20 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Intro to Camping, November 15, 2008
This review is from: RICH JOHNSON'S GUIDE TO WILDERNESS SURVIVAL: How to Avoid Trouble and How to Live Through the Trouble You Can't Avoid (Paperback)
This is a hard book to review. On one hand, it is easy to look through and well laid out yet the title is completely wrong for the contents. This book is about camping. Lots of information on the equipment with a scant few "survival skills" sprinkled in here and there. Most of the survival skills covered are done in such a way as to indicate the authors familiarity with the general concept, but lack of any real experience. In the chapter called "FOOD", subsection "Become A Hunter-Gatherer", Johnson covers very scantily, cattail, dandelion, thistle, nettle and rosehips. He mentions cattails have "...an edible root system" yet fails to mention anything about processing said roots. For hunting he recommends using a throwing stick to get birds and suggests finding their nests for eggs. Smoking out rodents from their burrows is also mentioned as is "...you can also capture frogs, crawdads, turtles and small fish." No mention on how to capture them or process them. Aside from a brief mention of insects, moths and muscles he offers no other information on getting food. And that is the whole section on hunting and gathering! More print is used in prepackaged camping foods and warning about Hantavirus and the like then about actually getting grub.
The book assumes you have water filters, tents, sleeping bags, tarps, a GPS and the like. Putting out a tarp to collect rain water is a no brainer and so is much of the information contained in this book.
Johnson tries to prop up his limited experience (yes I know he maintained a squatters camp in an old miners shack and a cave for a year) through lots of weak anecdotal stories and plenty of catalogue-esque pictures of himself modeling hats or water filters.
All-together disappointing as absolutely no new information was added to the survival world.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book, March 25, 2009
This review is from: RICH JOHNSON'S GUIDE TO WILDERNESS SURVIVAL: How to Avoid Trouble and How to Live Through the Trouble You Can't Avoid (Paperback)
This is an excellent book for someone who is intersted in learning the skills of survival. The book is full of useful information, and makes a great companion to other books you might have read on the subject. I have yet to see a book that has everything that one needs to know, but this one comes close.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book for the weekend adventurer, September 23, 2008
This review is from: RICH JOHNSON'S GUIDE TO WILDERNESS SURVIVAL: How to Avoid Trouble and How to Live Through the Trouble You Can't Avoid (Paperback)
After reading this book I feel I am well prepared to adventure off the beaten path on my varied exploring adventures. Mr. Johnson has covered all facets of solutions to possible mishaps in clear understandable language even the most novice of would-be woodsmen can follow. Mr. Johnson writes with enough humor to keep the extremely serious subject interesting. It is a must read for those who plan to take up camping/hiking in the future, and helpful hints for those more experienced in this field. Lenny, (Leonora)Ames, Maryland
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