The sad thing About Wilderness "survival" | it's just fasting!!!!

I was torn between posting this here or in survival
but decided here due to the post on planting massive food forests


The SAD TRUTH About Wilderness "SURVIVAL" | IT'S JUST FASTING!!!


going out to "live off the land" is a fantasy
especially land unfamiliar to you
I would imagine even native peoples if dropped into a different ecosystem would struggle
which is why where they live,  they convert the forests and grasslands from non specific food forests
into food forests for humans
an old mature forest with dead and dying trees is a woodpecker food forest

Watch "Naked and Afraid", and check the before and after weights of the people on the show for proof of this concept.

Just finished the video and he talks about that very thing.  People losing a pound or two a day while they are on these shows.

Please don't turn this platform into youtube. The truth is is often unknown and lowercase letters can be used in captions as well.

On topic: Maybe they should advertise "wilderness survival" as fasting? (Not sure how that can be done while protecting the environment.)

I was torn between posting this here or in survival
but decided here due to the post on planting massive food forests

the post
https://permies.com/t/75760/imagine-planted-massive-food-forests

going out to "live off the land" is a fantasy
especially land unfamiliar to you
I would imagine even native peoples if dropped into a different ecosystem would struggle
which is why where they live,  they convert the forests and grasslands from non specific food forests
into food forests for humans
an old mature forest with dead and dying trees is a woodpecker food forest

my obtuse point for all those "survivalists" and people ready to "bug out" when the shtf
have a friendly place to go
a place where food production is geared toward humans and not woodpeckers

duane hennon wrote:

I was torn between posting this here or in survival
but decided here due to the post on planting massive food forests

the post
https://permies.com/t/75760/imagine-planted-massive-food-forests

going out to "live off the land" is a fantasy
especially land unfamiliar to you
I would imagine even native peoples if dropped into a different ecosystem would struggle
which is why where they live,  they convert the forests and grasslands from non specific food forests
into food forests for humans
an old mature forest with dead and dying trees is a woodpecker food forest

my obtuse point for all those "survivalists" and people ready to "bug out" when the shtf
have a friendly place to go
a place where food production is geared toward humans and not woodpeckers

My take on the thread linked to above...  https://permies.com/t/75760/imagine-planted-massive-food-forests
was that it was about planting trees, planting quality trees, gleaning fruit from trees planted in urban areas and neighborhoods...I didn't see where anyone was talking about surviving on those trees, just that it would be a good thing for people and the planet.  I reread kind of fast so probably missed something?

I probably agree that trying to 'survive' unprepared in the woods is not a good idea, although for awhile in my early twenties that's exactly what I thought I was doing (and yes it's a great weight loss program) and for sure it depends on the 'forest' itself.  I think there is a thread here discussing *hypothetical* nomadic living.

I always wondered about the 'bug out' thing too though.  I don't' think there's many places to go in the US anyway, ability to survive aside.  Better to do our best where ever we're at I think.  

My take on the thread linked to above...  https://permies.com/t/75760/imagine-planted-massive-food-forests
was that it was about planting trees, planting quality trees, gleaning fruit from trees planted in urban areas and neighborhoods...I didn't see where anyone was talking about surviving on those trees, just that it would be a good thing for people and the planet.  I reread kind of fast so probably missed something?

I probably agree that trying to 'survive' unprepared in the woods is not a good idea, although for awhile in my early twenties that's exactly what I thought I was doing (and yes it's a great weight loss program) and for sure it depends on the 'forest' itself.  I think there is a thread here discussing *hypothetical* nomadic living.

I always wondered about the 'bug out' thing too though.  I don't' think there's many places to go in the US anyway, ability to survive aside.  Better to do our best where ever we're at I think.

1. one of the "questions" implied in this thread " is should we convert forests to human use or let them be "natural".
since there are no "natural" or "untouched by human hands" places left in the world, I vote to convert to human benefit (with provisions for other creatures)
poor degraded land left on its own will take centuries to recover

2. even in a temperate food forest, having to bug out at the wrong time of year would be a problem since all that abundance would have disappeared
  so a good survivalist/prepper should visit the area to collect/preserve foodstuffs

3. yes, being prepared at home is probably the best option, but where's the fun in that

3. yes, being prepared at home is probably the best option, but where's the fun in that

haha...now that I think about it I did 'bug out' in 1973 (something to do with the politics of the time sent me to the woods )
I hitched down here with a backpack, a dog, a couple garden tools and absolutely no skills.....squatted on two different pieces of property under a tarp and for a short while in a hunter's cabin that I eventually got kicked out of.  At the time I felt like I was way back in the wilderness......and of course, was not in any way living off the land, more like 'nibbling' around the edges.

