Customer Reviews

Wilderness Survival: Living Off the Land with the Clothes on Your Back and the Knife on Your Belt

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The title is what made me order this book. I wanted to hone my own survival skills that I'd gathered over the years, and the context of a story rather than a guide was quit appealing. Unfortunately what I found was of little value. I must say the whole context of the book is a little hokey. While other true survivalists have been known to fly into remote areas like Alaska with just the basics, these guys simply wander off a few hiking trails in the vicinity of an urban area. One gets lonely quite quick and leaves whenever he wants. 7 days into the journey they all hit the local restaurant for pizza, then the very next day have the gall to club a baby fawn to death in the name of "survival". Later Mexican food is brought in by a girlfriend.

This is not "survival" to me, just three guys choosing to live in the woods next to a highway. There was no danger from predators, disease or hypothermia. This self-serving exercise took place in the peak of summer in a hand-picked abundant forest, with emergency services and civilization only a walk away. Yet with all the clubbing, spearing and snaring they did, there was always the usual justification for there actions in controlling excess populations of animals.

There are certainly better books on the skills to exist in the woods, better written and richer in knowledge. True survival stories are also far more rich in adventure and authentic in nature. Pass this one unless found in a clearance bin and you need fuel for a campfire.

The book description above is misleading (sounds like an advertisement for some X-treme sport)...so here's the truth of the matter. Mike and I were clothed, and brought minor provisions. For example I brought a piece of leather, and we started the first few days with a small metal bowl. We were not in dense wilderness either, but rather in a mosaic of woodland, meadow and farmlands. This is a story of countless mistakes and learning, NOT a story of mastery. And for this reason, we hope is is more inspirational.

This book offers a terrific blend of the standard, "how-to" information of wilderness survival and a first-hand account of actually living it. I personally tend to absorb information much better when it's offered with personal experience. Nearly all wilderness survival guides on the market offer tons of information, but no personal experience. This book presents both in a very easy to read and enjoyable style. Five stars all the way.

First let me say that I liked the book. For entertainment value I would give it 5 stars. I read it very quickly - it was easy to read and the story kept me interested. Also the layout was nice, with little vignettes about survival or pioneering skills interspersed with the underlying story.

As you will know by now, it is the journal of a young man who intentionally attempts to "survive" in the wilderness for a long period of time. He and 2 friends are trained in wilderness survival skills and want to "put them to the test." The main theme of the book is to recount that experience, with a secondary purpose being to pass along some of their tried and tested woodsman skills.

My biggest objection is the misleading title. It is neither a story about wilderness nor a story about survival. They are so close to civilization that they have almost daily encounters with the people from the surrounding area. Assistance in the case of a real emergency was only a shout away.

As for survival, well, as the other critics have pointed out, they picked the time and place for their experience so that natural resources would be most abundant and the environment would be most hospitable. They "cheated" - some more than others - with trips back to civilization for food, shelter, and "comfort." Much of their time was spent observing nature and doing "crafts" that are useful for pioneering, but not essential for survival. They did harvest lots of game and fish for sustenance, and these stories are illustrative to a point.

They share their ideas, experiences, philosophies and thoughts. All of this is very entertaining. I think some of the ethical discussions are the most powerful parts of the story. I applaud them for doing something that many outdoor-oriented people have considered at one time or another. I am reminded of a childhood favorite: "My Side of the Mountain (Puffin Modern Classics)" by Jean Craighead George.

Unfortunately, with the title, it is possible that some prospective buyers will take this as a guide for how to survive in the wilderness; or that the writers had had an actual wilderness survival experience. That buyer would be sadly disappointed on both counts. Rename it Woodland Experience or Pioneering Experience, and you will get my 5 stars.

There are at least twenty books in my library on wilderness survival. None of them are like this one. Mark approaches this from a first person perspective. This is not scholastic research. Mark writes about this as he is actually DOING it!
This is a brilliant way to learn and experience wilderness survival. Great job Mark!!!

This book is unlike anything I have seen to date (and I have almost every title on survival). The combination of detailed skills instruction and the first-hand account of their implementation in a true survival situation clearly illustrate how such skills are to be put to use. Definitely inspiring!

I really enjoyed reading this book. Some of the transformations that Mark went through, and insights he shared, during his 46 day wilderness survival experience will always stick with me. I got the feeling he was trying to be as honest as anyone could be about his experience. Especially the part about coming to the deep realization that he was an animal playing by the same rules that all other nonhumans have to follow in the biological community.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in wilderness surival, the living community, or seeking insight into the question what are role is on this planet.

