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“Camping's Forgotten Skills: Backwoods Tips From a Boundary Waters Guide” -By Cliff Jacobson

A good way to prepare for potential emergencies is to read and learn from informative books. “Camping's Forgotten Skills: Backwoods Tips From a Boundary Waters Guide” is one of those resources.

First published in 1992, author Cliff Jacobson is an Eagle Scout, a teacher and guide in the Boundary Waters. He has written 11 other wilderness-related books.

Jacobson writes that it's important to have high tech equipment, and know how to use it. But (and here's where we get into the survival common sense philosophy) what happens if you become separated from your stove when your canoe capsizes? How will you repair a large tear in your tarp or tent fly? Can you start a fire to prevent hypothermia?

This book is full of old tried-and-true techniques of camping and wilderness survival and grownup Boy Scouts will recognize some of the techniques. The book shows such skills as how to make a lean-to and bed out of pine boughs. And it's interesting to see how to make a reflector oven out of a metal rectangular gasoline or vegetable oil.

Other little-used skills include improvising camp implements out of tin cans, a packsack out a leg from a pair of jeans, and a tent from a tarp.

But, you might think, I already have the gear and set-up for wilderness survival and shouldn't need to improvise anything. Why read this book? Isn't the common sense approach to have the gear and know how to use it?

The common sense answer is: When it comes to saving your life, you can't know enough. This publication fits into the “Be Prepared” mantra of the Boy Scouts, and improvisation is something everyone interested in survival should know.

Realistically, there isn't enough real wilderness left to spoil any of it, no matter how remote the area. Go camping and make a bed of boughs or a shelter by cutting down a tree and you'll get some infuriated wacko (like me) in your face.

But it is possible that you end up with bits and pieces of equipment when your canoe capsizes in the middle of trackless wilderness. Or you may have to flee an office building that's on fire or collapsing because of an earthquake.

In these similar survival situations, the only tools you will have are what you've got and what you can improvise. This book can teach you some skills that may prove to be invaluable.

Now, maybe your idea of survival is to go primitive. Your survival kit will consist of a survival knife knapped out of chert, and you'll rub two sticks together to make fire. You will forage and hunt for food, and become one with nature in the tradition of the original inhabitants of this country.

Good luck with that. I admire people with the dedication to learn and preserve those aboriginal skills. But this book is not for you.

For the rest of us, “Camping's Forgotten Skills” would a valuable addition to any prepper or wilderness survival library.

(I borrowed a copy of “Camping's Forgotten Skills” through the local library's inter library loan program, but copies are available through Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D16384&field-keywords=Camping%27s+Forgotten+Skills&x=17&y=22. The ISBN number is: 0-934802-79-3. In used paperback, it will cost about $5, plus shipping.)

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Source by Leon Pantenburg