*Note, the throwing stick may be illegal in your area. Please only use this tactic in a survival situation.

People often ask me what I believe is the best all-around primitive hunting weapon. In my opinion, it is the throwing stick! Of all the weapons, including bows and arrows, atlatls, and spears, I believe the throwing stick is the one primitive weapon all humans should learn to wield. Let me explain.

Imagine yourself in a survival situation. For whatever reason, there you are, in the middle of nowhere. The first thing, of course, is not to panic. After taking a deep breath, you start to prioritise the skills and tools necessary to keep you alive in the woods. If you listened to my recent online presentation, you heard me speak of the “Sacred Order.” If you have done any research on wilderness survival, you may have heard it referred to as “the rule of three’s.” Basically, it’s a list of what will kill you the quickest. In order, they are shelter, water, fire, and food.

Now, back to our imagined scenario. Once you have taken a deep breath and gotten your mind under control, you assess the situation and decide to start looking for a viable shelter location. About 30 yards into your search, a squirrel appears twenty feet in front of you. You make eye contact, and it runs off into the woods.

You just lost your chance at dinner! When you realize you are in a survival situation, the first thing you do is pick up a throwing stick; if there are no sticks, pick up a rock. Either will work as a throwing weapon. We need to adhere to the sacred order to stay alive, but you never pass up anything because you are not at that “number” on the list. By the time I find my shelter location, I will have collected components for a fire-making kit, trap parts, wild edible plants I see, or maybe a piece of bone to make into a knife. I will have armloads of materials. You are by yourself and need to conserve energy by gathering things as you see them. Never pass anything while saying to yourself, “I’ll come back and get that later.” You may not make it back that way.

But I digress. The throwing stick will be your most valuable hunting tool. It is a powerful, extremely deadly hunting weapon, and I have used it to harvest many different birds and animals. To truly experience this weapon’s hunting capabilities, you have to practice it and take it to the instinctual level. Tools are extensions of our bodies that allow us to do things we otherwise would not be able to do. Whether a fly-rod or a hammer, it is of the utmost importance that we learn the proper technique and form until it is etched into our muscle memory.

You have to practice to be good at hunting with a throwing stick—there is no way around it. All you need is a backyard, a pile of sticks, and a few targets.

Historically, the throwing stick was one of the most widely used hunting tools, and was probably one of the first adopted by our early ancestors. They appear throughout history and were used in one form or another by any hunter-gather group I have ever studied.

The indigenous peoples of the Americas used them, and examples have been found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs and the Aborigines of Australia. It is primarily used as a small game hunting tool, however, if you take it to an art form level, most animals are well within this tool’s limits. I once read an excerpt from the journal of a Spanish explorer who was in California during the late 16th century. Naturally, he wrote about the indigenous peoples he encountered.

“A type of club in the shape of a well-balanced cutlass, which they use in war, but also in the hunting of hares, deer, antelope, and coyote throwing so far and with such aim, that they rarely fail to break the bones of animals that come into range.”

Being as passionate as I am about the “throwing arts,” as I call them, that passage always stuck with me. As you can see, with practice and the right type of stick, you do not need a more advanced weapon.

There are many different sizes and styles of throwing sticks. In this article’s context, I am referring to the most basic stick you will pick up off the ground and use with minimal modifications. I encourage you to research other types of advanced throwing sticks and hunting boomerangs.

With the more advanced stick, you can significantly increase your effective range. I can easily hit targets at 50+ yards with the “boomerang” style throwing sticks.

The basic stick you make by breaking a branch to the proper length has an effective range of 20-30 feet. Ideally, what I look for is a branch that is approximately wrist-thick in diameter and the length of your arm. Gather something that is as straight as possible with as few knots as you can find. It’s all about aerodynamics! I may take a minute to smooth the stick out a bit with a rock or my knife. It’s always a good idea to pick up an extra one to tuck in your belt if your primary stick breaks or you need a follow-up shot to finish the animal.

I want to take a moment to talk about throwing in general. Throwing is an internal skill, like riding a bike. Once you become good at it, you will always retain the ability. Sure, if you don’t throw for a while, you may be a little rusty when you pick it back up, but it won’t be long until you get back to the level where you left off. Also, any type of throwing will make you better at the throwing stick. When I run a weekend-long class strictly dedicated to the “throwing arts,” the first thing we do is collect a whole bucket full of tiny rocks. We will then spend a few hours throwing the stones at different targets at varying distances. Doing so builds the connection between your brain and your arm, helping you to understand the calculations on how to get a projectile to a specific target. It will serve as a stepping stone on the way to mastery and instinctive throwing.

That scenario I presented a while back, where the squirrel appeared in the trail in front of you? Only if you have practiced enough to where you quickly, instinctively, and without thinking, throw the stick at the squirrel will you harvest it. It needs to be instinctual, without thought, without aiming, just throwing and hitting your target. We will only achieve this level with practice.

On the subject of practice, we need to vary how we practice. If the only way you are practicing is stepping up to a line at the same distance from your target every time, you will only be good at that distance. You need to practice with different size sticks, at various ranges, you need to throw uphill, downhill, sidehill. The best way to practice, in my experience, is to move through the woods as if you are hunting and throw at different targets. An old stump here, a pinecone there, or that fence post at the edge of the field.

I love the “throwing arts” because to be an effective hunter with a throwing stick, you need to be proficient at so many different skill sets. First, you have to be comfortable with your weapon. Secondly, you need to be good at stalking and movement because it is such a close-range weapon. You need to understand camouflage, as well as tracking and sign tracking. Only when all these skills come together in a blend of proficiency, do you have a tool to take larger game.

It is much easier to make a hunting boomerang to take down a deer than a bow and arrow.

Think about all the different types of raw materials you need to make a bow and arrow versus an advanced throwing stick, which you can make with rock, scraping away at that branch to get it flat and wide so it flies through the air quietly and with force. It’s something you can easily make with a knife or even a rough sanding stone.

With just a little practice, you will be good enough to take small game.  As I said, I have successfully harvested everything from birds in flight to fish in shallow water. It has fed me many a time when otherwise it would have been a long, hungry night. I’ve used my throwing stick to knock dry branches out of a tree on a rainy day to make a bow-drill kit when everything else was soaking wet. I use my throwing stick to pound the trees’ inner bark for making cordage or help me dig rootlets for a basket. You can see why it is such an essential tool to a person in a survival or primitive-living situation.

Stay tuned in the member’s portal for a video where I demonstrate proper technique and form, as well as some practice routines to help you become proficient with the most basic hunting weapon!

The post The Art of the Throwing Stick – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

I will start off by saying that we live in the “Camouflage” age. Never before has the average person had access to so many different camo patterns on so many different garments! You can see this for yourself if you go to any hunting store. Not only do we have all the hunting camo, but we also have a variety of military and tactical camo from around the world available to us with a quick trip to the store or a few clicks of the mouse. The problem is that while there are a few gems out there, most of it is useless junk!

Choosing the Right Camo Pattern

When choosing a camo pattern, I want the best pattern to suit the area where I will be using it. The problem is that store-bought camo patterns are very generic and broad, meant to be used in specific types of environments. I can’t walk into my local hunting store and say to the clerk, “I’m looking for a camo pattern that is West side of the Cascade range, early summer, creek bed, from 2-7pm”. The clerk would probably laugh you out of the store! 

Honestly, I prefer a solid color, Earth tone garments that match the tones of the land I am hunting over any store-bought camo pattern. If we want to truly camouflage ourselves to WHEREVER we may find ourselves, we need to get creative and get dirty!

The Beauty of Primitive, Natural Camouflage

The beauty of primitive, natural camouflage is it allows us to create extremely effective patterns with simple materials that we gather from the woods around us. Once we have materials, we can literally paint the custom camouflage directly onto our bodies or clothing! It’s as simple as that! For a little while, we will explore the world of primitive camouflage. Later on, we will talk about creating your own custom camouflage on garments of our choosing!

Considerations for Effective Camouflage

Before we start the process of creating the pattern with our materials, we need to stop and think for a second. First off, what is the goal of camouflage? Obviously, it is to hide or obscure our human form and blend into wherever we may be. I would also add that we should be able to move freely. What do I mean by this? Anyone can go into the woods and completely cover themselves with leaves and be hidden, but they will be stuck in that position unless they want to compromise their location. I want to pattern my camo in a way that I can move around to different spots on the landscape and be as hidden as possible. I need to move quietly, and I also want to effectively use a bow, throwing stick, or firearm. If I’m buried in the forest floor, I won’t be able to do these things.

Secondly, I want to take a look at the general area I’m creating my pattern for. What are the colors and patterns I see? What is the terrain like? How is the position of the sun affecting the shadows? Ideally, you are always camouflaged to shadowy areas as it the most universal light pattern. Unless you are out in the wide-open, there will be pools of shadow in different places as the day progresses.

Materials for Camouflage

I mentioned before that we need some materials if we want to create our custom camo patterns. Please keep in mind that you do not need to have all these things to create an effective camo pattern. Often we can get away with just having one of these things. Obviously, the more materials we have, the more detail, depth, and variations we can create. Here is the list.

• Charcoal
• Mud
• Clay
• Loam
• Soil 
• Wood ash

Once I have gathered my materials and made my decision as to how I am going to camouflage myself, it’s time to start the process of applying my “makeup”! My first step is to dull myself down. Because most of us are not entirely covered with hair and clean ourselves regularly, we have a shiny complexion. To get rid of the shine, we apply DRY wood ash. We use DRY wood ash because wet wood ash makes lye, giving us a chemical burn. I once had a student who was obviously not paying attention when I spoke of this and immediately went to the fire pit, which was wet because of a recent thunderstorm. He began to smear the paste all over his arms. Needless to say, chemical burns on both your arms are not fun!!! As long as you apply it while it is dry and dusty, it will be fine. Don’t worry about your sweat or rain turning it to lye. If you just dust yourself down, it won’t be concentrated enough to do so. You really want to dust everything down, especially your hair. This will help to absorb light and not reflect it. One of the problems with modern camo clothing is that it is often printed on shiny fabric. 

