Well, that's not quite true. I'll actually be on an outdoor-education field trip with quite a few humans to keep me company. It'll be an over-night field trip, where I'll be making my own fires and cooking my own food, as well as riding horses, shooting stuff with a bow, and possibly zip lining. Yep, it should be a lot of fun.
It still feels like I'm going to be heading off into the wilderness, though. And that's got me thinking... What would I do if I actually did have to survive on my own, in the winter? The short answer of course, is that I'd die. This next bit is the long answer.
1. Okay, I'm alone in the wilderness, ten billion miles away from any inhabited territory. I have my warn winter jacket and snow pants, some goldfish, and a pack of chocolate-covered pretzels. Now... I survive.
2. The first thing I'd want to do, obviously, is build a shelter. In outdoor ed we were taught exactly two shelters, overall; one of which seems useless and one that might actually be useful. The latter of the two is the snow shelter, as I'll call it in light of its proper name. This one's pretty simple; pile a heap of snow and dig into it. Voila, a shelter.
3. Once my shelter was complete, it'd be time to get some food. Luckily, I'm in outdoor ed, which should aid me in my food gathering. Oh, wait... it didn't. What they've taught me so far is to bring your own food from home and cook it over a fire created using supplied flint and steel. Hmm. We did research animal traps; however, I doubt that the beaver trap I researched could catch a cold, much less a beaver. Plus, I sorta need a fire for meat. Oh, well. Who eats beaver anyway?
4. I suppose that I'd have to scavenge for food, then. Lets see. You avoid the red berries, right? Oh, wait.. it's winter. No plants either, I guess.
5. And so I'm back to hunting. I still don't have a fire, but... I've just had a crazy thought... you cook meat to remove disease, right? Well, if you froze the meat in -30 conditions, wouldn't that kill the bacteria? Of course, then I'd never be able to thaw the meat.
6. Well, I'm just being confounded at every turn. I suppose I'll go crawl into my shelter and eat chocolate-covered pretzals.
7. It seems to me that this is all going in a very bad direction. Well, good thing that it turns out my survival experiance was all a dream! There. The ultimate cheapskate in storytelling.
8. No, I wouldn't actually do that to you. Because, as it turns out, I'm actually miraculously rescued by a helicopter! Happy endings FTW!
Unfortunately, I think that my analysis of how I'd do in a survival situation was prety accurate there. No fire, no food, no nothing. I can only hope that one of the last two points turns out to be accurate, as well.
With any luck at all, this outdoor ed trip I'm going on won't be quiite like that. If I don't post on Tuesday... know that I love you all.
Thanks for reading,
-Mark
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