Category: General

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Food in the Backcountry – Big Leaf Maples

Most people know big leaf maples best for their helicopter seeds and large leaves but they also have beautiful off-white edible flowers that are a delicious addition to your spring diet.090426bn

The flowers are best harvested when the trees leaves are just beginning to open up. The longer you wait to harvest the flowers the less tender and more fibrous the flowers become.

To harvest them you want to break them off at the base of the green stem. And to eat them you can simply just take a bite – stem and all. They are also great mixed into a Bigleaf Maple Flower (4)salad or fry them up for a delicious treat.

Even though maple syrup comes from maple trees, big leaf maples are not commonly used for this. It’s taste is more earthy than traditional maple syrup. The maple syrup you put on your pancakes, assuming it is real, is most likely from sugar maples.

Wild Foods & Medicine has a great article on identification, preparing the flowers, and tapping the trees for syrup.

So, take some time and add these great little flowers to your salad or make it fun and fry them up with the kids for a delicious afternoon treat!

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Food in the Backcountry – Dandelions

Dandelion comes from the french words – dents de lion – which means teeth of lion. It gets its name from the jagged edges of its leaves and the beautiful yellow flowers that some may say resemble a mane. They are a great wild edible because you can eat every part of the plant – from root to flower. The best part is that they are probably growing in yourdandel08-l backyard right now.

A great time to harvest these weeds are when they are in their flowering stage and growing rapidly. That is when you know the plant is fresh and ready to be harvested.

After you harvest the plant, you can throw the leaves and flowers into a salad. This will add a nice bit of bitter and color. The root of the plant can be eaten raw and is also delicious when roasted.

Roasted dandelion root tea is one of my favorite types of tea and is a great detoxifier. Check out this article about the potential benefits of dandelion root tea.

It is always a good idea to harvest where no pesticides have been sprayed. Wash your greens before eating them and most importantly, enjoy! Don’t be afraid to try something new because you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

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Food in the Backcountry

Hello all,

An official welcome into the month of March – the days are becoming longer, the leaves are sprouting, and the flowers are blooming!

This is the first post in the series about food in the backcountry. You’ll learn how to pack lightweight nutritious meals, how to forage safely, how to trap, and much more.

 

Just a reminder:

There is a free talk this Wednesday hosted by Trackers Earth. John Kallas will be teaching us about foraging wild edible plants in the Pacific Northwest. I’d love to see you there!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1653305501591568/

 

“It’s fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That’s what human life is all about-enjoying things.” Julia Child

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Survival Hacks – Leaves

 

Leaves are a great and underused resource – they can be used for food, shelter, water collection, medicinal purposes, etc. – and they are readily available here in the Pacific NW.

vinemaple-fall-treeFood and Medicine: We are lucky to be in a bioregion that flourishes with edible plant life. It is important to study up on native plants and their uses. An entire culture flourished here with the natural environment not too long ago.

One of my favorite medicinal plants here in Cascadia is Plantain. You can find plantain in your backyard and it is easy to mash up and turn into a poultice. To use: pplantainlace the poultice on minor burns, stings, small cuts, etc. and cover it with another leaf. It is full of antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties.

A great reference book for this region is “Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Alaska)” by Pojar and Mackinnon.

There are also great communities that practice these skills… Trackers Earth PDX even has a wild edibles talk coming up March 9th. Check out the group here: trackerspdx.com

Event here: http://trackerspdx.com/trackers-presents

backgrounds-1423865796-NEXT_graphic_journey_rainwaterharvesting_leafWater Collection: There are multiple ways to collect water using leaves and both require some patience and creativity.

  1. You can harvest rainwater by positioning large leaves so that they collect and drain water into a container. Stems placed in the container will leave more surface area available for water collection and the water will conveniently run down the stems into the container.
  2. You can distill water by taking advantage of the transpiration that occurs naturally all day, everyday. All you need is some clear plastic – a clear plastic garbage bag would work well. While still on the tree or bush, gather up a large amount of leaves and wrap the bag around them. Tie the bag closed around the stems, making sure not to break them (you want the leaves to stay alive). Then let them sit in the sun. Water will transpire and collect in the bag. Important: Collect water from plants you know are safe. For example, you don’t want to collect water from poison oak or plants sprayed with pesticides. Stick to plants you can identify as safe and have many leaves (the more leaves the more transpiration).debris-hut-17

Shelter: Shelter is something very important and also very comforting. A nice roof over your head is sometimes necessary to stay dry in this climate and it is also very comforting to be shaded from the sun and hidden from view. Leaves make great shingles and fine insulation. You might even think about setting up a water collection system with your shelter – keep yourself dry and hydrated!

It’s important to remember the value of the resources around you and to let your creativity flow. You can find most of what you need in our natural environment.

 

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Survival Hacks – Fire good

You should know by now one of my favorite topics is fire. I believe it is the most important tool outside of what you carry. Being able to start a fire can be the difference between life and death or just simply make your life a lot more comfortable and tasty.

