Would you know how to survive and take care of loved ones if modern conveniences were lost? Or if you were marooned by a plane or boat crash and no outside help was pending?
The human organism only needs 4 things to physically survive. But few people know what they are or what their order of importance is. (Most people think of food first; but it’s actually the least important of the four).
Do you know “the 4”?
What do you think about some level of “primitive” survival training for your children?
Or are we as a modern society mostly beyond this?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
26 responses to “does wilderness survival training still have a place in the modern world?”
4 things?
1- Air – without it you start to die in about 3 minutes
2- Shelter – without it you start to die in about 3 hours (in severe situations, in *less* severe circumstances, this *may* be stretched to an indefinite period of time)
2.1 – Proper clothing – this is similar to shelter, but you can’t typically carry a shelter on one’s own body. Proper clothing allows the need to find shelter less, but there’s still a countdown as clothing gets sweaty and less insulating as time goes on. Once again, if you’re in a climate that you’re not going to suffer inclement weather, it’s not quite such a problem, but you’ll want to make sure you’re able to clean your clothing occasionally.
3 – Clean Water – the body can go about 3 days without water. But you also need water for cleaning yourself
3.1 Waste disposal. Without an area to get rid of bodily (and other) waste away from your clean water, you’re in trouble FAST.
4 – Food – the body can go approximately 30 days without food.
Both food and water need to be renewable.
And yes, it’s useful to know what to do if the utilities go out for some reason, or if society suddenly collapses.
Air was sort of a given! Because if you land in a situation with no air or all of the air is suddenly sucked out of your neighborhood there’s not much you can do about it in the few minutes of consciousness you have left!
ROFLMAO
We live in a day and age we can go to space. Gotta carry air with you (well in space you *also* need a compression suit…)
Who knows, maybe you’re going to end up in a situation where you’re scuba diving and you need air.
Or you could end up buried alive, needing to escape your casket.
So, yes… Air is THE MOST important thing for survival!
I would make sure I had a clean water source.
Shelter comes next. I want a place out of the weather.
Warmth is 3rd. I might need a fire.
A food source. Many roots are edible. Even some weeds are edible.
I want a place to sleep that is off of the ground and protected from crawling and flying insects.
It is best to have a “bathroom” far away from your camp site.
I have fire starting implements in my purse at all times. I have a water bottle with filters, as well. I keep a well stocked bug-out bag.
Breathable air is important. Think of poor Alice. Jackie Gleason was always threatening to , “Bim bam boom” her to the moon —– “To the moon, Alice!!!”
If the electricity goes off and the water stops flowing where you live, then “Bim bam boom” —– you are camping! You are camping in your home. So, ask yourself, where do you get water when the taps stop working?
I have plastic containers, aquarium filter charcoal, clean pebble sand, and filtering webbing to clean any nearby water source. Then, we have a place in the back yard where we can build a fire to boil that water.
I think it is important to teach children that they can survive in the wild. Teach them the needed basics.
I think if All the grids went down for good, the planet would go into a state of panic! and then some would figure it out. some would survive.
we joke that if shit goes down, or all goes to ‘hell’, we will pack up and get as far north as we can. back to the land of the potato and maybe even clean water.
that being said, its work enough teaching our children some life skills that allow for independence. so adding on like how to make a shelter or start a fire or forage for food?! well, i wish we lived with a yard so i could teach him more about growing his own food, but i dont know. i feel like its a success if a kid can make his own lunch these days!
You need to be sneakier than them and make it seem like fun!
Most of the other things they learn are in high-pressure environments where others are grading them.
Most kids have a connection with nature and with the Earth. Some are so connected they will even try to bring the Earth back in with them all over themselves and their clothes!
this is True! there is helping out and being independent and then there is learning life skills :D we sign up for any community activity that is accessible and free lol and a lot of these are nature and outdoors oriented. so its like Fun with a Lesson. (lesson learned, watching your child handle red compost worms is gag worthy but dont show it lol) getting outside as much as we can this summer, its a start. growing our balcony garden … its something. its at least something
I remember as a boy how profound a revelation and was that one could pick something out of the dirt and eat it.
( whether a carrot or worms!
)
mine loves to help with planting and gathering, but unless we want to walk 25 minutes to the nearest community garden plot, we are sort of confined to the balcony plants for now. which is fine.and great, there are plenty of options. i remember when i was his age my favourite thing was transplanting plants, just random plants outside, digging them up and moving them across the yard. or just digging holes :D he is more into forming things out of putty or clay, putting things together… so maybe that will be useful too!
ps i never ate a worm i was too finicky for that :D
There is a tendency in a lot of boys to try: whether as some test of their strength, or for pure gross-out value!
And the debate over whether this is “innate” or “acquired” could go on for years!
give him room to grow, right?!
Room to grow, and permission to be a boy!