With these "survival" shows, they are setting people up for failure and inability to thrive in the wilderness.

Naked and Afraid having people without proper clothing immediately puts people at a huge disadvantage. The 1st thing everyone should do in that show is make shoes, but for some reason after the 1st season you don't see them doing that. Foot protection is super important since if you can't move around well you wont be able to gather what you need.

Alone, they drop people in late in the season, when food will be decreasing. So while there might be abundance at the beginning, it tappers off fast as fall heads into winter. Plus with the limited tools/equipment they are at a disadvantage of having less than what someone would want to survive.

These shows definitely set people up for failure. But then without that there wouldn't be drama to sell the show. If people did fine and set up nice homes in the woods and thrived, the shows would flop.

There are folks who could live well out in these places, in fact Dual Survival had 2 of them. Cody Lundin and Matt Graham could easily survive indefinitely in most of these situations. Matt actually is also featured on Live Free or Die which is a much better reality show. In that show he is in an old camp of his but ends up moving due to the resources just not being there anymore. That is a big thing these shows don't tend to let their contestants do, move to better areas. Hunter gathers lived a nomadic life due to needing to follow the resources. Even in rain forests the hunter gathers moved around as they depleted an area.

So can people do the wilderness survival? Yes they could. If given a large enough area they could wander and search for resources.

Devin Lavign wrote:
There are folks who could live well out in these places, in fact Dual Survival had 2 of them. Cody Lundin and Matt Graham could easily survive indefinitely in most of these situations. Matt actually is also featured on Live Free or Die which is a much better reality show. In that show he is in an old camp of his but ends up moving due to the resources just not being there anymore. That is a big thing these shows don't tend to let their contestants do, move to better areas. Hunter gathers lived a nomadic life due to needing to follow the resources. Even in rain forests the hunter gathers moved around as they depleted an area.

So can people do the wilderness survival? Yes they could. If given a large enough area they could wander and search for resources.

The video in the original post talks about exactly this and comes to the opposite conclusion you have.  I agree with the guy in the video that says without modern equipment, and lots of it, it's is probably impossible and even then it is very, very unlikely.  If you have the time, could you watch the video and post your response to it?  I'm curious to hear more details from people that have come to the conclusions that you did.

Here's an interesting thread that relates to this discussion   Non-Hierarchical Paleo Permaculture Hunter-Gatherer Intentional Community

Does this guy intentionally do intense workouts? The calorie load he describes as his personal average day is massive.

Now yeah, 3000ish per day for an active man does make sense.

Meat IS a big deal for getting calories efficiently in temperate climates. Especially in the short term like the shows he is referencing.

One thing he mentions that bugs me a bit is him flipping over the idea of eating 9 pounds of root crops (parsnips were the specific reference in the video) for calories per day is NOT that bad. Irishmen were eating potatoes in similar quantities less than 200 years ago. (Only close to a complete diet with dairy, ideally raw dairy)

Another big calorie source for the long haul are sun dried fruits (raisins, prunes etc) and wine. (And grains of course, but I am personally trying to minimize my consumption)

Todd Parr wrote:

Devin Lavign wrote:
There are folks who could live well out in these places, in fact Dual Survival had 2 of them. Cody Lundin and Matt Graham could easily survive indefinitely in most of these situations. Matt actually is also featured on Live Free or Die which is a much better reality show. In that show he is in an old camp of his but ends up moving due to the resources just not being there anymore. That is a big thing these shows don't tend to let their contestants do, move to better areas. Hunter gathers lived a nomadic life due to needing to follow the resources. Even in rain forests the hunter gathers moved around as they depleted an area.

So can people do the wilderness survival? Yes they could. If given a large enough area they could wander and search for resources.

The video in the original post talks about exactly this and comes to the opposite conclusion you have.  I agree with the guy in the video that says without modern equipment, and lots of it, it's is probably impossible and even then it is very, very unlikely.  If you have the time, could you watch the video and post your response to it?  I'm curious to hear more details from people that have come to the conclusions that you did.

I did watch the video before my first post on the thread.

