So far I had
set off into an unfamiliar woodland, equipped with only a small knife, folding
pocket saw, stainless steel cooking pot, a three metre length of parachute cord,
a cloth bag for filtering water, several brass wire snares, some personal
safety equipment (first aid kit, torch, method of communication in an emergency
due to the solo nature of the challenge) a modest quantity of wild meat and the
clothes I stood up in (all natural fibres, some home-made).
Day one had
seen me find a suitable campsite, source water, create fire by friction, build
my shelter and bed from scratch, filter and sterilize the stream water, stock
up on prime fire wood, butcher my muntjac deer, eat some muntjac deer and
preserve the remainder by smoking. My first night without any sleeping gear was
bearable with periods of peaceful slumber interrupted by waking due to the
cold. The fire would be built up high again (thanks to a fair amount of fuel
wood preparation during the day) and peaceful slumber would descend upon me
once more. Day one had been a challenging and tiring day with the end result
being only to have provided myself with the absolute bare essentials for survival
outdoors. A roof over our heads, warmth, water, food, protection – these are
all things we take for granted yet it had taken me all my effort, a whole day
of hard work and several years of training to accomplish this seemingly simple
set of requirements. My strategy had gone pretty much exactly to plan. Any minor
failure at this early stage would’ve set a disastrous domino effect in motion.
Home sweet home in the deep dark woods
Of course, I
put any success mainly down to the years of training and a positive and confident approach
to the situation but there’s no denying that a certain amount of luck played a
part too. A couple of hours of heavy rain in the morning might’ve painted a
very different picture…
Day two:
Although in
survival terms, food comes right down at the bottom of the priority list, I
knew that my hard graft to get ahead of the game on day one would all go to
waste if I ignored my daily calorie intake at this stage. Rather than just
purely survival, the object of this week in the wilds was to see how truly self-sufficient
we could be relying mainly on natural resources. I knew that any easily
converted energy stores within my body would’ve been used on day one
for building shelter, lighting the fire, getting through the first night. It would
be a while before my body started tapping into alternative stored energy (fat
and muscle glycogen) and in the meantime, just keeping the fire going and
staying hydrated (can’t access aforementioned alternative stored energy sources
without adequate hydration) would be a slow and sluggish slog. To continue
improving my situation rather than just lie in my shelter waiting for endex, I
would need to invest my time and remaining energy in obtaining some quality
carbohydrates. It has been said that fat burns in a carbohydrate flame meaning
that even a relatively small amount of carbohydrate daily would help tap into
my more than adequate energy reserves. The ultra-lean venison I had slowly
spinning in the smoke from my fire could be only be considered as prime quality
protein for helping to re-build tired muscles, an essential part of a balanced
diet and daily calorific intake and several useful by-products (raw
hide, sinew, bone) but not really an energy boost.
Nonetheless,
with a breakfast of skewered venison and a few handfuls of sugar rich
blackberries, fully hydrated on murky but boiled stream water, the fire banked
up with slow burning oak, I set off with an empty daysack to discover what
natures supermarket had to offer. From
my initial recce I knew that the tiny stream bordering the woods linked in with
a couple of ponds out in the open fields, a potential habitat for Greater
Reedmace. Greater Reedmace or Cattails (Typha
latifolia L) is a supreme survival food. Stacked full of starchy
carbohydrates, easy to recognise, relatively easy to harvest, found all over
the place and pretty much throughout the year it was number one on my shopping
list. I made my way there slowly through the woods, ever vigilant for an
opportunity along the way. A prolific patch of wood sorrel provided a tangy
treat and although I had a good amount of dry tinder squirreled away back at
the shelter, it made sense to grab a few handfuls of clematis bark when spotted and stash them away in my pockets.
Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella)
As
the open fields came into view, I slowed right down, hanging back in the
shadows to see what wildlife might be going about it’s business. I’d already
found deer tracks along with squirrel, badger and fox sign but nothing seemed
to be out and about in that particular field. Didn’t matter though, the
Reedmace could be clearly seen filling the boggy hollow between this field and
the next. After a good check to see if there were any other toxic lookalikes or
potential pollutants upstream, I set to filling my daysack with food.