After we are done dulling, it’s time to start creating our camo pattern based on our landscape assessment. For instance, if I am in a young forest with many saplings, I may go with a vertical stripe pattern; if there’s rugged terrain and rocks, I may make my splotches round in shape.

Now I will take my mud and clay and start to apply my overall pattern. One thing about clay that is great is we can change its color and shade by adding soil, charcoal, or any other natural pigments we can find. Back in the pine barrens of New Jersey, where I grew up, you could mix a type of moss with clay to make it green. 

I will start with the mud and apply my pattern. In-between the mud, I will use clay and charcoal to accent the main pattern I am using. One thing to keep in mind is that typically mud and clay will be a different shade or color when it dries. It can be a subtle change or very drastic depending on the mud or clay. It’s always a good idea to do a test on your arm to see how it dries. A quick side note about charcoal: you can use it in chunks to apply to your skin, or you can crush it up and apply it that way. You can use the crushed up charcoal to add to mud or clay to change or alter the colors.

You want to be sure to camo everywhere! People always seem to forget the back of their necks, arms, and legs. If the rest of your body is camouflaged, those missed areas will stand out like a sore thumb! Get it everywhere!

After I have applied my pattern all over, I will go back and blend the edges of the different colors to soften the edges. Sharp edges in your camo pattern will be dead give away!

Next, I will collect some leaves, ferns, and a pinecone if I can find them. I will use them as stencils with the mud and clay to fill in the lighter colored areas to add depth and details.

Once I am satisfied with the overall pattern, I will then do what is known as the “final fuzz.” I will take handfuls of debris and press them all over my body. The goal is to get some of the debris to stick to you. This further helps break up the human outline and helps diffuse light. I may even gather a decent sized pile on the ground and gently roll in it. Please keep in mind to not move aggressively because you don’t want to wreck your new look!

After the final fuzz, I am ready to set out on my journey. Moving through the forest this way, especially when combined with good stalking and movement skills, will allow you to blend in and be part of the natural world. The other beautiful thing about this natural camo is it helps control our human odor, which many animals find offensive. During the warmer times of the year, it will protect against biting insects.

If you have camouflaged to sit in a specific spot for a long time, there are several factors to consider when choosing your resting position. How easy is it for me to see what’s going on around me? Can I quickly draw and shoot my bow from this position with minimum movements? If I plan on sitting here all day, how will the sun’s position cast light on this spot throughout the day? It’s also a good idea to bring a little extra charcoal and clay with you for any touch-ups you may need to do. The one drawback with natural camo is it will wear off after a while. There are more permanent solutions with natural camo, such as mixing colors and pigments with rendered fat and applying them to your body. These will not wear off as quick.

As with any skill, the only way to get good at this lost art is to practice! Gather as many different shades of mud and clay as you can. Observe what colors they are when wet and what shade they take on as they dry. I also think it is important to take some cues from nature. Look at creatures that have natural camo. Moths, snakes, lizards, birds, and animals all have camouflage of one sort or another. Even some companies out there are making garments based on critters in nature that have excellent camouflage. 

Creating Custom Camouflage Clothing

We can take things a step further by creating our own custom camo clothing. A quick trip to the arts and crafts store can supply you with many different shades and colors of dyes and paints that we can then apply to any piece of clothing that we see fit. Typically it’s good to use older garments with some wear to them as they are not as shiny as new garments. Once again, experimentation is crucial. Buy dyes and paints that mimic the earth tones in your area and start out by dying the whole garment in whatever base color you choose. Try all different methods of application. Try everything from squirt bottles to sponges cut into the shape of leaves. Use a pine cone to roll colors on. As you can see from the custom camo clothing pictures, when making your own camouflage clothing, the sky is the limit!  

*Photos by Sawyer Guinn

The post The Art of Natural Camouflage – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

Every year thousands of people get lost in the wilderness. Some make it out unscathed, others are never seen again. Many of these incidents could be easily avoidable with a little bit of knowledge and preparation before heading
out into the woods.

During this webinar, Tom Brown III will talk about some of the concepts and principles needed to survive, should you ever find yourself lost or stranded in the wilderness. He will discuss everything from the mental state needed to survive, to a few simple pieces of gear you should always have with you when heading into the great outdoors.
Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

The post Live with Tom Brown III: Introduction to Wilderness Survival appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

Survival Skills and Preparedness

Here at Anchored Outdoors, we strive to bring you useful content to get the most out of your outdoor experiences. As the homesteading and foraging coordinator, and a life-long practitioner of wilderness survival and ancient living skills, one of my goals is to provide you with the skills and principles you need to make it through a wilderness survival situation. 

Breaking Free from Dependency

Learning any self-reliance skill allows you to slowly break free of the systems that we all rely on to provide us with the necessities to maintain our life force. Electricity, automobiles, technology and grocery stores allow us to exist inside bubbles of safety, security and comfort. We fool ourselves into thinking these bubbles are impervious, when in fact, they are quite fragile. 

Dependency on Grocery Stores

Grocery stores give us access to a wide variety of food from around the globe 24 hours a day. I live in what most would call a very rural setting, but even I can hop in my truck and within 30 minutes visit 10 grocery stores or grab takeout from hundreds of different restaurants. Our homes are temperature controlled. We also have unlimited access to clean, drinkable water. Instant access to water is something that we especially take for granted. In the United States, we use more water in one flush of a toilet than many people worldwide use in an entire day for all their cooking, cleaning and drinking needs. 

Reevaluating Freedom

People, especially in the “Western” world, speak of freedom, yet we are far from free. We are bound tightly to the systems that provide the things needed to maintain our lives. Across the globe, there are many people who, by our definition, live in “poverty” who are, in fact, far freer than we are because they know how to take care of themselves without relying on so many systems. I find it funny that the metric we use to determine poverty is how much money someone has. 

Lessons from the Pandemic

For many of us, the current pandemic has been the first real taste of what things could be like when these systems start to fail, even though the status quo has remained relatively intact. Even though our travel plans have been interrupted, we can’t go out and sit down at a restaurant and there was also that brief toilet paper shortage. However, we can still get gas for our vehicles, groceries from the store and the electricity continues to flow into our homes.

Take a moment to imagine what life would be like if grocery stores are shuttered, gasoline isn’t available and electricity is cut off. Most people are so woefully unprepared for a scenario like this that it would lead to a complete and utter meltdown of society’s fabric. What if something as simple as our cellphones stopped working? People are so addicted to the devices we carry that I believe that alone would cause a significant issue. I once heard someone say something that always stuck with me, “Modern society is three missed meals away from complete chaos.” We are so used to having all our needs met that a scenario like the one I just mentioned would lead to mass panic. 

Wilderness Survival and Panic

Switching gears to wilderness survival, I can tell you that 90% of people panic when they realize they’re lost in the woods. Panic will kill you quicker than lack of shelter, water or food. For example, panicked people drop their backpacks full of clothes and food because they think they’re slowing them down. My father once tracked a missing hunter who walked right across a four-lane highway without noticing because of panic. 

Now imagine panic on a mass scale, in an urban or suburban setting. Ideally, a situation that adversely affects a large group of people would cause them to work together to get through it, but most likely, the opposite would happen. In the event of a mass crisis, you should avoid cities and areas of high population. But what if you live in an urban or suburban area? How can we make sure that we can take care of ourselves and those close to us? 

Prioritizing Survival Needs

Firstly, you must understand that the rules of wilderness survival and urban/suburban survival are the same. Rule number 1 is always the same, DO NOT PANIC! After taking a deep breath and getting our mind under control, it’s time to consider what we need to stay alive. Generally, in order of importance, we need: 1. Shelter 2.Water 3. Fire 4. Food. 

The Importance of Mental and Physical Health

When we panic, we are at risk of making bad choices. We’ve all heard the saying “survival of the fittest.” While this applies to evolution, strength or fitness, it has nothing to do with whether you will make it through a survival situation. We are what we think. Having and maintaining a positive mental attitude is of the utmost importance. That’s not saying being physically fit is not important. Now more than ever, you should also be thinking about your physical health and well-being. I find it sad that in all the news we get surrounding the current pandemic, nobody is talking about how being physically fit, eating good food, reducing alcohol consumption and being as healthy as possible is one of the best ways to avoid getting sick. 

I hope that you listened to the interview that April Vokey did with Keith McCafferty. I loved the interview because Vokey asked McCafferty at one point the most essential survival item people should carry with them into the wilderness. I was expecting him to say something like a knife or hatchet. Instead, I was surprised when he said, “Carry a picture of your family.” That way, any time you think about giving up, you can look at that photo and realize that you have something to live for! 

We can mentally prepare for survival situations, either in the wilderness or city, by continually asking ourselves the “What if’s?” and mentally planning for them. What if the power goes out for two weeks? What if grocery stores shut down? What if the water stops flowing from our taps? What if my house catches fire?

Urban Survival Considerations

If you find yourself in an urban setting when “the shit hits the fan,” what next? How you proceed depends on the situation. I suggest that everyone, no matter where you live, take some time to make a list of things that could potentially upend your life and thrust you into a survival situation. Start with natural disasters. Here in Oregon, we have a few concerns. Wildfires are an ever-present threat in the summer. I also thinking about earthquakes and I live close to Mt. Hood, an active volcano. When I lived on the East Coast, hurricanes were my main concern. In the Midwest, you need to think about tornados. 