Both Cody and Matt are highly experienced and practiced in primitive living. Which is why I cite them as examples of folks who could do it. Neither needs a plethora of modern equipment either, each could do it with no modern equipment. These two folks are not the only ones out there either. They are just the most publicly known. If you went to some of the primitive skills gathering like Rabbit Stick or Glass Butte Knapp In then you might realize like I do that yes some folks can do it. However there is the caveat to them being able to do it. Having a large enough range to allow them to do a a nomadic hunter gather life. With out the ability to range for good resources, no one could do it well. Some areas this could mean traveling a long way from the original position to find a better location. This could be due to sparse vegetation, lack of game, lack of water, or even just being the wrong season and needing to travel to a part of the land that has resources for that season.

Now the average bushcrafter or camper or survivalist, yes needs a lot of modern equipment because that is what they trained for and is part of their knowledge set. But there are still those out there like Cody and Matt who practice primitive skills. I know Cody could do it as I have actually met the man and know well the skill set he has. Cody literally can walk off into the AZ desert naked with no tools and survive for weeks and months alone. Matt I know from reputation through friends who know him as well as from seeing him on Dual Survival and Live Free or Die. He is a man who argued constantly with his partner in Dual Survival because he was able to set up a comfortable camp over and over again and wanted to stay put, while his partner wanted to always keep moving and get rescued. If not for his partner, Matt likely would have set up a palace in the wilderness and still be living there, and the show would have gotten pretty boring with him eating well and doing just fine and not wanting to be rescued.

Why I came to the conclusion I did is simple, the human race is still here is it not? Humans existed longer in hunter gather life than in civilization. Humans are quite capable of surviving and even thriving in the wilderness. What blocks our ability to do so is simply lack of skills and knowledge. If however someone has the skills and knowledge, then it is not so difficult a task. The problem is having a true skilled and knowledgeable contestant doesn't make good TV drama. So these shows don't require the people to be of proper skill level, and likely screen out these people. Just look at some of the people who make it in these shows. Naked and Afraid, there was an episode where they had 2 teams and had them meet up. This probably saved the life of one girl and likely her partner, due to her survival strategy was to let others do everything for her. She had no survival skills really. Or in Alone, how many times do people tap out in the first day? Or within the 1st week? If you can't handle a day to a week then you should not even be on the show, but every season they have these people who are not ready to do what is needed. Worse they are moaning about how much they miss family and friends in the first week of being out there. If someone can't handle being alone for a week, how did they expect to do the show? This is the difference between TV and true survival or primitive skills. TV is looking for drama and yes weakness in contestants. They don't want the best of the best who will easily succeed. They want the emotional breakdowns, the failed survival, the mistakes and goof ups. It makes the show more exciting. But true survival by experts is not filled with this sort of thing.

Devin Lavign wrote:
Cody literally can walk off into the AZ desert naked with no tools and survive for weeks and months alone. Matt I know from reputation through friends who know him as well as from seeing him on Dual Survival and Live Free or Die. He is a man who argued constantly with his partner in Dual Survival because he was able to set up a comfortable camp over and over again and wanted to stay put, while his partner wanted to always keep moving and get rescued. If not for his partner, Matt likely would have set up a palace in the wilderness and still be living there, and the show would have gotten pretty boring with him eating well and doing just fine and not wanting to be rescued.

I would simply have to see this to believe it.  I lived in AZ for quite a few years and I was very good friends with two men that were on the volunteer teams that went looking for people that got lost or stranded in the desert, and I personally don't believe anyone, anywhere, can go out into the desert and live for weeks without gear.  Most people would be in very bad shape the first day.  Plenty of the people they went looking for were found dead in days.  People coming across the border with food and water die in that heat every day, and they aren't trying to survive for weeks on end, just a few days.

Devin Lavign wrote: Why I came to the conclusion I did is simple, the human race is still here is it not? Humans existed longer in hunter gather life than in civilization. Humans are quite capable of surviving and even thriving in the wilderness. What blocks our ability to do so is simply lack of skills and knowledge. If however someone has the skills and knowledge, then it is not so difficult a task.

Humans did indeed live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  They did it in groups, and at a time when there were far more animals and far less people than there are now.  It is not as simple as they had the skills to do so, and we don't.  To say it is not so difficult, I would just say, why doesn't someone demonstrate how easy it is and just do it?  You may think that no one would watch a show where someone did this and did it well, but I would be fascinated by it, and I can't believe I'm the only person that would.

