Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills (Paperback)

by John McPherson (Author), Geri McPherson (Author) "My first attempt at tanning with brain was in 1974..." (more)
Key Phrases: deer rawhide, hot rock cooking, loin sinew, Steve Watts, Jim Riggs of Oregon, Maria-Louise Sidoroff (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
--- the best. --- only books I have reviewed that actually work. Too many survival books are written by just copying someone else's work and in this way many mistakes, sometimes dangerous ones, are perpetuated. If you are going to purchase a survival book, get this one. I recommend it. -- Keith Burgess, outdoor writer and book reviewer, ARCHERY ACTION, page 23, Australia

... if civilization ends and you can carry only one object away with you, make sure it's this book. -- Tim Baker, Master Primitive Bowyer, Oakland, CA. Letter dated October 10, 1993

I have bought all eight of the previous volumes in your series, and use them regularly in teaching prehistoric/aboriginal technology to my students at Harvard. They are easily the most practical guides to this subject that I have ever seen. -- Prof. John Shea, Dept. of anthropology, Harvard University. Letter dated 22 May 1992

I'm looking forward to using your book as research for my next books. It is full of fascinating and useful information, and a welcome addition to my library. -- Letter from Jean Auel, 1 July, 1994

The McPherson's book ... deals with taking flat nothing into the boondocks and staying there for a long period of time. If you'd like to know how to make a spear thrower, or pottery, or brain cure deer hides, or build a permanent shelter from what you find at hand, here is the place to learn. -- Field & Stream, October 1993

The McPhersons are past masters of the primitive arts for outdoor living. The detailed coverage in each chapter is excellent. This is without doubt the best training guide for real primitive living skills. -- Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, Vol. 31, no. 3, Fall 1995

Product Description
Simply put, this is the best book in existence that has compiled under one cover all the skills that one would need to not only survive in the wilderness, but to live comfortably. Unlike many other complete! skills books, this one was written one chapter at a time as smaller books (ten) complete in themselves. They were written to teach the reader how-to ... and they do. If you read a chapter, you come away with not only an understanding of how-to do it, you will also understand the whys. Over 700 photographs, and some line drawings, illustrate step by step every skill presented.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Sunflower University Press; 1st compiled ed edition (March 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897459970
• ISBN-13: 978-0897459976
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #953,267 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

148 of 150 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easily the best book on the subject, August 8, 1999

By A Customer

Hands down this is the best survival book anywhere. The difference between this book and the majority of survival skills books is that most books will talk about why you should make a waterproof shelter and discuss the building of a waterproof shelter, but they won't tell you EXACTLY HOW to build it. If you read this book, you will be able to tan buckskin, construct baskets, make primitive pots, make effective and simple bows, make cordage, construct semi-permanent shelters, flintknapp basic tools, start fires from natural materials and much more.

This book is not about "surviving," rather it's about "thriving" in a wilderness situation. The McPhersons have written the best and easiest to read book you can find anywhere.

We liked this book so much we made it the book of the month at RFS Online for August 1999.

124 of 126 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Beginners Guide to Wilderness Survival, December 20, 2000

By	Jonathan Nelson (Illinois) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills: Naked into the Wilderness (Paperback)

This book is an excellent beginners guide for the inexperienced outdoorsman.

The book contains 10 well developed chapters that will get you well on your way to being able to "live off the land." The topics covered in this book are as follows: tanning deer skins, making fire, cordage, making a bow and arrows, making traps, meat preservation, primitive cooking methods, field dressing and butchering a deer, container making (baskets and pottery), making tools, and making shelters.

Most of these topics are covered in amazing detail with plenty of photographs. The McPhersons do an excellent job of explaining the topics so that even people with no outdoor experience could perform the task almost immediately. The only exception I found was the chapter on making baskets. Even though I read the chapter several times, I do not feel I could not weave a basket (in all do fairness, it may be easier when I actually attempt the task).

I can not stress enough how easy this book makes a seemingly impossible task for people who lack the basic knowledge of wilderness survival skills. The McPhersons don't just give you the instructions, they also explain the physics or logic behind what they are writing about. I recommend this book to anyone who needs/wants a firm foundation in basic survival skills.

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best out there., April 25, 2006

By	David Rostollan (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills: Naked into the Wilderness (Paperback)

I've studied, practiced, and taught wilderness survival on and off for around ten years, now. I've read an enormous amount of material on the subject of survival; some of it is quite good (Brown Jr., Wiseman, Davenport, among others), some of it is at best mediocre (e.g., FM 21-76).

However, this work by the McPhersons is in a class all by itself; it's simply outstanding. Unlike the majority of other books on survival, this book is filled with actual photographs, rather than drawings and illustrations. For instance, John Wiseman's "SAS Survival Handbook" is filled with an extraordinary amount of good information, but without actual photographs, the reader is never really "connected" to the skills being communicated. Of course, one must actually have real, hands-on experience in order to *truly* connect to the skills and practices being communicated, but the fact remains that good photographs are vastly superior to the average drawings found in survival handbooks, and as such will better prepare the reader for the actual event.

Although the information is not as far reaching in the same sense as something like Wiseman's Survival Handbook, it is far superior in the way it covers the limited amount of subjects that it does tackle. And those subjects are absolutely essential - thus they deserve the high degree of focus they receive to the exclusion of other lesser important skills. This book shows you the basic skills necessary to survive and to thrive - and it shows those skills with remarkable clarity. Sure, the grammar in this book is terrible, and the McPhersons are obviously not cultured in the traditional sense, but they know *this* subject, and that's what's important here.

I might complain at this point about a previous reviewer. J. Fusco's April 8th (single star) review is quite off base. He writes: "If this is your first survival book and you are looking to learn the basics of survival then I feel this is not the book."

I beg to differ. If I knew that the dearest person to me in all the world was about to get dropped into the middle of a North American wilderness, this is the FIRST book I would give to her. I've never seen its equal as far as explaining the basics of survival.

There are a few things I would have liked to see in this book that were not covered, yet are quite important. For instance, collection and treatment of water is a very important skill (think giardiasis), yet it received no attention here. In all fairness, though, this is by no means an insurmountable exclusion to anyone with half a brain. Almost everyone knows that boiling water renders it safe for drinking, so if one merely applies the skills learned from the sections on fire-making and various containers, the problem becomes a virtual non-issue (with a few rare exceptions, granted).

Also, the section on shelters, while good as far as it goes, leaves something to be desired. I would have liked to see a simpler, cold-weather type shelter that could be put up in a very short amount of time while still providing maximum protection from the elements. For example, Tom Brown Jr.'s "Debris Hut" (Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival, p. 30ff.) is excellent in this regard. I have personally survived sub-freezing temperatures in such a shelter with very little insulation except that provided in nature. The McPherson's book would have benefited greatly by including a shelter like the debris hut.

All in all, the small scruples I have with this book in no way detract from my estimation of its greatness, and my five-star rating is given without hesitation. Highly Recommended.