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Source: http://survivaltopics.com/feed/

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<title>Boresighting a Rifle</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/boresighting-a-rifle/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:17:54 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Newest Survival Topic]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=685</guid>
<description><![CDATA[On a snowy day last winter I mounted a Leupold scout scope to a new Ruger Gunsite Scout bolt-action rifle chambered in .308. In this Survival Topic I will show you how the boresighting of the rifle and scope was done. It’s quick, easy, and requires no expensive tools or special setup. Often I choose […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_686" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-1.jpg"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-686" class="size-full wp-image-686" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-1.jpg" alt="How to Boresight a Rifle" width="300" height="453" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-1.jpg 300w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-1-198x300.jpg 198w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-686" class="wp-caption-text">Boresighting a Rifle – Remove the bolt and lay your rifle on a steady platform. Position the rifle so that you can see the target through when looking through the barrel of the rifle.</p></div>
<p>On a snowy day last winter I mounted a Leupold scout scope to a new Ruger Gunsite Scout bolt-action rifle chambered in .308.</p>
<p>In this Survival Topic I will show you how the boresighting of the rifle and scope was done. It’s quick, easy, and requires no expensive tools or special setup.</p>
<p>Often I choose to go scopeless on rifles but by utilizing quick release scope rings I have the option to easily switch back to iron sights at a moments notice. My experience has been that I can then re-mount the scope with a minimum of re-adjustment necessary.</p>
<h2>Rifle Bore Verses Rifle Scope Point of Aim</h2>
<p>A problem you will likely face upon mounting a fresh scope on a rifle is that the cross hairs of the scope will not register very near to where the bore of the rifle is aiming. If you were to look through the scope, place the cross hairs on a target, and fire off a round, it may miss your aiming point by a large measure – and often miss the target entirely.</p>
<p>Boresighting your rifle before firing a shot is the easy solution. Boresighting will get your rounds on the target. Then at the range you fine tune your rifle to hit dead-on.</p>
<h2>Steps to Boresight a Rifle</h2>
<p>Here is how boresighting a rifle can be done:</p>
<div id="attachment_687" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-2.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-687" class="size-full wp-image-687" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-2.jpg" alt="Boresighting Scope" width="300" height="400" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-2.jpg 300w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-2-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-687" class="wp-caption-text">Freshly Mounted ScopeWith the bore of the rifle sighted directly on the target, the cross hairs of the scope will likely be off target until you adjust them.</p></div>
<ol>
<li>Securely mount the scope onto the rifle.</li>
<li>Remove the bolt from the rifle.</li>
<li>Place the rifle on a stable platform at about chest or eye level so that you can comfortably peer down the barrel of the rifle.When at home I like to use the firewood pile in the backyard as a platform because the sticks of wood – perhaps with the aid of a jacket or empty nylon pack – are readily adjusted to hold the rifle in whatever position is required. You can use a table top, log, bench rest, or whatever else is handy and available.</li>
<li>Locate an easily recognizable object that you can see when looking through the rifle barrel while it is resting on the platform. The object can be the edge of a roof, a spot on a tree, a marker you set up or what have you. In the pictures you can see that I used an orange ribbon tied to a stake about 50 yards distant.</li>
<li>while looking through the barrel of the rifle, center the object in your field of view by moving the rifle to the left or right, and up or down. Secure the rifle in that position. This straight line of sight between rifle barrel and target is what you want to mimic with with scope.</li>
<li>Now look through your rifle scope. Chances are the scopes cross hairs will not be aligned onto the target. In my case the cross hairs were pointing high and to the left, as shown in the photograph.</li>
<li>Remove the turret caps from the rifle scope and adjust windage (left – right), and elevation (up – down) so that the scopes cross hairs are on target. Replace the turret caps and, of course, the bolt.</li>
</ol>
<div id="attachment_688" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-3.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-688" class="size-full wp-image-688" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-3.jpg" alt="boresighting a rifle" width="300" height="225" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-688" class="wp-caption-text">Adjust the Riflescope Cross Hairs – Adjust both windage and elevation so that the cross hairs line up on the target. You can do this while looking through the scope.</p></div>
<p>That’s it. Your the rifle is now bore sighted. This means that when you aim at a target using the cross hairs of the scope, the bullet should impact somewhere near what you were aiming at.</p>
<p>You can then use this point of impact to make the final adjustments the rifle scope needs to fire true to target.</p>
<div id="attachment_689" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-4.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-689" class="size-full wp-image-689" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-4.jpg" alt="getting closer to target" width="300" height="400" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-4.jpg 300w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/boresight-rifle-4-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-689" class="wp-caption-text">Getting Closer to Target – Recheck the settings by taking another look through the rifle bore and the scope cross hairs. Re-adjust as necessary.</p></div>
]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>Flint and Steel: What Causes the Sparks?</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/flint-and-steel-what-causes-the-sparks/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sun, 12 Jun 2005 15:15:21 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=681</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Starting a fire with flint and steel (the steel is also known as a “firesteel”) brings to mind the image of self-sufficient mountain men in the wilderness. A rite of passage that ties you to wilderness travelers through the millennia, the ability to use flint and steal is one of the basic survival skills everyone […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_682" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/iron-burning.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-682" class="size-full wp-image-682" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/iron-burning.jpg" alt="Iron Burning" width="250" height="199" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-682" class="wp-caption-text">Iron Burning – Upon contact with the air, a shower of tiny iron particles spontaneously catch on fire.</p></div>
<p>Starting a fire with flint and steel (the steel is also known as a “firesteel”) brings to mind the image of self-sufficient mountain men in the wilderness.</p>
<p>A rite of passage that ties you to wilderness travelers through the millennia, the ability to use flint and steal is one of the basic survival skills everyone should master.</p>
<p>But how does flint and steel work? More specifically, what causes the sparks when you strike a piece of flint with steel? The answer may surprise you!</p>
<p>The following information will help you understand what it takes to make fire using flint and steel or flint and FireSteel. It will change the way you look at flint and steel as a fire making tool and perhaps even make you a better flint and steel fire maker.</p>
<p>Survival Topics believes that if you know the fundamental reasons why survival gear and survival techniques work then you are in a far better position to use them to best advantage.</p>
<h2>The Secret of Flint and Steel for Making Fires</h2>
<p>Outwardly the answer seems obvious; striking flint with steel produces hot sparks. However, dig a little deeper and you will find there is a lot more to it.</p>
<p>It all revolves around a little known fact about iron and some other metals that revolutionized the way people started fires thousands of years ago; pyrophorics.</p>
<div id="attachment_683" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/flint-and-steel.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-683" class="size-full wp-image-683" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/flint-and-steel.jpg" alt="Flint and Steel" width="250" height="224" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-683" class="wp-caption-text">Flint and Steel – Simply by carrying a piece of iron (steel) and a hard, sharp object such as a piece of flint rock, you can start a fire whenever you want.</p></div>
<p>Pyrophorics are substances that spontaneously ignite below room temperature, which is about 70°F (21°C). By spontaneous we mean these substances will simply catch on fire of their own accord without you having to do anything such as light it with a flame. This is also known as autoignition.</p>
<p>What many people do not realize is that iron is a pyrophoric material; in the presence of oxygen, iron catches on fire automatically! It just starts burning.</p>
<p>“But how can this be?” you may ask. “I can hold a chunk of iron in my hand and it does not burn me”. The answer lays in the fact that the portion of the iron object in contact with the air and your skin is not pure iron. Rather it has developed a thin coating of iron oxide, or rust, immediately upon contact with the oxygen in the air. This serves to seal off the iron inside from exposure to the air and reduces the rate of further rusting.</p>
<h2>Rusting Produces Heat</h2>
<p>Iron, whether man-made objects or naturally occurring in rocks, will rust upon exposure to oxygen in the air. The act of rusting is actually an exothermic reaction called “oxidation”, which is a fancy way of saying when iron touches the oxygen in the air a reaction occurs; the iron rusts (turns into iron oxide) and gives off heat. In other words, it burns.</p>
<p>The simplified chemical reaction can be expressed as:</p>
<p>Fe2 + O2 = Fe2O3 + heat</p>
<p>Or in simple English:</p>
<p>Iron + Oxygen = Rust + Heat</p>
<p>Rusting (oxidizing) is the exact same thing as burning, but unlike a campfire usually you will hardly notice it. Because of the relatively size of a typical iron object, the heat it gives off as it rusts dissipates too quickly for the heat to accumulate and be of much use.</p>
<p>While holding an ordinary iron object you are unlikely to feel any heat as it rusts, since the heat is absorbed by its surroundings as fast as the oxidation process produces it. However if you can increase the rate of oxidation you can cause the iron to spontaneously give off a large amount of heat very quickly.</p>
<div id="attachment_684" style="width: 269px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/steel-surface-area.gif"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-684" class="size-full wp-image-684" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/steel-surface-area.gif" alt="increased surface area" width="259" height="249" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-684" class="wp-caption-text">Small Particles Have Larger Surface Area – As can be seen in this illustration, the total surface area of the smaller cubes greatly exceeds the surface are of the cube taken as a whole.When a tiny particle of fresh iron is broken off from the main mass, the surface area of the particle is very large in comparison to its total size.Upon contact with oxygen in the air, the tiny iron spontaneously ignites (also known as rusts or oxidizes) and glows red hot.</p></div>