Devin Lavign wrote: The problem is having a true skilled and knowledgeable contestant doesn't make good TV drama. So these shows don't require the people to be of proper skill level, and likely screen out these people. Just look at some of the people who make it in these shows. Naked and Afraid, there was an episode where they had 2 teams and had them meet up. This probably saved the life of one girl and likely her partner, due to her survival strategy was to let others do everything for her. She had no survival skills really. Or in Alone, how many times do people tap out in the first day? Or within the 1st week? If you can't handle a day to a week then you should not even be on the show, but every season they have these people who are not ready to do what is needed. Worse they are moaning about how much they miss family and friends in the first week of being out there. If someone can't handle being alone for a week, how did they expect to do the show? This is the difference between TV and true survival or primitive skills. TV is looking for drama and yes weakness in contestants. They don't want the best of the best who will easily succeed. They want the emotional breakdowns, the failed survival, the mistakes and goof ups. It makes the show more exciting. But true survival by experts is not filled with this sort of thing.

I think those shows are very poor examples, because, as was discussed in the video, even the people that did the best lost massive amounts of weight during the show.  Without exception, all of them would have died if the timeline had been extended.  I understand exactly what you are saying about the mindset of the people on the show.  I was in the military for many, many years, and the people crying after a week seems very foreign to me.  That doesn't change the fact that not a single person that I have seen has gone on one of these shows and did what you say is simple:  Build a comfortable place, find lots of food and water, and thrive.

Todd Parr wrote:

Devin Lavign wrote:
Cody literally can walk off into the AZ desert naked with no tools and survive for weeks and months alone. Matt I know from reputation through friends who know him as well as from seeing him on Dual Survival and Live Free or Die. He is a man who argued constantly with his partner in Dual Survival because he was able to set up a comfortable camp over and over again and wanted to stay put, while his partner wanted to always keep moving and get rescued. If not for his partner, Matt likely would have set up a palace in the wilderness and still be living there, and the show would have gotten pretty boring with him eating well and doing just fine and not wanting to be rescued.

I would simply have to see this to believe it.  I lived in AZ for quite a few years and I was very good friends with two men that were on the volunteer teams that went looking for people that got lost or stranded in the desert, and I personally don't believe anyone, anywhere, can go out into the desert and live for weeks without gear.  Most people would be in very bad shape the first day.  Plenty of the people they went looking for were found dead in days.  People coming across the border with food and water die in that heat every day, and they aren't trying to survive for weeks on end, just a few days..

I too lived in AZ for 4 yrs at Arcosanti, which is how I met Cody. Through a friend who lived there before me, and is also a permaculturist. Cody not only has survived in the desert with no tools and nude, but it was one of the tests he put his students from his school there through. I don't agree with this test, and it is actually what made me not go to his school. Cody is what he claims: and expert at survival.

I appreciate your skepticism, however I obviously have experienced and met folks you have not which gives me insights you have not had. Yes folks lived in groups, but most of those cultures had rights of passage involving youths going off and living on their own. Most of those people were able to go off on hunting trips and survive for a week alone. There were tribal explorers who survived alone, traders, etc... Why doesn't someone demonstrate it? Cody and Matt have. So have many others. But the TV folks don't seem to care to show this sort of thing. I would suggest if your truly interested in primitive skills, to go to Rabbit Stick https://www.rabbitstick.com/  . You can meet  some to the top wilderness survival folks in the world at that gathering. Folks who do study and use primitive skills regularly.

What's important to remember is the amount of wild animal has dramatically decreased, it used to be enormous in the US/Canada, fish you can just pick out the rivers, birds that would totally darken the sky. Sure, the white man did lots of damage, but it had already started with the indians...

