Participating in Nature: Wilderness Survival and Primitive Living Skills

Get in touch with your wild side! Primitive living is a way of learning about nature by participating in it. Instead of merely camping in the wilderness or passing through it, you can become part of the process. You learn about nature by using it to meet your needs for shelter, fire, water, and food. You set aside the trappings of modern culture and step directly into nature with little or nothing, to experience nature on its own terms. Participating in Nature: Wilderness Survival and Primitive Living Skills provides a direct, hands-on experience of the world around you. With this book you have the opportunity to discover the thrill of staying warm and comfortable without even a blanket! Learn how to design and build shelters that are uniquely appropriate to the available resources, weather conditions, and your goals while you are there. Experience the magic of starting a fire by "rubbing two sticks together" using the bowdrill or handdrill, and learn to make your own flint & steel fire kit for convenient fire-starting in any weather. Learn about Giardia and develop confidence drinking out of backcountry streams. Learn practical water purification strategies to use when conditions require it. Learn how to catch a fish by hand and cook it without a pan! Discover innovative "primitive gourmet" cooking methods, such as making ashcakes, sourdough, and wild strawberry ashcake pies. Learn how to cook bread in a stone oven, gather and process wild clay to make your own pots, and cook a stir fry on a slab of bark. Learn about edible wild plants and wild food economics, including starchy roots, wild fruits, harvesting and winnowing seeds, pine nuts where you wouldn't expect them, plus tapping maples, box elders, and birches for syrup. Experience the thrill of quietly stalking up on an animal, or developing trust-stalking skills to allow it to accept your presence. Make your own "quickie bow," arrows, and bone arrowheads. Learn how to process sinews and hide glue, butcher a roadkill deer, tan its hide, and make your own clothing. Make rugged, all-terrain sandals out of old tires and transform a wool blanket into an instant coat. Create warm felted mittens from raw wool. Learn how to pack your gear as a bedroll or make a primitive packframe. Participating in Nature includes dozens of innovative skills and an incredible 350 pictures and illustrations plus a thoughtful philosophy. Tom does extensive experiential research. He places an emphasis on publishing new information that is not found in any other source. Read more