Greater Reedmace (Typha latifolia L)
The
most energy rich part of Reedmace is the rhizome, an underwater root system
which twists and winds it’s way through the murky pond mud linking up and inter-twining with it’s
surrounding counterparts. It’s important to trace this rhizome from tip to
source and pull the whole thing up. For starters you’ll want the whole plant to
make a positive ID but also, there are other parts which are of use to the
forager. The long, wide, flat leaves are good for weaving food preparation mats,
cordage and woven containers, the dried stems can be
used as a delicate hand drill for friction fires and the brown, sausage like
heads broken open and used as tinder or clothing insulation (old dead ones are
best).
Nutritious pollen from the forming reedmace head
If you have
a reedmace stand nearby to where you live, keep a close eye on them in early summer.
While the heads are still green and just emerging from the leaves (so not all
that obvious to the untrained eye) a bright yellow pollen spike can be found
proudly sitting on the top. With a tap and a shake over a collection device
(plastic bag) this yellow pollen can be gathered in quantity. Mix it up to a
paste with clean water, cook it on a hot rock or in a pan and you have an extremely
tasty and nutritious yellow biscuit. I’d missed that particular boat with this
crop but didn’t hold back gathering the rhizomes. Although the novelty of
delving around in the cold, stinking mud for slimy roots began to wear off
almost immediately and I was constantly aware of needing to get back before the
fire went out, I gathered as many as I could carry knowing that repeated trips
back and forth would be a waste of valuable energy.
Foraged fare: blackberries, plantain, dandelion, hairy bitter cress, burdock root and reedmace
On the
return trip, looking like a human cattail stand, I grabbed a good quantity of
blackberries, some wood hedgehog fungi, a couple of common puffballs, plenty of
dandelion, mint, thistle, ribwort plantain and nettle leaves and a couple of
burdock roots. The burdock roots were a calculated risk as despite also being
packed with starchy carbohydrates they’re much harder to harvest than the
reedmace but these looked like big ‘uns and the ground was soft and easy to dig.
I also took a good quantity of the huge leaves (less than 50% of the leaves off
each plant to lessen any impact) to help patch up any dodgy areas on my shelter
roof and also use as toilet paper should the need arise! One big burdock leaf became
a makeshift blackberry basket with some on the spot origami and a sharpened
twig. The dandelion leaves are normally quite bitter if eaten raw but these
were growing under a tall crop of red clover which had done a good job of
shading them from the sun, accidentally ‘blanching’ them nicely. Eating fungi
as a survival food is another risky and quite pointless strategy. Nutritionally
and calorifically they are pretty poor and the chances of gathering a toxic
lookalike are high, however puffballs and wood hedgehogs are both easy to
recognise if you know what to look for and difficult to confuse with anything
dangerous (puffballs must be completely white inside with no yellowing or signs
of an immature mushroom forming). The taste and texture would be a welcome
addition to my survival stew!
Common Puffball (lycoperdon perlatum)
Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata)
The humble blackberry but what a fantastic, sugary 'pick me up'
Wood Hedgehog mushroom (Hydnum repandum)
Weighed
down with foraged goodies I re-entered camp and re-kindled my dying fire using
the clematis bark. After working so hard to make fire and relying on it to
fulfil so many roles during the week, the thought of walking away and leaving
it to die down is terrifying but knowing how to correctly manage a fire is
almost as much of an important skill as knowing how to light it in the first
place. Seasoned oak as a fuel wood along with a well-protected fire place meant
that the heart of the fire would stay hot for a long time, certainly hot enough
to ignite the finely shredded clematis bark. Building the fire up big on one
side of the fireplace allowed me to pull embers and hot ash across to the other
side for cooking. I suspended my billycan above the flames to boil water for a
mint tea while more skewered venison roasted slowly above the embers. A slack
handful of reedmace rhizomes were placed straight in the embers and hot ash at
the edge of the fire to steam the starch rich fibres in their own skins, like a
long stringy baked potato…sort of.