this is only true if  you're ignorant, dont bring the right gear (enough of it) are not allowed to take critters as you please and are stuck in one area.  If you take the 2-person cotton hamoock on the show. You can make  1000 sq ft of 2" mesh netting out of the rope's smallest strands. With all the other things you have to do, you can still average making 200 sq ft per day, or  400 of it in a day if you do nothing else. So every 1-2 days, you can have a weir in the water, extend the wind of the weir, Add a wing in another direction, until you figure out what works, Make a seine to move fish towards your weir (baited with a tarp and net sack of the heads and guts of previous catches). Forget their tiny little  75 sq ft gillnet offering. The 20x20 tarp can be cut in half and half of it will make 700 sq ft of such netting. The other half of the tarp is necessary to make a poncho and chaps, since you'll be using the rainsuit as a water container (sleeves) and pontoon (pants) for your outrigger raft.  Waterproof spray one of your 2 sets of clothes before you go. The clothes, backpack, camera case, and rainsuit pants, as well as tarp/tape containers, all float nicely when stuffed with dry debris and sewn and the seams taped. Such a pontoon raft can be made in a day, and most of it can be done while under the 10x10 work awning. that you've made out of the 20x20. The 10x10 "camera tarp" maks an adequate, low sleeping shelter, if you know how. Some of the 20x20 has to be cut up to make a cover for your seep well, make a water filter, make waterproof containers. Convert the hammock into netting first, using dry debris atop of a raised wooden bed, for comfort. You need that cordage in the worst way, very early on, so as to secure your tarps. Make stick toggles and loops, so that the shelters can be swiftly taken-down in case of a storm, especially the work awning.

Take a Cold steel shovel, modified to have 8" of saw edge. Take a Leatherman Crunch multitool, modified heavily, with awl, another file blade, chisel, hook/scoopknife blade, carbon steel regular knife blade, so that you can sharpen it on a rock. Take a 5 qt skillet with lid (Amazon) and the warmest SYNTHETIC sleeping bag you can find. Take the big roll of duct tape, the fishing kit (as 4 BIG treblehooks, to set for wolves and big cats) 4 small treblehooks, and one single hook, which you'll convert into being a sewing needle, using the multitool. Take one of Chief Aj's slingbows, not a bow. Since you are now allowed 9 arrows, not just 6, take 6 of them as 4-tined fishing heads, 5 of those with flu flu fletching and the one you really intend to bowfish with having slip on rubber fletching. Take 3 standard 2-edged broadheads. One of them can be hafted as a hoku knife, if need be. Take the snarewire, to be used to convert the single hooks into treble hooks, and to snare deer, goats, sheep, hogs, if such can be found. they are limited to a 5 sq mile area, so if your area lacks game, you're pretty messed-up, but they all can fish the rivers with the netting. The treblehooks should be mostly set for mammals and birds.  The ones that go into the water should utilize small net/tarp bags to hold the bait, so it doesn't dissolve so easily and so minnows can't just nibble it away

On Vancouver, take a CLEAR  20x20 tarp, ideally made out of PEVA shower curtains, so that it can become a super-shelter, with the projected heat of a Siberian fire lay passing thru the PEVA, into your shelter, or on you as you work under your awning. Being up on a bed lets the heat get under you, and you can also pile big hot rocks under you.  Use a Dakota pit to heat the rocks and you'll need MUCH less firewood. Keep your shelter mobile until the first freeze, so that you move the shelter tot he squaw wood, not the other way around. Dont cut big wood and dont haul wood far. That's a waste of calories.

single hooks, in water, are not worth trying to keep baited with bugs. Once you catch a few fish, use their heads and guts as bait for more fish. The treble hooks and seasoned, forked branches as "engines' to set the hooks, work far better than just single hooks with no engines. Better to catch 3 lb ducks and gulls than 3 oz fish, too. The birds have fat, the fish (exception, salmon) have no fat at all. On Vancouver, make a big wooden mortar and pestle, fulcrum and long lever pole, and 3 guide stakes that insure that the pestle always drops end-on into the (buried) mortar. There's kelp all over vancouver Island's shores and you can be 500 calories per hour to the good, if you juice it efficiently. It only offers 50 calories to the lb, so you can't eat enough of it to do you any good, its' nearly all fiber.

In mongolia, and patagonia, IF you catch enough fish, you can extract the oils from there skin and use it to FRY the (boiled, chopped up) cambium.  This makes the cambium much more palatable and much more digestible, It also makes great bait for rabbits deer and birds. If you are not on a sea coast, salt your baits for land critters, they smell salt from very far away and are very attracted to it, since they get so little of it.

Some of the snare wire can be braided, making it strong enough to hold a deer, goat, hog by the neck, if it's wired to a small drag log. Also rig the treblehooks to drag logs, as well as the smaller foot snares (set 2-3" off of the ground, on forked stakes)  The animals can feel the log yield, but they can't go far and if they have gotten hooked in their throats, they'll soon drown in their own phlegm and blood. Such log trails are easily followed and prevent the animal "testing" the wire while it is still strong and fast. BEWARE,  have a broadhead in the slingbow and the E tool in your belt when following a log-trail!

