Jason Knight:
Then the other big one is cattails. Cattails are almost like a giant grass that grows in swamps all around the globe. They have that flower head that when it turns brown in midsummer, it looks like a hot dog or a sausage. Euell Gibbons wrote all these cool plant field guides in the 60s called the "Supermarket of the Swamp." Because no matter what time of year, there's always something edible on the cattail, whether it's the chutes in the spring or the green flower head before it turns brown, or even the roots you can pull the starches off of and such.
John Gallagher:
You are listening to HerbMentor Radio, by Learning Herbs. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth:
I'm Tara Ruth. Today, our guest is Jason Knight. Jason has been teaching wilderness survival skills since 1997. He has served as a wilderness skills consultant for the Discovery Channel and has been featured on NPR. He is a co-founder of Alder Leaf Wilderness College, one of the leading outdoor schools in the US, offering training in wilderness survival to a broad range of clients, including the US Forest Service, REI, the Seattle Mountaineers, and the cast of the award-winning film, Captain Fantastic. He is author of the new book, the "Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival, A Guide to Shelter, Water, Fire, Food Navigation and Survival Kits." Available at his website, which is wildernesscollege.com.
John Gallagher:
Welcome, Jason.
Jason Knight:
Hi. Thanks for having me.
John Gallagher:
You are finally here. It is great to have you. First of all, Jason, we just said you consulted for Captain Fantastic, which is one of my top favorite films of all time. If you haven't seen it, you got to watch it folks. You taught all the kids in that film how to do those survival skills?
Jason Knight:
They came out here and our whole staff worked with them and they spent a few days learning survival skills here on campus so that they're ready to depict them in the film.
John Gallagher:
The film depicts this family of homeschooled kids who go on a journey and they are not raised like other kids that you've ever seen. The extreme version of wilderness survival homeschool kids. It's so funny. It has Viggo Mortensen in it. Did you get to train him?
Jason Knight:
He came up for a day. He had done a lot of survival training when he was working on "Lord of the Rings."
Tara Ruth:
Oh, nice.
Jason Knight:
He's a neat fellow. He brought in a bunch of his own plants that he dug out, out of his own yard to help build the set. He came out in this cool old beater truck and hung out, came out around the campfire. He loves the outdoors just like we all do, which was great to connect.
Tara Ruth:
I love that image of him bringing all those plants he dug up from his own yard. That's great.
Jason Knight:
He was super neat, and so was Matt Ross, the writer of the film.
John Gallagher:
Yes.
Jason Knight:
Both of them talked to me about how they had read all these survival books in the 80s and 90s, but never gone so far as to take a class. They totally imagined the father in this family, the character in the film as being someone who's gone to those types of classes and raised his family off the grid in this extreme out in nature way.
John Gallagher:
That is so cool. You got to hang out with Matt Ross too, one of my favorite actors as well. It's awesome. Great film. Anyway, let's move on to what we'll talk about today. It does set the stage, because we're talking about survival skills. Jason and I, folks, have been friends since 1996. Right Jason? That's over 25 years or something like that. That means we were young. In our younger years, we worked together for one of the first nationally based wilderness skills schools. Everyone, it's Jason's fault. He was the one who first invited me to teach herbal medicine and edible plants at a college level skills program that he actually started and designed. It's in that roots of teaching that's where Learning Herbs began, because I turned that class that I taught for Jason into an herbal remedy kit.
Then when I saw Jason's new book, I really wanted to have him on the podcast because there's so many skills and survival skills, the simple and practical stuff that we could all use, especially if we want to learn more about herbs. Before we talk all about this, Jason, there are a lot of different reasons why people learn survival skills. Some people just think of preppers or super outdoorsy folks or they might not identify with, or maybe people they see on those reality TV shows. Many of which you've worked on. From what context and perspective are you sharing or teaching wilderness survival from?
Jason Knight:
Sure. The context I teach from is that these are skills that all humans should have. All of our ancestors knew these survival skills are connected to the land. It's something that is valuable for all of us, on both the practical life-saving skills. Every day there's people getting lost in the wilderness, and every year there's hundreds of people that don't make it out. These are practical life-saving skills that are valuable for everybody to know whether you do backpacking or just go on day hikes or even if you're just taking a drive and end up on a forest service road or stranded somewhere or a plane goes down.
On the other side of that, there're these skills that connect us to nature and enrich our lives and they make our experiences more exciting and give us more confidence in our life when we know the plants and trees and stones and animals and birds around us, we feel more connected to place. We have a more fun time when we go out on those hikes and enjoy the outdoors. There's multiple layers. I think they're just fantastic skills for everybody to have. Then beyond just the personal value of these skills, and I think it has just a huge society value in the sense that when you connect with nature that way, whether it's through survival skills or learning about the plants or tracking, we gain to love and appreciate and then want to take care of the natural world on a much deeper level. I think we all become better stewards of our environment and it helps us solve the various environmental challenges we're facing.
Tara Ruth:
That makes me think about, in your intro of your book, you talked about how when we get to know the plants, they can transform from a forest of just a wall of green to a community of survival allies. I loved how you framed that, thinking about the plants as part of this community and deepening connection with nature as part of learning survival skills. I'm wondering, just hearing you talk, if you can tell us a story about someone who saved their lives knowing some basic survival skills.
Jason Knight:
I got interviewed on King 5 News a couple of years back. There was a family, it was grandparents and a granddaughter flying across the state and their plane went down and crashed in the North Cascades.
John Gallagher:
Oh, my God.