After natural disasters, move on to identifying other threats. How close are you to the nearest nuclear power plant? Many threats could affect you no matter where you live. Some of those are disease, terror attacks, civil unrest, even a solar flare knocking out the power grid. Spend some time thinking of every possible “What if?” scenario you can think of and develop a plan for dealing with each scenario. When you have a minute, look up The Carrington Event. It happened Sept. 1-2, 1859. It knocked out much of the telegraph system at the time. If that same event were to happen today, it would severely damage our power grid, causing massive blackouts and frying many electronic devices. Many people don’t know this, but in 2012 a solar flare equal to the Carrington Event missed the Earth by nine days.

Once you’ve identified potential threats, make a plan with your family for each one. You need to ask yourself some important questions when planning, like is it better to shelter in place or leave your home and head to a different location? Regardless of where you live, you should have some supplies set aside in case of an emergency like a fully stocked first aid kit and a decent supply of water. The 5-gallon plastic jugs of water will last a long time because they’re sealed. Be sure to have some shelf-stable food set aside. You can buy canned food, or you can learn how to can and preserve your food. These are skills we’ll be sharing as Anchored Outdoors continues to grow. How much to set aside depends on how many people are in your home. It would be best to have at least two weeks’ worth of food and water for each person. If the power goes out, eat all of your perishable food first before digging into your shelf-stable foods.

Think about additional items you need to shelter in place without power and water. You should have some method to cook food like a small gas stove and fuel. Have candles or lanterns for nighttime, and headlamps, flashlights and extra batteries. You should also have a battery-powered emergency band radio. I like ones made by Eton as they have a hand crank you can use to charge them. That way, you can stay up to date on whatever situation may be unfolding around you. Don’t rely on cell phones alone. In an emergency, the network will be so strained it may be impossible to make calls or access the internet. 

Depending on the situation, leaving your home in a populated area may be the best choice. You should sit down with your family and plan several routes out of your area, ideally one route for each cardinal direction. Rendezvous points should be established along each route in case you get separated from family members or in case a family member isn’t home when it’s “go-time.” 

Your first inclination may be to use your vehicle. Depending on the situation, this might not be the best choice. Remember what it’s like when you’re stuck in traffic? Now imagine every person in your city trying to get out at once. There will be accidents, vehicles breaking down and those running out of gas, which will all cause bad traffic jams. If you plan to take a vehicle, carry enough extra fuel to completely refill your tank. Also, carry a tool kit suited to your level of experience with repairing vehicles. It’s a good idea to have a tire repair kit and portable air compressor to refill tires should the need arise. 

But sometimes the best choice is to leave on foot. No matter which method of evacuation you choose, every member of your household should have a “go-bag.” What you have in the go-bag depends on many factors. Everything in the bag increases its weight, so you don’t want to carry anything extra. If you’re forced from your home, you don’t want to spend excess time gathering things and packing. The go-bag needs to be ready to go. Other than the essentials, I mention below, and important paperwork (birth certificates, passports, social security cards), leave everything non-essential, no matter how hard that may be. Ask yourself what’s more important, your wedding photos or your life? Only things that are an absolute necessity should be taken. 

Prepare for the Unpredictable

These days the idea of “prepping” is trendy, you can visit any number of websites and buy pre-packaged kits. Some of the pre-made go-bags are great, while some are filled with items you’ll probably never use. Every member of your household should have a go-bag packed with items fitting to their age and experience. For example, for small children I recommend, they carry a few changes of clothes, some kid-friendly foods, a full water bottle and their favorite toy. 

If you choose a pre-made or DIY version, here’s what to include in your to-go bag: 

• A change of weather-appropriate clothing and extra socks 
• Knife 
• Multitool 
• First-aid kit
• Walkie-talkie for each family member and extra batteries (I’ve tried many brands in my life and found that the BaoFeng BF-88a are the best, their range is incredible and you can’t beat the price)
• Shelf-stable food 
• Full stainless steel water bottle 
• BIC lighters
• Water purification system 
• Lightweight sleeping bag and pad 
• Soap
• Gloves
• Small sewing kit
• 50′ of 550 para-cord 
• Survival blanket
• Lightweight camping tarp (tents are also an option but can add weight)
• Hand-warmer packets (can be put in a sleeping bag for extra warmth)
• Small fishing kit including hooks, split shot, small spoons or jigs, and mono fishing line

This part is hard to talk about because we always want to think the best of our fellow humans. During an event that causes a mass evacuation from an urban or suburban area, there will be people seeking to prey on others. To prevent this from happening to you, it’s best to “blend in” as much as possible. If you’re on foot, leaving your home dressed in the latest tactical gear and wearing a high-end backpack will make you a target. The best thing you can do is use some camouflage of sorts, but I don’t mean camo like you use for hunting. You should be wearing plain, simple clothing. The key is not to stand out. 

Every place/situation has a baseline. No matter if I am in nature or the city, I want to make sure that my movement or activity does not go above that baseline. For more on this topic, I suggest you check out my article on concentric rings. In situations where you’re in a large group of people, you need to have your awareness cranked up to maximum level. Keep your head on a swivel and always be looking around. Understand that in the blink of an eye, a group of people can go from being calm to utter chaos. I suggest avoiding being in the middle of a large group. Stick to the edges. Pay close attention to the ebb and flow of what’s going on around you. Always have an exit strategy.

I have purposely chosen not to address firearms in this article for several reasons. The only thing I will mention on the subject is that proper training is of the utmost importance if you do have guns. PLEASE spend the time and money getting training from a qualified instructor. Nothing is more dangerous than a panicking, untrained human with a firearm.

We like to think that life will always be perfect, and nothing terrible will happen. Hopefully, it will be. It seems like as far as the current pandemic goes, we are close to having a vaccine and that by summertime, life may return to normal. If this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s how quickly things can change. If we take some time to plan and prepare physically and mentally, we will be that much better equipped to deal with whatever comes next. Having these conversations with your family and friends can be difficult, but trust me in saying that it is worth it. As they say, “Proper planning prevents poor performance.”

If you want to learn more about urban/suburban survival, I recommend my father’s book “Tom Brown’s Field Guide to City and Suburban Survival.”

In the meantime, stay healthy and happy, and be thankful that you are alive!

The post Survival Skills and Preparedness: Navigating Urban and Wilderness Challenges appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

By Tom Brown III:

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

As an instructor of primitive living skills, I am often asked what, in my opinion, is the most valuable skill set to learn. Shelter building? Fire making? Water collection? Hunting and gathering? Knowing the basics of all of those subjects is incredibly important. You can’t survive without providing these basic needs.

In many cases, you will die in as little as three hours without shelter and three days without water, so obviously those are important. Fire making is also a necessary skill because we use fire not only to warm us but to purify water to keep us from getting sick. 

Lastly, we come to food. I remember as a young child accompanying my father on a tracking case for a missing hiker somewhere in upstate New York. Thankfully, he had been found by a helicopter just before our arrival. Although we didn’t get to track that day, we did get to interview the hiker. My father was always fascinated by these interviews because it offered him insight into people’s minds when they were in survival situations. This allowed him to better educate people on what to do if and when they ever found themselves lost in the wilderness. One of the things that still stands out to me about that conversation was after some preliminary questions; my father asked the missing hiker, “When you realized that you were truly lost, what was the first thing you thought about”? The guy blurted out, “FOOD!”

When most people get lost in the woods, the first thing they think about is food. The average healthy adult can go for three weeks without food before being severely impacted. Lack of shelter and water will kill you far quicker than a lack of food. The first 72 hours of a survival situation are the most critical. If you do not have some shelter, a fire going and a water source within that time, food is the least of your worries. Once those needs are taken care of, you can start thinking about food.

Last year I read a headline from a local newspaper. A man got his truck stuck in the snow and was missing for five days before being rescued. The headline in the paper said, “Missing man survives for five days by eating taco sauce packets.” I had a hearty chuckle when I read that. Further in the article it said to get water he melted snow. That is what kept him alive. Therefore foraging for food is a hugely important subject. Hunting and gathering is something that our ancestors perfected over millennia before the advent of agriculture.

Technically, the term “foraging” means the gathering of resources. These include plants, animals, rocks and water. Hunting is technically considered foraging, but in this article, I am mostly going to be talking about gathering plants for food. If we find ourselves in any situation where we do not have ready access to food, either because we are lost in the woods or a natural disaster has occurred, you need to switch on what I call the “survival mind.” The concept of survival mind is simple. Based on your knowledge and experience with wilderness survival skills, you learn to scan your surroundings and identify potential resources and signs of animal activity. 

Here’s an example: when I walk through the woods, I become hyper-aware. I am scanning for and identifying anything I consider to be a valuable resource. I am always on the lookout for potential shelter locations, water sources and the raw materials needed to make tools. Anything I see that I can use, be it a branch I can turn into a fire-making kit, an animal bone that can be crafted into a knife or plants that I can make into rope. I will also be looking for anything I can safely eat. It is crucial to read the landscape itself and make mental notes of possible hunting and trapping areas. The only way to truly cultivate the survival mind is through study, research and practice. I utilize it any time I am in the woods. It’s all about taking in and processing large amounts of information.