This is a coming of age book by one of the great trackers and naturalists: Mark Elbroch. It is not just a journal of his life changing experience living off the land, however. It is also a book that contains very specific guidance on survival skills from pine tea to debris huts, baskets and cordage to fire, hunting and fishing to cooking and food storage, and many more, always emphasizing function over form. Thus, it's like two books in one. But it is his journal of survival and growth that will touch you; from his crying as he held the deer he had just killed, to his realization that when he eats an animal or a plant it becomes a part of him, and creates an obligation to do good in his life. While the survival information in the book is excellent, the journal portion tells, in Elbroch's words, "a story of learning rather than expertise." I for one enjoyed that, and I highly recommend this book.

This is a great book that tells a great story of wilderness survival. Mark has some of the best field guides and this book can be added right along side those. Being that this is told from first person makes it that much more intersting. Anyone into wilderness survival, tracking, and primitve skills, this book is a must.

As a person who has been camping outside since he was eight in all types of weather, I found this book strange and interesting. Interesting in the intellectual sense of the term -- here are two city slickers in middle life getting the wilderness religion. Strange in the sense that almost all of that they do, could not be classified as survival. If you are looking at this book as an interesting way to go "wild in an semi--rural area" and learn a few interesting tricks. Most of them better practised in your garage (since you would be dead from starvation and most certainly hypothermia by the time you got to use them). Then this is an interesting book. It should be titled differently -- perhaps "Weekend Wilderness for the Urban Man" of "50 Projects for You to Make by Hand on a Desert Isle Assuming You have Unlimited Food, Good Shelter and Water" -- do not get me wrong... there are a lot of great ideas here, and the book is very worthy... but it's not Survival.

This book should be read more for its musings on man's place in modern society and his relationship to the land. In this sense the first-person accounts are very good and unique to this style of writing -- one does wonder what it would be like to run about the leafy (from what I can tell largely close urban) wilderness and try to "survive."

There authors took minimum tools and clothes and minimalist attitudes in this backyard, road-crossed "wilderness" and tried to live. Many of the things they did, the experiences they gained are worthy ideals and even more interesting for anyone contemplating such an adventure experience.

The problem with the book is simply this: If you were actually in a survival situation there is little that this book can teach you on immediate survival such as thwarting hypothermia, finding your way out and attracting attention. The latter two endevours the authors tried to avoid as part of their experiences -- which is completely fine. But the danger is of course that someone (largely some urban refugee with little practical experience, deludes themselves into thinking that this book actually "teaches" survival. It is does not... it teaches a person how to have a sorth of new-age wilderness experience.

If you were to use this book as the basis of survival in a wet and cold environment you would be dead in hours! Period. In fairness to the authors, that is not the purpose of this book, but with a title such as "Wilderness Survival" it is very likely the purpose of its readers.

The most glaring example is the oft-cited debris hut. To anyone that has ever built one we all know that these only work in environments that are largely dry and above freezing. Try building a debris hut on the Olympic Pennisula in the middle of November and you will quickly realise that these shelters get wet in hours and remain waterlogged for days and weeks. Inside the book our heroes actually have to take shelter in an older building when they are drowned out of their debris huts. Other survival huts are not mentioned. Nor is any cold-weather survival at all. As any person can tell you, survival outside of the desert (and even in a desert) IS cold-weather survival. ( I should note that I have been building a variety of shelters since about eight. I actually abandoned a debris hut when lost overnight -- it as leaking very badly, when I was 13 and managed to find that most rare of things on the Canadian Pacific Coast -- a dry spot under a tree).

Although the instructions on building tools and clothes are good, these are secondary to surviving, and should be noted as such. As for stalking the animals mentioned in this book. I can believe large parts of it... other parts smack of fanciful invention -- like following the black bears into the forest... Maybe I just did not live in the forest long enough to acquire a stench of forest normality that calmed the aninmals... but I have never seen nor heard of animals behaving in some of the ways they are described in this book.

Be all that as it may I enjoyed this book through numerous bathroom reads and also it gave me ideas of my own... but I will leave the debris hut behind. It is a book to be used in conjunction with more practical survival guides -- best of course being that of the world's most proficient special forces in the world -- "The SAS Survival Manual."