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Friday, August 1, 2008

Is It Still Possible to Live Off the Land?

A lot of posts I read on various survival forums and other online sources suggest that bugging out is not at all a feasible option in a SHTF scenario. These posters would have you believe that you cannot find enough to eat in the wild and that if you move out with a bug-out bag in search of safety, you will just become another refugee. Well, that may be true for some of the people that promote those ideas, but truth is that those who take the time to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary can indeed survive in the wild using a bug-out strategy. Try to remember that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle has been the predominate way of life for the bulk of human history, and in comparison, the industrial and even the agricultural way of life has been but a blink of the eye.

Have most modern humans lost their connection with nature and become soft from the comforts of modern living? Of course, and many do not care to learn these skills and would not strike out on their own into the wilderness no matter how bad things get in the city. But just because this way of life would not be practical for the masses, if you are determined to survive you should not let fear of the unknown or fear of discomfort and hardship lead you to believe that only death awaits you in the wilderness. Even as you read this now, you can rest assured that there are a few scattered individuals living this lifestyle somewhere in the wilds of North America, not to mention other parts of the world. The ones out there doing it are not connected to the Internet, and in most cases do not end up writing books or articles about their experiences, or even becoming the subjects of someone else's books or articles.

We hear about the high profile cases of attempts to return to the wild - especially the ones that end in failure and death, such as Chris McCandless, but the fact is that there are many who have lived this lifestyle in obscurity, some maybe even deliberately because they have good reason not to be found.

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