<p>How do you increase the rate of oxidization of iron? One way is to give a fresh un-oxidized piece of iron more surface area in contact with the air. More oxygen touching more iron will cause more oxidation which will give off more heat in a given amount of time.</p>
<p>Increased oxidation can be accomplished by breaking off smaller particles of iron from a bigger piece. The smaller the iron particle is, the greater its surface area compared to its total size.</p>
<p>Now you know the secret to using flint and steel to start a fire.</p>
<p>Have you ever used a metal grinder or seen one in action on a piece of iron? Notice how thousands of glowing hot sparks fly off the wheel as it removes tiny bits of fresh iron off the chunk of iron being worked on. These tiny bits of iron are actually spontaneously catching on fire as they are exposed to the oxygen in the air.</p>
<p>If you can create a small enough particle of fresh iron, upon contact with oxygen in the air the iron particles increased surface area will oxidize faster than it can dissipate the heat formed during the reaction. The result: the particle of iron spontaneously becomes so hot that it glows as it oxidizes – and can be used to catch tinder on fire.</p>
<p>In a nutshell the process of using a flint and steel to start a fire works like this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Find a piece of high carbon steel, which is about 98% iron and 2% carbon (a hard, relatively brittle steel).</li>
<li>Find a piece of flint or other hard sharp object such as quartz.</li>
<li>Strike a sharp edge of the flint a glancing blow with the high carbon steel. Doing this just right takes practice.</li>
<li>Very tiny particles of fresh iron fly out from the steel.</li>
<li>Upon contact with oxygen in the air, the surfaces of the iron particles spontaneously ignite and give off heat as they oxidize (rust).</li>
<li>Because the surface area of the iron particles is so large compared to their volume, the particles quickly heat up and glow red hot. They become sparks.</li>
<li>Catch the sparks in prepared tinder and use it to start a fire.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Best Flint and Steel</h2>
<p>Iron by itself is relatively soft and tends to bend rather than chip under the stress of a hard blow on a piece of flint. To make iron harder for use in industry, it is made into what we call steel by adding some carbon. However by making it harder, the steel is also becomes more brittle.</p>
<p>The harder a piece of steel the smaller the pieces of iron broken from it will be when struck against a hard sharp object. As discussed earlier, smaller pieces of iron will spontaneously burn hotter due to their increased surface area.</p>
<p>Another way to get hotter sparks is to break off smaller pieces from the steel by striking it against a harder, sharper object. This is why you need to keep the edges of your flint very sharp for optimum creation of hot sparks when striking the steel.</p>
<p>In short, harder steel and sharper flints give better sparks.</p>
<p>Flint isn’t the only mineral that will cause sparks when steel is struck against it. Any hard stone with a sharp fracture can be utilized as long as it can break off very small pieces of steel.</p>
<h2>Advantages of Flint and Steel</h2>
<p>Flint and steel has been used in starting fires for centuries. In the days before matches were invented, flint and steel offered the ability to start a fire without having to carry a hot coal wherever one traveled, and worrying about losing it or having it go cold.</p>
<p>Starting a fire using flint and steel takes a more expertise and preparation than simply striking a match, however many survival experts feel this disadvantage is overcome by the fact that a wet or damp flint and steel can still be used to start a fire, and that a flint and steel can start many thousands of fires without wearing out; both very important attributes when surviving in the wilderness.</p>
<p>Try carrying tens of thousands of matches in the wilderness or stockpiling thousands of matches in your disaster preparedness kit! Even if the shear weight and volume of your matches do not discourage you, you are also faced with the problem of keeping them viable from dampness or the ravages of time.</p>
<p>Flint and steel overcomes these problems and provides the survivor with means of starting a fire that is more reliable than matches – if he is skilled enough to use it.</p>
<h2>Modern Flint and Steels</h2>
<p>Some FireSteels contain a mix of metals that more readily oxidize. Typically in rod form, this type of firesteel produces a massive shower of very hot sparks by simply scraping it with the flint, This makes fire starting easier than when using traditional FireSteel but the principle is virtually identical.</p>
<p>FireSteel.com offers very high quality firesteels that are highly regarded throughout the world.</p>
<p> </p>
]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>The Dakota Fire Hole</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/the-dakota-fire-hole/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 10 Jun 2005 16:16:47 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Recent Survival Topics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=674</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A little known survival aid related to wilderness fire making skills is the Dakota Fire Hole, also known as the Dakota Fire Pit. This handy device is easy to construct and has marked advantages over other types of camp fire constructs. Once you make a Dakota fire hole and try it out, you may choose […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_676" style="width: 355px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dakota-fire-pit-diagram.gif"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-676" class="size-full wp-image-676" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dakota-fire-pit-diagram.gif" alt="How to Make a Dakota FireHole" width="345" height="242" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-676" class="wp-caption-text">Dakota Fire Hole Diagram – This is how a Dakota Fire Hole works. As hot air from the fire exits through the top of the fire pit, a suction is created that draws fresh air down through the tunnel and into the base of the fire. This brings in plenty of fresh oxygen for combustion. A cycle develops: The hotter the fire gets, the more air is drawn down into the fire pit – making the fire hotter.</p></div>
<p>A little known survival aid related to wilderness fire making skills is the Dakota Fire Hole, also known as the Dakota Fire Pit. This handy device is easy to construct and has marked advantages over other types of camp fire constructs.</p>
<p>Once you make a Dakota fire hole and try it out, you may choose to use this method for outdoor fires on a regular basis.</p>
<p>Making a Dakota Fire Hole is initially more labor intensive than simply building a fire on the surface of the ground. However the outlay in energy required to make a Dakota fire hole is more than offset by its efficient consumption of fuel; it greatly reduces the amount of firewood required to cook meals, treat water to destroy pathogens, or warm your body.</p>
<p>The Dakota fire hole is a valuable wilderness survival aid because it burns fuel more efficiently, producing hotter fires with less wood.</p>
<p>In many areas firewood is scarce or requires a large amount of time and expenditure of energy in foraging to obtain it. Once you build a fire, efforts are better spent attending to your other wilderness survival needs rather than in the constant gathering of firewood.</p>
<p>Other advantages of the Dakota fire hole are that it creates a kind of woodstove with a stable platform that is very convenient to cook over.</p>
<p>Should you need to conceal your fire, the fire hole will limit the amount of visible smoke that rises from the fire, since the fuel wood is burning hotter and more efficiently. The pit will also help conceal the light emitted from your fire, especially at night when even a single candle flame can be seen from miles away.</p>
<h2>Where to Build a Dakota Fire Hole</h2>
<p>Before you start to dig your Dakota fire hole you should scout out an area where soil conditions are conducive to its proper construction. You will want to avoid areas</p>
<ul>
<li>that are rocky and difficult to dig</li>
<li>with thick tree roots that require cutting</li>
<li>that are wet or where a dug hole will fill with water.</li>
<li>with soil conditions such as dry loose sand that will not hold shape as it is dug into</li>
</ul>
<p>The usual requirements related to general fire craft and care always apply. As always, treat the wilderness areas you enjoy and count on to survive with respect. Be sure you do not make a Dakota Fire Hole in conditions where out of control wild fires are a possibility and avoid ecologically sensitive areas. Try not to injure the roots of trees and plants.</p>
<p>Follow local ordinances regarding the making of fires; these rules are in place for good reason.</p>
<h2>Making a Dakota Fire Hole</h2>
<p>Now that we have the introduction taken care of, we can make a Dakota Fire Hole. As shown in the picture, I am using an army folding shovel to dig with.</p>
<p>Many wilderness survivors carry a small hand trowel for the burying of human wastes and this also works well. A strong stick or part from your mess kit can also be utilized for digging holes in a pinch; survival experts are experts at innovation so use whatever means you have available.</p>
<h2>Making the Fire Pit Chamber</h2>
<p>Having selected a likely area in which to dig the fire hole, first remove a plug of soil and plant roots in the form of a circle about 10 or 12 inches in diameter. Continue digging straight down to a depth of about one-foot being sure to save the plug and the soil you removed for replacement later on.</p>
<p>This part of the Dakota fire hole will serve as the main chamber that contains the fire. I prefer to extend the base of the fire chamber outward a couple of inches in all directions so that it can accommodate longer pieces of firewood. This saves time and energy in breaking up firewood into suitable lengths, and also has the effect of allowing larger and therefore hotter fires.</p>
<p>The effect is a jug-shaped hole at the base of which you place firewood. The neck of the jug will serve as a chimney of sorts the function of which is to increase the draft and concentrate the heat of the fire into the small opening.</p>
<h2>Making the Dakota Fire Hole Airway</h2>
<div id="attachment_678" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dakota-firehole-air-channel.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-678" class="size-full wp-image-678" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dakota-firehole-air-channel.jpg" alt="Dakota Fire Hole airway" width="350" height="424" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dakota-firehole-air-channel.jpg 350w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dakota-firehole-air-channel-247x300.jpg 247w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-678" class="wp-caption-text">Making the Airway – Starting about one-foot away from the edge of the fire pit, dig a 6-inch diameter air tunnel at an angle so that it intersects with the base of the fire pit.The prevailing wind is moving from in back of me in the upper left corner of the picture.</p></div>
<p>Now comes the key component of the Dakota hole that makes this fire making method so effective; the airway.</p>
<p>Before you start on the airway tunnel, determine the general direction of the wind. If the wind is too light to easily ascertain its direction you can often lick a finger and hold it up, being sure it is away from any obstructions. Evaporative cooling on one side or the other of your appendage will be felt from which direction the wind, however light, is blowing. That is the side of the fire hole on which to construct the airway.</p>
<p>Dig a 6-inch diameter airway tunnel starting about one foot away from the edge of the fire hole. Angle its construction so that the tunnel intersects with the base of the fire chamber as shown in the diagram and picture. As when you made the fire hole section, be sure to save the plug containing the vegetation and roots as well as the loose soil you remove.</p>
<p>Now that the Dakota Fire Hole is properly constructed, you can partially fill the fire pit chamber with dry combustible kindling materials and light the fire.</p>
