Learn
Survival lessons, step by step
Every lesson here comes from public US military survival manuals and is written in plain words, with real photos, the mistakes people make, and a short quiz. They are grouped by what you need first when things go wrong: stop and think, then shelter, water, fire and getting found. Food comes last.
First hour
The first minutes after you realize you are lost or stuck matter most.
The manual's definition of survival planning is short: realizing something could happen, and taking steps now.
The manual opens its chapter on the mind with a plain fact: some people with no training have survived, and some trained people have died.
The manual is built on one keyword.
Shelter
Where you build matters as much as what you build.
The manual calls the debris hut one of the best shelters for warmth and ease of building, and says that when shelter is essential to survival, build…
A lean-to is a sloped roof on a frame.
Snow is an insulator.
At rest you lose as much as 80 percent of your body heat to the ground.
An open-fronted shelter and a fire belong together, but a fire in the wrong place burns the shelter, fills it with smoke or sinks into the snow.
Water
You need at least 2 liters a day even in the cold, and more in heat, after hard work or when hurt.
Dew, rain, plants and the ground itself give up water if you know how to ask.
In winter, water is everywhere and nowhere.
Clear water can still carry germs that put you down for days with vomiting and diarrhea, which costs you more water than you drank.
Thirsty people reach for liquids that make things worse.
Fire
A fire keeps you warm, dries wet clothes, boils water to make it safe, cooks food and lifts your spirits.
A fire lay is how you stack tinder, kindling and fuel before you strike anything.
The manual sorts igniters into modern and primitive.
Wet ground, wet wood and snow that melts into the fire are what put most fires out.
A Dakota fire hole is a fire built underground with an air tunnel.
Trapping and fishing
Reading animal sign is the part of trapping you can learn and practice anywhere, and it is legal everywhere.
The survival manual says the heart of any trap or snare is the trigger.
Getting your own meat and fish is one of the most useful skills in this trainer, and one of the most tightly ruled.
The manual's first lesson about traps is that a perfect snare catches nothing in the wrong place.
A snare is a trap built around a noose.
A deadfall drops a weight; a pit holds an animal that falls in.
The manual lists every one of these as food.
The manual's killing devices are simple tools you can make in the field.
Fishing is the catching skill most people can practice legally today, with a state fishing license.
Hooks catch one fish at a time.
The manuals' order: bleed, skin, gut, inspect, cook.
The manual's advice is to work the small, plentiful food first.
Fresh meat and fish spoil in a day or two without a refrigerator.
Food from plants
Signals and rescue
Being found is how most people get home.
A search plane sees shapes, contrast and movement.
On a sunny day a mirror is the best signaling device you can carry; pilots have reported flashes from 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.
The moment a search plane comes near is the moment most signals are wasted.
Finding your way
With no compass, the sun still tells direction.
Two constellations never set in the northern sky, and between them they point to Polaris, the North Star.
A map is only useful if you can match its brown contour lines to the hills around you.
The recovery manual's first travel rule is to stay with the vehicle or aircraft.
A compass needle always points to magnetic north.
Map readers keep track of distance by counting steps.
First aid
The survival manual says it plainly: serious bleeding must be controlled at once, because there is no replacement fluid in the field and a person…
Hypothermia is losing heat faster than your body makes it.
Heat injuries come in three steps: cramps, exhaustion and stroke.
The survival manual says most snakebites happen when someone steps on or handles a snake, so the best first aid is not getting bitten.
Your feet are how you get home.
Most burns at camp or home come from fire, hot water or hot metal.
Out in the woods, a small cut can become the biggest problem because it gets infected.
A splint stops a broken bone from moving.
Cold and weather
The cold weather manuals turn clothing into four rules you can remember as COLD: keep it Clean, avoid Overheating, wear it Loose and in layers, keep…
Frostbite is frozen tissue, and the manuals are far more interested in preventing it than treating it.
You can often see bad weather coming hours ahead from the clouds, the wind, smoke and animals.
If you can hear thunder, you are close enough to be struck.
Cold water pulls heat out of your body far faster than cold air does.
In a winter storm, the car is your shelter.
Camp and wildlife
A rope is only useful once you can tie it to something.
If you have no rope, plants can make it.
A knife and a hatchet turn the woods into firewood, kindling and shelter poles, but they also cause most camp injuries.
Bears, raccoons and mice follow their noses.
Most bears want nothing to do with you.
Mountain lions and moose need opposite responses.
Home Prep
Storms, floods and broken water mains can shut off clean tap water for days.
An emergency food supply does not need to be fancy or expensive.
A power outage turns small things into big problems: a cold house, spoiling food, no lights and dangerous fumes from generators and grills.
A go-bag is a packed bag you can grab in two minutes if you have to leave home fast, for a fire, flood or chemical spill.
A store-bought kit is a fine start, but most are short on the things you actually use.
Drying is the oldest and simplest way to keep food.
A small garden grows real food and real skills.
Blueberry bushes bear fruit for many years, but they are picky about one thing: the soil must be acidic.
Baking soda and baking powder both make bread and pancakes rise by making tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide gas.
Soap is fat or oil mixed with lye, a strong base.
Courses with badges
- First hour lost (Stay Found badge): What to do in the first sixty minutes, before anything else.
- Shelter (Shelter Builder badge): Pick the spot, build with a tarp or with what the woods gives, make a bed, warm it with a fire, and dig in when it snows.
- Water (Water Finder badge): Where water hides, how to collect it with no stream, snow and ice, making it safe, and what never to drink.
- Fire (Fire Maker badge): Site and fuel, four ways to lay it, every way to light it, keeping it going in rain and snow, and a Dakota fire pit that lasts all night.
- Signals and rescue (Signal Sender badge): Ground signals a pilot can see, mirror and whistle, and what to do when the plane is close.
- Finding your way (Pathfinder badge): North from the sun and the stars, the land on a map, a compass bearing and your pace count, and whether to stay or go.
- First aid (First Responder badge): Bleeding, cleaning wounds, burns, broken bones, cold, heat, bites and stings, and the feet and ankles that carry you home.
- Cold and weather (Winter Ready badge): Dress by the COLD rules, keep frostbite from starting, get out of a hole in the ice, ride out a storm in your car, and read the sky.
- Camp and wildlife (Camp Smart badge): Five knots, cord from plants, knife and hatchet safety, a clean camp, and what to do around bears, mountain lions and moose.
- Before you go (Prepared badge): The SURVIVAL letters, the feelings that show up when you are lost, and the kit that goes on your body every trip.
- Trapping and catching food (Trapper (practice) badge): The law first, then reading sign, placing traps, triggers, snares and deadfalls, throwing tools and bows, hooks, fish traps and spears, small animals and birds, and turning the catch into food.
- Home Prep: ready at home (Home Ready badge): Water and food stored the right way, a power outage without danger, a go-bag, and a first aid kit.
- Home Prep: grow and make (Homesteader badge): A survival garden, blueberries, drying food, baking powder from scratch, and how soap is made.
- Food from plants (Plant Reader badge): Why food comes last, how to tell a plant you can use from one that can kill, and how to test and prepare it.