You never know when you might find yourself in a situation in which your life is on the land, thus it makes sense to prepare yourself with some survival basics beforehand. 

Master of survival @quinneaker shares more wisdom for honing survival skills in this multi-part series. 

The most important aspect of successfully navigating a survival situation is your MENTAL POSTURE. To remain focused, calm, and clear when danger strikes can mean the difference between life and death, and a little pre-emptive consideration can do wonders to maintain a strong mental posture.

We continue to highlight the importance of getting healthy, as it increases your chances of surviving and emergency but also drastically improves your daily life. Then we shared the value of educating yourself and practicing.

Today, we talk about gear!

GEAR UP

It’s wise to carry certain survival items with you wherever you go. If they are real survival situations, you weren’t planning to be in them. So if you don’t carry those things with you wherever you go as a habit already, you will be surprised, unprepared, and likely regretful. if and when you find yourself in a survival situation. 

The most important things in survival situations are fire, shelter, water, food, and most importantly your MENTAL POSTURE: your awareness, your relationship with yourself, regulating your body temperature, etc. The things you carry with you should be the most beneficial items for those categories.

KNIFE

A good knife is one of the best investments you could ever make! A quality knife will last a lifetime and is useful in way more than just a survival situation. It can serve for fire starting, defense, cooking, medical treatment, and bush clearing. We offer a line of Epic Handmade Knives to gear up in style!

CORDAGE

Some kind of rope is essential. Cordage can be used for making shelters, or in a bow drill for fire starting. We offer hand made in The GOE 550 pound test American made P-cord bracelets. In a survival situation, unknot the bracelet for 7' of cordage! While you could potentially make cordage in the wild, you will never make 550 pound test cordage. The convenience and wearability not to mention style of colors and beads available in these bracelets make them impractical not to wear.

​FIRE STARTER

Fire is crucial. It provides warmth and drying capabilities. It's used to cook and sterilize water. It may be used as a signal, and provides protection from critters. There are different types of fire starters:

• Ferrocerium rod--can be worn on a cord around the neck, creates lots of sparks even when wet or under water & can be used hundreds of times
• Flint & steel (like a high-carbon steel knife blade)--you have to know how to do it before you find yourself depending on it
• Lighter--easy, convenient, but it will run out and is flimsy
• The true bushcrafter method is friction fire as made with a bow or hand drill. 
  

The pieces above--knives, cordage, and fire starter--are foundational to every survival kit. There are many styles of knives, there are many types of cordage, and there are many ways to start a fire, and there are many, many uses of each facet--this is just a basic overview.

Other items are not necessarily essential in every survival kit, but are incredibly valuable to have in a survival situation, and therefore might be worth considering stocking in a basic pack:

​WATER PURIFICATION

Even remote water sources can be contaminated with parasites and pathogens; access to clean water could be the difference between life and death. If you drink water that causes diarrhea, you actually dehydrate yourself.  Boiling water is an effective purification, if you can make fire. Other options:

• UV light pens--stir in a bottle of water for 60 seconds, and pathogens die
• Filtration straws--can filter bacteria from up to 1000 liters of water
• Iodine tablets--drop in your water bottle, and 30 minutes later pathogens are dead. These are disposable; use them once, and they're gone! 
  

COMMUNICATION

Signaling your presence may be necessary for rescue, especially if you are injured.

• Bonfire/smoke signals--don't really need any other gear if you can start fire
• Whistle--lightweight, compact, can be heard at great distances
• Mirror--to flash the sun

Carry these items with you all the time, whether it’s in your pocket, a fanny pack, or a backpack. Gear you don’t know how to use is worthless, dead weight. In an emergency, you have to be able to move quickly. Your strength, your endurance, your speed are compromised by a heavy pack. ​

Next, you can get a full size pack (90 liters) that might be stocked with a tent, tarps, sleeping bag, maybe a bow or gun. This isn’t the pack you would grab if you had to run for your life, but it’s something that would be worth taking if you had hours or days to prepare, because having these things could increase survivability. 

You could carry your most essential stuff in something like a fanny pack, purse or glove compartment, then have the next most essential stuff in a smaller pack that fits inside a bigger 90 liter pack with the next most essential stuff. You could drop the bigger pack and still have the smaller pack; if need be, you could drop the smaller pack and still have the most essentials about your person to optimize speed, endurance, strength, and flexibility. That's the ideal way to pack for a bug out situation.

Keep a more thoroughly stocked survival kit in your car, if you have one. It may be worth carrying some food or power bars or purified water in your car, but you’re way better off having a water purifier and fire starter. Prioritize items that have long-term vs short-term survivability: extra cordage, knives, hatchets, and tools. 

Additionally, you could have a bunch of food, water, supplies, tarp, rope, knives, guns, and ammo set aside in a section of the garage or already packed in a trailer to hook up to a truck and go. You might have 5 minutes to prep and bail, or you might have hours; to be packed ahead of time could save precious moments in a real emergency and be the difference between life and death. 

​​FOOD

Investments in quality gear--good knife, boots, tent, sleeping bag, clothes, etc.--can be used for more than just a survival situation. Likewise, if you stockpile, say, 100 pounds of rice or a year’s supply of water, you can start using that inventory right away in your everyday life. Once your stockpile dwindles to some predetermined amount, you can restock. Not only would you be prepped for an emergency situation but, you would actually save money to buy and consume in bulk!And you don’t have to buy Spam or astronaut ice cream to prep for Armageddon; you can buy food you would normally eat. Buy in bulk, save money, enjoy the convenience of having food stores, then if and when you’re in a real survival situation, you already have that long-term food storage. It’s a very reasonable, responsible, sustainable, efficient approach to life, not only for disaster preparedness. ​​

We hope to inspire you to carry a few useful tools with you at all times so you are always prepare should the unexpected occur! Finding yourself with useful items in a survival situation can be super beneficial towards maintaining proper mental posture; you don't need to waste time and energy fashioning a blade out of sharp rock and animal bone when you need a knife if you already have one about your person. In the next part of this series, we'll look a bit deeper into fortifying your mental posture!

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