Wilderness Survival
Attitude
A positive, rational attitude is necessary for survival. Fear and panic are natural responses that can kill if not controlled. First off, sit down and think. Take stock of your location, materials available, and your abilities, Relax and consider it a vacation. Understand your wants verses needs. A motor home may be nice, but a debris hut will keep you alive. Next, don't complain, do something. Activity soothes the mind, provides amenities, and assures survival. A survivalist's most valuable tool is his creative and reasoning mind.
Shelter
A shelter is the most important necessity for survival. It keeps you warm and dry, provides a home, reduces panic and wandering, and eases a search. Locate the shelter in a dry, well drained area, protected from the weather, facing south (maximum sun) and in a comfortable, material-abundant locale. A small shelter conserves heat and materials. A debris hut is a body sized framework of sticks and branches covered with several feet of leaves, debris, and bark (as shingling) and is stuffed with dry, fluffy material. Compact this inner filling and re-stuff. Complete the shelter with a leaf/branch doorplug. Snow is excellent insulation, but it is wet and cold. Build a snowpit. Dig down, preferably to the ground, forming a shoebox-shaped hole. Cover the bottom with 6 to 12 inches of dry insulation. Cover the top with large branches, then smaller branches, evergreen boughs and leaves. Next cover in snow. Locate the entry on the east side and finish with a doorplug.
Water
Water is a daily necessity. Water should be treated before consuming. Commercial water filters work the best, treatment pills and boiling (minimum of twenty minutes) are alternatives. Boil water over a fire or with red-hot rocks dropped into a container. Water is found in low areas, sometimes underground. Small, fast creeks are the safest bet in our area. A solar still collects and purifies water from the ground. To make a solar still, dig a 3' dia. hole, cone shaped, place a can in the bottom center, line the edges with branches, cover with a clear plastic sheet, and place a rock in the center, making the plastic droop in to a cone shape. Groundwater will evaporate, condense on the plastic, and drip into the container. Water can also be collected from plants (maple sap, grapevines and thistles) and from early morning dew (collect with a rag). Snow is another source for water, but melt it first (over a fire, or on the inside of a coat). Eating snow consumes a lot of body heat.
Fire
Fire can be very important, especially in winter. It provides warmth, assists in toolmaking, provides entertainment and diversion, and aids the searchers. First build a firepit and a reflector (a wall of logs or rocks). Collect a large supply of wood and dry tinder (inner-bark of downed trees, grasses, thistle, milkweed down, birch bark). Build a tipi of large branches and fill with tinder and small, dry sticks. Large logs can be burned in half.
Food
The human body can go for weeks without food. Eating wild includes trapping and fishing but relies upon plant gathering. GAP-C stands for Grasses, Acorns, Pines, and Cattails. One of these can be found almost anywhere, and all provide easy nourishment. Chew and spit the grasses and eat its grain, oak trees provide acorns (white and pin oak eat raw, others leach in water several hours), pine seeds and needles boiled in a tea are grand, and the cattail's root, pollen head, young shoots, and young flowerhead (boiled) are edible.