<p>To start the fire I am using a FireSteel, the kind Survival Topics highly recommends to be included in every survival kit. These firesteels from <a title="firesteels" href="http://firesteel.com/">FireSteel.com</a> work even when wet and will literally light thousands of fires before wearing out – try doing that with matches or a lighter! They sell high quality Firesteels at the lowest prices in the Survival Supplies section of this website. Help support this website and buy them here – I guarantee a quality product.</p>
<p>Once the flame is going strong, drop it into the fire pit so that it catches the kindling on fire; gradually add sticks so that a strong hot fire is maintained.</p>
<h2>How a Dakota Fire Hole Works</h2>
<div id="attachment_679" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fire-hole-fire-starting.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-679" class="size-full wp-image-679" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fire-hole-fire-starting.jpg" alt="Light a Fire" width="350" height="303" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fire-hole-fire-starting.jpg 350w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fire-hole-fire-starting-300x259.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-679" class="wp-caption-text">Light the Fire – Using a firesteel from FireSteel.com, I am lighting the fire.These firesteels always work, no matter how wet the conditions. Able to start thousands of fires, you can buy your own firesteels at FireSteel.com</p></div>
<p>The accompanying diagram shows the secret of what makes the Dakota Firehole so effective. As the fire burns, the hot air that is created goes up through the fire hole “chimney”. This creates a suction action that forcefully draws air down through the tunnel and into the base of the fire. The draft is increased even more by your having constructed the tunnel on the side from which the prevailing wind is coming.</p>
<p>Acting as a kind of bellows, the flames are continuously fanned and the fire burns hotter and more efficiently than a fire that is simply made on the surface to the ground. Hotter fires mean less smoke. In addition, the heat of the fire is concentrated into an upward direction where you can better capture it for use. This allows you to do more with less wood – an excellent survival fire by any measure.</p>
<h2>Fire Hole Improvements</h2>
<p>Once you have made the Dakota fire hole you can easily set up a cooking surface for pots and pans by laying several parallel green sticks across the fire pit as show in the picture. Lacking camp cooking gear you can also find a flat rock that only partially covers the hole – and use it as a sort of hobo frying pan.</p>
<p>It is also an easy matter to set a “Y” shaped stick into the ground onto which is rested a green pole with bannock dough, fish, or other outdoor meal. For more information on the wilderness survival staple known as bannock.</p>
<h2>Campfire Cleanup</h2>
<p>When it is time to leave the area, be a responsible wilderness survivor who values the land you need for survival. Fill in the Dakota fire hole with the dirt you removed and saved when you were constructing it. Then replace the cap of vegetation. Doing so serves the double purpose of extinguishing the fire and leaving as little trace of your visit as possible. In summary, the main advantages of using a Dakota Fire Hole include:</p>
<ul>
<li>burns hotter</li>
<li>with less fuel</li>
<li>producing less smoke</li>
<li>less light visible to reveal your position</li>
<li>providing a stable cooking surface</li>
<li>easy extinguishing of the fire</li>
<li>easy removal of evidence you have been there when you are preparing to leave.</li>
</ul>
<p>There can be no doubt, making the Dakota Fire Hole one of the best types of survival fires you can make when surviving in the wilderness.</p>
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<title>Edible Pine Bark</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/edible-pine-bark/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sun, 05 Jun 2005 19:01:17 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Recent Survival Topics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=656</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Ever eat a tree? Survival Topics will show you how. Where others starve, expert survivors find food; often in plentiful supply from sources few people know about. To survive where others fail you need the drive to observe and learn, the willingness to try new things, and the ability to drop all preconceived food prejudices. […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_658" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-658" class="size-full wp-image-658" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark1.jpg" alt="Edible Pine Bark" width="300" height="400" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark1.jpg 300w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark1-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-658" class="wp-caption-text">Eastern White Pine Logs – Freshly cut logs oozing pitch. This tree was over 3-feet thick at the base and eighty feet high.</p></div>
<p>Ever eat a tree? Survival Topics will show you how.</p>
<p>Where others starve, expert survivors find food; often in plentiful supply from sources few people know about. To survive where others fail you need the drive to observe and learn, the willingness to try new things, and the ability to drop all preconceived food prejudices. In the Survival Topic Survival Foraging on the Move I showed you how easy it can be to draw from nature’s food supply through knowledge of local flora and fauna and careful observation. Simply by keeping yourself open to anything edible that comes your way, you can obtain more food than you can possibly eat.</p>
<p>One of the foods I introduced in that article are needles from the Eastern White Pine tree (Pinus Strobus), which are high in the vitamin C you need for optimum health in the wilderness. Consuming pine needles or brewing pine needle tea is a great preventative and cure for scurvy caused by lack of vitamin C in the diet. Yet thousands of people have died of scurvy while literally surrounded by whole forests of pine trees! This illustrates the fact that knowledge and the ability to apply it is an important key to survival.</p>
<div style="background-color: #ccffcc; padding: 15px;">
<hr />
<h2>Treat The Earth With The Respect It Deserves</h2>
<p><strong><em>Note: I have recently come across blog posts of Survival Topics readers who wrote about their experiments with edible pine bark. Unfortunately they often display pictures of nasty hacks they have made into living trees for the sake of giving edible pine bark a try. Trees injured in this way are susceptible to attack by disease organisms and insects. The best outdoorsmen and survivalists I know have a deep respect for the land and the plants and animals they have come to know.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>I never injure any living thing I do not have to. This philosophy bodes well with real outdoorsmen who understand the importance of treading carefully in the world we live. Stripping bark from a live tree will kill it – the wise take only what they need and leave the rest; in non-emergency situations there is no need to destroy a tree for a meal of bark. For this reason until now I have put off showing you this excellent survival food resource.</em></strong></p>
<hr />
</div>
<p>Consuming pine needles or brewing pine needle tea is a great preventative and cure for scurvy caused by lack of vitamin C in the diet. Yet thousands of people have died of scurvy while literally surrounded by whole forests of pine trees! This illustrates the fact that knowledge and the ability to apply it is an important key to survival.</p>
<div id="attachment_659" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-659" class="size-full wp-image-659" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark.jpg" alt="Eating Bark" width="300" height="225" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-659" class="wp-caption-text">Peeling Bark – The bark on freshly cut trees is easy to peel off. Simply cut a line through all bark layers down to the wood of the tree. Then using the edge of a sharp tool separate the bark from the rest of the tree. Now you have a slab containing both the outer bark of the tree and the white inner bark. This is a slippery and sticky process, so be careful and have fun!</p></div>
<p>In this Survival Topic I will introduce to you another part of the Eastern White Pine that is nutritious and easy to harvest in amounts large enough to be a very significant source of food for you and your companions during an extended survival emergency: its inner bark.</p>
<p>You will likely find the inner bark of pine trees to be good to eat at any time, whether or not you are in a food emergency. However the damaging of these fine trees is not advised unless you are in real survival situation or obtain pines that are being cut anyway during logging or thinning operations.</p>
<p>The Eastern White Pine is the tallest tree in Eastern North America, growing up to 230 feet high and measuring 8 feet thick at the base. These huge old trees can live as long as 500 years, though most of the giants have been cut for lumber in years past. Trees several feet thick and one hundred feet tall are now quite common in some areas.</p>
<p>If you take a look at the accompanying map you can see that the Eastern White Pine lives in areas that many Survival Topics readers frequent, from south eastern Canada down through Pennsylvania and south along the Appalachian Mountains. If you do not live in Eastern White Pine country do not despair; many other species of tree bark are edible and the basic principles of harvest and preparation remain the same.</p>
<p>The Eastern White Pine has evergreen needles in bundles of 5 that are about 3 to 5 inches long. The bark and cones are very resinous, and this sticky substance can be utilized in a number of ways including the making of glue.</p>
<p>The bark of young trees is a gray greenish color and is thin and easily broken. As the tree grows larger the outer bark becomes reddish brown, thick, scaly and with deep furrows.</p>
<h2>Finding Trees to Eat</h2>
<div id="attachment_661" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark5.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-661" class="size-full wp-image-661" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark5.jpg" alt="Bark Layers of Tree" width="300" height="136" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-661" class="wp-caption-text">Tree Layers – starting from the outside of the tree, the second and third bark layers are the edible, living portion of the tree</p></div>
<p>Recently a large eastern white pine tree on a property abutting the Survival Topics compound was deemed a dangerous liability. This huge tree had grown to a height of eighty five feet and some three feet thick at the base. Because a nearby home was endangered should the tree topple over during a storm, the pine was cut and removed by a tree service. When the neighbor asked if I would like the wood for use as kindling in the woodstove I accepted her kind offer.</p>
<p>Little did she know I planned to eat the tree!</p>
<p>The pine logs were trucked to a corner of the compound. In the picture you can see me investigating several of the freshly cut logs still oozing with sticky sap and smelling of turpentine. By counting its annual growth rings the tree appears to be some sixty years old. In the far background of the picture you can see the tops several living white pine trees in the Survival Topics forest jutting up toward the clouds.</p>
<h2>Native Americans Ate Bark</h2>
<p>Native Americans included the inner bark of pines and other trees as an important part of their diet. Early foreign explorers of North America recorded finding acres of trees stripped of bark for food by the local inhabitants.</p>
<div id="attachment_662" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark4.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-662" class="size-full wp-image-662" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark4.jpg" alt="Cutting Bark" width="300" height="225" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-662" class="wp-caption-text">Slicing Bark – On this large tree the inner bark is a full quarter inch thick. The inner bark closest to the outer bark is tough and tastes resinous. Here I am using a sharp knife to peel the inner bark roughly in half, keeping the part that grew closest to the woody part of the trunk.</p></div>