Reedmace rhizomes cooking in their skins, straight on the embers
Once cooked
(normally until the outer skin is charred) the stringy fibres are sucked and
sucked and sucked…to remove the starch. It’s a weird way of eating something,
almost like the reverse of chewing gum. You’re getting the goodness but without
the pleasure and satisfaction of actually chewing something! Even so, I had re-booted
my system with much needed energy and filled my belly with a hot meal and felt
ready for anything.
Reedmace rhizomes cooked. Check out the starch packed fibres!
Although
this ‘survival situation’ was self-imposed, putting that energy to good use was
still very much a matter of prioritising. Before getting too excited, I took
everything right back to basics and concentrated first and foremost on the
essentials… shelter, protection and warmth during the coming night. My lean to
roof had a few more armfuls of leaf mulch placed carefully to plug the gaps,
the sides of my open fronted shelter were closed in using burdock leaves and
bracken. My log wall heat reflector was extended to fully enclose the heat of
the fire within my shelter walls and I cut, gathered and stacked the best fuel
wood I could find so as to be within easy reach of my bed during the night. My
mattress benefitted from another thick layer of leaves too. All the while my
billycan simmered away over the fire. As soon as the water came to a rolling
boil it was taken off the heat, mint leaves added, cooled as rapidly as
possible and drunk whether I felt like I needed to or not. Then more stream
water was gathered in the millbank filter bag, allowed to slowly drain through
into the billy and placed back over the fire to boil while I worked - survival
multi-tasking!
Feeding long lengths of fuel wood into the fire, saves a lot of sawing!
One big part
of this whole experiment for me was to go beyond the survival stage and start
thinking about self-reliance for an extended period. Essentially, identifying
problems and finding solutions for them. This water routine threw up a glaring
issue; with only one metal pot acting as water boiling device, drinking cup and
liquid storage vessel my plans for using precious energy as efficiently as
possible were hugely limited. In addition to the 'one pot' clean drinking water issue,
having a metal pot to boil up a survival stew was probably my best cooking strategy. Boiling
helped release starches from carbohydrate rich foods, the tougher cuts of
venison could be made more digestible, infusing wild food stuffs with the more
delicate wild flavourings would be easier and any greens included in the stew
would be less bitter with loss of nutritional goodness minimised due to being
able to guzzle down the liquid they were cooked in. Conclusion…not only was a
metal cooking pot proving to be absolutely essential (perhaps second only to a
good knife, or even level pegging) but what options did I have without it?
Also, even with a metal cooking pot, how could I increase my own efficiency by
improvising other supplementary equipment to drink and eat from and store water
in once sterilized?
One possible solution to the above problem; a birch bark bucket and super heated rocks acting as a heating element to boil the water without a metal pot
As
I pondered, I got to work on the venison meat smoking over my fire. The smoke
had kept insects at bay and had sealed the outside of the meat to a degree but
if I wanted it to last longer then it would need to be ‘jerked’. Making jerky
involves slicing meat as thinly as possible then drying it as speedily as
possible without cooking the meat. Your aim is to reduce the moisture content
considerably to prevent spoiling. Drying in the sun will do this but drying in
the smoke of a fire has the added advantage of keeping flies at bay and
flavouring the meat at the same time. In the shade of the woods, this would be
my best option. Above my fire was a handy, smoky spot where a couple of long
sticks were suspended. These became my drying/smoking rack and anything that
needed to be dried or smoked was laid across them, jerky, elder berries,
buckskin moccasins, reedmace leaves (better to weave with if they’re dried
first then dampened before weaving). The jerky only took a couple of days until
it was good to go and if I was hungry during the time it took to dry fully, I
took off a couple of the thicker pieces and boiled them up in a stew.
Venison jerky and elderberries slowly drying in the smoke of the campfire
My survival
stews were pretty good actually; peeled and sliced burdock root, sliced and diced
reedmace rhizomes, dandelion, thistle, nettle, plantain leaves, hedgehog
mushrooms, the oak smoked venison jerky and some lovely hairy bitter cress to
pepper it up a bit. One particularly good breakfast involved slow cooking the
venison shanks by suspending them on a withy to one side of the fire from about
five in the morning. By breakfast time this normally tough cut of meat was
juicy and tender like spare ribs…it’s making me hungry just thinking about it!