Jason Knight:
The grandparents didn't make it through, but the teenage daughter survived. She didn't have formal training, but she had grown up with her father watching all these survival shows, had remembered some of the advice from that. She stayed by the plane wreck for a few days, knowing that normally search and rescue will come and find you. It's important to survive in place so that search and rescue can find you. It's easier to find stationary, someone who's close to where the point last seen is versus someone who could be anywhere. No one came. Then she remembered the next piece of survival advice that if search and rescue doesn't find you within a few days, you may need to navigate your way out.
She remembered the advice that here in North America, especially in these northern latitudes, like the Northwest and the Northeast and the Great Lakes area, going downhill is a great advice. Because if you go downhill, you eventually hit a stream. You can follow a stream downhill till you hit a creek and follow that downhill to maybe hit a river. Generally, water leads you back to civilization. That's what she did. It took her a couple of days. Luckily, she kept her wits about her and she made it back down to Highway 20 where then she was able to get picked up and taken to a hospital. She survived because she put to use some of the survival knowledge that she had picked up over her years.
John Gallagher:
It wasn't like she had taken a lot of classes or even read a book. She remembered just a few things that she asked along the way.
Jason Knight:
Which makes me think about how one of the most important survival skills is keeping a level head. There's a great book about that that came out 20 years ago called "Deep Survival." The story is about how sometimes people who have a lot of outdoor experience don't make it through. Sometimes people without very much at all or none make it out. It has to do with keeping that panic at bay and that fear at bay, keeping that level head, that positive mental attitude, that will to survive. That's one of the most important things in survival, at the beginning.
John Gallagher:
We were talking recently, Jason, called you up when your book came out. I just love it and amazed by it. We were having a chat. Something we were talking about was framing a conversation around how survival skills can help people be better herbalist. Because people listening to HerbMentor Radio, obviously they're interested in edible medicinal plants. A lot of people like to go out and harvest their own. I thought it'd be really cool to put this in the context of people who are really interested in plants. Obviously, Viggo Mortensen knows what to do. How about overall, how can knowing survival skills help us be better herbalists?
Jason Knight:
Sure. I think no matter what part of nature you want to study more in depth, it really is valuable to be a Jack or Jill of all trades or to be a naturalist, so to speak. Have a basic knowledge in a lot of different areas. Because it will help you understand the interconnectedness between things. Because plants don't just live in a vacuum, they're in an environment and they have relationships with all the different other plants and animals and the soils and how much it rains in that environment, and so many different things. Being a good naturalist, and I think survival skills fit into that palette of being a great naturalist. Even more importantly, if you pay attention to the news like I do for survival stories and people getting lost, and I have friends in search and rescue.
Every year, there's more and more foragers, mushroom forgers especially, go missing and some don't make it out alive. One, I think it's not only is a skill everyone should know, but especially if you're going out into the wild and foraging for mushrooms and for plants and such, you want to be able to know how to take care of yourself if you got turned around and lost and had to spend the night without a tent and sleeping bag. You want to be able to take care of your shelter and water, et cetera. Also, if you want to be good at finding the hard-to-find plants or the unusual plants or you want to be a better steward and maybe not harvest from where everybody else is harvesting, but find your own patch to tend and steward and harvest from. You want to be comfortable navigating off trail, not just going where everybody else walks.
To go off trail, you want to build your navigation skills and then to have your survival skills. Like I said, if you did get turned around, you know what to do. Oftentimes, when the types of folks who take a survival class and learn these skills and learn navigation, it's such great preventative medicine to having a survival situation because you won't get lost as easily. You'll have what you need with you. If you lose everything or don't have that stuff, you know how to use materials from nature to take care of all your survival needs.
It just gives you the confidence to go into those deeper areas. Like some of the plants around here only grow in high elevations and there's not a lot of roads or trails up into there. You usually have to park at a trail-head and hike somewhere. Like I said, getting off the beaten path is super key to finding, I find all kinds of unusual neat stuff because I'm off trail all the time. I'm tracking animals and they just take you to places that people would never go to because it's steep or there's a thicket or a swamp to get across. Then you find these amazingly beautiful places where you're just like, "Oh, my gosh. I'm so thankful I found this spot. When has a human seen this before? How long has it been?"
John Gallagher:
I remember taking a trip up to the North Cascades, a hiking trip, and my intention was, I just wanted to take a couple of days and just explore a little and camp and just get away up at North Cascade's National Park. Not really having too much intention of going, not at all of harvesting anything. I didn't, but when I was way up that trail and I went off trail a bit, because I got a little bit of experience in navigation and survival skills. I found the first time I ever came across a giant alpine field of mountain valerian and arnica. It was sunny out and the valerians were flowering. Literally, there were bees asleep on the flowers. You could just pick them up. I was like, "This really does work." It was having those kinds of experiences, like having a sense of confidence in just going off trail a little and how to get back was really helpful.
Jason Knight:
Absolutely.
Tara Ruth:
Jason, your book covers shelter, water, fire, food, navigation and survival skills. I'm wondering what's the top or one of the top skills someone listening should learn first? Is there an order to learning this information or does it start with an overall philosophy? Because it can seem a little overwhelming at first.
Jason Knight:
I think keeping that level head is one of the primary things to start with. We use an acronym called SPEAR, S-P-E-A-R. It means if you find yourself in a survival situation or emergency, and this goes for getting lost in the woods or a hurricane hits your neighborhood or whatever emergency you find yourself in. You stop what you're doing, is the S in SPEAR. Then P is put together a plan. Look at what your situation is, what you might be facing first as a difficulty, or what resources you might have with you or in the landscape around you. Then put together a plan. The P is for the plan. Then the E for execute. You can get your body actively engaged in making your survival situation better. Maybe it's building a shelter. When you're actively doing something, it helps keep your mind at ease.