Even if that’s a little gross and hard to understand at times!
im all about a person being free to be :)
and i dont mind the noise and dirt :D although i am glad he has friends to share his video gaming with cause i draw the line there lols
@BelleMadre
(You just don’t want him kicking your butt at them!)
lol @griz true that. or maybe its ok. honestly i cant stand video games. im not suited for them. so if we are going to play something together, its going to be Uno or something like that. or mario kart on occasion :D
we can get our quality time together in other ways.say i!
@BelleMadre
I went through a video game phase and couldn’t imagine myself ever being without this form of entertainment (addiction?).
But I the last game I played was probably Wii Golf with some of the young people at church about 5 years ago! Before that, probably some game on my Windows 95 system a decade or so ago!
Too many people relate more strongly with their technology than with people. Keep up the task of trying to pull him back into the real world and teaching him to relate with “characters” in it! The world already has more than enough techno-zombies and a serious lack of “real” people!
@griz wii games can be a good time. wii bowling for sure.
heres the thing about our little life. at least this summer. i work a rotation of like 3 on 2 off 2 on 3 off give or take. and many of the off days are busy too! so in efforts to keep the balance, i have to almost force us to take down time. we never stop moving, until we are exhausted. and when he plays video games, he basically acts them out, whether he is playing on the wii or the playstation. so its not exactly lazy time lol . goodness knows that on certain days if it werent for his playstation we would drive each other crazy lol. so i am not perfect. he can play his playstation a while and i can snooze in another room :D as long as we dont do it All day, i think its ok. in balance. if i had it my way id be a hermit 89% of the time, btu i dont want that to become his habit, so we definitely have to get out for some physical activity every day. shoot hoops or go for a walk or swim. hurray for summer!
this is the chance i have to bring this balance into his life. he is nearly 10, and i still get to make the rules :D
@BelleMadre
Children crave good and effective parenting. Even if they grumble and bitch about it! And they adapt swimmingly to all different kinds of parenting situations — with the single-parent experience being a notable one. Children can absorb a lot of knocks, a lot of tough situations, and still make a positive splash in the world with just the smallest exercises of “quality time” from a parent or guardian-adult who looks at them and smiles as if they are the most amazing critter in the world!
The time you spend with him, will be to his very great asset: and will likely out-shine all the times when you were too tired or otherwise unable to. A little bit . . . goes a very long way.
My dad and step-mom now live in the house my new career has enabled me to purchase. On the rare times I spend at home we often end up talking around the dinner table about events and incidents from when our family was young. I share the things I remember (often the few good times; or the more memorable “bad times “with a positive twist!). He shares how he wondered if he was doing a good enough job — with a terminally ill wife, 3 boys he was never able to spend a lot of time with, being relatively un-educated and having to roam far and wide to keep us in food and clothes and with a roof over our heads — and not having a present father-figure in an era when this was an automatic shame upon the whole family.
It’s a process that helps us both; but right now perhaps more him than me! I love showing him that despite a very difficult path our family walked, “he done good”!
@griz time flies! i forget this sometimes, but it does. im glad we are having this conversation right now. these days wont last forever. thank you!
Water, fire, something sharp,,… 4?
A manufactured blade certainly makes survival easier. One survivalist I knew once said it is what makes the difference between true survival camping and luxury camping! Our primitive ancestors survived for eons without metal blades.
There is a logic in building a shelter first: as one can die from exposure in as little as three hours. Plus it gives focus and direction to the first few hours after the realization one is lost\ in survival mode. It gives the hands and the mind something to do other than just panic: and the end result tends to keep one from wandering aimlessly.
There is a story about a young lad who upon realizing he was lost in the forest, panicked and took off running (What is jokingly called the ” full bore linear panic”). He ran right through a lumber camp in back into the woods, so blind was his panic.
And apparently he picked up an entourage of lumberjacks who were infected by his panic: thinking that there must be something very large and hairy after him, to run right through the protection of the camp and keep going!
Survival is both a physical and a psychological feat.
Simple answer, YES.
Water, shelter, fire, and food, in that order. Survival favors the prepared mind.
Your response is the closest to what I was taught by a native Shaman. They presented as “the sacred order of survival”, impressing on their kids not to stray from it.
I was taught that shelter comes first because one can die from exposure in just 3 hours.
Then water; with three days being the limit of how long one can survive without it.
Then fire; with its key importance in purifying the water. (This presumes the building of a proper shelter that can be warmed by body heat alone). The fire further serves for light, protection from insects and animals, and as a psychological “anchor”; and for cooking any food that comes as the fourth and final necessity for survival.
In short, no.
I suppose as an alaskan and canadian trucker you think you know something, which I would point out is laughable.
Elijah was fed by ravens by magic, as was Moses….
U could try to survive if a truck broke down … but you would die.
@Lucifer Rising
Interestingly, Elijah was fleeing “Truth” at the time! With Moses it was an exercise of “providence” for the unruly mob he led through wilderness.
And to borrow an immortal quote from the Immortal Pirate, “What I’ve [already] survived might kill you”!
And when the moment comes when this flesh doesn’t survive . . . there’s Philippians 1:21! :grin: