What’s Your Survival Quotient?

 

The title of an article on page 72, in the March 1971 edition of Field & Stream 

Have you ever wondered if you would pass a survival quiz?  Have you ever taken one to test your survival knowledge?  Do you know the answers to the questions below?

True or False “In free air temperature below 50 degrees F. you must have at least two quarts of drinking water  per person per day.”

True or False “When traveling in below freezing weather you should always have dry tinder and waterproof matches (or other reliable fire starter) on your person and protected against any moisture.”

True or False “A snow ‘well’ (the space kept clear by wind around the base of large tree) may be 40 degrees F. warmer than the air on top of the snowbank.”

If the answer to these questions is “no”; then you should go to “What’s Your Survival Quotient?” by Alonzo W. Pond, in the March 1971 edition of Field & Stream, found HERE on page 72, take the quiz and then read the rest of the article on what to do in a wilderness emergency. 

Personally, I love taking survival tests and I read everything about survival and the outdoors that I can get my hands on.  However, it is important that the survival expert that you are taking advice from, knows what they are writing about, so who was Alonzo W. Pond?  He was a survival expert and archaeologist, who was born in 1894 and died in 1986.  Mr. Pond, until 1958, was in charge of the Desert Branch of the Arctic-Desert-Tropic Information Center (ADTIC) and he was a member of the Explorer’s Club and the Adventurers Club.  Additionally, he was a professor of desert geography at the Air University.  He wrote over a dozen books on topics ranging from archaeology, ethnology, geography, natural history, travel and survival, as well as many scientific and popular articles.  He was a co-author of both, Afoot In The Desert, published first in 1951 and later revised in 1956, and The Survival Book, which was published in 1959, before being republished in 1978 as the A Pilot’s Survival Manual.

 

A portion of the dust jacket of The Survival Book, 1959. Photo by the Author.

Besides the quiz in “What’s Your Survival Quotient?”, the author discussed what to do in a wilderness emergency to prevent panic and recommended steps, that are today called S.T.O.P., which stand for Stop, Think, Observe and organize and then Plan and act on your plan, when he wrote the following points:

“Panic is sudden, unreasonable fear and – as one survival manual puts it – ‘fear is ignorance; knowledge conquers fear.’ The best way, therefore, to outwit panic is to acquire a little knowledge before an emergency.”

“What you do in those first few moments of the emergency may determine your chances for survival”

“If you become lost, first do something casual to calm yourself; but whatever it is, take time to think.”

A Boy Scouts of America, “If You Become Lost” card. Photo by the Author.

He followed up his advice on what to do to prevent, with some practical advice on what to do first, second, and third; advice that mirrors today's “Rule of Threes”, with the points below…

“First get out of the wind.  Try to keep warm and dry.”

“Build a fire if possible.”

“Don’t worry too much about food.  You can go many days without eating and not starve to death”

“Drink your water and plenty of it as long as it lasts.  You cannot stretch its value by hording it.”

The “Rule of Threes” is a rule that helps you prioritize what to do first, second and third in survival situations.  It states that you cannot survive for more than 3 Minutes in freezing water, without air or with severe bleeding; you cannot survive more than 3 hours without shelter from the sun, wind or weather; you cannot survive more than 3 days without water and you cannot survive more than 3 weeks without food.  Some experts also state that you cannot survive more than 3 days without sleep.  These rules assume that the rules above them have already been met, for example, if you have a large quantity of water, yet you are bleeding severely, according to the three-minute rule, the most important task at that moment, is to stop the bleeding. 

So take Alonzo W. Pond’s quiz and read his thoughts on what to do in a survival situation, HERE, on page 72.  Don’t worry if you miss a few questions, it’s okay, wrong answers are the just areas that you need to study more about.  For more on survival from Alonzo Pond, I recommend that you read either The Survival Book or A Pilot’s Survival Manual, both of which he co-authored.

 

The Survival Book, 1959 and A Pilot’s Survival Manual, 1978. Photo by the Author.

Sources

Pond, Alonzo W.; “What’s Your Survival  Quotient?”, Field & Stream, March 1971, Vol. LXXV, No. 11[Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, NY] p. 72-73, 204-206