Then if you complete your first task, then it's the A and the R in SPEAR stand for assess and reevaluate. Then, okay, I have a shelter, what might I need next? You put together a new plan and then you get yourself engaged in making your situation better again. It helps you stay in place. If you start creating all these things that create a sense of home, that take care of different survival needs, then you'll be more comfortable making camp and waiting for search and rescue to come and find you. It's that mental, keeping that level head so you don't go down that path of panic and fear. Because it's well documented that sometimes people go down that path of panic and fear and then they make horrible decisions. They make their situation way worse.
Like running at night or jumping off a cliff into raging water. A number of terrible things. Keeping that level ahead is super important. One of the first things that if you look at a simple system, I always think of shelter, water, fire, food. That puts together our survival priorities. It's dictated by something we call the rule threes, which you can survive roughly three hours before hypothermia becomes dangerous. Even in the summertime when it feels warmish at night. Your body, especially when you lay down to rest, when you need to sleep, you can lose heat very quickly.
Then you can go about three days without water before dehydration can become deadly. Roughly three weeks without food before starvation becomes an issue. Knowing the rule threes creates what we call our survival priorities, which are shelter, water, fire, and food. There's a reason why you would go through it in that order. Starting with shelter, the reason is because hypothermia is the biggest danger in the outdoors. More lost persons perish from hypothermia than anything else. Your body needs to stay 98.6. If it goes too much below or above, we can get very ill and perish quickly. We want to create the type of shelter. If we don't have tent and sleeping bag, we want to be able to build something from the natural materials in the environment that's going to keep us warm through the night so we that we don't get hypothermic.
John Gallagher:
That was again, SPEAR, which is stop, plan, execute, assess and reevaluate. Rule of three, three hours without a regulated body temperature and three days without water, three weeks without food. Then the hierarchy, which is shelter, then water, fire, then food. What I really like about your book is that it just tells you the basics of what you need to know without getting too crazy and gives you examples. A lot of really cool examples are in here and we're going to get to some of these. I thought I would start before getting into something like fire-making or water purification, something maybe herbalists or people should carry when they go out. If they're out there and they're like, "I'm going mushroom hunting." Or I'm going, even just to like I did, just go hiking and find and explore new plants and identify them. That's a lot of fun, at least for everyone listening, those people listening, at least to this audience. I don't know about all other podcasts. If you were to make a survival kit, or to make sure you carry certain things in your backpack when you're out, what do you suggest?
Jason Knight:
If you need something simple to remember, I always think of shelter, water, fire, food, what would support me for those things. If you want to look at a broader list, I love the 10 essentials that the mountaineers came up with 50 years ago. The modern-day equivalent. I like to think of 11 systems, because we've added communication to that list. Basically, if you're having a small, really lightweight, small, compact kit you can take hiking, some lightweight things you can put in it that help address your survival needs would be a Mylar space blanket for shelter and protection from the elements. A survival straw, or LifeStraw, is a brand. It's just a simple straw that has a filter in it.
You can purify water so that you're not drinking straight from a creek where you could get sick or get ill from a microorganism. Multiple ways of making fire. I always like carrying both a lighter and a ferro rod, which is like a modern-day flint steel. An extra protein bar for food. Those would be the core, shelter, water, fire, food. Then as far as the other systems that are part of the 10 essentials or the 11 systems, would be a compass and a paper map. Many people get lost because they rely on their phone and then either they get out of cell range or the battery dies or it breaks or they lose it or they forget it.
I always say, have a compass, know how to use it, bring a paper map. A small personal first aid kit, some extra clothing, a flashlight or a headlamp, some tools. I like to bring a knife and some rope or cordage, so to speak, a compact cordage. Then you think about sun protection, like a hat or sunscreen. Then that 11th system is communication. Everyone's carrying cell phones today, which is great. In addition to that, it can be helpful to bring an emergency whistle and a signaling mirror. They're also two things that can help you alert rescuers of your position if you were in a survival emergency.
John Gallagher:
Well, I also know that, like my daughter Haley, who you know, for her birthday one year got a Garmin GPS. That's really good if you're out doing a lot of hiking and going back country. I love her having it because even when she's on a road trip or something, like on spring break or whatever, she can just turn it on. Even if she's out of cell range, like she was, she's down camping in Death Valley or something this winter, she could ping us. The satellite thing is cool. I know that's more in the technology away from what we're talking about, but still, it's one of those, it helps our mindset and help us worry less.
Jason Knight:
Yeah, certainly. If you're going backpacking or doing a bigger hike, GPS is great to bring. I still recommend bringing the compass and map as backup. Because again, it's an electronic device that can run out of battery power or brake and things like that. Nowadays, like I said, they have these communication tools built into a lot of the GPSs, the spot devices and beacons and things like that. Then a lot of the new iPhones are having satellite communication built into it for emergencies. Those are all great tools to have, especially if you're leading people into the back country and you want to be able to contact help and you know you're going far and out of cell service. Absolutely.
Tara Ruth:
I'm thinking about shelter. You were saying that was one of the most important things to think about in a survival situation. I'm curious what tips you have on building the most basic shelter if you're in a survival or emergency situation.
Jason Knight:
The most basic shelter, it's great to start with something called a debris hut. It's like a giant nest or a giant sleeping bag, so to speak. Instead of synthetic materials or down, you're making it out of the material you'll find in the landscape. Debris is a term that simply refers to any kind of material in the landscape that will create dead air space. Those includes things like leaves, pine needles, mosses, ferns, cattail leaves, evergreen bows. Any type of material, dead grasses, that you can pile up. A debris hut structure, you prop up a ridge-pole up on a stump or a fork in a tree, or you build a tripod and then you put these ribbing sticks down along the sides and you make the interior just large enough to fit yourself. Then you stuff the inside full of debris, you pile up debris on the outside. You create a pile to fill in the doorway, but then you burrow into it feet first.
