This is Part Five of a five part series, to read Part
Four, go HERE
– Author’s Note.
According
to the “Rule of Threes”, the most
important thing you need to do after building a shelter, is to build a fire and
get some water to drink and some sleep.
After that it is time to make signals to attract attention.
Fire
Fire
is the only comfort of civilization that can easily be taken with you into the wilderness
IF you are prepared and have learned how to build one. Fire provides warmth, discourages wild
animals, allows for thawing and disinfecting water, and provides a large
measure of mental comfort and support.
There
are three fundamentals involved in creating and building a fire can be best
represented by the fire triangle, these are a source of a heat, fuel, and
oxygen.
In the wilderness, fuel
is typically wood, like tinder, kindling and logs. Wood fuel in the Arctic is scarce, in the
Arctic natural fuels are the fats of animals.
Oxygen is found in the air around us, which is made up of 21%
oxygen. The source of heat can be
anything from a lighter, batteries sending a spark into tinder, a magnifying
glass concentrating the energy of the Sun, or a match. The best way to produce a flame or a spark is
with a match or a lighter.
Damp matches, maybe dried
by brushing the tip through your hair several times or by drying them in the sun.
Tinder
is any, very fine, dry, flammable substance that can take a spark or catch on
fire easily, kindling catches the fire from the tinder and as it burns it
provides enough heat and flames to light your fuel wood on fire. Tinder is the smallest, finest, and fluffiest
of the three and has the greatest surface area, it should be no larger than a
pencil lead; and kindling should be no thicker than your thumb, while fuel wood
is the largest, around the size of your wrist, and has the least surface area.13 Adequate supplies of tinder, kindling and
fuel, should all be gathered before you start your fire.
If
you have a candle, light it first and then use it to light your tinder.
To
maintain a fire inside a shelter, you must provide ventilation to supply the
necessary oxygen for combustion and to exhaust the smoke. DO NOT build a fire close to, or
inside the fuselage of a crashed plane, because airplane fuel might continue to
vaporize for many hours and there is a risk of fire.
For
more on building a fire, read “Could You Survive, Survival Priorities©”, HERE,
“The Top Ten Wilderness Survival Skills...Number Six©”, HERE,
“The Top Ten Wilderness Survival Skills...Number Seven©”, HERE,
“Remember This If You Want to be Warm ©”, HERE,
and “Your Campfire and How to Use It ©”, HERE.
Water
Water
makes up two-thirds of your bodies weight, and a deficit of just 10%14
will cause symptoms of severe dehydration and a loss of effectiveness, so STAY
HYDRATED! Also, hydration increases your
blood volume, and this can help prevent frostbite and hypothermia.
In
a cold weather environment, imperceptible perspiration is produced at a rate of
17 ounces (500ml), or just over two cups of water
every 24 hours! Your exhaled breath is
always fully saturated, and the amount of water you lose every 24 hours as you
breath is another 17 ounces (500ml). To
rid your body of the waste products of metabolism, you will urinate at least 8
to 17 ounces (250 to 500ml), daily. On
the plus side, metabolism will provide you with between 10 to 17 ounces (300 to
500ml) of usable water, depending on the foods you eat. What this all means is that even if you are lying
still, you will still need to drink at least 50 ounces (1500ml) of water every
day!15
A cloth bag full of ice, suspended by a fire with a pot below it to collect the melted water, photograph by the Author.
Sources
of drinking water in the Arctic, or other cold regions, can be found in
freshwater ice, snow, or old sea ice, from which the salt has been removed by
repeated thawing and refreezing. Hard
packed snow is better than light fluffy snow and freshwater ice is beat of all,
as it takes 50% less fuel to melt ice than it does to melt snow, to obtain the
same amount of water.
Remember,
not all water sources are drinkable, if the water source is obviously polluted,
surrounded by bones, or has no life in it, look elsewhere for something to
drink!
DO
NOT
eat snow as it dehydrates and cools your body!
Small quantities can be melted in your mouth or hand before being
swallowed. Also, snow can be packed into
a sealed plastic bag and put inside your clothes, but not against your skin, to
melt. But be careful! This is a slow process, and it might chill
you, and put you at risk for hypothermia.
In
a cold weather survival situation, whenever possible warm up your drinking
water. Drinking warm water will help you
keep your body temperature within the normal range and provide hydration.
If
possible, always disinfect drinkable water, and the best way to do that is by boiling,
the CDC states that “Except for boiling, few of the water treatment methods
are 100% effective in removing all pathogens”16 The CDC suggests that prior to boiling,
cloudy water should be filtered through clean clothes, or left to settle,
before drawing off the clear water for boiling.