All seasons so far have been won by being fat and lucky. If you win by taking the right gear and doing the right things, you'll clear  1/2 mill $ instead of just 1/4 mlllion, cause everyone will want to train under you. They have plenty of time to get the needed "subsistence" permits for this show, they are just too tight, ignorant and apathetic to do so. With such a permit, you are allowed to take ANY fish or game, in any manner, as long as you EAT it all. So there's no excuse. The dummies of season one didn't take a projectile weapon. I'd LOVE to have a bear come into my camp, cause arrowing it would win the challenge for me! Using a big hunk of tarp to line a hole in the ground, line the tarp with small gravel or sand to protect it and you can stone-boil LARGE amounts of seawater, swiftly extracting a lot of salt. In mongolia, this trick is needed for thawing/boiling ice/snow for drinking water.

if you know to and are able to bring an inflatable raft, lots of netting, flashlight, cable snares, steel traps, the right gun, a silencer, LOTS of salt and spices,luminous sights, a scope, NVD goggles and passive IR scanner, with solar charger, bugnetting rod and reel, lures, soap, bug dope, fish poison, are allowed to roam as you please, take any animal that you please, in any way you want, and start in the SPRING,  you can actually eat pretty well. It's the restriction on the ways you can take game and having to be stuck in a small area that stumps so many people.  This show is VERY carefully set up to NEVER last more than 4 months and only rarely last 3 months. It cuts into their profit margins if it does. So they will ALWAYS find a way to declare somebody the winner. It costs a FORTUNE to keep the medical teams in the field, and keep the liability insurance in force. They very carefully do NOT let anyone on the show who knows how to make it last 5 months. NOBODY, under the conditions of this show, is EVER going to make it thru a winter.  So if you want on the show, do not claim or show that you know how to really last a long time, on your gear and skills. Make them think that you're just another braggart. Ideally, to get on this show, you're a skinny gale female transgender, black, with 1-2 kids and a sob story.

Todd Parr wrote:

Devin Lavign wrote:
There are folks who could live well out in these places, in fact Dual Survival had 2 of them. Cody Lundin and Matt Graham could easily survive indefinitely in most of these situations. Matt actually is also featured on Live Free or Die which is a much better reality show. In that show he is in an old camp of his but ends up moving due to the resources just not being there anymore. That is a big thing these shows don't tend to let their contestants do, move to better areas. Hunter gathers lived a nomadic life due to needing to follow the resources. Even in rain forests the hunter gathers moved around as they depleted an area.

So can people do the wilderness survival? Yes they could. If given a large enough area they could wander and search for resources.

The video in the original post talks about exactly this and comes to the opposite conclusion you have.  I agree with the guy in the video that says without modern equipment, and lots of it, it's is probably impossible and even then it is very, very unlikely.  If you have the time, could you watch the video and post your response to it?  I'm curious to hear more details from people that have come to the conclusions that you did.

neither cody nor matt could do worth a hoot under the conditions of this show. The gear limits, the short time before winter, the voluminous rain of Vancouver Island, the very short fall and severe winter of Mongolia would make them look like fools, which would cost them a LOT of students/sales, so they'll never accept the challenge. Same with Dave Canterbury and the rest. A week or 2 is nothing. A 500 lb man lived for a year without eating anything at all, google it. He lost 300 lbs. If you're fat enough, you can win by doing nothing. In fact, that's how all the winners so far have "triumphed" by being fat. Carleigh almost beat Fowler, despite his 80+ lb weight advantage and her catching almost no fish. She knew to just hole up, while he wasted a LOT of energy cutting and hauling big wood, making a fishing dock, making a staircase and handrails, making a BIG shelter, then choking on the smoke inside of it, etc. Everything he did was wasted. If he'd made a pontoon outrigger raft, he could have fished from it AND used it to lay and service netting, AND used it to move his gear down the shoreline, where cliffs did not come down right to the water. Baited net-weirs work for you 24-7, in several spots, freeing you up to weave more netting, trap birds and small critters. The cottonrope hammock treblehooks and drag logs are key, so is the slingbow and the 4-tined fishing arrows and the salt. He didn't know about ANY of those things, so he lost 70 lbs in 80 days.