There's plenty of debris underneath you protecting you from the cold ground and all sides. About three feet. If we were to crawl into a mummy sleeping bag, because down is so efficient that mummy sleeping bag loft only has to be three or four inches to keep us warm, even on really cold nights. When you're using natural debris like leaves, it needs to be about three feet thick. It's going to take you a few hours to build one, but that's a shelter I've been in one when the temperatures got down to single digits at night and it snowed. I was a snug as a bug in the rug inside one of these things.
It's one of those things where probably the first time you do it, you may not have a great warm night because when you're a beginner at it, it's easy to not put enough debris on it or not get your door sealed up and things like that. That's a great shelter everybody should know. It's a great one to start with. Because a lot of survival situations, you are oftentimes by yourself and you have to spend the night by yourself. If you're with a group, you could build a group shelter and think about a fire. I tend not to do fires when solo, because then you have to keep it running all night and then you don't sleep much type of thing.
John Gallagher:
You need to think of energy conservation too. If you're in a situation and you're hungry and you have to make that choice. What am I going to do about energy? Collect firewood or make a debris hut? That's the kind of tough decisions.
Jason Knight:
Like I said, if you're with a group, you can split the task of collecting firewood and maintaining a fire. When you're by yourself, a debris hut is fantastic. You're talking about this book, I think one thing that makes this book different is so many survival books are a random assortment of hundreds of tips. What's different about this book is it actually presents a system of simple steps you take to address your most important survival needs. That's what I think is most helpful to folks who spend time in the outdoors, or even if you just want to be prepared for natural disasters that come through your neighborhood.
If you understand what your survival needs are and the simple ways to address them, you're much better prepared than trying to learn 300 different knots and fishing techniques and how to make different kinds of spear points and stuff like that. There's all kinds of wilderness skills, they're super fun and great for those folks who dream about living in the Stone Age for a summer or something like that. When it comes for everyday people, it's like the core survival skills and a systematic way to address them is what's important.
John Gallagher:
Know and remember where you're going. If you're going into the desert, you probably have a different kind of shelter you would need to make versus in a forest with leaves. There's that too. We go from shelter to water. I know you mentioned LifeStraw. If I don't have my LifeStraw, what is one of the most simplest things people can remember for water purification or even just what not to drink and what to drink and things like that?
Jason Knight:
Most water sources are contaminated by some form of microorganisms, whether it be bacteria, viruses, protozoa. The thing in wilderness survival situations, is you don't want to make it worse by making yourself really ill. You want to be able to have clean water to drink, which oftentimes means purifying it. There's a couple of different ways. If you're in an environment that has any level of humidity, in the morning, you have dew that forms on grasses and leaves, and you'd be amazed at how fast you can sop up water with a T-shirt or a sponge and squeeze it into a container and have a whole bunch of water.
It's clean water because it's evaporated. As long as you're not collecting it off of poisonous plants or scooping up some droppings or something like that. It's fantastic. There's also a lot of environments where you don't get a real dewy morning. The most effective primitive means of purifying water is boiling it. That's why I advocate when you make a survival kit, pack these small items into a metal cup or a metal pot. Because then you can use that to scoop up the water from a stream and put it over a fire and boil it. Because having a container is super handy. In the book we talk about what we do if you had nothing. Because so many survival situations, most of them are because people didn't expect to be in it.
Their plane went down, their car got stuck, they thought they were just off for a quick day hike or run and didn't have any equipment with them. It's important to know what to do if you don't have any. If you're trying to purify water and you're out in the wilderness with nothing, just the clothes on your back, you're going to be making a container. In the book we talk about how to burn out a piece of wood, to have a vessel container that holds water and then heat up rocks in the fire so that you can then put them into the water and boil it. It's what the CDC will tell you, even a natural disaster, if they're worried about say, an earthquake causing the municipal water source to get compromised, they'll just tell everybody, "Hey, we're on a boil water order. Boil your water on your stove before you drink it."
John Gallagher:
You know Tara?
Tara Ruth:
Yes.
John Gallagher:
I want to tell a little story connected to what Jason's been talking about. I started working with the mentor of Jason and myself, John Young, who you can actually listen to on a previous episode of HerbMentor Radio. He started a wilderness school, skills school. When I started working with them, originally late in the early 90s, we were able to take a week-long class with his mentor. Because John is often known as the first student of Tom Brown Jr, who was really one of the early people to write a lot of books on survival skills out there. I've taken that class and learned about these bow drill fires and debris huts, all these things, and they're talking about all the plants and trees you use. If you were in that situation, what would you be thinking?
Tara Ruth:
Well, I'd want to learn more about those plants.
John Gallagher:
Those plants and trees. Exactly. Because I didn't grow up with parents that were outdoors people. I played in the outdoors. I went outside and played in the woods all the time. I had these great woods near my house, but I didn't have anybody teaching me or knew anything about the names of any of the plants, other than poison ivy, which I had a great relationship with. I got a lot of poison ivy. I didn't know about jewelweed when I was younger, which I wish somebody had told me about. One of the first things I'm thinking to myself is, I have to learn these plants and trees. I had a notebook with lists of what tree is good for food and shelter and all these things. I'm like, "I don't know how to tell this tree from that tree and that plant from that plant." John Young came up with a way to teach people that. Because it had to be done longer term, you can't just sit there in a workshop and walk out with your head completely knowledgeable about everything that grows in your area. It takes time.