The CDC recommends heating water to a rolling boil for one minute, and
for an additional three minutes at elevations above 2,000 meters (6,562 feet),
to ensure that the water has remained hot enough, for long enough, to destroy
any dangerous pathogens. Similarly, the
National Wilderness Conference advocates bringing water to a rolling boil for
one minute at sea level and boiling it for an additional one minute for every
1,000 feet (305 meters) above sea level, to ensure that dangerous pathogens are
destroyed.
But
remember “you can’t cure dead”, so if the only drinkable water you have,
has not been disinfected, drink it anyways.
If
it is cold and you are at risk of hypothermia and frostbite, drinking plain
water is your best option, avoid caffeine, and other stimulants, alcohol, and
especially tobacco. Tobacco and caffeine
are vasoconstrictors, and causes blood vessels to narrow, and they may increase
the risk of hypothermia and frostbite. And DO NOT DRINK ALCHOL, it is not a
stimulant! It reduces shivering, which
is one of your body's ways of keeping warm, and in small amounts, it is a vasodilator
causing blood vessels to relax and widen, flooding cold blood from your
extremities into your torso. At larger
amounts, it is a vasoconstrictor and has the opposite
effect.
As
a note, while tea and coffee are mildly diuretic, compared to the amount of
water consumed, the effects are minimal.
So, you can drink tea and coffee, in reasonable amounts, and stay hydrated. For more on this read “Drinking Black Tea to
Stay Hydrated...Say What?! ©”, HERE.
For
more read “Melting Snow and Ice ©”, HERE,
“Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble...The 5 Stages of Boiling©”, HERE,
“...No soldier should Drink any water without it Being Boiled...©”, HERE,
“Water Disinfection: When is boiled, boiled enough…? ©”, HERE,
and “They Can’t Cure Dead ©”, HERE.
Food
Food
is usually the last thing that you will need in a survival situation, although
in a cold environment you will need calories to keep the heat furnace
going.
A
good rule of thumb to remember though is that, if you don’t have any water to
drink, DO NOT EAT! While this is
true in general, and in particular with protein rich foods, carbohydrates as
they are digested produce metabolic water and can be eaten when water is
scarce.
Metabolic
water is the water produced when food is digested. If available, eat sugary foods like sucking
candies or packets of sugar. The
digestion of carbohydrates produces a net gain of metabolic
water as they are digested by your body and will provide energy to run your
heat furnace. Proteins, on the other
hand produce the least metabolic water, and in fact require the metabolic water
that is produced, to excrete the urea and other waste products of protein
digestion.
In
a survival situation all cooking should be by boiling or stewing and the water
used to cook the food should be saved and drank, because a large amount of
sustenance from the food will be in it.
And seventh,
and last, prepare and layout distress signals.
Remember,
it is not always easy to see you or the wreck, so you need to make it easier to
be spotted, and that is where signals come in.
The
simplest distress signal is an “SOS” signal, tramped out in the snow. The letters should made by stomping out wide
paths for form letters at least ten feet (3 meters) square and ten feet (3
meters) apart. It would be better to
make the letters using a 6 to 1 vertical to horizontal ratio, where the vertical
lines are 60 feet tall (18 meters), and the horizontal lines are ten feet wide
(3 meters). If possible, rocks, wreckage,
or pine boughs should be laid in the tracks to emphasize the letters.
Large
ground signals are a good idea, because sound doesn’t travel well over or through
snow, so if you are inside a snow covered shelter, you might not hear the
approach of a rescue plane or helicopter. Conversely, rescuers might not be able to hear
shouts, whistle blasts or other load noises that you might make. It might be a good idea to leave your shelter
on a regular schedule, or if there are several survivors to take turns as a
spotter, to watch for rescuers. And
don’t forget to have flares, bonfires, torch trees, signal mirrors and other
means of alerting passing rescue planes ready and waiting.
In
the end, winter and Arctic survival is all about preparedness and knowledge, so
hopefully if you ever find yourself in a winter wilderness survival situation, this
will help.
Don’t be that guy!
Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Cold Feet...Wet Boots! ©”,
where we will talk about how to keep your feet warm and dry and how to prevent
trench foot.
I
hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me
on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The
Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE,
and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free
to leave a comment on either site. I
announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at
bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.
That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Notes
13 Increased
surface area is the reason why small fine tinder and split logs, which have a
greater surface area than whole logs, catch fire and burn faster. Oh, and whole logs are frequently covered
with bark and bark is naturally fire resistant.
14 For
context a US gallon (3.78 liters) weighs 8.34 lbs. or 3.78 kg.
15 Sailing
Directions (Planning Guide) for the Arctic Ocean, First Edition,
by Defense Mapping Agency, page 291
16
“A Guide To Drinking Water Treatment and Sanitation for Backcountry &
Travel Use”, CDC
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