As I stated earlier, I am not going to go in-depth on the subject of hunting. However, I want to mention that anytime you are out foraging while in a survival/primitive living situation, you should always carry a hunting weapon. The most easily constructed hunting weapon is a throwing stick, also known as a “rabbit stick.” Throwing sticks are probably one of the first hunting tools our early ancestors used. It is a universal tool, meaning that every hunter-gatherer culture across the globe used them. Everyone from Australia’s aboriginals to the many different indigenous peoples of the Americas had a variation of the throwing stick. They even found throwing sticks in King Tut’s tomb! I plan on exploring the art of the throwing stick in a future article. There will also be a segment dedicated to the throwing stick included in the masterclass I will be producing on how to survive the first 72-hours of a survival situation. While you’re out searching the landscape for resources, you never know when the opportunity to harvest an animal will arise. Never leave your camp without one! The moment you realize you are in a survival situation, you should pick up a throwing stick, or a rock to use as a hunting tool.

In both rural and natural areas, there are several places we can reliably forage for food. Ideally, you want to seek out areas that have the most biodiversity. These areas, also known as transition zones, harbor the most plant and animal life. It’s an area where there is a transition between a forest and a meadow. Another example typical in the Western states of the U.S. is an area that was burned in a wildfire a few years earlier or space that was clear-cut many years prior. These areas provide animals (yourself included) with many food sources, and the cover animals need to feel safe. Most animals, especially small game, will avoid the wide-open forest as they do not feel safe there. It makes sense that if animals seek the transition zone because of more viable food sources, you should too!

Before I start talking about plant sources for food, I want to talk about foraging in and around bodies of water. Lakes, ponds, streams and rivers are replete with many different food sources. In and around these bodies of water we can gather fish, frogs, turtles, crawfish, snails and mollusks, to name a few. Hunting and foraging the waters of our planet requires some specialized skills to do effectively, but even with a basic understanding, bodies of water can yield their bounty. I will be writing an article soon about foraging in and around bodies of water.

In most places, there are hundreds of different species of plants and trees. When it comes to the edibility of plants and trees, only a small fraction are deadly. A slightly larger portion may have some toxic compounds, but not kill you. There is a higher number still that aren’t toxic at all, but our body is not capable of breaking down the food, and it may cause us some discomfort, or make you throw up. Herbivores have specialized digestive systems and gut biomes made to process these types of plants, and we do not. My goal in this article is to teach you some plant families that can yield food sources to us in every season of the year.

I want to take a moment to talk about safety and wild edible food sources. We gather plants to eat to provide us with the energy we need to keep our body and brain functioning. If we eat the wrong plants, we cannot only get sick, but we also run the risk of dying. PLEASE do your research before you eat ANY plants. I recommend that you positively identify a plant with at least three sources before consuming them. There are plenty of stories out there of people getting sick from eating a plant or mushroom that someone once told them was edible. Today we also have access to a host of phone apps that are supposed to identify plants. I read a news story a few months back about a mother and child who got very sick because they ate mushrooms that some app on their smartphone said was edible. I have seen books out there that have poisonous plants labeled as edible as well.

A good starting point is the “Peterson Field Guide to Wild Edible Plants.” I have found it to be a great resource when identifying plants. Another helpful safety-minded piece of advice I will give you is always to assume that every edible plant has a poisonous look-alike. At the end of this article, I will provide a list of books I highly recommend and know to be safe and reliable. 

Once we have positively identified a plant as edible, it’s a good idea to eat it sparingly at first. Everyone’s body is different. A plant that may be fine for one hundred people to eat may contain a compound that doesn’t agree with you. Eat a small amount and wait 30 minutes to 1 hour to see how you feel. Lastly, be mindful of where you forage. Plants readily absorb toxins from the Earth. It’s not wise to gather plants near highways or industrial sites. I would also advise thoroughly washing any plants you gather before eating. I have seen people eat plants off of the sides of trails where people regularly walk their dogs. Dogs like to pee on things. Enough said!

One more side note on edible plants in general. It’s called “the three rights.” The three rights are “right part, right season, right preparation.” For certain plants, only one part is edible. Cherry is one that comes to mind. Cherries are very delicious and edible, but the pits and leaves of the tree contain a form of cyanide. As far as the right season goes, fern fiddleheads are edible in the spring while they are young but rapidly become toxic as they grow. When it comes to the right preparation, plants like milkweed and pokeberry are toxic, even when they are young, but if you prepare and cook them properly, it removes the toxicity.

From a medicinal standpoint, there are plants in their natural form that are highly toxic, yet when processed in a lab, they can yield essential medicines. Here in the Pacific Northwest, and many other places, there is a plant called foxglove (see photo). This beautiful flowering plant is deadly. Yet, pharmaceutical companies identified a compound with the plant called Digoxin, which is used in medications to regulate heart rhythm.

Now I would like to introduce you to what I call “the big four.” These are four families of plants and trees found worldwide, east to west and north to south. The best part about the big 4 is that they can provide a food source no matter the season.

Pines

All species of pines are edible. But keep in mind that not all evergreens are pine. Pines typically have two to five needles per bunch with a paper sheath at the base. A year-round food source on pines is the cambium layer. Cambium is the spongy layer between the outer bark and the actual wood of the tree. Pine cambium can be peeled out and eaten raw. It can be cut in strips and cooked like noodles, or be dried and eaten like jerky. It may not taste the best, but it is full of sugars, vitamins and other nutrients. Be careful not to remove too much from a single tree. Since it is the tree’s living layer, taking too much can allow disease in or kill the tree.

Another year-round source is the needles. They can be gathered, chopped up and made into a tea full of vitamins A and C. In fact, pine needles have four to five times the vitamin content of fresh squeezed orange juice.

In the spring, we can collect the fresh buds growing on the tree and eat them raw. Unlike cambium, the buds are quite delicious. We can also collect pine pollen in the spring to add to flour or sprinkle on tops of other foods. The pollen is full of protein! 

Next up are the cones. When the new pine cones are young and green, they can be harvested and cooked like a potato. When the cones of certain pines mature, they can yield tasty seeds, also known as pine nuts. All species of pines will produce seeds or nuts, but many are very small, and not worth the effort to get at them. There are about 20 species of pines in the world that have seeds big enough to warrant the effort of gathering them.

Oaks

Oaks are up next. While they only have one food source, the acorn, it holds a spot in the big four because it is a common family of trees that grow worldwide. It was a hugely important food source for people across the globe in the past. In certain parts of Europe, taking acorns from “the king’s land” was punishable by death! Taking a raw acorn and turning it into a food source is a bit of work, but well worth the effort. The process is simple, but would take more time to explain fully than I have room for in this article. A quick web search will give you many resources and I recommend this article that Hank Shaw wrote on the subject. 

In short, you collect the acorns in the fall. You want to collect the undamaged ones that aren’t crushed or have wormholes in them. Another concern is mold if you are harvesting acorns in wet environments. Once you have a good supply, you can take the cap off, and dry them out. Once they are dry, you can store them as-is until you are ready for the next step or crack the tough outer shell open and get at the seed inside. You then have to leech the bitter tannic acid out by soaking them in water. Depending on the species, some oaks require several changes of water to get the bitterness out. This process will turn the water a tan/brown color. Every time you change the water, it will get lighter in color.

A quick side note, you can save the liquid which can be used as an astringent. It has anti-microbial properties and can be used on scrapes and as a mouthwash to treat sore throats and gum infections. The other use of the tannic water is as a solution for tanning hides. 

After you leech the acorns you must dry them out again, and then roast them. After roasting, you can eat them as is. The flavor is reminiscent of chestnuts, or you can grind them up to make acorn flour. You can make breads, ash cakes and just about anything you can use regular flour for. It can be stored for a very long time if it’s kept cool and dry. Ideally, you want to store your acorn flour in the refrigerator as it has a reasonably high fat content and it can spoil. The wood of oak trees and saplings also has many utilitarian uses— baskets, bowls and tool handles, to name a few.

Grasses

There are 14,000 species of grasses. All but four are edible. Grasses make up 10 of the 15 major food crops produced (corn, wheat, barley, rye, etc.). Grasses cover one-third of the Earth’s landmass. In a pinch, grass leaves can be chewed, the nutrients and juices swallowed and the plant material spit out. You can dig up the rhizomes (roots) peel off the outer layer and eat them raw or cook them. 

Grass seeds are the primary source we are after, and because there are so many species, they tend to go to seed at different times of the year, from early spring to winter. Gathering grass seeds, then separating the “wheat from the chaff” can be time-consuming. The grains can be cooked into a gruel and eaten or dried and ground into flours. Grasses can also be used as an excellent shelter covering, and certain large grasses can be bound together and made into boats!

Cattails

Cattails are in the grass family and grow around ponds, lakes and marshes. Like the pines, it will provide us a food source every season of the year. It has been lovingly called “the supermarket of the swamp.” In the spring and early summer we can harvest the green shoots and peel away the outer layers to expose the tender, white fleshy part. They are delicious and have the taste and texture of cucumber. They can be eaten raw, cooked or steamed.

When the flower head starts to form we can harvest them, then peel away the green papery sheath and steam or boil for 10 to 15 minutes. Eat them like corn on the cob! Once the flower head matures, it will start to produce pollen that we can harvest by placing a bag over the flower head and gently shaking it. Repeat this process until you have a decent amount of pollen. The pollen can be added to other flours such as acorn or grass seed, which will enhance the flavor and add nutritional value to them. 

In the fall, winter and early spring, we can dig up the rhizome, cut it in half, and dry it. We can then grind it up, sift any plant material out and make a starchy flour that will be 30 percent starch and 8 percent protein. While digging the rhizomes, we can also search for the corm, which is a little potato-like starch pocket. You can cook the corm as you would a potato! 

Cattails have many other uses as well. You can make baskets, cordage, sleeping mats and even rafts! One safety concern when it comes to cattails—they are amazing at filtering toxins out of water and soil so you want to make sure you gather them from bodies of water that are unpolluted.

As far as other common plants go that are relatively universal, I recommend researching the ones I am about to mention. Many are plants the average person would consider to be weeds, yet are highly delicious and nutritious!