He came up with a naturalist training program, a home study program. Now, this course is no longer available. It was around a while ago. I helped him turn that and produce that. That's really where I got the skills to create Learning Herbs and HerbMentor and all of these things. To learn the trees and the plants, I went through that program and then I used that to learn everything that grew around me. It had a really cool system. When we started HerbMentor early on, I said, "We have to replicate that part of the program." We did. I replicated the system in which John Young came up with to learn about trees and your plants in your area. Along with Rosalee de la Forêt, we created a course called Learning Your Plants and HerbMentor. You've seen it, right?
Tara Ruth:
I sure have. It's a great one.
John Gallagher:
I'm just letting everyone know that if you're thinking to you yourself listening to Jason, "How do I learn all the trees in my area, the plants in my area?" He's like, you can go outside and point, like we have on HerbMentor as well. You can tap something on HerbMentor and it can identify the plant that's right in front of you. That's not quite the same. It takes a little while. It takes time to really go out. What's cool about learning your plants is learning plant families. Tara, you know a little bit about plant families. How did you learn about, or what is the benefit of knowing the plant families?
Tara Ruth:
For me, I think what really helped me with learning the plant families was starting to recognize patterns and then to see if something, for example, the mint family, I was like, "Okay, a lot of these plants, they have a square stem." Then I was just start starting to notice these little details of plants around me that all had square stems. Sure enough, they were in the mint family. Then they all had certain characteristics that they shared as well about their medicinal properties. It was just a really helpful way to have a systematic approach to learning about plants rather than just trying to learn each individual one and getting caught up in the sea of green.
John Gallagher:
Yes. Because if you know a lot of things you can do with an evergreen tree or a pine tree or mint family plants, you're going to find a lot of these in different environments. If I'm in the Northwest or I'm on the East Coast, very different plants, but you know the patterns from the plant families. You go, "Oh, okay. Well, that's in the mint family. I may be able to use it for this or that." Learning your plants, that course teaches from that perspective. Well, there's a couple of things going on. One, you can make master lists and learn about all the different plants of your area and journal them and really internalize them. At the same time, you're using a book called "Botany in a Day" by Tom Elpel, as the only real book we would suggest you get in that. Which helps you learn all those patterns. Now I feel much more confident about what plants or trees might be helpful for all these different things. HerbMentor, where can folks learn about HerbMentor, Tara?
Tara Ruth:
Well, they can maybe get a little discount on HerbMentor by going to herbmentorradio.com.
John Gallagher:
Yes, please go there. I think we should get back to Jason. I just thought that would help everyone if they might have been thinking that as they're going along and can help your survival skills. You learn this stuff slowly, a little bit over time.
Tara Ruth:
You can take it plant family by plant family. Like you're saying, it just really builds and it can be very overwhelming at first, but I promise you, it's super rewarding over time to just see your knowledge build and build on this foundation.
John Gallagher:
Absolutely. Speaking of which, let's get back to Jason.
Tara Ruth:
Hearing you talk about fire here, I'm curious, you mentioned a few things to pack in a survival kit for creating fire. If someone doesn't have their survival kit with them, how would you recommend the simplest way to make a fire?
Jason Knight:
If you don't have any equipment, you're oftentimes making fire from friction, which basically means rubbing two sticks together. There's all kinds of different friction fire techniques, from fire plows to fire sauce to hand drills, and then to the bow drill. The bow drill is the least difficult one to learn. I've had kindergartners make bow drill fires. I've had grandparents make bow drill fires.
John Gallagher:
I've actually made one once.
Jason Knight:
Yes.
John Gallagher:
If I can do it, anyone can do it.
Jason Knight:
Everybody can do a bow drill. You harvest your dead pieces of branches of wood from what we call a medium density. You can take any stick that you find and carve into the wood and jam your thumbnail into it. If the wood is so hard, you can't make a mark with your thumbnail, it's too dense. If it's so rotten and soft that you can just crush down the wood, like Styrofoam or something, it's too soft. If with all your pressure on there, if you can make just a little mark, it's about the right density. As long as it's dry and at that medium density, you can carve out the pieces. You have a fireboard and a spindle or a drill and a handhold, and then a bow, which is about arm's length with a string.
In a survival situation, you use your shoelace or a rootlet from a tree. Basically, you're creating friction between the piece of wood by spinning it against each other. That heats up over 800 degrees and turns to coal. You put that ember into what you call a tinder bundle, which is like shredded dry bark and grasses and dead flower heads, very flammable stuff. You blow on that ember and it eventually ignites that tinder bundle into flame. You put that into your fire structure. I like building a teepee where you have your smallest piece of the wood on the inside and you build it out to larger pieces. Bow drill is how you do it if you don't have any equipment with you at all, it's friction.
John Gallagher:
I suggest, if you're going out, herbalist going out in the field, definitely have a couple of fire-making sources, whether it's some really good matches and a Ziploc or a lighter or two. If you want adventure and think you want to do bow drill, it's a muscle memory thing. It's a good idea to play around and practice. Because when you get it, you get it. It takes a little while. One of the hardest parts for me was blowing the coal into the tinder bundle, knowing how to do the tinder bundle right. Then that then helps you understand how building fires works in general. That's a good one to practice a bit. Even if you're doing the lighter or the matches, it's good to practice the tinder bundle and that kind of thing.
Jason Knight:
I think fire skills is so key. The reason why we talked about the order of being shelter, water, fire, food, is the biggest danger is hypothermia. The second-biggest danger is dehydration. Last on the list is food. That's the last thing you need to worry about. Fire sometimes is definitely above food. It can be first on your list or second on your list because sometimes you need fire to make a warm and dry enough shelter or to dry out your wet clothes. Or sometimes you need fire to purify your water if you're using rock boiling. Then fire can do so many other things. It can help signal rescuers, it can help keep you calm. It creates a sense of place with your camp. Fire creates illumination at night. There's so many wild edibles that are not edible until you cook them.
