The Comprehensive Survival Guide

By Sam Palais

This book started out as a collection of handouts that I would give to people taking classes with me. The handouts became manuals, and the manuals became a book. This is that book! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing and illustrating it. Everything contained in this book represents the knowledge, experience, and wisdom handed down to us from our ancestors. As you learn these skills and put them in to practice, you will feel an awakening in yourself that will take you back to the beginning of the dawn of mankind. It is in all of us. It may be dormant, but trust me, it’s in there.

Sam

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662426629

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The Comprehensive Survival Guide

Sam Palais

Copyright © 2021 Sam Palais

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-2661-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-2662-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Knife or Blade Safety

Cordage

Shelter

Water

Fire

Food

Lithic Technology

Weapons and Hunting

Winter Survival Tricks

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wife, Mary, whose patience and encouragement made this book possible. I would also like to thank Sierra Postler, who spent many hours actually reading and trying to understand my notes and thoughts. I could have never gotten my thoughts organized or made the text understandable without her assistance.

There are many people who contributed to this book, and most of them will never know it. Some of them are people whose names I’ve never known. Their experience, knowledge, wisdom, and gracious sharing went into this book and will be a part of me forever.

Introduction

The most valuable asset you can have with you in a survival situation is another human being or other human beings. If you find yourself in a survival situation with another person or other people, you’re going to want to know his or her name or their names. Introducing yourselves and quickly establishing a rapport with others are essential elements of teamwork.

The second most valuable asset you can have is a positive attitude. In a survival situation, I’d rather be with a 10-year-old, 80-pound child with a positive attitude than a 220-pound linebacker who whines. If the person you are with has a bad attitude, all you get are double the need for water, food, and shelter. You will also be placed under a lot more stress, and you will have to work harder than if you were alone.

This guide will be laid out according to your needs for survival in the order of their priority no matter where in the world you may be.

Those needs, in order of priority are: shelter, water, fire and food.

Shelter. Depending on the weather conditions, you can die in one hour without shelter.

Water. You will die in two to three days without water.

Fire. You will need fire for warmth, light, cooking, water purification, melting ice and snow into water, signaling (by smoke in daylight and flames at night), safety, drying clothes, purifying bedding area, etc.

Food. You can live for thirty to forty days without food, which is why food is last on your list of needs.

Modern man’s misconception is that we need safety, security, and comfort. Think about your most vivid memories. Chances are they all have to do with situations where you weren’t safe, secure, or comfortable. Being able to sustain one’s self with nothing more than what nature provides equals true freedom. Freedom equals not having to depend on society…for anything.

The teachings in this guide come from many sources—personal experience, other people, practice and experimentation, the experience and knowledge of our ancestors, and much from the philosophies and cultures of Native Americans.

Our ancient ancestors, as well as many other people who lived and live close to the earth, have much to teach modern society about how to live, survive, and thrive with only what nature provides. Modern society often views nature as the enemy when in fact, nature and the earth is our mother, nurturer, friend, protector, and provider.

To fully receive the gifts provided in the following pages, lectures, and exercises, you must put them into practice. Experience them and experiment with them.

You will see the expression etc. many times in this guide. The reasons for this are many and varied, but the main reason is to make you aware that there is much more to be learned on a subject that can only be learned through doing.

This guide is intended to share primitive wilderness survival skills. The skills presented do not have a lot to do with urban or suburban survival skills although many will be applicable to both types of survival. Urban or suburban survival skills require a different set of skills than the ones presented in this guide in most situations.

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Philosophy

Many Native Americans consider a full survival experience to be the doorway to the soul and the gateway to the earth.

Modern man’s philosophy on acquiring what he needs to survive from nature is to take without asking, never give thanks, never consider the generations that will follow, and ignore the fact that everything here is a gift and should be treated as such—with respect and gratitude—and is not to be wasted or abused.