A few common plants to find and identify near you are dandelions, plantain, chickweed, stinging nettle, dead nettle, sheep sorrel, violets, miners lettuce and purslane, to name but a few! Learning these common edibles and their relatives is a great starting point in adding wild edibles to your diet. They are easy to collect and require little in the way of preparation before eating.

I hope that I have piqued your interest in starting to explore the wonderful world of wild-edibles! It is a life-long journey, and there is always more to learn! You should also take advantage of social media, and search for groups in your specific area dedicated to foraging. There are many groups worldwide that can be found on Facebook and Meetup. Linking up and learning with people that live near you will help you better understand what wild-edibles are growing where you live!

Recommended reading:

“Peterson Field Guide to Wild Edible Plants”

“Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants”

“Botany in a Day” by Thomas J. Elpel

“Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast” by Jim Polar and Andy MacKinnon

If you want to learn more from Tom on wilderness survival, foraging, or any other topics he writes about for Anchored Outdoors, he teaches weekly webinars through Trackers Earth. You can register at https://spark.trackersearth.com/trackers-skills/

The post An Introduction to Foraging in the Modern Age – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

By Tom Brown III:

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

No matter how you slice it, it’s safe to say we humans suffer from a frightening lack of awareness. If you look at the juxtaposition between our hunter-gatherer ancestors and us, one thing will be clear, our ancient ancestors were far more aware than we are. Our ancestors were intimately familiar with their surroundings. They knew the many uses of every plant and tree, knew the animals and their habits, actions and reactions. Fast forward to modern-day, and we are a species on a precipice. Once, we shared a kinship with nature and all its beings and understood the delicate balance. Today we take whatever we want from the Earth, blind to the consequences. One of my goals as an educator is to help people recapture the fantastic sense of awareness our ancestors had. 

I have noticed over the years that when a person becomes aware, their lives change. However, awareness can be a difficult thing to teach. Why? Because we are dealing with intangibles. I can teach you to make an animal trap by carving three sticks a certain way and by showing you a real example of that trap. You can hold it, look at it and put it together. But when teaching awareness, you are dealing with different concepts. The concept I will speak about in this article is known as concentric rings.

To explain this concept, let’s start with a pond whose surface is as smooth as glass. Picture it in your mind. Now pick up a rock and throw it into the pond. Where the rock hits, there will be an initial splash. Radiating out from the center, concentric rings will start and continue until the ripples reach and reverberate across the whole pond.

Next, I want you to imagine the forest. It’s a beautiful day, and all the birds and animals are going about their regular business (the glassy pond). All of a sudden, a human trudges into the woods (the thrown rock). At first, the squirrels and blue jays send up their alarm calls (the initial splash), and all then across the forest, the birds and animals relay that alarm call as it ripples across the landscape. Welcome to the world of concentric rings!

I can’t tell you how many times I have been quietly sitting in the forest only to see the above scenario play out. It doesn’t matter if the disturbance happens 50 feet or 1,000 yards away, you can see, hear and feel the reaction.

Imagine for a moment you are walking down a busy city street. You hear and see the usual rush and din. All of a sudden, you hear a blood-curdling scream! What happens next? People closer to the scene may scream or call out. People nearby will change their course and speed of movement and rush to see what going on or flee in the opposite direction. Concentric rings can happen anywhere, in any setting.

Before further discussing concentric rings I would like to talk about the baseline. The baseline is the overall noise and activity level for any given location. It can be in the forest, a meadow, or even a city street. When that baseline of activity or noise is broken in one form another, a concentric ring is thrown.

Every area has its own unique ebb and flow. Any noises that are above that ebb and flow will cause alarm and send out concentric rings. Things like voices, ATVs, gunshots or any other human activity will definitely disturb the baseline of a remote forest, causing animals to flee for miles around. Yet, those same noises will not disturb the denizens of suburban parks.

To delve into the world of concentric rings, you need to become the consummate naturalist. Immerse yourself in nature and look and listen to what is going on around you. You need to become familiar with the baseline to understand when something disturbs it. You will learn how animals act and interact. Different stimuli create different reactions. A blue jay will react differently to a red fox than to a house cat. When in the city, pay attention to people and how they interact with each other and their surroundings.

An easy way to quickly illustrate this is to go find a patch of woods and quietly wander into it and find a place to sit down. After 30 minutes, just stand up the way you would when getting out of your favorite chair at home, taking no care to be quiet. You will immediately notice the response of the forest. In a previous article, I talked about stalking and movement and how to properly move through the woods. It is essential to move across the landscape, creating as few ripples as possible. This will give you the most pristine experience as opposed to marching through the woods the way your average backpacker does. In fact, the more you pay attention while in the woods, the more you will learn.

An important part of getting into the finite details of concentric rings is bird language. Most birds have a myriad of calls and songs for everything from locating a potential mate to calling out a threat. If bird language is of interest to you, I highly recommend Jon Young‘s writing and audio recordings on the subject of bird language.

Concentric rings are not the only thing letting us in on what’s going on in the forest as far as disturbances in your immediate area. As I said, you can learn a lot just from observation. A few years back, I was living in Northern Virginia, and a winter storm dumped 40 inches of snow. It was one of the most beautiful natural displays I have ever seen. For a few days leading up to it, the news reports were blaring about the impending blizzard. An aware person could have just as easily predicted the storm by watching nature. For days leading up to it, all the animals and birds were in a frenzy. Birds filling up on seeds, squirrels fortifying their nests, and deer were moving about. Animals are in tune with their environment. They know when a weather event is coming and prepare accordingly. As a child, I spent quite a bit of time at the beach. I always remember how the seagulls would head inland before a storm. I’ve also read reports of animals fleeing to high ground a few hours before a massive tsunami hit an area, or vacating the lush sides of a volcano days before it erupted.

I think the most important lesson, especially when it comes to awareness skills, is merely making a choice to be aware. It’s really as simple as that. Make a choice, and then start paying attention to your surroundings. Instead of wandering through life with blinders on, take it all in. When we become aware, we can begin cultivating the instincts our ancestors had. But that’s a lesson for a different time!

Watch Tom’s webinar about concentric rings here.

Episode #: 97 (click to listen) and 98
Duration: 1 hr 18 min and 1 hr 24 min
Topics Discussed: Stalking tactics, tanning hides, fire-starting, wilderness survival, tracking, observation and more! 
Bio: Tom Brown III, also known as “T3,” has been a life long student and practitioner of primitive living skills, wilderness survival and nature connection. Born in New Jersey in 1978, he grew up learning the skills our ancestors used to live close to the Earth from his father, Tom Brown Jr, founder of the Tracker Wilderness Survival School. Growing up at the Tracker School showed him the profound effect reconnecting people to nature can have not only on the individual but on the planet as a whole. After spending a few years wandering across America, he has spent the last 20 years passing on the skills he learned as a child. Currently Tom lives in Oregon and works with Trackers Earth as an adult educator and land steward. When not teaching or writing, Tom is an avid fly-fisherman, traditional archer and nature photographer.

The post Lessons in Awareness: Concentric Rings – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

By Tom Brown III:

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

Something I think we can all agree on is the need to educate our children about the natural world, their place in it and how to respect and care for it. They will one day be adults, and will shape the policies that affect how the human race interacts with the natural world. 

We, as a species are on a precipice. In the last few hundred years we have taken advantage of the environment by continually taking whatever we need to keep the machine running. Forests are laid bare. Rivers, lakes and oceans are over-fished and polluted. All in the name of progress. I live in the Columbia river watershed, which historically had some of the largest steelhead runs in the world, not to mention many salmon species, as well as sturgeon. These days they say there are less than 1 percent of the historical runs of these species. 

So much has been decimated in a short period of time. We dam rivers to generate electricity, and siphon water to irrigate fields. Corporate interests exploit nature for short-term gain, not worrying about how decisions made today will affect future generations. My father’s teacher said it best, “We are a society of people that kills our grandchildren to feed our children.” 

I’m sure many of you reading this are aware of these issues, and trying to figure out a solution can be daunting to say the least. In the short term there is only so much we can accomplish. Our best hope lies in educating future generations so they don’t continue the vicious cycle. However, doing this can be difficult. Our children spend an increasing amount of time in the digital world. They do not play outside as much as they once did. If we don’t try to do something now, by the time they grow up they will be even further cut off from nature than previous generations, and that will make them much more likely to continue the trend of destroying nature to satiate our need for convenience. 

The problem we nature educators face is overcoming the allure of the digital world, and how to go about plugging kids back in to the natural world. This is more difficult today than it was just a few short years ago. How do you make learning about nature as fun as video games and social media? How do we help create a future generation of stewards and conservationists? 

As many of you know, I work at Trackers Earth, an organization dedicated to connecting children and adults to the natural world. In an average year, if you add up all the collective hours we have children in nature it totals around 156 years! Like many businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the way we operate. Normally we would be running in-person classes and programs seven days a week, but like most states, Oregon has been under a stay-at-home order for a few weeks now. 

Tony and Molly Deis, the founders of Trackers and dear friends of mine, were faced with the hard choice that many business owners are dealing with. Looking to keep their 30-plus full-time instructors teaching, they made the decision to “re-fit the ship” and evolve from being an outdoors school to an online one. In just a few short weeks and a Herculean effort by the Trackers Earth team, we have made it happen. Starting this week we are offering a vast array of online, interactive webinars for kids of all ages! I’m sure many of you reading this are at home with children, possibly looking for activities to keep them busy while also learning something. The Trackers online kids program subjects include:

• Backyard Classroom: Academics where kids use nature in their backyard as a classroom lab.
• Rangers Adventure: Outdoor skills for kids such as map and compass, wilderness survival, tracking and more.
• Wilders Home: Almost an old school home economics course, teaching cooking, gardening, sewing and much more to every kid.
• Mariners Starship: Kids camps in navigation, fishing and even art connected to fishing in the outdoors.
• Earth Ninja: Morning and afternoon movement and martial arts to help keep kids physically fit during this time.