<p>Easily obtainable in large quantities all year round, storable, and very nutritious, at least one famous tribe is well documented as making bark an important part of their diet. Their very name “Adirondack”, a tribe in the mountains of upstate New York, means “bark eaters” in the Iroquois language.</p>
<p>The Iroquois were a confederacy of Native Americans frequently at war with the Adirondacks. Calling the Adirondacks “Bark Eaters” was meant as derogatory name calling, much as you might call a mechanic, no matter how skilled he may really be, a “grease monkey”.</p>
<h2>More Survival Myths</h2>
<p>Most writers maintain that the Adirondacks ate bark out of dire necessity, only because they were often starving during long cold winters when game was scarce and little in the way of other food could be found. But having experience in harvesting and eating the inner bark of pine trees myself, which I am sure few other writers have ever done, I maintain it is more likely the Native Americans relished the taste and nutritional value of inner bark and considered it a welcome part of their diet whether or not other foods were available.</p>
<p>That the Adirondacks ate a large amount of bark during the winter is likely due to its easy storability more than anything else. The misreading of the habits of cultures foreign to ones own is very common. If eating bark is a strange concept to you and you observe another culture doing so you may very well conclude they are eating bark because they are starving and have nothing else to eat.</p>
<div id="attachment_664" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark6.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-664" class="size-full wp-image-664" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark6.jpg" alt="Roasting Bark" width="300" height="268" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-664" class="wp-caption-text">Roasting Bark – For long term storage you can roast the bark on a plat stone until completely dry and crispy.Dried bark can be used as a flour substitute or stew thickener.</p></div>
<p>It has been my frequent observation that many writers merely regurgitate what they have read elsewhere, rehashing over and over the same errors so much so that eventually the error becomes embedded in nearly all literature on the subject and is thought of as the gospel truth even by those considered an authority on the subject.</p>
<p>An example of this is shown in the Survival Topic on How Long do You Need to Boil Water? Where I show that most commonly accepted literature on boiling water to make it safe to drink is in error.When it comes to survival there are many other misnomers, myths, and misinformation being spread by those who have never tested the information they expose; a very dangerous practice indeed when it comes to those who rely upon it for survival.</p>
<p>When members of the Adirondack tribe came upon a large wind thrown Eastern White Pine I suspect they did what any hunter gatherers who knew the food value of its inner bark would do; they gladly harvested it. So on to our own harvesting and preparation of edible pine bark!</p>
<p>So on to our own harvesting and preparation of edible pine bark!</p>
<h2>How to Harvest Edible Pine Bark</h2>
<div id="attachment_663" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark3.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-663" class="size-full wp-image-663" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark3.jpg" alt="Cooking Bark" width="300" height="430" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark3.jpg 300w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark3-209x300.jpg 209w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-663" class="wp-caption-text">Cooking Bark – Frying slabs of pine bark on a cast iron pan over the Dakota Fire Hole. Grease the pan well and fry to a crisp golden brown.</p></div>
<p>When harvesting pine bark expect to get very sticky, covered with pitch from head to toe; it’s all part of the fun.</p>
<p>I very much enjoy the smell of pine pitch. It brings me back to my younger days of axe work on survey lines and timber stand improvements in the Great North Woods of northern Maine and New Hampshire. Hard work in the outdoors is the elixir of life and the key to good health, as you must know if you live the life of an outdoorsman.</p>
<p>In the diagram you can see that a pine log is actually made up of a number of layers. Both the rough outer bark layer and the main woody part of the tree commonly used as lumber is non-living material. The edible part of bark is the “inner bark” or “phloem”; the actual living part of the tree. This inner bark carries nutrients from the needles and roots throughout the tree.</p>
<p>To harvest the living bark for food you will need a fresh tree. As soon as the tree falls or is cut down the clock is ticking; wait too many days and the bark will become very difficult to remove from the rest of the tree. However on a fresh live tree the bark is easily removed in large slippery sheets.</p>
<p>The first step is to remove a slab consisting of both the rough outer bark and the living inner bark from the woody trunk of the tree. Simply use a chopping tool to cut a straight line completely through all the layers of bark right down to the hard wood. Then slide the edge of a tool into the cut you made so that it is forced between the bark and wood. Work the edged tool back and forth as you pull the loosened bark with your other hand. The bark is easily removed from the wood since the space between is exceedingly slippery.</p>
<p>As you can see in the pictures, I am using a tomahawk for this process but any tough narrow object such as a small crowbar or a strong stick can be used as a bark removing tool.</p>
<p>The larger the tree the thicker the inner and outer bark layers tend to be. At the base of this large tree the inner bark is a full quarter inch thick in places. If I were to harvest all the inner bark on the tree I would likely have well over one hundred pounds!</p>
<p>The most edible and tasty part of the inner bark is that which is closest to the hard woody part of the tree (or furthest away from the outer bark if you prefer to look at it that way). The portion of the inner bark closest to the wood of the tree has an almost sweet taste. The closer the inner bark is to the outer bark of the tree the stringier and resinous it becomes.</p>
<div id="attachment_665" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-665" class="size-full wp-image-665" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/edible-pine-bark2.jpg" alt="Crispy Bark Chips" width="300" height="221" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-665" class="wp-caption-text">Crispy Bark Chips – Fry the bark slabs to a crispy golden brown</p></div>
<p>For this reason I like to slice the slab of inner bark in half and discard the less desirable piece. You may have to experiment some in order to find the thickness of inner bark that you need to remove. This varies from tree to tree and limb to limb depending upon the characteristics of each individual tree, its size, and your particular tastes.</p>
<p>If a tree is under a foot in diameter, more or less, there may be little inner bark that is not resinous. This comes from my particular experience; in your neck of the woods the local pines may differ due to local conditions or genetics. Just as apples from different trees can vary in taste, so too will foods from other sources.</p>
<p>In the picture I am using a sharp survival knife for separating the tasty portion of the inner bark from the more resinous part which is left connected to the rough outer bark.</p>
<h2>Cooking the Bark</h2>
<p>Raw white pine bark is too fibrous to eat very much of. You can chew it until your jaw hurts and it remains balled up in one large mass. However heat the bark to crispness, something like a potato chip you purchase as a snack from the grocery store, and the bark becomes a tasty treat.</p>
<p>Some writers claim you can slice the pine bark into strips and boil it like spaghetti until tender and soft. I haven’t been successful at this, having boiled the strips for several hours with no good result. Once again, I suspect this method may be espoused by armchair survivalists who rarely actually do what they write about but merely plagiarize from one another ad infinitum. Since fresh inner pine bark has something of the characteristics of wet pasta, being limp, light colored and slippery, it could be someone made the connection and other writers are simply copying the idea into their own texts.</p>
<p>If you have managed to make edible spaghetti out of the inner bark of Eastern White Pines, please contact me as I would very much like to know how you did it.</p>
<p>In the pictures you can see me cooking the harvest of inner bark over a Dakota Fire Hole using a couple of methods. The first, perhaps my favorite, is frying the bark in olive oil to a golden brown on a cast iron frying pan. This is done much as you would fry slabs of bacon. Of course you can use any edible oil depending upon your tastes or what you have available.</p>
<p>In my fingers is a fried and ready to eat bark chip. It is a little dark in color as it is slightly overcooked; cooking and taking pictures at the same time is not conducive to gourmet results!</p>
<p>I can easily eat a bag full of these crunchy bark chips as a snack, and certainly they would be a welcome addition to any wilderness survival meal. I can taste sugar and starches in this food and there are likely to be a host of valuable nutrients since it is the living part of the tree. A mess of fried trout, some dandelion greens, and a handful of pine bark chips – a meal fit for a king!</p>
<p>Another good method, especially for preparing white pine bark for long term storage, is dry roasting. Here you can see I have positioned a flat stone over the Dakota Fire Hole on which the slabs of inner bark are being roasted. Once dry to a golden brown the bark can be pounded into flour that can be used as an extender for other flours, as a soup thickener etc.</p>
<p>The most delicious way I have found to prepare the inner bark for eating is to shred it as finely as possible before roasting or frying. This makes the bark especially crunchy and fine tasting but of course takes more effort in preparation.</p>
<h2>Try Eating A Tree</h2>
<p>The Adirondack’s knew what they were doing when they harvested the inner bark of Eastern White Pines as a valuable food resource. Easily procured in great quantities, tasty and nutritious, knowing how to eat the bark of a pine tree could very well save your life.</p>
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<title>Clean Your Cooking Gear with Wood Ashes</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/clean-your-cooking-gear-with-wood-ashes/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 09 May 2005 18:45:49 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=650</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Using wood ashes as a cleaning agent makes alot of sense: they are readily available, free, and relatively safe for the environment when compared to many types of soap. In this Survival Topic we will cover this very handy method for the outdoorsman to clean his dirty dishes. Re-purpose Natural Materials When it comes to […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_651" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-651" class="size-full wp-image-651" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes.jpg" alt="Cleaning with Wood Ash" width="300" height="225" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-651" class="wp-caption-text">Wood Ash Soap – You can use wood ashes instead of soap to clean your mess kit and cooking gear. Shown here is a greasy pot with food residue that we want to clean, a bottle of water that has been treated to destroy disease causing organisms, a pile of wood ash, and a scouring pad. Important: do not wash your gear with 200 feet (60 meters) of any source of water.</p></div>
<p>Using wood ashes as a cleaning agent makes alot of sense: they are readily available, free, and relatively safe for the environment when compared to many types of soap. In this Survival Topic we will cover this very handy method for the outdoorsman to clean his dirty dishes.</p>
<h2>Re-purpose Natural Materials</h2>
<p>When it comes to wilderness survival, large scale disaster, or even just camping outdoors we often try to do things in the same manner as we are accustomed to doing them at home. However what works well enough in civilization does not necessarily translate smoothly to a wilderness or disaster scenario where familiar supplies of every sort are limited or non-existent.</p>
