencies but rather going out into the woods and enjoying yourself.

The book is more about developing a spiritual relationship with wildnerness and emergency wildernesss survival is a matter of life and death, and not a romantic experience where you walk out having touched the hand of God. If you live, you will probably find God. I bought this book for the sole purpose of learning about survival in the wilderness. I found alot of very useful information, but, having a pretty solid base already, the book is still a fun read.

The sections on cordage are very well done, and the sections on pottery, skinning are also well done. I think if you want to have a rewarding wilderness experience without the dangers of being lost, this book is awesome. If your looking for what to do in case your lost, this might not cover all the bases.

Still a nice book that I frequently thumb through while sitting in the bathroom.