There are other highly imaginative programs such as online camps and courses on adventure travel and expedition planning, photography, dinosaurs and, yes, even a role-playing camp with elves, wizards and dragons.

I will also be hosting several adult online webinars very soon on wilderness survival, wild edible plants, nature observation and awareness. We will regularly add new programs for both children and adults, so keep checking back! I hope you are all well and using this time to get closer to loved ones and reconnect with old friends. Try to learn something new every day! Trackers Earth online can be accessed at: www.trackerspdx.com/online.

The post For Our Children During These Times – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

By Tom Brown III:

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

The Toilet Paper Shortage: A Strange Theft

One of the hottest commodities these days is toilet paper! Just before sitting down to write this piece, I got a call from one of my co-workers who was out checking on one of our properties where we run programs. They went to use the Porta-Potty only to find out that sometime in the night, someone scaled a 12-foot chain-link fence to steal the two rolls that were inside. I don’t know about where you live, but around here, it is still challenging to find TP in the grocery store. Luckily, many alternatives can be found in nature. Before it comes to having to use a natural source, it’s always a good idea to practice conservation. I think in general, people tend to use way more TP than they need to. Keep in mind that TP is made from trees! The less we use, the better for the environment. 

Lately, I have been thinking of a story my grandpa used to tell. He was Scottish, and during World War II, he was in the British Royal Navy and was an engineer on a destroyer. Of the many war stories I heard as a child, one that always stuck with me had to do with toilet paper. When they were out at sea, they were only allowed to use one square of toilet paper when using the bathroom. I have personally experimented with this, and I can tell you for sure that it is possible. It takes a bit of creativity (and folding) but is doable! While you still have access to toilet paper, I encourage you to conserve whenever possible.

Natural Toilet Paper Alternatives

What happens when you run out and can’t buy any more? Humans and our ancestors have been going to the bathroom for far longer than we have had toilet paper. Having spent a lot of time in the woods, I have used all sorts of things in place of toilet paper. Everything from various leaves, mosses and even pine cones. My goal here is to direct you to a few common plants that work great. A quick side note, if you are going to use some of the natural materials I list here, DO NOT flush them down your toilet! It will plug it up, and if you have a septic system it could damage it. I will leave it up to you to decide how you dispose of it. If you have the option it may be a good idea to do your business outside. Make sure you do it safely and correctly. There is a great book out there called, How to Shit in the Woods, by Kathleen Meyer. 

The Squatting Advantage

One thing I have noticed in my nearly two decades of teaching survival skills is that many people are afraid of going number two in the wilderness. By day two or three of class, it’s easy to tell the people who are scared to go in the woods. They squirm in their seats, have a pallid complexion and look very uncomfortable. Once they finally go, they realize how silly it was they waited so long to go! 

If you are going to go outside, it’s essential to follow some guidelines. You never want to go near a water source. You can pollute it with harmful bacteria that could make you sick should you ever need to gather some of it for drinking. It’s also important to dig a hole to use and cover it after. It will help to break down your waste, and you won’t run the risk of you or someone else stepping in it. Toilets are a relatively new invention. We are not meant to sit when going to the bathroom. We are meant to squat. Squatting actually better aligns your large intestine, and tilts your pelvis in a way that makes it easier to go. You will also find that you need less TP when you go while squatting. When we sit on a toilet it compresses your backside, which can make things a bit messier. You may have noticed that Squatty Potty stools are pretty popular these days for the reasons I mentioned earlier. 

Top Natural TP Alternatives: Moss and Leaves

Now, let’s talk about some natural TP alternatives. Here in Oregon, moss grows on just about everything and is available year-round. Moss is always a good option. To be ethical in harvesting moss, be sure to not take too much from any one spot. Moss is vital to the health of a forest. It’s a good idea to shake the moss out before using it, as there may be spiders or other things hiding inside.

Next up are leaves. One note of caution, it may be wise to research the poisonous plants that grow in your area. If you are not 100 percent sure what things like poison ivy, oak and sumac look like, do some research! I have known several people over the years that have used one of these for wiping, only to regret the decision later on. As a general rule, you should avoid using any plant leaves that have a milky sap that shows up when you separate the leaf from the plant. It could cause you to have an allergic reaction anywhere the sap touches. Also, beware of stinging nettle. You will not be a happy camper if you choose that one, although you will most likely feel the sting on your hands long before it reaches your backside!

Other Alternatives: Grass, Rocks, and More

My favorite leaf to use is that of the Mullein plant. They are very soft and get quite big. I also like to use the leaves of certain types of berry bushes. Thimbleberry and salmonberry are especially great! Other broadleaf plants that work great are members of the dock family. Burdock, red dock and curly dock are a few that I have used. Dock leaves tend to be quite big compared to other plants.

Green leaves from trees are also good. I like maples, especially. But any broadleaf tree species will work. Some trees have very stiff waxy leaves, and I will avoid those in favor of softer ones. 

Another good option is using clumps of grass. A word of caution though, some grasses have tiny serrations on them. The serrations are designed to channel water from the blades of grass down to the roots. It’s wise to run your fingers up and down a blade of grass to make sure they aren’t sharp. Some of you who fish saltwater may have come into contact with Razor grass before. Razor grass can be so sharp it will cut you. Most grass that you find in the average backyard should be useful, but still check! 

Now for some of the lesser-known options. You can collect smooth, round river rocks, and use those. Do not put them back in the river, though! You can also use the cones of certain conifers. This is another one to be careful with and inspect before use. Some cones can have barbs or sharp parts on them. Those are best avoided. One of my favorites are cones of the Douglas fir.

Hand Usage and Cloth Alternatives

If none of these options are available to you, there is always the option of using your hand! There are many places around the world where this is the norm. If you are going to use this method, it’s essential to thoroughly wash your hands afterward. 

Another option is to take any old T-shirts or clothing you have around, and cut them into squares. You can throw them away after, or wash them if you like. While this may sound gross, there are plenty of people out there who choose to use reusable diapers for their children. You can rinse the fabric swatches outside with a hose, or in a bucket with a bunch of soap, and then put them in your washing machine. 

Final Reminders: Cleanliness and Hand Washing

In closing, I would also remind you that no matter what you choose to use for your bathroom needs, make sure and wash your hands properly. The last thing any of us needs these days is to have to go to a hospital for something that is easily preventable! Be well, everyone! 

The post Running Low on Toilet Paper? We’ve Got Your Back – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

By Tom Brown III:

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

The State of the World: Embracing Change and Uncertainty

We are living in crazy times! No matter where you live on the globe (unless you are living in a cave), you have heard of COVID-19 and how it is rapidly changing the behaviors of our global society. Here in Oregon, as well as the rest of America, we have lost access to things that we take for granted. Restaurants and stores have closed, and many people are being laid off. We are being told to isolate to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the virus. Even the experts have no idea the full effect that this pandemic will have on our society. People are out of work and school, and our governments are scrambling to manage the situation on a minute-to-minute basis. 

Most of us in the Western world have been living in a bubble of safety, security and comfort. When that bubble pops, people tend to panic. Hopefully, my words will serve to alleviate some of your fear.

Those of us who practice and study wilderness survival and primitive living skills know the number one rule when you find yourself suddenly outside of that protective bubble of safety, security and comfort: Don’t Panic!

Overcoming Panic: The Key to Survival

The first thing that will kill you when you realize you are lost in the woods, or any survival situation is panic. When a human panics, we go from having an incredible brain that is logical and capable (most of the time) of making the right decisions that will protect us, to our base animal nature. When in panic mode, humans will do all sorts of things that will get them injured or killed. People lost in the woods have thrown away their backpack because they feel it’s slowing them down. In winter, people have shed their warm outer layers because they are getting hot and sweaty as they run through the woods seeking safety. I think that you and I can both agree at this moment, behaviors like that are insane, yet they happen often. 

We have not reached that state of panic as a global society as of yet, but I feel it looming above us like a shadow. I would like to offer you a different perspective. One that will allow us to change how we think about situations like the one we all find ourselves in today. 

Breaking Free from Comfort: Lessons from the Wild

From a young age, I learned that safety, security and comfort are euphemisms for death. We have so surrounded ourselves in the safety bubbles that encircle us as we follow the ruts we have worn for ourselves. Our lives are temperature controlled, and we have disconnected from the natural world. My father, Tom Brown Jr., often poses a question to his classes. He challenges them to search their minds for a memory that is so strong you can not only remember it but relive it. The chances are that whatever that particular memory may be, there’s a good chance that at that time you were not safe, secure or comfortable. Those are the times you are truly alive! One day are you going to tell your grandkids about the time you had to stay late at work because you had extra TPS reports to file, or will you tell them about times like today, when we are all forced outside our comfort zones, and our normal, boring routines have been shattered. When this pandemic wanes and things return to normal, I encourage you to seek “the real” continually. Many of us lead fear-based lives. We are afraid to take chances, we worry about failure and most of all, we fear change. 

The Power of Knowledge: Always Be a Student

Just as my father does, I teach my students to embrace these things! Failure is our most important teacher. If we did everything right the first time we did it, we would never learn anything. There are skills that I have been practicing for 30-plus years, put thousands of hours into, yet I will still occasionally fail at them. When I do fail, I use it as a learning experience. What did I do wrong? Did I rush through it? Am I taking the skill for granted? No matter how many times I have done something, I can still learn something every time I do it. I often tell people, “Always be a student.” As far as change goes, that is a constant that is out of our control. It’s something we all have to deal with. How we deal with it is entirely up to us. We can allow it to upset our balance and knock us around, or we can choose to ride it like a wave. Instead of fighting it, follow it! I once read a great quote that was part of a Zen calendar. Every day had a different quote. That particular day it said, “If you can or cannot solve a problem, there is no use worrying yourself about it!”