Conclusion:
I have undertaken
types of similar survival training in the past, most of which have involved an
element of living from the land but what made this experience different? For
me, prior extensive training helped greatly. A combination of taking time to gain more of
an understanding of what my body needs to function combined with an increased
knowledge of wild foods…not just which plants are edible but their food values,
available nutrition, energy expended during harvesting; this information is
important to help you target certain species over others, therefore minimizing time
wasting and energy expenditure by bumbling around the woods grabbing randomly
at the local flora. An increased skill level in ALL areas, including wild food
foraging made the whole process seem easier, more within my comfort zone (as
you would hope..) thereby giving me the headspace needed to make sensible
decisions. Stocking up during my initial foraging foray was definitely a good
move too. Repeated trips back and forth would have had a negative impact on my
energy expenditure versus calorie intake equation. So; regular practice,
experimentation, testing oneself, just getting out there and getting stuck in –
they do all make a huge difference. Even if you don’t ever expect to need to
feed yourself from the land, but you have an interest in natural history and bushcraft then taking your experimentation to the next level like this helps
complete a bit more of the jigsaw. This
is the stuff you can’t learn from books!
My fellow Hunter Gatherers, doing their own thing in another corner of the wood. This is Dave 'the android' Slate
Seasonality
obviously played a part (autumn is one of the better foraging seasons) but many
of the plants I targeted would still have been around during the winter months
with the exception of blackberries. Burdock root might’ve been more of a
mission although the area I gathered from had first and second year growth
hopefully allowing me to identify a source of potential roots from the dead
second year flowering stalks during the winter. Admittedly the colder weather
would’ve placed a lot more emphasis on gathering a higher number of calories
daily. Feeding oneself adequately would be a fulltime occupation and an
abundant area would be depleted pretty quick too. Therefore, in this case
anyway, location potentially played a bigger part than seasonality.
Scotty had a cosy set up and turned out to be an expert squirrel catcher
I wasn’t
able to count my daily calorie intake accurately but it was definitely lower
than normal (not a bad thing to be honest..), despite my best efforts to gather
as much high calorie food as possible. During the week I lost half a stone in
bodyweight! However, rather than feeling low on energy and sluggish, I felt
fitter, more energetic, a real spring in my step! I’m no dietician but I put
this down to a couple of potential reasons. Firstly, what carbohydrate I was
eating was unprocessed, top quality, pure energy. Mostly slow release carbs providing a more steady, regulated type of energy. Some natural fruit sugars were included
daily but nowhere near the Billy Bunter quantities of chocolate I consume daily
back in the real world. Also, these sugars were needed and used immediately
rather than being mainly excess to requirements, accompanied by all manner of dodgy chemicals and giving me mega sugar highs and lows.
Guy's little corner of the wood. A well constructed fire screen if ever I saw one!
My second theory is based on
the wonders of including dandelion leaves in your diet. As a well-known diuretic
along with being a healthy green leaf (something I don’t eat enough of) I just
feel that my system had a super de-tox, fortified by the fantastic unprocessed,
healthy calories coming straight back in. Of course, none of this can be proven
(not by me anyway) but my feeling is that had I continued with the experiment a
bit longer, my weight loss might’ve reached an optimum level as well as my
calorific requirements being slightly lower (already had fire, shelter and
plentiful supplies of water and fire wood close by coupled with a more streamlined
physique to feed). I’d like to think that in the right location, with no
hunting and trapping restrictions (more on this in the next post) then living
from the land successfully could certainly be achievable, if not indefinitely then
maybe for an extended period. This may well be fanciful pie in the sky on my
part but I certainly felt extremely positive after my own experiences.
In the next
post I’ll detail how all this excess time and energy was invested to improve my situation by
crafting effective hunting weapons, trying my hand at a bit of primitive
pottery and other Robinson Crusoe style shenanigans.
