Survive! by Les Stroud

Wendy gave me a copy of Les Stroud’s book, Survive! Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive.

The book follows a pretty simple concept.  When everything goes wrong and you are stranded, trapped, or just left behind, this books goal is to teach you what you need to do to survive.

It’s written by Les Stroud, better known to many people as Survivorman.  From the sun-scorched sands of the Kalahari to the snake-infested jungles of the Amazon, Les Stroud has made a life of surviving in the harshest and most remote regions on Earth.

The book is a practical guide that conveys Les’ decades of knowledge and experience.

It’s a fascinating book to read and according to Amazon.com’s description, it teaches you:

• How to make a survival shelter and why a lean-to is largely a waste of time.
• Why survival kits are important, and why you should make your own.
• Where to find water and why drinking contaminated water is sometimes warranted.
• How to locate and trap small animals and why the notion of tracking and hunting large game is largely a pipe dream.

For most of us, we will go through life never having been abandoned in the Amazon or the plains of Africa but at the same time it does have a lot of tips that would keep you from having a cold or uncomfortable night while camping or hiking.  Living and travelling in Saskatchewan during our harsh prairie winters, it gave me a lot of ideas to make changes and improvements to our winter survival kits that we keep in each vehicle.

The book was a great gift and a lot of fun to read.  Les’ anecdotes as well as some interesting background facts on different Survivorman episodes made it much read around the house.  The most important part of the book for me is that it made me challenge my assumptions of what it would take to survive in an emergency in Saskatchewan (or even be comfortable while we waited someone to come along).  For that alone, I think the book is worth it’s cover price and the time it takes to read it.

Of course there is more than that to it.  In 2001 Les has done two more Survivorman type episodes called Stranded for Discovery Channel (actually since it was 2001, that means that Survivorman is actually like Stranded).  Both episodes find Les being dropped in the northern boreal forests of Canada, one in Canada and one in the heart of winter.  Of the two, I found the summer one the most interesting because it is the first time I have ever seen Stroud struggle to make a fire.  It gives you an idea of how hard it is to do what I had taken for granted.  Both are worth spending an evening to watch and learn from.

• Purchase from Amazon
• Published by HarperCollins (2009)

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