Over 200 Ways to Use Everyday Items for Wilderness Survival
As I’ve delved deeper into the bushcraft and survival scenes, I’ve become particularly interested in the tools required for survival, whether it’s understanding the thousand ways to use a sharp knife, the development of primitive tools from scratch, or survival hacks like the ones Creek Stewart introduces in this book. The ingenious methods he provides of putting ordinary objects (most of it essentially garbage) to better use gets my blood flowing, and I can’t wait to try many of them out. Actually, if I—and the rest of America who’s just as fascinated by survival shows as I am—were really honest, I can’t wait until the world implodes and I (the lucky survivor) am left all alone on the garbage heap that once was America, forced to survive.
I was hooked from Stewart’s second offering in this book, to use pantyhose as a bug repellent and leg-warmer. This fit so snuggly into my “never thought of this before!” folder that I couldn’t wait to see what other “hacks” he had up his sleeve. I wasn’t disappointed.
Perhaps my favorite overall takeaway was his plethora of uses for the common plastic bottle. If I’m ever able to start a wilderness class on this side of the world, I think I’ll build entire lessons around this mighty object and its many hacks, from water distillation and catching properties, to its usefulness as a gasmask and goggles. To provide students with both a scenario and a pile of garbage is a great was to teach innovation as the greatest survival skill, Stewart’s constant theme.
I also really enjoyed his various kit ideas at the end of the book, super practical and size-sensitive. I’ve never created a survival kit before, but doing so has now made my to-do list. Specifically, I’m going to focus on a camping/hiking kit as well as something slightly larger for my in-car kit, as rains regularly wash roads out near where I live.
I’m very happy to have come across this book, and as I read it in conjunction with a few others, I realized quickly that Creek Stewart’s offering is top-of-the-line in this genre. I highly recommend it. After all, “It’s not if but when…”
©2018 E.T.
Check Out These Survival-Tip Books:
- The Art of Survival by Cord Christian Troebst (1965)
- Camping’s Top Secrets by Cliff Jacobson (1987)
- Last-Minute Survival Secrets by Joey Green (2015)
- Survival Hacks by Creek Stewart (2016)