<p>Solutions are available to most outdoor and survival problems, if only we have the knowledge and inventiveness to use them. But because we usually spend most of our time in civilization where specialized tools and products are readily available, we loose some of the edge in our abilities to utilize the common items we find around us in the wilderness.</p>
<p>Often it is simply a matter of key pieces of information missing in our expertise, which once provided suddenly gives us a powerful new way to accomplish necessary tasks. Survival Topics maintains that the best survivalists are experts at repurposing what is available to them under field conditions.</p>
<p>Consider the daily chore of cleaning your mess kit after a meal. There can be no doubt that the proper cleaning of your mess kit and cooking gear is an important wilderness or disaster survival task; when it comes to the food you eat and the cooking gear and utensils that come in contact with it, a lack of proper hygiene can lay you low in short order.</p>
<h2>Easy Access to Soap is Limited</h2>
<div id="attachment_652" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes3.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-652" class="size-full wp-image-652" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes3.jpg" alt="clean with wood ashes" width="300" height="225" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-652" class="wp-caption-text">Mix Wood Ashes and Water. Place the wood ashes in the pot that needs cleaning. Then ad water and mix into a thin paste. And, the greasier the pot the better the wood ash soap.</p></div>
<p>In a disaster or wilderness survival setting you will often lack soap with which to wash your camp cooking gear and mess kit.</p>
<p>Soap takes up weight and space, which is a very important consideration when every ounce and every cubic inch of your gear must be measured against what is most important for your survival. Especially when you are on foot the less you carry the better off you are; hard decisions must be made on what you bring with you and what is left behind.</p>
<p>On extended stays in the wilderness or during a large scale disaster re-supply from outside sources is usually not available. You are likely to eventually run out of any soap you have so an alternative means for cleaning your cooking gear and mess kit is preferable.</p>
<p>When practicing survival skills in the field I usually do not bring soap to clean my mess kit and cooking gear. To save on bulk and weight, I would forgo using any soap I had in favor of rubbing and swirling a mixture of water, mud and sand on cooking utensils in order to scour off caked on grease and food particles. Although sanding down cooking gear certainly removes food residues, it often doesn’t eliminate all the grease. And the mess kit and cooking gear sure take a beating.</p>
<p>For many years I was content on using the sand and mud method to clean my cooking gear when in the wilderness. But one evening while sitting around the camp fire after having washed the remains of the evening meal from my mess kit with the usual mud, sand, and water mixture, the smoke sudden cleared from my eyes and the world seemed fresh and new. I had independently made a discovery that had already been known for centuries.</p>
<h2>Use Wood Ashes to Clean Dishes</h2>
<div id="attachment_653" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-653" class="size-full wp-image-653" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes2.jpg" alt="Scrub dishes with wood ashes" width="300" height="225" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-653" class="wp-caption-text">Scrub Well. Scrub the pot well with the wood ash paste.</p></div>
<p>With a flash of insight I realized all the soap for washing my mess kit has always been right at hand. What’s more, the supply is inexhaustible and I do not have to carry it.</p>
<p>The answer to all my mess kit and cooking gear cleaning problems? Wood ashes. Back home I did the necessary research and discovered that cleaning dishes with wood ashes is a sound practice.</p>
<p>Wood ashes have been used for centuries as a source of lye in the soap making process. When lye derived from wood ashes is mixed with fats or oils a chemical action takes place that produces what we call soap. While the chemistry behind this process is beyond the scope of this Survival Topic, its implications are not; if you have wood ashes (from a campfire) and fats or oils (in your dirty dishes) then you’ve got soap!</p>
<h2>How to Use Wood Ashes as Soap</h2>
<p>Before we even begin to describe in detail how to use wood ashes as soap in the wilderness, I want to emphasize the importance of washing your cooking gear far away from any water supply. Do not pollute the water sources that you, other people, and wildlife rely upon for survival.</p>
<p>Follow these basic steps for cleaning your cooking gear with wood ashes. As with most processes, the description is wordy but actually doing it is easy:</p>
<ol>
<li>Before you start cleaning your cooking gear with wood ashes there are some important considerations that should be addressed:
<ul>
<li>The wood ashes used to wash your gear must not contain residue from plastic, food, or other trash that was burned in the fire; these substances could very well be toxic. To obtain pure wood ashes be sure you do not use ashes in which others may have burned items other than wood. You may have to build a fire at a fresh location from which to obtain pure wood ash.</li>
<li>Water is a precious resource that is easily contaminated. Avoid being the cause of water contamination – do not wash anything within 200 feet of streams, lakes or ponds, springs, etc.</li>
<li>Water for washing anything that will come in contact with food must be first treated to destroy disease causing organisms. The Survival Topic That Water is Unsafe to Drink goes into further detail on contaminated water and is required reading for any disaster or wilderness survivor.</li>
<li>The lye from wood ashes can make your hands dry if left on for a period of time. Be sure to use gloves or rinse your hands in clean water after scrubbing your gear using this method.</li>
<li>Do not use wood ashes to wash your body or any gear that cannot withstand harsh soaps.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Ashes from hardwood trees are better for making wood ash “soap” than ashes derived from softwoods. In general, softwood trees have needles as leaves and do not shed them in winter. Hardwoods have broad flat leaves and in cooler climates often shed their leaves before winter sets in.</li>
<li>Let your fire burn down to the point where you can easily extract wood ashes.</li>
<li>Select the greasiest pot you want to clean. If the food residue is not very greasy you can help the soap making process by adding a small amount of fat or oil into the pot. Butter, margarine, olive oil, animal fat, etc are all good. Just a few drops are enough.</li>
<li>Add a few cups of ashes into the pot. If there are bits of charcoal mixed in with the wood ash that is even better since charcoal will aid in scouring. Often I carefully add a few hot coals from the fire in order make hot water (see the next step).</li>
<li>Add enough hot water to the wood ashes in the pot to make a paste. Because you are cleaning gear that will be touching food, you must make sure this water is free of disease causing organisms as stated in step one. You can either first boil this water to make it safe (see the Survival Topic on How Long do You Need to Boil Water?), or first add some hot coals to the pot as mentioned in step #5 above. These hot coals should bring the water up to a high temperature that destroys any organisms in the water.</li>
<li>The hot water will create potassium salts from the wood ashes, which will then mix with the fats or oils in the food residue. This forms a crude soap that will cut through the crud and grease on your cooking gear.</li>
<li>When the water and wood ash paste is cool enough smear it all over your cooking gear and let it set for several minutes. This is where the chemical reaction takes place that makes your wood ash soap.</li>
<li>Scrub clean your cooking gear and mess kit.</li>
<li>Rinse with treated water.</li>
</ol>
<p>Of course being able to use wood ash soap means you must have access to a wood fire. In some areas open fires are not allowed or you may choose to use fuels other than wood for cooking food or heating purposes.</p>
<h2>Cook with Wood and Save</h2>
<div id="attachment_654" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-654" class="size-full wp-image-654" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes1.jpg" alt="Wood Ash Clean" width="300" height="400" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes1.jpg 300w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/clean-wood-ashes1-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-654" class="wp-caption-text">Rinse With treated Water – It is very important that you rinse your cooking gear with water that has been treated to destroy disease causing organisms.</p></div>
<p>Survival Topics is a big fan of using supplies provided by nature’s survival supply depot rather than have to carry them myself. This saves on problems of procurement, expense, weight, and bulk; always welcome attributes when traveling in the wilderness.</p>
<p>Since in my area wood is always available and open fires are not restricted, I do my camp cooking on a hobo wood burning stove. The advantages of using a wood burning stove over stoves using other types of fuels include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Do not have to purchase fuel.</li>
<li>Do not have to carry fuel.</li>
<li>The fuel supply will never run out – bits of wood or other natural burnable materials can easily be obtained anywhere I go.</li>
<li>The fuel wood is burned into ash during the cooking of meals. The ash is then used to wash the dishes so I never need to carry soap for this purpose!</li>
</ul>
<p>So there you have it – cook with wood and get all the free fuel and all the free soap you need to for cleaning cooking gear. A sound wilderness survival skill you can easily use the next time you cook a meal in the great outdoors.</p>
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<item>
<title>Bannock</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/bannock/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sun, 08 May 2005 16:03:51 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=648</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Bannock has been a staple food of wilderness explorers, prospectors, soldiers, and trappers for centuries. Portable, nutritious, tasty and easy to make while surviving in the outdoors, bannocks legendary reputation continues as one of the best survival foods you can bring into the wilderness. Bannock is high in carbohydrates and complements the proteins of pemmican, […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_649" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/make-bannock.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-649" class="size-full wp-image-649" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/make-bannock.jpg" alt="How to Make Bannock" width="300" height="455" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/make-bannock.jpg 300w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/make-bannock-197x300.jpg 197w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-649" class="wp-caption-text">Cooking Bannock on an Open Fire – Bannock is very easy to make and cook on an open fire.Here I have wrapped a snake-like strip of bannock around a green stick. Makes me hungry just looking at this picture!</p></div>
<p>Bannock has been a staple food of wilderness explorers, prospectors, soldiers, and trappers for centuries. Portable, nutritious, tasty and easy to make while surviving in the outdoors, bannocks legendary reputation continues as one of the best survival foods you can bring into the wilderness.</p>
<p>Bannock is high in carbohydrates and complements the proteins of pemmican, jerky, the arctic survival ration, and other meats. It can be used as a hearty stand-alone food or combined with foraged wild edibles such as berries, fruits, and meats.</p>
<h2>What is Bannock?</h2>
<p>Bannock is a bread that you can cook using little more than a fire and a stick though it can also be baked or fried. Names for bannock include bushbread, trail bread, grease bread and galette.</p>