So let’s get started with my favorite fire hacks:

  • Empty toilet paper rolls stuffed with dryer lint: This is my favorite because of both its simplicity and thrift, it is completely free and way too easy to make, to not have one on hand. Simply collect the dryer lint from your dryer, if you use communal dryers you could collect everyone’s, then simple stuff it loosely into an empty toilet paper tube. You can also cut a paper towel tube in half and make two. These make excellent tinder.
  • Cotton balls smothered in petroleum jelly: Ok, this one isn’t free and uses new materials, but it really works well. Just like it sounds, take a few cotton balls and saturate them with petroleum jelly – I usually stuff them in an old pill bottle, but a film canister would work, too. Oh wait, we don’t have those anymore but you get the idea. This is also excellent tinder.
  • Tea lights: These are so cheap and light that you should carry a few and they have so many uses that I consider them indispensable. For example: they replace tinder with a self-sustaining mini fire.

Of course all of the above hacks assume you have a lighter or matches, they are not ways to make fire without the former, they are simply aids. Which gives me the idea – we should talk about how to start a fire without a match or lighter. Keep your eyes open for that in an upcoming post.

 

As always,

Stay Vigilant and Be Prepared

 

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Survival Hacks – Know them, Love them, Use them

This week we are going to focus on survival hacks tips. Mostly simple things, but some more sophisticated. But all of them worthy of your attention and application. Some of the hacks will be valuable in your everyday life as well.

We don’t always need to shell out our hard-earned dollars for solutions to common needs. Some, actually quite a few of them can be met by repurposing normal everyday items that would otherwise be considered trash.

So keep your eyes peeled for this weeks post filled with useful hacks.

 

As always,

Stay Vigilant and Be Prepared

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Skill Development

Good afternoon,

We here at NW survival tend to spend a lot of time talking about all the things you need to have in order to survive an adverse or emergency situation, either in the city or the wild. That means actual skill development may end up taking a back seat. This week I want to talk a bit about the importance of skill development.

The truth of the matter is that no matter what you have with you during times of stress, they are useless to you if you do not know how to use them. Even something as simple as a first aid kit may go unused without the proper skill set. If we don’t take the time to learn what the appropriate response is to any given situation, our other preparation is for naught.

So, we are going to start a series of posts dedicated to Skill Development, not equipment. Starting with the basics, how to start a fire. I can already hear the grumbles… “I know how to start a fire!! You are wasting my time.” But let me ask you this, when is the last time you built a fire with one match? OR When was the last time you built a fire with no matches?

Then we will talk about knots, followed by land navigation (both urban and rural), and many other skills that I consider basic.

 

As always,

Stay Vigilant and Be Prepared

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Back from the void

Good evening and happy Friday,

First I apologize for the recent lull in activity the last ten days have been very busy. We had three birthdays an anniversary and a birthday today and Sunday, not to mention Valentines day. So, you can see where I have been, where have you been? Have you been refreshing the supplies in your car kit? Look for an upcoming post on this. Updating your info and photos on your thumb drive? Another future post. What training have you scheduled for you and your family? We set a new record this year for the wettest winter on record here in the good old NW. It is worth mentioning that all this down time due to the weather can be used productively to get your gear in order as well as going out to enjoy it. What’s that I hear? You don’t enjoy going out in the rain? Maybe you just need to get the right gear, there is plenty to do in the rain. I have always enjoyed the forest in the rain, it is so fresh and alive. It is also a great time to go diving. So get prepared and get out there and enjoy the great NW at its finest.

 

As always,

Stay Vigilant and Be Prepared

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Superbowl Sunday

Good morning, It is Superbowl Sunday. I am sure half of you care and the other half couldn’t care less, this is for the latter. It is easy for us to let our guard down and have a great time when surrounded by friends and family with a common interest in the spectacle that is Superbowl Sunday.

I don’t want to rain on that parade, but this is when you are most vulnerable. I say have a great time, relax a little and enjoy yourself. Just remember, if your are out and drinking, you shouldn’t be armed, that just isn’t being responsible. So this puts you at greater risk, we must always be cognizant of our surroundings.

Here is an idea if you have a designated driver, which you should, make them your designated eyes and ears, they have already committed to protecting your welfare just expand their responsibilities. Remember the average response time for emergency services is 12 minutes, a lot can happen in 12 minutes.

 

As always,

Stay Vigilant and Be Prepared

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There is No Promise of Tomorrow

Good evening,

I visited my fathers grave today, it is his birthday. I try to visit his grave every year on his birthday, rather then the day he died, that way we celebrate his life, not his death. So by now you are wondering, what does this have to do with survival. Well, it has everything to do with preparation, you see my father died suddenly, with absolutely no warning, in fact just 6 months before his death he had a complete physical and passed with flying colors. He was an athlete his entire life, went to college on a athletic scholarship, was drafted by the CFL, but decided to play pro golf, OK, you get the picture. He died when he was 54 years old, just died, like someone turned off a switch.

So, I guess where I am going with this is, when it comes to getting prepared, there is no tomorrow. you cannot predict what will happen or when. Will you have what you need when disaster strikes?, are you prepared?, do you have the training you need?

Live with purpose, say what needs to be said, love with all you are and live today likes it’s your last. Now is the time to act, there is no promise of tomorrow!

As always,

Stay Vigilant and Be Prepared

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