As you gather, collect, harvest, hunt, trap, fish, drink, wash, and breathe, remember to give thanks, leave a gift, and be responsible and respectful. Always gather what you need from the land with a caretaker attitude. Look for the items that will best suit your needs, create the least amount of waste (in survival, there really is no waste because everything has a use), and will benefit the ecosystem by being removed. If you need a stick for an arrow, remove it from the landscape as though you are pruning the plant you are taking it from. If you find a patch of dogwood that would make good arrow staves and you cut every shoot, you may kill the entire plant. This action will leave no arrow staves for next year for the next generation and no bark, leaves, or buds for the animals that depended upon that plant for food and shelter. Future generations (or yourself in seasons to come) will have to travel further afield to find game because the game has moved to an area that still has dogwood plants that it needs for food and shelter.

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Awareness

Modern living has dulled the senses and skills we need to survive in the wilderness in all of us. We still have these senses and skills, but in most of us they have gone dormant. Awareness is the most important sense we can develop and exercise, like awareness of weather patterns, navigation and orientation (direction), wind direction, animal activity, sounds and smells, the terrain, tracks, plants, etc.

To increase your level of awareness, take off your hat (the brim obscures your view), move quietly, slow down, expand your vision, and scan. Don’t stare. Use all your senses of hearing, vision, taste, smell, feeling (air movement, temperature, moisture level, changes) across your skin, etc.

What did you see that you could use for survival on your way here?

Were the chickadees and juncos working today? Their working extra hard may indicate a storm approaching.

What phase will the moon be in tonight?

What time was sunrise this morning?

What time will the sun set tonight?

What direction is the wind coming from today?

What direction is the weather coming from today?

What does that mean for us?

What is the weather forecast for tomorrow?

Always be asking yourself What if? What if I had to spend the night here? What if I run out of drinking water? What if I need a shelter? What if I run out of food? What if I need a fire? What if the temperature drops severely? What if I had to stay here long-term?

Always be looking for things you can use—medicinal, nutritional, utilitarian, water, shelter materials, fire-making materials, and food sources. Also look out for animal runs, paths, beds, rubs, scrapes, tracks, scat, feeding areas, drinking areas and homes.

Also be on the lookout for dangers like poisonous plants, insects, and animals and water, ice, avalanche, landslide, tidal, old mines and wells, flash flood hazards, etc.

How do survival situations occur? Usually very quickly, from one second to the next. Almost always unexpectedly an accident that is beyond your control could happen from one wrong decision and one wrong turn and often when you’re out to have fun.

Having experience in certain primitive, survival, and wilderness skills will make you feel much more confident and comfortable in the outdoors. Obtaining these skills is one of the most fun learning experiences you can have.

Knife or Blade Safety

Anything with a sharp edge can potentially harm you or others. Obsidian blades have been unearthed by archeologists that are tens of thousands of years old and are still sharper than any razor blade made today. The edges of some obsidian blades, flakes, and chips are one molecule thick. A sharp knife is safer to work with than a dull knife because less pressure is needed to accomplish the same task with a sharper edge. When your knife blade is dull, you will find yourself using excessive downward pressure and often a sawing or rocking action. All these actions are dangerous, but together they can be a disaster waiting to happen. A folding knife will always live up to its name at the most inopportune moments. Even if your folding knife has a locking blade, don’t put all your trust in it. Fixed blade or non-folding knives are usually much stronger and much more trustworthy. There are, however, good and not-so-good fixed-blade knives. Consider your needs and uses when you choose a knife.

Carbon and high carbon steel. Flexible, easy to sharpen, holds an edge well, rusts easily.

Chrome/stainless: Hard, stiff, more brittle, hard to sharpen, loses its edge quickly, resists rust or rustproof.

Handle Construction

Full tang: You can see the blade through the full length of the knife (the tang is as wide and as thick as the blade). The strongest of all types of blade construction.

Partial tang: Usually has a molded or injected handle, you can’t see the tang, and it is weaker than a knife with a full tang.

Bolt tang: Manufactured to fit a stacked leather or bone handle and is the weakest design made.

