Don't Try This At Home
Irradiated by LabRat
Via Chas, a story of a fellow who planned to live off the land for a year in Scotland. In a battle of man vs. wild, winter won and he is presumed to have died of hypothermia. (His body was not found for weeks so it’s difficult to tell.)
OK, couple of home lessons beyond just “don’t do that, are you retarded” for those of us in the audience who are of an independent, outdoors-loving bent who find survival skills useful and interesting to know.
1. The vast majority of survival courses and training aren’t oriented to “living off the land”, they’re oriented to surviving for timespans of a week or less. All sorts of things become problems over longer time periods, because our bodies cannot handle certain kinds of stressors indefinitely, partiuclarly persistent calorie deficit and especially acute shortage of protein and fat.
2. While it is correct to observe that we evolved as hunter-gatherers and that there are societies of hunter-gatherers all over the world and in all climes and locales, it is important to realize that physically, we evolved in savannahs where hypothermia isn’t really a problem. We are not designed for, say, northern European winters. While the evidence for the capability of humans surviving in Scotland is present in the Scottish, it’s also important to realize two other things.
3. When we arrived in places like Scotland, we did so with all sorts of pre-existing cultural knowledge and technology that rendered us better able to adapt to things like Scottish winters. When we arrived, the landscape was also vastly different; we became primarily agrarian long ago and the land now reflects that reality.
4. Humans evolved as hunter-gatherers and later succeeded in environments they were not physically designed for because they are, at core, a group-living species. All of our life history revolves around it. A group of humans can divide and pool labor to get more fuel, more shelter, more water, more care for the sick and injured, and more vigilance and defense from danger in a way a lone human just can’t compensate for. If you plan to survive off the land, you’d better bring some friends if you’re planning to do it all that long. Even Bear Grylls doesn’t really travel alone.
January 25th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Yeah, I did a month in the woods with only a knife and clothes in the midwest in the summer. It is do-able, but more stressful than you might think. Winter would be a lot harder.
While I was comfortable towards the end, it is work, it is stressful and you do notice the stress and its effects on your body. Calories are not that easy to come by, so you’ll lose weight. You get a whole lot more alert, but that kind of alertness is hard on the rest of you.
January 25th, 2012 at 7:29 pm
One of the things I say to every group of religious ed kids when I’m asked to do the “this is what Druids do outside of online games” talk:
“Nature is church. However. In this church, unprepared,you can starve to death, die of exposure, dehydration, disease, or injury, be bitten, eaten or mangled in the name of another species feeding their children…so please remember that the Gods love those who love common sense.”
Thank you for this post!
January 25th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
“When we arrived in places like Scotland, we did so with all sorts of pre-existing cultural knowledge and technology that rendered us better able to adapt to things like Scottish winters. “
Specifically, whisky.
January 25th, 2012 at 10:47 pm
I’ve been through that very region on the rail line that goes through Pitlochry, and in February, at that. It was magnificent as the train ploughed through massive banks of snow and tons of the stuff was flying past the windows. I think there was just the engine and 2 or 3 passenger cars- not a heavily traveled route. At one point, the snow was so deep that we had to get off the train and ride a tram around the mountain pass where the rail line goes, and get into another train on the other side. Then on the Isle of Skye, the winds off the sea were staggeringly harsh and cold, and my waist-length hair blew horizontal away from my head like a flag. It was magnificent, but even my well-insulated self would never brave Scotland without the guaranteed hospitality of a pub and a warm bed to sleep in.
As I was reading the article, I couldn’t help thinking that he’d be much more prepared if he’d begun his year there in the spring as things are warming up and he can get acclimated and get some sort of base set up before the harshness of the winter. Coulda woulda shoulda. He was living his dream, and that’s his right, so in a strange way, hard to feel sorry for him. I am sad for his family, though.
Then again, I did enough foolish things that could have killed me many times over in my 20s. But I wouldn’t have done that.
January 26th, 2012 at 7:53 am
There is a reason the Scots went in for haggis, butteries, Scotch eggs, and so forth. The Mounth actually has an average temperature only a few degrees above what is needed to start forming permanent mountain glaciers in north facing valleys. The number of hillwalkers who don’t realize that hypothermia is entirely possible there in all but July and August (and sometimes then) is remarkable. It is also entirely possible to get completely lost. 70 is a heatwave, even in Edinburgh.
And I agree entirely on your points regarding skills! And the changed landscape (Scotland is a fascinating study in what two thousand years of sheep farming creates)
January 26th, 2012 at 7:57 am
If this guy really did want the Bear Grylls Experience, he’d have arranged four-star accommodations ahead of time. Sleeping in the rough is for chumps (and Les Stroud).
January 26th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
“Many hands make light work”
“It is better to have friends than be strong”
There are reasons we have sayings like that.
January 26th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Gee … people who lived in neolithic scotland made homes out of stacked stones, burned stuff to stay warm, and stockpiled food for winter.
I suppose this non-survivalist thought those Flint men were a bunch of pansies for wanting to not freeze or starve.
January 26th, 2012 at 6:04 pm
First, Bear Grylls is pretty much a fake… He is NOT well thought of by his former mates in the Aussie SAS (got that directly from a couple of them that served with him); second, you are correct, survival for extended periods require a GROUP to survive… Third, the gene pool got a little chlorine. That is NOT a nice area up there. The RAF does survival training in that area for a WEEK and people are hurting when they get back.