It's one of the most multi-use skills or tools we have at our disposal. I completely agree. I don't smoke, but I carry a lighter in my pocket all the time. Then even my little folding knife that I keep in my pocket, inside the handle is a ferro rod, which is a modern-day flint and steel. It works a lot better. Even if I don't have a backpack on me, in my pocket, I always have two different ways of making fire at all times. Of course, stormproof matches can be great and there's all kinds of other fire-making tools out there. That's one of the things that belongs in every survival kit. You should have a survival kit you take hiking, you should have a kit in your car, kit you keep at home in case there's a natural disaster. All those kits should have multiple ways of making fire.
John Gallagher:
Well, you mentioned food. Let's talk about food, wild edibles.
Jason Knight:
Sure.
John Gallagher:
Of course, that depends on how long you're out there and it is further down on the list, but you also need energy. Of course, every forest is different, but just what do you recommend to know?
Jason Knight:
This is definitely one of those areas where the more you know, the better. That's why becoming a naturalist or becoming an herbalist or being a forager, you'll just get more and more tools at your disposal if you ever needed to call upon those. When someone doesn't have any plant skills, a great place to start is what we call the big four. One of them is cambium of conifer trees. This goes for like pine trees, fir trees, spruce trees. The inner layer of, the living layer of a tree, inside the outer bark is that part of the tree that's transports nutrients up and down the sap, the fluids. It's before you get to the wood, which is in the center, which is also dead. That little layer, called the cambium layer, is a really rich food. It's what bears eat in the spring before there's anything else to eat because it has so much nutrient in it. Sugars, starches, minerals.
That's a survival food that's available to you almost everywhere. Especially, I like to think about in winter when there's snow in the ground and you don't see any plants anywhere. All you might have available to you is these conifer trees, these pine trees. You can take off that dead outer layer and scrape off that inner layer. It's like this gelatinous kind of sticky material. Sometimes it comes off in like papery sheets. You can try different trees. When they get bigger, they tend to get more bitter. There's certain trees when they're about four or five inches in diameter, they're more sweet. You can eat it raw, it tastes better if you boil it or fry it in a frying pan. You can make chips. You can slice it off and fry it in a frying pan, put some salt on it and make these survival chips.
Or you can cut it up in thin strips and make a pasta type of thing. It has more of that piney minty flavor to it. That's one survival food. Another one would be grasses. Everywhere you go in the world, there's always going to be grasses. Now, the green leafy parts above ground, they're too fibrous to digest. You don't want to be eating those. You could chew on them, swallow the juices and spit out the fibers. Same problem with the roots, they're too fibrous. Right at ground level where you have the transition between the green leaves and the roots below ground, there's a little section called the corm, C-O-R-M. That's like a little tiny starchy potato. You can eat them raw or you can cook them. Obviously, on larger grasses, it's a bigger, like a reed canary grass, it's a big invasive of grass around here. The corm is a little bit bigger.
Anywhere you go, that's again, that's a survival food that will give you some calories. Because berries are sweet and tasty. Greens are, there's so many wild greens, but so many of those things don't have many calories in them. You need to get something that has calories, which is why you go after, say the cambium or the corm. Another big one is acorns. A lot of places in the world have oaks. Those nuts, the acorn and the nut inside the acorn is really high in protein and fats and calories. You do need to leach those overnight in a stream or boil them in two changes of water. Then you have a high protein wild food. Then the other big one is cattails. Cattails are almost like a giant grass that grows in swamps all around the globe.
They have that flower head that when it turns brown in midsummer, it looks like a hot dog or a sausage. Euell Gibbons, who wrote all these cool plant field guides in the 60s called it the Supermarket of the Swamp. Because no matter what time of year, there's always something edible on the cattail, whether it's the chutes in the spring or the green flower head before it turns brown, or even the roots you can pull the starches off of and such. Those are the big four where if you're just getting started with plants, those are good four to learn how to identify and to work with.
John Gallagher:
I remember when I was teaching with your class, we would spend a day making a giant wild edibles feast and we would get cattails and nettles and dandelions and just add flour. It was spring, so there were so many things that we could get and we would make this great stir-fry with dandelion roots and everything. We would be a group of 20, 30 people and we would just spend the day putting it all together and have lunch at the end of the day. That was a lot of fun.
Jason Knight:
It's awesome. Like I said, you can go three weeks before starvation becomes a problem. Certainly, it's nicer to have food sooner to keep that blood sugar level up, to keep that level head, to not go down that path of panic. Just to make our experience that much more enjoyable. If you are in a situation where you do have to survive for longer, the longer your survival situation lasts, the more important food becomes. If you ever see that show Alone, you'll see after 50, 60, 70 days, those folks have lost so much weight that some of them are being medically canceled from the show because they've gotten to a danger zone where they could do permanent organ damage. For those people, the people who win that show are typically those that are skilled enough to get enough food to keep their body weight up.
If you read that book "Into the Wild," the author who wrote that incorrectly theorized that he died from misidentifying plants. When you look at Samuel Thayer, who's written some of the best wild edible guides, he debunks that myth. He actually just died from starvation. He wasn't misidentifying, he was eating these plants that are wild edibles are perfectly fine to eat. They just weren't providing them with enough calories and not the right calories. He just lost more and more and more weight till he couldn't get up in the morning and take care of himself.