<p>Bannocks origins are lost in the mists of time, but some believe bannock was first made by the Scotts from the same oat flour that gave their horses great strength and endurance. With stomachs fed with hearty oat bannock those who became explorers and mountain men in the new world introduced the bannock recipe to the Native Americans and other outdoorsmen who lived in the wilderness.</p>
<p>The most simple bannock recipe consists of just flour of nearly any kind and water. Kneaded into a dough and wrapped around a green stick, this most basic bannock cooks into a fine tasting bread that can be eaten alone or used as a basis for a full course meal.</p>
<p>There are a great many other bannock recipies that will make your mouth water and give you the impetus to try your hand at making your own. In the pictures you can see me cooking one of my favorite bannock recipes over an open fire in the forest:</p>
<h2>Survival Topics Bannock on a Green Stick</h2>
<p>This is my favorite way to make bannock as it brings forth the image of mountain men from a bygone era cooking over an open fire.</p>
<p>The following recipe provides enough bannock for one day. Stored in a waterproof bag, it is easy to carry a week or ten day supply.</p>
<ul>
<li>1-cup whole wheat flour</li>
<li>1 teaspoon baking powder</li>
<li>¼ teaspoon salt</li>
<li>3 tablespoons butter</li>
<li>2 tablespoons milk powder</li>
</ul>
<p>Mix all the ingredients well, making sure the butter is evenly distributed throughout. Sometimes I will melt the butter before adding it to the mixture. Then slowly add water while mixing until a dough ball is formed.</p>
<p>Make the bannock dough into a cigar shape and wrap it around a green stick. Try to keep the thickness of the dough about ½ inch.</p>
<p>Slowly roast the bannock over a hot fire, rotating occasionally until it turns a golden brown. You will hear the butter sizzling and your stomach rumble as the bannock cooks.</p>
<h2>Multi-flour Bannock Recipe</h2>
<p>This combination of flours, spices, and dried fruit makes the bannock a delicious meal of itself and makes me hungry just thinking about it. It can be cooked over an open fire on a green stick or formed into a loaf and baked and makes a 3-day supply:</p>
<ul>
<li>1 Cup Barley flour \</li>
<li>1 Cup Wheat flour</li>
<li>1/2 Cup Rolled Oats</li>
<li>1 Cup White Sugar</li>
<li>1/2 to 1 Cup Raisins or other dried fruit</li>
<li>1 1/2 Cup Buttermilk</li>
<li>1 teaspoon baking powder</li>
<li>1 tbsp. Coarse Ground Salt</li>
<li>1 tbsp. Cinnamon</li>
<li>1 tbsp. Cloves</li>
<li>1 tbsp. Nutmeg</li>
</ul>
<h2>Fried Bannock</h2>
<p>If you like fried foods then you need to try fried Bannock.</p>
<ul>
<li>4 cups flour</li>
<li>2 tbsp baking powder</li>
<li>2 tbsp sugar</li>
<li>1/2 cup milk</li>
<li>1/4 cup margarine/butter</li>
<li>2 eggs</li>
<li>1/4 tbsp salt</li>
</ul>
<p>Mix all the ingredients so a dough ball is formed. Break off pieces and flatten into rounds about ½ inch thick. Fry to a golden brown in the oil of your choice.</p>
<h2>Try Making Bannock</h2>
<p>Bannock is a fulfilling meal that can be used to supplement natural foods foraged from your surroundings. When hiking in the wilderness I like to have enough pre-mixed bannock recipe for at least one meal each day.</p>
<p>Try out various combinations of bannock mixed with fruits, nuts and seeds, cheeses, meats, fish and a variety of spices. Wilderness meals containing bannock can satisfy even the most discriminating palate.</p>
<p>Bannock is easy to cook and is an excellent comfort food that will elevate your mood and fill your stomach. There is nothing quite like the sight and smell of fresh bannock cooking over an open fire at the end of a hard day surviving in the wilderness.</p>
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<item>
<title>Balsam Fir Pitch</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/balsam-fir-pitch/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sat, 07 May 2005 14:54:37 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=647</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In wilderness survival knowing how to utilize trees like the balsam fir can enhance your ability to survive. Uses for the balsam fir tree for wilderness survival are so numerous that a complete inventory could easily fill a small book. If you are lucky enough to live in balsam fir (Abies balsamea) country then you […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_696" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/05/balsam-fir-pitch.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-696" class="size-full wp-image-696" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/05/balsam-fir-pitch.jpg" alt="Balsam Fir Pitch" width="200" height="150" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-696" class="wp-caption-text">A broken bark blister oozes sticky pitch onto the head of a tomahawk</p></div>
<p>In wilderness survival knowing how to utilize trees like the balsam fir can enhance your ability to survive. Uses for the balsam fir tree for wilderness survival are so numerous that a complete inventory could easily fill a small book.</p>
<p>If you are lucky enough to live in balsam fir (Abies balsamea) country then you have a readily available supply of medicines, fire starting aids and fire burning materials, food, and shelter making materials. You can consider this tree an integral part of your survival gear. All you need is the knowledge necessary to tap into this free natural resource.</p>
<p>Because the uses of balsam fir trees for wilderness survival are so extensive, in this Survival Topic we will concentrate on just one small part of the tree; the pitch of the balsam fir, which can be readily harvested and utilized in a variety of ways.</p>
<p>How to Identify Balsam Fir Trees</p>
<p>The range of balsam fir extends through most of central and eastern Canada and southward to Minnesota, Maine and the Appalachian Mountains to West Virginia. In this area balsam firs are the most commonly used species for Christmas trees and wreaths.</p>
<p>Identifying characteristics of Balsam Fir trees include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Flattened needles that are about 3/4 inch (2cm) long and blunt or notched at the end. The balsam fir needles are dark green on top and silver-blue on the undersides.</li>
<li>The green resinous cones stand vertically and are two or three inches (5cm to 8cm long).</li>
<li>The bark is grayish-brown and smooth with raised blisters containing a sticky resin or pitch.</li>
<li>Height of up to 80-ft (24-meters) with a very narrow crown.</li>
<li>Prefers well drained acidic soils and cold climates.</li>
</ul>
<h2>About Balsam Fir Pitch</h2>
<p>A distinguishing characteristic of the balsam fir tree is its raised bark blisters that dot its otherwise smooth bark. These blisters contain a clear, sticky pitch or resin that protects the tree in a variety of ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Entrapping insects should they pierce the bark.</li>
<li>Closing wounds should the bark be broken.</li>
<li>Fighting microorganisms, fungi, etc that might try to invade the tree through the wound.</li>
</ul>
<p>These properties of balsam fir pitch can be used by the human wilderness survivor in much the same way as the tree itself. This repurposing of natures materials for our own use is a distinguishing characteristic of the best survival experts; they observe and adapt the survival strategies and materials used by the local plants and animals to their own needs.</p>
<p>While other coniferous trees such as pines and spruces exude pitch from wounds that is also useful for wilderness survival, pitch from balsam firs has some advantages:</p>
<ul>
<li>Thousands of years before modern packaging, balsam firs have pitch contained in easy to access blister packs.</li>
<li>No need to find a wounded tree in order to obtain pitch; nearly every balsam fir tree has accessible pitch. Simply open a blister.</li>
<li>The outer covering of the bark blisters keeps the pitch pure by protecting it from insects and foreign matter.</li>
<li>The blister packs of balsam fir pitch stay resinous and runny while awaiting your use – even in cold weather that renders other pitches hard and brittle.</li>
</ul>
<div id="attachment_697" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/05/balsam-fir-needles.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-697" class="size-full wp-image-697" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/05/balsam-fir-needles.jpg" alt="Balsam Fir Needles" width="350" height="290" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/05/balsam-fir-needles.jpg 350w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/05/balsam-fir-needles-300x248.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-697" class="wp-caption-text">Balsam Fir Needles – Note the lighter color and whitish stripes on the underside on each needle</p></div>
<h2>Harvesting Balsam Fir Pitch</h2>
<p>To harvest balsam fir pitch from the tree, simply open the blisters using a sharp stick or knife. Be careful not to pop the blister since putting its contents under pressure may cause the pitch to suddenly shoot out and enter an eye or get all over your clothing and gear.</p>
<p>Balsam fir pitch is clear, runny, and very sticky with a pleasant balsam smell that reminds me of Christmas. At very low temperatures the pitch remains unfrozen but becomes cloudy and takes on a gel-like consistency.</p>
<p>In the picture you can see I have opened a balsam fir pitch blister using a corner of my tomahawk. The clear pitch is flowing down the blade and can be collected into a container or used on the spot.</p>
<p>I like to carry a couple of small closeable containers to hold harvests of opportunity. As I travel in the wilderness I make sure to replenish my stock of balsam fir pitch for use at home as it has a variety of excellent applications as outlined below.</p>
<h2>Medicinal Uses of Balsam Fir Pitch</h2>
<p>Of special importance to wilderness survival and wilderness medicine in particular are the great antiseptic and healing properties of balsam fir pitch. Special substances in the pitch that protect the tree from infection and aid in the healing process will do the same for you.</p>
<p>An easy way to take advantage of the medicinal benefits of balsam fir pitch is to simply dab it on cuts, abrasions, sores, and wounds as a salve. The pitch will form a protective cover that aids in healing and destroys organisms that would otherwise find the area a hospitable place to grow and multiply.</p>
<p>Because the balsam fir pitch is so sticky, it can be used to glue cuts together so that the healing process is accelerated and debris cannot enter.</p>
<p>In the winter when chapped lips are a concern, I often stop at a nearby balsam fir for pitch. When smeared on lips it creates a protective barrier that keeps body moisture in and helps prevent chapping. On already chapped lips the balsam fir pitch will also aid in the healing process.</p>
<p>Medicinal uses of pitch from balsam firs used by Native Americans and early settlers to the region include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Topical applications
<ul>
<li>Painkiller or analgesic</li>
<li>Antiseptic</li>
<li>Salve for the healing of wounds such as cuts, abrasions, burns, sores, and chapped areas.</li>
<li>Prevention of chapped lips.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>As a warm tea mixed with water or eating directly
<ul>
<li>Bronchitis, cough, consumption, and sore thoats.</li>
<li>Cancer</li>
<li>Inflammation of mucus membranes.</li>
<li>Colds and flu</li>
<li>Dysentery</li>
<li>Earache</li>
<li>Urogenital ailments such as gonorrhea and vaginal infections</li>
<li>Heart ailments</li>
<li>Rheumatism or inflammation and pain in muscles and joints</li>
<li>Scurvy Ulcers</li>
<li>As an inhalant for headaches</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Balsam Fir Pitch as Food</h2>
<p>Balsam fir pitch can be used as a tonic and quick pick-me-up when consumed. I find its taste very enjoyable, though you probably would not want to eat more than a few dabs at a time.</p>
<p>If I feel a need for some quick energy, I often stop at a nearby balsam fir to open a blister or two for a snack. The highly concentrated oleoresin in the pitch gives it an oily, buttery consistency that I find enjoyable. I have not been able to find information on the caloric value of balsam fir pitch, but I suspect it is quite high in order to give its boost of energy during strenuous activity.</p>
<p>Rather than smear the sticky balsam fir pitch on my teeth, I dab it on my tongue and swallow it directly. Saliva and body heat help dissolve it.</p>