Let us talk about fear, perhaps the most pervasive feeling going around these days. So many of us lead fear-based lives. When we choose to live in fear, we aren’t living at all. Fears keep many of us trapped in our ruts, forcing us further into misery. It keeps people from taking chances that may better their lives. When we live in fear we are a few, short steps from panic. One of the most profound quotes about fear was written by Frank Hebert, author of the “Dune” books. He wrote, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn my inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Reflecting on Life: Finding Purpose Beyond Fear

The best way to do away with fear is through learning, which brings me to the whole point of this article. What could you have done to better prepare for this pandemic? Which skills would you like to have that would help you to take care of you and your family better? I encourage you while you are on a forced break from work or school to make a list of things to learn so that next time something like this happens, you are better prepared. Right now, I am thankful that we have a cache of food that we canned and a whole bunch of homemade soap. It’s spring and nature is full of wonderful wild-edible plants to eat, and there are many sources in nature of what seems to be the most in-demand item right now, which is toilet paper! I encourage you to learn some survival skills, pick up a few wild edible plant books, learn how to build a small garden, and start to explore the benefits of the skills that our ancestors used to live off the land. The more we learn about hunting, fishing, foraging, homesteading and wilderness survival, the less we will need to rely on the systems that have been put in place to keep our society chugging along. Times like these show us how precarious our situation is, and a little knowledge can go a long way. As I mentioned earlier, I encourage you always to be a student, try and learn something new every day. People often ask me what I think the meaning of life is and what our role is. Firstly I believe that we are meant to be caretakers of the natural world. We should honor and respect nature. We are all born of the earth, and one day we will all return to it. Caretaking is as simple as picking up trash as you walk to your favorite trout run or hunting spot. It’s identifying invasive species in your area and properly removing them. Caretaking is also being a good friend, and helping those around you any way you can. 

Secondly, I think we are always meant to be learning something new. Knowledge is power. We have all heard the term “Survival of the fittest.” This term is misleading. It’s not about how strong you are, but what you know. The more knowledge you have about the natural world and our place in it, the better off you will be. Take this time to reflect on your path in life. Are you truly happy? Does your daily life fulfill you? A human lifetime is a blip in the scheme of things, and we are only given one. Will you continue to live in fear and feel powerless when situations like this pandemic arise, or will you choose to embrace life and live it to its fullest every day? The choice is yours!

Episode #: 97 (click to listen) and 98
Duration: 1 hr 18 min and 1 hr 24 min
Topics Discussed: Stalking tactics, tanning hides, fire-starting, wilderness survival, tracking, observation and more! 
Bio: Tom Brown III, also known as “T3,” has been a life long student and practitioner of primitive living skills, wilderness survival and nature connection. Born in New Jersey in 1978, he grew up learning the skills our ancestors used to live close to the Earth from his father, Tom Brown Jr, founder of the Tracker Wilderness Survival School. Growing up at the Tracker School showed him the profound effect reconnecting people to nature can have not only on the individual but on the planet as a whole. After spending a few years wandering across America, he has spent the last 20 years passing on the skills he learned as a child. Currently Tom lives in Oregon and works with Trackers Earth as an adult educator and land steward. When not teaching or writing, Tom is an avid fly-fisherman, traditional archer and nature photographer. 

The post Banishing Panic with Knowledge – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

Tom Brown III demonstrates the points from his stalking and movement article in this fascinating video about modern humans and how they move.
Filmed by North Fork Studios.

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

Episode #: 97 (click to listen) and 98
Duration: 1 hr 18 min and 1 hr 24 min
Topics Discussed: Stalking tactics, tanning hides, fire-starting, wilderness survival, tracking, observation and more! 
Bio: Tom Brown III, also known as “T3,” has been a life long student and practitioner of primitive living skills, wilderness survival and nature connection. Born in New Jersey in 1978, he grew up learning the skills our ancestors used to live close to the Earth from his father, Tom Brown Jr, founder of the Tracker Wilderness Survival School. Growing up at the Tracker School showed him the profound effect reconnecting people to nature can have not only on the individual but on the planet as a whole. After spending a few years wandering across America, he has spent the last 20 years passing on the skills he learned as a child. Currently Tom lives in Oregon and works with Trackers Earth as an adult educator and land steward. When not teaching or writing, Tom is an avid fly-fisherman, traditional archer and nature photographer.

The post Why Modern Hunters Need to Slow Down – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

By Tom Brown III:

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

People often ask me to list what I think are the most essential “outdoor skills.” These are skills that are applicable no matter what you are doing in the wilderness. One that is always at the top of the list is stalking and movement. Whether you are hunting, fishing or only out in the wilderness to get away from the craziness that is modern society, how we move is incredibly important. 

As hunters, we want to be able to get as close as we possibly can to the animals we pursue, when fishing it’s essential to approach the river quietly so as to not spook the rising trout feeding along the bank. Even if we are just out on a hike, I truly believe in the importance of creating as little disturbance as possible. When we do so, nature will welcome us and show us some magnificent sights. 

Because we live in a fast-paced modern society, we are trained from an early age to move quickly. The problem arises when we try to enter nature in that mindset, we become an alien invader, causing everything to flee or hide from us. I have seen this happen countless times. I’ll be sitting under a tree or tucked into a thicket observing the wonders of the natural world, only to watch a ripple pass over the landscape. Whereas moments ago, the birds, squirrels and deer were feeding casually, all of a sudden they go on high alert, then turn and flee. Anytime I have seen this happen, I can guarantee that someone has entered the woods, and the cadence and speed of their movement have gone above the “baseline.” The baseline is the overall sound and movement of an area. You will be most effective if you match your movements to baseline. 

Let’s take a trip back in time and visit our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Here was a group of migratory people, navigating the nearly pathless wilderness. They had to be stealthy and move with the ebb and flow of the landscape to be effective at hunting. There are many accounts of early explorers of the Americas observing native peoples stalking to within inches of the animals they were hunting before loosing an arrow or throwing a spear. 

If our ancestors weren’t quiet, they wouldn’t get close to animals, but they may also make enough noise to attract predators. We haven’t always been the apex predator that we are now. 

When it comes to modern hunters, the stalking and movement skills have taken a back seat with the advent of compound bows, tree stands and scoped high powered rifles. You do not need to be very quiet to shoot an animal at 300 yards with a rifle or to sit in a tree stand. I choose to hunt with a longbow and on the ground. I want to get as close as I possibly can to the animals I hunt. Doing so connects me to the landscape and the animal in an intimate way. 

To teach you a better way to move, I first need to tell you what is wrong with the way modern humans move. Imagine a person standing on a street corner, waiting to cross the street. As they initiate movement, they throw their head forward, and in a blind panic, their body is trying to catch up with their head. When we initiate movement in this way, it causes us to take very long strides. Those long strides cause us to hit with heavy heel-to-toe footfalls while landing on a leg with a locked out knee. Not only are these footfalls loud, but they are also extremely damaging to our bodies. Modern humans are plagued with all sorts of physical problems, from bad ankles and knees to shin splints and lower backs that hurt all the time. Many of these problems stem from the way we walk.

Another problem arises in our subconscious mind. Our brain always wants to protect our bodies from damage. Modern humans are moving so fast that we commit all of our weight to each step as soon as we take it. When moving this way, there is no room for error. To protect your body, your brain will keep the eyes focused on a 45-degree angle to the ground to spot obstacles in our path that may cause injury to our bodies. You would be surprised how many injuries occur when, for one reason or another, a person’s vision is stolen from the ground in front of them by something as simple as a full moon! 

So riddle me this: If we are moving way too fast, taking long strides and hitting with loud, heavy heel-to-toe footfalls while always staring at the ground in front of us, how can we expect to get close to, or even see any animals in the wilderness? Many animals hear us coming from a great distance away. We scare birds, causing them to send up alarm calls, further alerting the animals to our presence.

Now, let’s talk about a different way to move. The first and most important thing is that we need to learn to slow down. This is perhaps the most crucial piece of advice I can offer. When we slow down, we make less noise. Nature, as a whole, moves slowly. We need to do the same. It’s also necessary to keep our center of gravity low. The easiest way to achieve this is to make sure we keep our knees bent a little bit. Most modern humans are constantly both standing and walking on locked out knees. Our knees are meant to act as shock absorbers. They cannot do the job properly if they are locked out.

We also need to shorten our stride to prevent the heel-to-toe footfalls I spoke of earlier. Another benefit of a shorter stride is that instead of committing all our weight to a step as we are taking it, we can use our feet to “talk” to the ground. Before I shift my weight into my next step, my foot is feeling the ground, making sure where I am placing my foot is a good spot that isn’t going to be noisy or cause me injury. 

Once my foot makes contact with the ground, there is a dialogue happening between my brain, my foot and the earth. Only when I’m sure of my footing will I then transfer my weight and move into the next step. The magic happens here. Since we are using our feet to talk to the ground, we no longer need to be staring at the ground in front of us constantly. Our eyes can be up and looking around. 

You will be amazed at how much more you will see when moving this way.

The more you practice this, the more effective you will be. Eventually you will start to naturally match your movements to the ebb and flow of what’s going on around you. Using these techniques can allow you to get incredibly close to wildlife. I have, on many occasions, been able to sneak up on and touch many different species of mammals and birds. I also have countless students who have been able to achieve the same result.