John Gallagher:
I don't know if I ever told you this, Jason, but let's see. We met in, oh, I want to say '96, I think. At that same wildness school in '92 we did this summer tour and part of it, we went to Alaska. We were camping. It turns out, because I didn't realize this till later when I looked it up after I saw the Into the Wild movie. We were literally camping pretty close to where he was right across the river. At that exact moment in time. While that was going on and he was starving, we were across the river and up a little bit with the wilderness school.
Jason Knight:
Wow.
John Gallagher:
I know. I was like, "Oh, my God. We were right there." That was crazy. That is an interesting one to watch, for sure, or read.
Jason Knight:
That's crazy coincidence. The other thing that reminds me is, if you're surviving in place and search and rescue hasn't found you in a few days or a week, most searches are even called off after a week. They'll stop searching for you. In that situation then you need to start thinking about, "Okay, how am I going to then navigate my way out and bring some of the things I'm making to help with my survival needs so I can survive on the move and make my way back out to civilization?" There's a super sad story of a lady who was hiking the Appalachian Trail and she had stepped off the trail in Maine to relieve herself and then got turned around. She remembered the survival advice that you're supposed to survive in place and search and rescue will come and find you.
She had all her camping gear. She just set up her tent and stuff and they know all about it because she kept a journal. She was only a mile or two off the trail and they searched for her, but they assumed she'd be along the trail. They're only searching within half a mile of the trail or something like that. They never found her until two years later, someone discovered her and she had just stayed in place for at least two months, maybe three, and kept a journal. Then eventually passed away from starvation. It's really sad because she didn't know that piece of knowledge that you need to find your way out if no one comes and gets you within seven days.
Tara Ruth:
I didn't know that search and rescue calls off after a week. That's really helpful to know. Hearing you talk about how it's important to then start navigating and moving, hopefully towards civilization. Can you talk a little bit about tips for not getting lost and what to do if you are lost with navigation?
Jason Knight:
Everyone should grab a compass and learn how to use the compass and read topographic maps. Get out to a class, like REI has a little free compass classes everywhere. It's just a super helpful thing that you can pick up a book or do something online as well. We've got some navigation information in the book as well. It's always important to plan for weather that's worse than what you expect. What you want to do is you want to tell someone where you're going, when you plan to be back out. That way if you don't come back out, somebody will know to call search and rescue and be able to tell them, "Oh, they were hiking on this trail. Their car should be here." They'll have a point last seen and they'll be able to search, will be able to go to the right place. If you can hike with not just one friend, but two is ideal.
That way, if somebody gets a very serious injury, you have one person who can perform first aid while the third person goes out for help. The other thing is, no matter what region you're going to go explore and spend time in, know some of those landmarks or handrails that they like to call them at NOLS. For example, around here in the Northwest, we're lucky that if you get up on a high point, you can usually see Mount Rainier or Mount Baker. That way, if you were hiking around the woods back here and you got turned around, if you could get to a high spot and point out one of those landmarks, then you know where the four directions are.
For me for example, I know if I get lost out in the woods here, if I go north, if I can find my four directions and know which way is north, if I just go north, I'll eventually hit the Skykomish River, which is either going to have a road along it or I can follow it downstream to where you get back to civilization. Knowing what are your major land forms in your area, whether they be rivers or ridges or prominent mountains, and then know what your plan B, C or Z is as far as if you got turned around, like I was saying, for me it's like just hike north and you'll find your way out.
For every wilderness I were to go into, I'd be like, "Okay, if I got completely turned around of the four directions, which one is going to be my shortest distance back to civilization? It's good to have those backup plans in place. There's a whole bunch of different aidless navigation techniques you can use. If you're going off trail, you can hang flagging every 50 yards or a hundred yards so you can follow that flagging back to the trail. If you're trying to navigate without circling, because we're all left or right-handed and over long distances, especially on flatter territory or forested, we tend to curve to the left or the right based on which side is dominant.
You can stay going in a straight line by picking landmarks that align up in front of you in alignment with each other, whether it be two trees or two hilltops and then keep choosing landmarks that are in alignment with the direction you're trying to go. Because there's horror stories of people getting lost and they might walk all day or multiple days and then end up in the same place they started because they curved and circled back around. Things like sight lining, trailblazing, hanging the flags. Memorizing your landmarks. That way even if you didn't have a map, you've memorized some landmarks.
Like using the sun and the stars to help you navigate. We all know the sun rises in an easterly direction and midday it's in a southerly direction and it sets in a westerly direction. If we can locate the sun in the sky, we can also get a rough sense of our four directions. Same at night. If we have a clear sky, if you can find the big dipper, you take the two stars that form the pouring edge. That distance between those two stars that form the pouring edge, if you go four and a half times up from that, you get to the north star. If you can find North Star, you also know your four directions. Those things help as well. There's a whole bunch of stuff like that in the book about navigating.
John Gallagher:
Something that you just said a moment ago too, totally forgot to mention, which was, if you need help or you get in first aid situation or you get a cut or whatever, to know how to use the plants around you medicinally. Poultices and teas to make compresses and just have a general idea what plants might have anti-infection properties or things like that. You could wash off a wound or something so it doesn't get infected. That's another key thing to know as well. Because you may know plantain for example, but plantain is probably not regrowing back in the woods or far off into the wilderness. Knowing some other options and things is good.