<p>The aroma of balsam fir also helps my mental state as it reminds me of good times in the forest and Christmas past as a young boy growing up in the rugged mountains of northern New Hampshire. This mental pick-me-up cannot be underestimated as a wilderness survival resource when times are tough.</p>
<h2>Balsam Fir Pitch Fire Starting Aid</h2>
<p>Building a fire in the wilderness is not always easy. The most common problem is damp wood and tinder.</p>
<p>A glob of balsam fir pitch burns for an extended period of time. If your tinder is damp it is an easy matter to break open several balsam fir bark blisters and smear the pitch on the tinder. The combination should burn long enough to dry out and ignite the tinder, which in turn will start the main fire.</p>
<p>You can also smear the pitch on cattail down, dryer lint, or cotton balls in the same way you use petroleum jelly as a fire starting aid. The fluffy material catches the initial spark from a FireSteel or match and carries it to the pitch, which in turn burns long and hot.</p>
<h2>Other Uses for Balsam Fir Pitch</h2>
<p>There are a number of additional uses for balsam fir pitch and if you come up with any others feel free to send them in and I will post them here:</p>
<ul>
<li>As an adhesive for a wide variety of purposes including fletching arrows, repairing equipment, and even gluing cut skin together.</li>
<li>A waterproofing agent, for example the seams of watercraft.</li>
<li>Smear on a hardhat to entrap pesky insects while working outdoors.</li>
<li>For its pleasant scent.</li>
</ul>
<p>Should you get sticky pitch on your hands and do not have the immediate means to remove it, you can simply cover the pitch with dirt or sand. This will adhere to the pitch and prevent it from sticking to everything you touch.</p>
<p>The next time you are in the forest and happen upon a balsam fir, take a good look at the pitch containing blisters on its bark. Knowing how to use balsam firs and their pitch is an excellent wilderness survival skill.</p>
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</item>
<item>
<title>That Water is Unsafe to Drink</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/that-water-is-unsafe-to-drink/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 06 May 2005 13:48:08 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Recent Survival Topics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=644</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In this Survival Topic we will discuss why it is important that you consider ALL sources of drinking water as contaminated with disease causing organisms until you properly treat it. We will also touch upon the best method to make water safe to drink. Water Born Disease Organisms I want to hammer home to you […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_645" style="width: 460px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dead-deer.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-645" class="size-full wp-image-645" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dead-deer.jpg" alt="Contaminated Water" width="450" height="338" srcset="http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dead-deer.jpg 450w, http://survivaltopics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/dead-deer-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-645" class="wp-caption-text">Think That Water is Clean? This, or worse, could be laying in your water supply just upstream. Your best chance of survival and staying healthy depends upon proper treatment of ALL sources of water.</p></div>
<p>In this Survival Topic we will discuss why it is important that you consider ALL sources of drinking water as contaminated with disease causing organisms until you properly treat it. We will also touch upon the best method to make water safe to drink.</p>
<p>Water Born Disease Organisms I want to hammer home to you the importance of always always always (did I say “always”?) treating any water before you use it for anything you will ingest into your body.</p>
<h2>Water Born Disease Organisms</h2>
<p>I want to hammer home to you the importance of always always always (did I say “always”?) treating any water before you use it for anything you will ingest into your body.</p>
<p>In short, before you use water for any purpose that ends up in your body including</p>
<ul>
<li>Drinking water.</li>
<li>Oral hygiene such as rinsing your mouth or brushing your teeth.</li>
<li>Cleaning of vegetables and other foods.</li>
<li>Cleaning of cooking and eating utensils.</li>
<li>Douching and enemas if you are into such things best left unsaid.</li>
</ul>
<p>The water must first be de-contaminated so that all water borne pathogens are destroyed or rendered inert. Otherwise you may become very sick indeed.</p>
<h2>Contaminated Water</h2>
<p>One of the most basic concepts you must completely understand in order to stay healthy in wilderness survival situations is that all sources of water are suspect.</p>
<p>Urban dwellers that we tend to be, we are usually accustomed to simply turning on the tap and drinking the water that comes from it.</p>
<p>It is important to note that tap water usually comes from protected sources and has been treated by municipal agencies to destroy disease causing organisms. This water is also frequently tested in order to insure it meets standards for potablility. In more rural areas tap water often comes from wells and springs where natural processes have purified the water.</p>
<p>Because we usually obtain our water so easily from the tap, the mindset to always consider water from untested sources as contaminated can be difficult to fully accept. Old habits die hard and many of you will be tempted to ignore my advice and drink any outdoor water source that appears to be fresh and clean. But I want you to drop any preconceived notion you many have on this subject and trust Survival Topics completely when it comes to treating your water. It could very well save your life.</p>
<p>Too many times to count people have told me that a certain stream or lake is safe to drink because it is clear, cold, and natural. I have some important information that could very well prevent you from becoming very sick:</p>
<p>That crystal clear mountain stream may seem clean enough to the eye, but invisible microorganisms are thriving in its waters by the millions.</p>
<p>Most of the tiny living things in water are harmless to humans, but all too often there are types that can make you very sick should you ingest them.</p>
<h2>You Are Likely Drinking Feces</h2>
<p>Many disease organisms contaminate water sources due to improper disposal of human wastes including feces. Another common natural source of water contamination comes from the local wildlife that often defecate in or near the water.</p>
<p>Birds and mammals that live in or near water think nothing of releasing their bodily wastes into it. But worse, many ignorant humans will improperly dispose of urine, feces, and kitchen wastes close to communal water supplies. No matter how remote you feel you are, I guarantee someone has been there before you. They may be swimming, washing up, or even have deposited a steaming pile of feces just upstream minutes before you filled your water container.</p>
<p>On a number of occasions while at established campsites I have visited the only available water supply, often a natural spring, only to find that someone had washed their dishes in it! Were it not for the odd bits of food items floating in the other wise clear water I may never had known ignorant humans had been there before me.</p>
<p>If these people are dumb enough to wash filthy dishes in the only available water supply, who knows what else they may have done nearby. If I were less informed about the hazards of untested water I may have drank that water without treating it and become very sick.</p>
<p>Humans are veritible poop machines and wherever they have been you can be assured there is plenty of feces laying about. Historically, wastes and human fecal contamination of water supplies has resulted in large epidemics of cholera and other diseases that have ended the lives of millions. Do not let the actions of dumb people take you down: treat all water before you ingest it.</p>
<p>Disease Organisms Would Like You to Drink Them</p>
<p>Water can contain a range of nasty organisms you would do well to avoid. These include bacteria such as</p>
<ul>
<li>Escherichia coli (E. Coli)</li>
<li>Salmonella</li>
</ul>
<p>Protozoa, which also often come from human an animal feces:</p>
<p>Microsporidia including</p>
<ul>
<li>Giarda</li>
<li>Cryptosporidium</li>
<li>Toxoplasma gondii</li>
<li>Amoebae</li>
<li>Ciliates</li>
<li>Flagellates</li>
<li>Apicomplexans</li>
</ul>
<p>and let’s not forget helminth zoonoses such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>nematodes</li>
<li>ascarids</li>
<li>pinworms</li>
<li>hookworms</li>
<li>strongylids</li>
<li>angiostrongylids</li>
<li>capillarids</li>
<li>guinea worms</li>
<li>liver flukes</li>
<li>tapeworms</li>
</ul>
<p>But it’s not just fecal contamination from wildlife and ignorant humans you must worry about. I recall hiking up a crystal clear mountain stream in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. At the top of a high waterfall, below which people often swim, lay a huge rotting moose carcass that dammed up the entire stream. Unbeknownst to all, the whole water course filtered through eight hundred pounds of rotting meat on the way to that fine swimming hole downstream.</p>
<p>So much for crystal clear mountain streams being safe to drink from!</p>
<h2>How to Make Water Safe to Drink</h2>
<p>Now that I have convinced you to consider all sources of water as contaminated until treated, I would like to suggest the best way to make water safe to drink. Once again I am sure to be stirring up a hornets nest of dissent on this subject but I stand by what I write as proven beyond doubt. Try to release any preconceived notions you may have as you read what follows.</p>
<p>The miracle of modern advertising would have you believe that the portable water filters on the market today will remove nearly all pathogens and disease causing organisms from water. Nothing could be further from the truth.</p>
<p>The fact is, studies have conclusively shown water filters vary a great deal in the types and amount of organisms they are able to filter. And that is when the water filters are functioning properly and users correctly operate and maintain them. A tall order indeed, especially in the field during adverse conditions.</p>
<p>Would you drink water from a filter that is removing only 85% of water borne disease organisms? Chances are the water filter you use isn’t even doing that well.</p>
<p>Various chemicals used to treat water also lack the ability to destroy 100% of disease causing organisms in water. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this article and will be covered in a future Survival Topic.</p>
<p>The manufacturers of chemicals and water filters don’t want you to know what the best way to make water safe to drink really is. That’s because its simple, inexpensive to operate, and they cannot sell it.</p>
<p>The fact is, the best way to make water safe for consumption will destroy or render inert 100% of disease causing organisms. What’s more, this process is readily available and nearly foolproof. It has been successfully used for centuries and remains hands down the best method of all: boiling.</p>
<h2>How Long Does the Water Need to Boil?</h2>
<p>Water does do not even have to reach the boiling point (about 212° F or 100° C at sea level) to be rendered safe to drink; Once the water temperature reaches 185° F (85° C) nearly all disease causing organisms have been destroyed. The only reason you typically get water up to the boiling point is you probably do not have a thermometer handy to measure the water temperature. Boiling is proof positive the water is hot enough to make it safe to drink.</p>
<p>You can also throw out the myth that you must boil water longer at higher elevations. The boiling point of water even on Mount Everest is still high enough to destroy all disease causing organisms even before the water has started to boil.</p>
<p>For more information on boiling water to make it safe to drink read the breakthrough Survival Topic “How Long Do you Need to Boil Water?”.</p>
<p>In conclusion:</p>
<ul>
<li>Consider water from any source as contaminated with disease causing organisms.</li>
<li>By far the best way to treat water is by boiling it.