Even despite the criticisms so far in this thread - which are mostly about survival TV shows and how feasible their premises are from what I read - wilderness survival skills still have a lot of value.

Sure it might be fasting. Controlled fasting as an exercise in itself can have benefits. Les Stroud is definitely hungry when he finishes 7 days minimalist survival in various places, if he even makes it that long. Wilderness 'survival', e.g. minimalist or primitive camping and orienteering, is also very hazardous in other ways. As is walking in a remote forest alone as compared to walking around a city with nearby advanced medical equipment and professionals. Very different hazards of course.

My point is that wilderness survival still teaches us valuable skills and in itself is a valuable experience. Les Stroud, for all his hungry days, is by far more likely to survive and even thrive in situations similar to minimalist survival: low technology; remote and challenging terrain; inclimate weather; threats to basic needs. In his efforts, he also spends a lot more time tuning his mind to the subtle and not-so-subtle ways of nature and his own mind, body, and abilities. For an individual it is a valuable practice.

Let's zoom out to the collective/small groups of individuals and long-term survival. Yes a remote wilderness like the Canadian Taiga is going to be tough to survive in long-term, if doable at all. Frontiersman and homesteaders and people native to the land have all been known to modify the landscape, as any keystone species does. We can alter succession to be of greater benefit to us humans, but we can do so in ways that are degrading the ecosystem or of mutual benefit between us and the key sustainers of the ecosystem. The above paragraph describes benefits of wilderness survival experiences for individuals, and those benefits can translate into desparately needed wisdom for collectives and long-term planning. I do hope & work that we will provide for our collective needs in mutual benefit with forests. I'm confident wilderness skills training and experiences will facilitate that in many ways obvious and subtle.

Note, most Americans placed on a healthy diet would lose weight. Deprive them of their Big Macs and they might as well be fasting. Right now I’m fasting from reality TV so my opinion is irrelevant. But I would love to take out all the Dams that keep Salmon from returning to Salmon Falls Creek. Let the salmon fertilize the forest. Let the pinion pine grow without needing to bull doze it. Then I’ll be happy to “starve”.

In most naturally grown forested regions there is very little calories able to sustain a person. Especially in the northwest where the forests are dominated by conifers with very tiny seeds that can only support tiny squirrels, rodents and a few birds. Other wildlife in the area such a deer are reliant on disturbed areas in the closed forest ecosystem such as blowdowns from windstorms, areas burnt by forest fires or disturbed areas of logging or roadbuilding. Deer need these more open areas so sun can reach the ground and grow food at their level. In a vast dense forest however there just isn't a lot of these areas that could support many deer. Any bears in the area would also be reliant on these open disturbed areas for berries, or around streams for fish runs. Also taking fawns or scavenging any dead deer they happen to come across.  For a person looking for food you would either need to hunt these open areas for game, catch fish in streams, or forage in meadows and shrubby areas for berries and tubers. So basically dense forest = bad (no food) and meadows and shrublands = good (some food). One exception might be forests of nut trees of oak, hickory, chestnut, walnut, pecan, beech, etc. where at least during the fall you could collect a ton of tree nuts and probably hunt and trap the game that also came to gorge on them. These types of forest only exist in a few areas though and the general rule still applies of forests having very little food.

Love this thread!  I turned 18 at my first Tracker School class, way back in 1996.  Been on the periphery of the primitive skills community since then.  I have walked out into a variety of forests with just my clothes over the years, for time periods from 4 to 10 days.  Been on several rites of passage where I fasted for 4 days.  Plenty of sleeping under logs and in piles of fir boughs.  

These experiences have been helpful for building confidence and resilience.  I'm not going to go out and live that way, certainly not in my ecologically mangled suburb.  

But because I have done this, I feel pleasantly less attached to roofs, a full refrigerator, my car, and other mod cons.  If for some crazy, unlikely reason I have to go hide in the local forests for a few days, I have a better-than-not chance of walking out again.

I like that feeling.  And I like my canning jars, my fruit trees, my wood stove, my feather bed.  

I'm planting dozens of monkey puzzle and chestnut and walnut and oak trees around my neighborhood, for the subsistence gatherers of future centuries (human or squirrel).  Might as well!

I’m pretty sure I could eat enough armadillos to gain weight ..at least until I got tired of eating them .
They have a great deal of  fat on them and quite tasty. No need for a firearm , since you can sneak up behind them and grab them by the tail...