Jason Knight:
Absolutely. It's like we have this survival kits list in the book where we talk about what to bring for your 10 essentials, or your 11 systems so to speak. Then also, what are your natural alternatives? Certainly, knowing some of your medicinal plants can come in super handy if you don't have a first aid kit. It reminds me, survival skills are one of these things I can't believe they don't teach, at least the basics in school. It's one of those skills I said every human should have. Just like first aid. I can't believe they don't teach first aid in school too. It's like, it's one thing, it's great to have a first aid kit, but even more importantly is to know how to use it. I've taken a little training on a basic first aid, you know how to put that to use. Even better is like, well, what are the replacements for your Neosporin if you have to make that from what you find in the woods if you don't have it?
John Gallagher:
Speaking of which, knowing hazards as you're going out, where you might be going. Are there any snakes or things like that? Or just knowing how to, I mean there's knowing the hazards of the area as well.
Jason Knight:
Absolutely. It's one of the first things. If I'm going into a new region, whether to take my family for a hike or go camping or teach a class or something. Every time you're going to a new region, that's one of the first things you look at are like, what are the dangerous things in that area? Poisonous spiders, poisonous snakes, poisonous plants, plants that would give you a rash, dangerous wildlife, weather conditions, flash floods, whatever it might be. Every region has got its own hazards in there. It's fantastic to orient yourself with that first and get that out of the way so those things you've got covered and you know how to handle those situations.
John Gallagher:
Jason, you created one of the very first yearlong wilderness college levels, the programs, like nine-month program. Many have followed you over the years, but you're definitely, definitely the OG and all that. I know you haven't been doing that particular program anymore, but are you still teaching live classes?
Jason Knight:
Yes. We're actually busy. I'm busier than ever with classes. We have tons of weekend classes that are open to the public on survival skills, on wildlife tracking skills, on mushroom foraging. If you go to wildernesscollege.com, you'll see we have classes almost every weekend throughout the spring, summer and fall. Then we do custom classes for groups. I do presentations for different groups. Then after popular demand, one of the things that was the most requested thing from us for years was putting our survival training into an online format. We have an online survival course that's been incredibly popular over the last five years. We've got a lot of things that keep us very busy with helping people gain these skills and helping people be able to share them with others as well.
John Gallagher:
Of course, the course, everyone could go to wildernesscollege.com for the course, Jason's live classes, presentations, has them all there. Definitely, you have a cool free thing you can get on your list and get a really cool free guide. Where do you think is the best place? Where would you like people to go to pick up the essential skills of wilderness survival?
Jason Knight:
You can go to wildernesscollege.com. What's cool, if you get it from us, not only do we have the best price on it, but then you can get our cool bonuses. We have the survival kit checklist that I use with my own family and our instructors. You can download that. Then we have a little survival webinar and some other cool components there that go along with the book. You'll then be able to find out about what we have coming up in the future as well.
John Gallagher:
Excellent.
Tara Ruth:
Great. Well, Jason, this has just been so fun and so informative. I'm really grateful for you joining us today. Thank you for joining us on HerbMentor Radio.
John Gallagher:
Thanks, Jason.
Jason Knight:
Thanks for having me.
Tara Ruth:
Welcome to Herb Notes. I'm Tara Ruth from Learning Herbs. Growing out of sidewalk cracks and wild meadows alike, dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, is a persistent plant that can teach us a whole lot about resilience and adaptability. While it may be despised by lawn purists, herbalist recognize that dandelion isn't a pesky weed. Rather, dandelion is an important plant with so many healing gifts. Let's dive into three benefits of dandelion. One, dandelion has a long history of use as an herb for supporting liver health. Since the liver performs so many different functions in the body, gently supporting the liver with dandelion root can help address a wide range of mild ailments associated with liver stagnation. Some of these mild issues can include but aren't limited to constipation, acne, minor rashes, and dry eyes. Two, both dandelion roots and dandelion leaves make for a fantastic digestive tonic. Dandelion roots and leaves are both bitter, and the bitter flavor helps release digestive secretions throughout our GI tracts.
These in turn help us break down our foods more efficiently. Sipping on a cup of roasted dandelion root tea, which by the way tastes so good with just a little bit of coconut milk and honey, or adding some dandelion greens to your meals like in a salad or stir-fry, is a great way to support healthy digestion. Dandelion roots are also high in inulin, a prebiotic that helps feed the gut microbiome and support overall digestive health. Three, in addition to having roots with a high inulin content, dandelion's young spring leaves are also deeply nutritious. The fresh bitter leaves are high in vital minerals like calcium, phosphorus, and potassium. I like adding fresh dandelion greens to a salad, stir-fry or a pesto. I love picking dandelion leaves from my backyard, and I always make sure I'm sourcing them from a place that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides.
In addition to harvesting them, I've also been able to find them at many grocery stores near me. They might be in your favorite grocery store too. To recap, here are three ways that you can use dandelion. One, you can work with dandelion roots to support liver health. Two, you can sip on dandelion root tea and cook with dandelion leaf to support healthy digestion. Three, you can incorporate dandelion roots and leaves into your cooking for their nutrient dense benefits. I couldn't help but include a fourth benefit that you probably already know about. Making a wish and blowing on a dandelion that's gone to seed will definitely make all of your dreams come true. Want to learn more about dandelion's benefits? You can visit herbnotes.cards to grab a free deck of our top 12 Herb Notes. You'll learn all about common herbs like catnip, yarrow, echinacea, cinnamon, and more. This has been Herb Notes, with me, Tara Ruth. Catch you next time.
John Gallagher:
HerbMentor Radio and Herb Knows are 100% sustainably wild crafted podcasts. Written, performed, and produced by Tara Ruth and me, John Gallagher. Sound Engineering by Zach Frank. Visit hernmentorradio.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast app and to find out how you can be part of HerbMentor, which is a website that you must see to believe. HerbMentor Radio is production of learningherbs.comllc. All rights reserved. Thank you very, very, very much for listening.