<ul>
<li>You only have to bring the water to a boil.</li>
<li>Don’t waste fuel; there is no need to boil water for 10-minutes, 5-minutes, or even 1-minute.</li>
<li>Once it is boiling all disease causing organisms have been destroyed or rendered inert some time earlier.</li>
<li>Even on Mount Everest, the highest point on earth, once water reaches the boiling point it is safe to drink.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
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<title>How to Find the North Star</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/how-to-find-the-north-star/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2005 12:34:49 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Featured Posts]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=641</guid>
<description><![CDATA[For many thousands of years Polaris has been used as a guiding star and reference point for navigators and astronomers. Through experience and observation humans discovered the North Star lights the way to true north. Know the secret of finding the North Star in the northern sky, and you will know how to find direction […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_642" style="width: 410px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/find-north-star.gif"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-642" class="wp-image-642 size-full" title="How to Find the North Star" src="http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/find-north-star.gif" alt="find-north-star" width="400" height="322" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-642" class="wp-caption-text">Where is the North Star? – A good way to locate the North Star is to line up these two stars that are on the more easily found Big Dipper constellation.</p></div>
<p>For many thousands of years Polaris has been used as a guiding star and reference point for navigators and astronomers.</p>
<p>Through experience and observation humans discovered the North Star lights the way to true north. Know the secret of finding the North Star in the northern sky, and you will know how to find direction even in the darkest of nights.</p>
<p>In this Survival Topic I will show you how.</p>
<h2>The North Star Points True North</h2>
<p>Knowing how to find the north star in the northern hemisphere is one of the most basic survival skills.</p>
<p>Those of us in the north are fortunate to have the North Star as a handy survival tool for determining direction without a compass. Visible from the surface of the earth during clear nights, nearly everybody has heard of this celestial body and most probably feel confident they would be able to find the North Star whenever they choose.</p>
<p>In ancient times locating this lodestar was crucial to navigating long distances through the wilderness. The beauty of using the north star for navigation is that unlike a magnetic compass the north star always points to to true north. There is no magnetic declination to deal with.</p>
<p>By shear luck, the northern axis of the earth points directly toward the North Star. This means that when you are observing this star you are facing true north toward the North Pole. Because of this we also call the North Star the Polestar or Polaris, its astronomic name.</p>
<p>When you are facing the North Star you are looking toward true north. This is because by chance this lodestar lines up with the celestial sphere almost perfectly, so that all other stars appear to rotate around it. Simply by finding the North Star travelers are able to determine all the points of the compass: westward would be on your left, eastward to the right, and southward in back of you.</p>
<h2>Do You Know Where the North Star Is?</h2>
<p>Experience has shown that knowing about and reliably locating the North Star in the night sky are two different things. Being lost in the wilderness without a compass is not the time to be trying to figure out where the northern polestar is.</p>
<p>You need to know where the north star is before it is a matter of survival.</p>
<p>Many people erroneously think the North Star is one of the brightest stars in the sky and so is easy to find. In actuality the star is not so outstanding in its order of magnitude, or brightness, which is about average when compared to all the other stars in the celestial sphere.</p>
<h2>Finding the Big Dipper is Key to Finding the North Star</h2>
<p>The key to locating the North Star in the night sky is to first find the Big Dipper, a constellation of stars known as Ursa Major (the dippers are not a true constellations. They are groups of stars known as asterisms located within a constellation). The Big Dipper is perhaps the best known group of stars in the northern sky and is easy to distinguish from all others. Also known as the Great Bear, the Big Dipper is located just north of the celestial pole. Knowing how to find the Big Dipper makes it easy to find the north star.</p>
<p>The second key to finding the North Star is a similarly shaped constellation of stars known as the Little Dipper. The Little Dipper, also known as Ursa Minor, is smaller and more difficult to find in the night sky. Fortunately its big brother the Big Dipper points the way.</p>
<p>The PoleStar we are seeking is the brightest of the Little Dipper stars and is located at the tip of the dipper’s handle.</p>
<h2>Directions To Find the North Star</h2>
<ol>
<li>Locate the Big Dipper in the northern sky. Knowing how to find the Big Dipper is easy due to its large size and distinct shape. Depending upon the time of the year constellation of stars may be tipped in different directions as it rotates around the polestar.</li>
<li>As shown in the diagram, locate the two stars that form the outer edge of the Big Dipper.</li>
<li>Draw an imaginary line straight through the two stars of the dipper edge and toward the Little Dipper. The line will point very close to the handle of the Little Dipper.</li>
<li>The brightest star in the Little Dipper is at the end of its handle. This is the North Star.</li>
<li>Congratulations, you now know how to find the North Star, Polestar, or Lodestar.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Find the North Star and Discover Your Latitude</h2>
<p>When you have found the north star you can also use it to determine your latitude north of the equator. Simply measure the angle formed between the horizon and the polestar. And there you have it!</p>
<h2>A Stellar Performance</h2>
<p>Now that you know:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to Find the North Star.</li>
<li>Determine the direction of the four cardinal points using the North Star.</li>
<li>Discover your latitude above the equator.</li>
</ul>
<p>I recommend you do some star gazing on the next clear night!</p>
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<item>
<title>Better than Bleach: Use Calcium Hypochlorite to Disinfect Water</title>
<link>http://survivaltopics.com/better-than-bleach-use-calcium-hypochlorite-to-disinfect-water/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ron Fontaine]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 04 May 2005 14:33:35 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Newest Survival Topic]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Survival Topics Blog]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">http://survivaltopics.wpengine.com/?p=10</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Knowing how to make your water safe to drink can not only keep you healthy – it could save your life. We often take for granted access to safe, uncontaminated, potable water. So much so that many people do not have the means or knowledge necessary to destroy disease causing organisms that may be lurking […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Knowing how to make your water safe to drink can not only keep you healthy – it could save your life.</p>
<p>We often take for granted access to safe, uncontaminated, potable water. So much so that many people do not have the means or knowledge necessary to destroy disease causing organisms that may be lurking in their water supply.</p>
<p>Many outdoorsmen, survivalists, and households preparing for emergency disasters rely upon common household bleach as a disinfecting agent to make water safe to drink. Bleach will destroy most (but NOT all!) disease causing organisms (<a title="How Long Do You Boil Water to Make it Safe to Drink" href="http://www.survivaltopics.com/how-long-do-you-need-to-boil-water/">boiling water to make it safe to drink</a> is always the best method).</p>
<p>However there is a readily available chemical that far surpasses common household bleach in terms of the amount of water it treats per unit of volume and weight AND in terms of shelf-life, which is perhaps it most important advantage of all.</p>
<p>In fact, not understanding the limitations of household bleach could jeopardize your health and perhaps even your life in a survival situation.</p>
<p>What is not well known is Calcium Hypochlorite is far better for chemically disinfecting water.</p>
<h2>Old Way: Using Bleach to Disinfect Water</h2>
<p>I cringe to think how many people have expired bleach in their disaster emergency kits that will be used for treating polluted water.</p>
<p>Those of us who have emergency preparedness stocks of survival food and survival gear often keep a gallon or two of unscented household bleach on hand for making safe drinking water in large quantities. Bleach is often the chemical of choice because it is commonly available and frequently mentioned when discussing the how-to’s of drinking water sanitation.</p>
<p>Typical fresh household chlorine bleach has about 5.35% chlorine content (be sure to read the label).</p>
<p><strong>To use household bleach for disinfecting water:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Add two drops of bleach per quart or liter of water.</li>
<li>Stir it well.</li>
<li>Let the mixture stand for a half hour before drinking.</li>
</ul>
<p>If the water is cloudy with suspended particles:</p>
<ul>
<li>First filter the water as best you can.</li>
<li>Double the amount of bleach you add to the water.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Why Using Bleach to Disinfect Contaminated Water is a Problem</h2>
<p>A little known problem with long term storage of bleach in your disaster emergency supply cache is that it degrades over time. Consulting a Chlorox bleach representative produced this statement:</p>
<blockquote><p>“We recommend storing our bleach at room temperatures. It can be stored for about 6 months at temperatures between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. After this time, bleach will be begin to degrade at a rate of 20% each year until totally degraded to salt and water. Storing at temperatures much higher than 70 degrees Fahrenheit could cause the bleach to lose its effectiveness and degrade more rapidly. However, if you require 6% sodium hypochlorite, you should change your supply every 3 months. – Chlorox Bleach Representative</p></blockquote>
<p>I cringe to think how many people have expired bleach in their disaster emergency kits that will be used for treating polluted water. Even what are considered reliable sources of information such as the EPA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA will show you how to use bleach to disinfect water but will leave out the exceedingly important piece of information that bleach has an expiration date.</p>
<p>This is why I created <a title="Survival Topics" href="http://survivaltopics.com">Survival Topics</a> – to give you the real information you need to survive. So if bleach is unreliable for long term storage in emergency preparedness kits then what other commonly available chemical methods of disinfecting water are there? As it turns out a better solution is easily available.</p>
<h2>Use Calcium Hypochlorite to Disinfect Water</h2>
<p>A 1-pound pag of calcium hypochlorite in granular form will treat up to 10,000 gallons of drinking water.</p>
<p>Calcium hypochlorite is one of the best chemical disinfectants for water, better than household bleach by far. It destroys a variety of disease causing organisms including bacteria, yeast, fungus, spores, and viruses.</p>
<p>Calcium Hypochlorite is widely available for use as swimming pool chlorine tablets or white powder that is much more stable than chlorine. This is often known as “pool shock”.</p>
<h2>How to Disinfect Water Using Calcium Hypochlorite</h2>
<p><strong>Using granular calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water is a three step process:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>To make a stock of chlorine solution (do not drink this!) dissolve 1 heaping teaspoon (about one-quarter of an ounce) of high-test (78%) granular calcium hypochlorite for each two gallons (eight liters) of water.</li>
<li>To disinfect water add one part of this chlorine solution to 100 parts water to be treated.</li>
<li>Let the mixture sit for at least one-half hour before drinking.</li>
</ol>
<p>Be sure to obtain the dry granular calcium hypochlorite since once it is made into a liquid solution it will begin to degrade and eventually become useless as a disinfecting agent. This also means you should make your treated drinking water in small batches, for example enough for a few weeks at a time at most.</p>
<h2>A Little Calcium Hypochlorite Makes Many Gallons of Potable Water</h2>
<p>Another plus for using calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water for emergency use is that a little goes a very long way. A 1-pound pag of calcium hypochlorite in granular form typically costs only a few US dollars and can be obtained in any swimming pool supply section of your hardware store or online. This amount will treat up to 10,000 gallons of drinking water, which is enough for a family of four for some six or seven years at a gallon per day per person!</p>
<p>Calcium hypochlorite will store for a long period of time and remain effective as a chemical drinking water treatment. So get rid of the household bleach and buy a can of Calcium hypochlorite for your disaster emergency water disinfection needs. It lasts far longer and treats far more water than the traditional chlorine bleach water disinfection treatment.</p>
<p>So there you have it: when it comes to making water safe to drink you are better off having a small stockpile of calcium hypochlorite than jugs of bleach.</p>
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