Salt is a necessary nutrient for survival. Salt is an electrolyte. Hyponatremia occurs when the concentration of salt in your blood is low. Hyponatremia can occur in multiple situations including drinking too much water when sweating and during endurance activities and diarrhea. When the body is low on salt, the water levels rise in the cells. This causes the cells to swell. The swelling can be life threatening. Symptoms of hyponatremia are nausea, vomiting, headache, confusion, fatigue, irritability, weakness, cramps, seizures, and coma. Normally salt needs can be met by eating food. However, if society were to break down salt…
Author: dody
Charcoal has been made for centuries and used for many things such as art, medicine, and makeup, but it was most important for blacksmiths as it was used for fuel to smelt metals. It is produced by heating wood with little to no oxygen in order to remove all the water. It is created whenever combustion is incomplete. Additionally, charcoal was a part of a mixture for black powder. Charcoal has a very high surface area, so it’s very useful as a filter or an absorbent for water filtration. It’s easy to see the possible useful applications in a survival…
A summer spent by the banks of the river lazily relaxing in the summer sun, soaking up the heat, the humidity, and the vitamin D. The memories of easy days aren’t complete without an old-fashioned cane pole for fishing with and a prize fish to bring home for dinner. Cane poles have been around for a couple hundred years. https://twitter.com/TracesofTexas/status/1177376678605185024?s=20&t=vH2v-ySHSPb8kOcExUEG1w Now, it’s a lot of fun to fish with modern equipment, but it’s also challenging and fun to fish with old fashioned gear. A cane pole can work fine to get bluegill, small catfish, and even bass. This is especially…
During a survival situation you may find yourself with very little time or ability to hunt. Furthermore, you may find that you don’t have very much equipment to hunt. Depending on your state’s laws and/or how life threatening your situation is, building traps and snares for survival may be necessary to reduce the use of calories while gaining as much food as possible. In most states snares and traps are illegal unless in a survival situation. This will be a short brief overview with plenty of resources linked to for further research. Snaring is especially useful for catching animals for…
Pine pitch glue can be used for everything from putting a knife handle on, making a basket watertight, or even making arrows. It’s a glue that humans have been using for years and goes back to ancient times. Pine pitch glue is made from readily available ingredients in the environment. The most difficult ingredient to source for pine pitch glue would be charcoal because it can’t be the charcoal that you get out of the store. Pine pitch glue requires charcoal that is from a wood fire and that is hardwood. First collect your charcoal for use in pine pitch…
Potash is a very important fertilizer for plants. Potash allows plants to flower and fruit more productively. It also provides for healthy roots which allows plants to gather more water which is necessary for their survival. The potassium in potash helps to boost disease tolerance in plants. It also helps plants to synthesize sugars which provides the energy they need to grow. Potash was the first patent ever issued by the United States government signed by President George Washington on July 31st of 1790. That patent was granted to Samuel Hopkins for the making of potash with a new process…
The likelihood of becoming panicked when in a water survival situation is very high, and roughly 70% of all people live within an hour of a body of water. This is why it’s so important to practice basic water survival training techniques before finding yourself in a water survival situation. The likelihood of experiencing a water survival situation is higher than most people expect. In the year 2000, over 3,400 unintentional drownings occurred in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here are some basic ways that you can prevent drowning through practicing water survival…
Having a survival kit on you at all times is extremely helpful and very convenient. Most of the time, survival kits are big or bulky or just plain useless. Unless a Survival kit can fit inside of your pocket, chances are you’re going to forget it or not have room for it. Let’s face it, those pre-made survival kits which are small enough to barely fit in your pocket don’t really have the things you need to survive. They might have a little bit of wire, string, maybe a blade that’s really small and breaks easily, and a few other…
The desert is a beautiful, exotic, and enticing place, but it can also be deadly. Many unsuspecting and uninformed people who go out to explore the desert end up having more of an adventure than they expected. Annually helicopters can be seen flying overhead searching for someone who was unlucky enough to go out into the desert and not return. News stories tell of people who went up a cliffside that could not get back down, people caught without water, and people caught during flash floods in monsoon season. Many of these misadventures could have been avoided by taking some…
Hiking through the desert can be a wonderful experience with peaceful views and quiet. However, when hiking through the desert bringing water is essential to survival. Even if you were exceptionally lucky enough to find a desert Oasis, the chances of that water being unsafe for drinking due to arsenic is relatively high. Drinking water laced with arsenic when you’ve run out of all other safe water options would only further reduce the chance of survival in the desert. That’s why it’s important to know how to procure your own water that is safe and to have the tools to…
In wilderness survival there’s an old maxim called the rule of threes. The rule of threes is there to remind you of the most immediate issue that must be solved first. It helps to focus on what is most essential and how long you will survive without it. So what is the rule of threes? The first rule of three is that you can’t survive more than three minutes without oxygen or in icy water. While some free divers have been known to be able to survive up to 10 minutes holding their breath, most people cannot hold their breath…