Blade Edge Types

Bevel Angles for Sharpening:

Too steep an angle. Sharpen then sharpen a micro-bevel.

Blade Shapes

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Drop point: Good utility blade, good for carving, strong.

Tanto: Good for piercing, strong.

Clip point: Good utility blade, good for piercing, a little weaker at the point.

Spear/dagger point: Double-edged blade, sharp point, good for piercing, weaker blade.

Skinner: Swept belly, sharp point, a little weaker blade, great for skinning, not good for carving.

Sharpening

In a survival situation, when you have a knife but no sharpener, you can wet the flat side of a split log and sprinkle some crushed quartzite on it. Quartzite is hard enough to sharpen any metal, and the water on the flat side of the log will hold the quartzite grains in place. You can also pound the quartzite granules lightly with a stone to set them into the log. Use the log exactly as you would a sharpening stone.

Sandstone also works well as a knife-sharpening stone. If you can’t find a flat piece of sandstone, try bashing a piece of it on its edge against a harder stone and see if it will produce a flat surface. If it doesn’t, you can rub two pieces together in a circular motion until one or both of them have been worked to a flat surface.

Using a Sharp-Edged Stone

Any sharp-edged stone can be used as an ax, knife, adze, scraper, drill, etc. Using the sharp stone for most jobs will leave you with a sharp knife.

Keeping a knife sharp is easier than letting it get butter-knife dull and then attempting to sharpen it. A stropping strap is a leather strap where the blade is wiped back and forth across (opposite the direction you would use for cutting). This does not sharpen the blade. What it does is burnish and compress the metal on the edge of the blade to make the edge last longer and cut without binding or snagging on the item being cut.

You can even compress the edge of a hardwood or bone knife by squeezing the edge between two smooth stones and drawing the blade back and forth between them, the length of the blade will make it sharp enough to cut meat, etc.

Safety

Sit exactly where you are going to be sitting when carving. Put a stick in your hand that is the same length as the knife you are going to be using. Hold the stick in your hand and extend it out from your body as far as you can in all directions.

You have just established the danger zone. No one should be within reach of the stick in any direction.

Always carve away from yourself.

Remember to protect your eyes from chips, etc.

As you carve in a seated position, keep in mind how close your knife blade can be to your femoral artery (on the inside of your thigh).

Think about the follow-through of your knife blade on the carving stroke, and plan for it (don’t have your knee be the backstop of the follow-through).

Never leave your knife laying around with the blade exposed. If it’s a folding knife, fold it. If it’s a fixed blade knife, put it in its sheath.

The Wiggle Factor

Most modern knife blades are made of metal alloys that are hardened. Although these hardening processes make blades that will take an edge better and hold an edge longer, it also makes them more brittle. If your blade gets wedged into a piece of wood (let’s say you used a small log to hammer your knife through another log to split it and it got stuck), don’t wiggle the blade side to side to remove it, or it may snap. Instead, wiggle it up and down in the same direction you drove it into the log, or better still, make wedges from tapered sticks and drive them into the split on the back side of the knife, spread the split, and remove your blade.

The dangers of wiggling your knife side to side and snapping the blade include getting severely cut, getting stricken by a piece of the blade especially in the eye, and now having only half a knife to work with.

If you really need to draw your knife toward your body, as with a draw knife, hammer the point of your knife into a sturdy green stick about wrist thick and six to eight inches long, and use it as you would a draw knife.

If you need to make notches, nocks, etc., you can use a rocking motion with the palm of one hand on the back of the blade, providing the downward pressure, and the other hand on the handle is doing the steering. Place the workpiece on a stable surface to perform this action.

Knife Throwing

Unless you are in a movie or the circus, there is never a good reason to throw your knife. In a survival situation, this goes double. You should have already picked up a throwing stick or rock, if you need something to throw. Throwing your knife at something is kind of like throwing your water bottle at something. It’s worth much more in your possession than it is flying through the