A hidden benefit of changing our movement style is how much better it is for our bodies. Eventually, you will start to adapt some of these techniques to your movement style as a whole. Your body will thank you for it.

Stay tuned for part two, where Tom offers seven tips to help improve your stalking and movement.

Episode #: 97 (click to listen) and 98
Duration: 1 hr 18 min and 1 hr 24 min
Topics Discussed: Stalking tactics, tanning hides, fire-starting, wilderness survival, tracking, observation and more! 
Bio: Tom Brown III, also known as “T3,” has been a life long student and practitioner of primitive living skills, wilderness survival and nature connection. Born in New Jersey in 1978, he grew up learning the skills our ancestors used to live close to the Earth from his father, Tom Brown Jr, founder of the Tracker Wilderness Survival School. Growing up at the Tracker School showed him the profound effect reconnecting people to nature can have not only on the individual but on the planet as a whole. After spending a few years wandering across America, he has spent the last 20 years passing on the skills he learned as a child. Currently Tom lives in Oregon and works with Trackers Earth as an adult educator and land steward. When not teaching or writing, Tom is an avid fly-fisherman, traditional archer and nature photographer. 

The post Stalking and Movement Skills (Part 1) – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.

By Tom Brown III:

Purchase Tom’s Survival Masterclass here.

Watch this article in video format here.

Being a primitive skills instructor, I get to spend a lot of time around fires. I like to think I have a special relationship with fire and I know I have spent more time in front of fires than most people. I have also watched many people try and fail to build an adequate fire structure many times. 

Fire is one of the most important tools humans have learned to use. There is evidence of our ancestors using fire as far back as 1.7 million years ago. Our pre-fire ancestors had relatively small brains. When we started to cook our food it made it possible for us to gain more energy from what we were eating, which allowed our brains to continue to grow throughout our evolution. The use of fire also allowed us to migrate into areas with colder climates. Fire has many uses. It cooks our food, provides heat and light, and turns clay vessels into pottery to name but a few. 

Flash forward to modern times, fire is still an integral part of our lives. Without fire our cars wouldn’t run and our furnaces wouldn’t heat our homes. On paper, fire is a chemical reaction, but to me it is so much more. To me fire is a living being: fire needs to be fed, it needs to breathe, it moves and it creates waste. Anyone who has been in the woods at night without a fire knows that it can be a dark, lonely place, but once you get a fire going you feel like you have a friend there to help you out! Fire is a wonderful tool and resource, but if it is not respected It can easily get out of hand and cause great destruction.

Of all outdoor skills, one of the most often ignored is how to build a proper fire structure. It does not matter how many different techniques you know to make fire, whether it’s bow-drill or flint and steel, fire piston or a Bic lighter, if you do not have a proper fire structure to ignite you may end up being cold, wet and miserable. 

Fire needs a few things to exist. There has to be heat, oxygen and fuel. If you remove any of these from the equation, the fire will cease to exist. A fire that is burning properly will be warm, provide good light and be nearly smokeless. 

Selecting Materials

When you need to build a fire, material selection is everything. As with any primitive skill, if you take the time to select ideal materials, you will be rewarded by saving energy during the crafting process. First off, dry wood is critical. Whenever possible, I try not to gather wood that is on the ground. When wood lays on the ground, it immediately starts absorbing moisture and will be that much harder to get burning. I break dead branches off of trees, push over standing dead saplings and collect branches that have fallen off trees and gotten hung up on lower branches or shrubs in the forest understory. 

The first thing you need is good dry tinder. Tinder can be made from any dry, fibrous, plant material or the inner bark of certain trees. Trees such as cottonwood, basswood, cedar, maple and poplar to name a few. When looking for tinder, I seek out fields or open areas to find dried grasses and the dried leaves of field plants. The key to good tinder is a lot of surface area for your ignition source to ignite. 

Here in Oregon, I love it when I find a dead cedar tree because the inner bark can be shredded and made into great tinder. You can also use your knife or a stone with a sharp edge to scrape tinder from the outer bark of living cedar trees. I make it a habit to collect more tinder then I will need so I can have some in reserve to use at a later time. When it starts raining, you will be happy to have extra, dry tinder! 

If you are in a wet climate there is a good chance your tinder materials may be damp. An easy way to dry these is to tuck it in between layers of your clothing as you are wandering around collecting materials for your fire. As you are moving around you will be generating heat and that will dry it out. 

From my experience, finding good tinder in the wilds can often be the most difficult part of the process for building a fire. If you want to take a more modern approach there are quite a few different products we can buy that are easily ignited to help us get our fires going. 

A good modern solution for tinder is to coat some cotton balls in petroleum jelly. Store them in a small, sealed container in your pack. It will ignite very easily even in the rain. Another thing you can make before heading out into the bush is called char cloth. In a nutshell, char cloth is made by taking small swatches of cotton fabric and putting them in something like an Altoids tin. Poke a small hole in the top of the tin and toss it in a fire for a little while. Once smoke stops coming out of the small hole take the container out of the fire and let it cool. When you open the container you will see that the cotton fabric has charred. This material is very flammable and a single spark will get it to burn. 

Once you have taken care of tinder, you want to collect a large bundle of what I call “pencil lead” wood. Lots of small, thin, dry twigs or woody stalk plants which are roughly the circumference of pencil lead. When you start constructing your fire, these sticks will go around your tinder. Just like tinder, these sticks have a lot of surface area. Once your tinder gets going, these sticks will catch fire quickly. 

The tinder and pencil lead thickness material will be the core of your fire structure. It’s now time to collect the outer layers. First off, gather a good pile of pencil-thick branches, and lastly, a bunch of thumb-thick branches as well. Once your fire is lit and is burning well, you can add wood that is even thicker depending on how big you need your fire to be.

Choosing a Location

When selecting a location for a fire there are some things to consider. I want the area where my fire will be to be “high and dry.” I do not want to build my fire in a low-lying area that might flood during a heavy rain storm. 

For safety, it’s important to contain your fire. Once I have chosen a location for my fire I will look up to make sure there are no low hanging branches that may catch fire. Then I will clear an area that is at least 8 feet in diameter of all leaves and debris. Once the area is cleared I will dig a shallow depression about 6 inches deep and about 2 feet in diameter. I will then ring the depression with rocks to further contain my fire. Our goal is to make a small fire, not burn the woods down! 

Building the Structure

Now that my fire pit has been built I want to lay my fire building materials by size so I can start building the fire structure itself.

We are going to build what is called a teepee or triangle structure. In my opinion this is the best fire structure because each layer of the fire is responsible for igniting the layer on top of it. The other benefit is that when built well, it will shed water. Even if the outer layer gets rained on, it will protect and keep the core of the structure dry.

Start by putting a decent tinder bundle in the center of your fire pit. If the ground is damp, you can set the tinder on a piece of bark or some dry leaves. Next, use bundles of the pencil-lead-thick wood to start surrounding the tinder. Make sure they are actually touching the tinder, and be sure to leave a small door open through the entire construction so you can get your ignition source to the tinder. After that’s done, start laying the pencil-thick wood around the structure. Repeat the process with the thumb-thick branches. 

Lighting the Fire Structure 

Now that the structure is built it’s time to light! Since you left a small doorway to the core of the structure, it should be easy to get your ignition source to the tinder at the core. Once the tinder is lit you can “close the door” with a small handful of finger-thick sticks. If you built the structure properly it will start burning at a steady rate. 

Once it gets going, you can maintain the shape of the structure by adding larger pieces of wood. This style of structure burns great and puts out a lot of heat and light. 

Personally, I try to keep my fires as small as possible. There is a misconception that we need huge fires to keep us warm and to cook our food. In reality, you can do a lot with a small, well-built fire. Collecting firewood can be very time and energy consuming. If you use your materials wisely it will benefit you in the long run. If you are going to be in the same spot for an extended period of time you would be surprised at how quickly you can deplete an area of firewood. 

One thing I like to do is instead of collecting firewood close to my structure and working my way outward, I will instead start collecting far away and work my way in. By doing so I will have to work less at gathering wood, and if I were to injure myself, I have not depleted the closest sources of firewood to my camp.

Practice Makes Perfect

Now that you know the nuts and bolts of building a proper fire structure, it’s time to put it in to practice. Like any new skill, you must practice. What I have found to be an excellent practice method is a one-match fire. Build a fire structure and light it with one match. If you have done everything right, from tinder collection all the way through the construction of the fire structure, you should have no problem getting it to light. The way to get the most dynamic practice is to build and light fires in every season, in all weather conditions! Want to give yourself an even better challenge? Gather, construct, build and light a fire within 5 minutes. 

This is one of those skills that may genuinely save your life one day. Practice it, perfect it and pass it on. You never know when you will need it!

Episode #: 97 (click to listen) and 98
Duration: 1 hr 18 min and 1 hr 24 min
Topics Discussed: Stalking tactics, tanning hides, fire-starting, wilderness survival, tracking, observation and more! 
Bio: Tom Brown III, also known as “T3,” has been a life long student and practitioner of primitive living skills, wilderness survival and nature connection. Born in New Jersey in 1978, he grew up learning the skills our ancestors used to live close to the Earth from his father, Tom Brown Jr, founder of the Tracker Wilderness Survival School. Growing up at the Tracker School showed him the profound effect reconnecting people to nature can have not only on the individual but on the planet as a whole. After spending a few years wandering across America, he has spent the last 20 years passing on the skills he learned as a child. Currently Tom lives in Oregon and works with Trackers Earth as an adult educator and land steward. When not teaching or writing, Tom is an avid fly-fisherman, traditional archer and nature photographer. 

The post Fire Starting 101 – Tom Brown III appeared first on Anchored Outdoors.