Tag: library

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Phillosoph

Survival Library: Chapter 9, Jack-Knife Cookery

Roll back to the start of this century, and you would have found me practising cookery in a mountain hut in the middle of Iceland.
I had found myself part of an impromptu group hiking over the mountains.
While most of my companions tucked into their freeze‑dried rations, I busied myself cooking my dinner in my Kephart‑inspired cook kit.
I do not remember exactly what I was cooking, but it was based around some rice. Among the foodstuffs I carried was included rice, flour and “Alpen” (a brand of muesli).
Cooking a meal from base ingredients was considered to be somewhat eccentric by my fellow hikers. It was, however, admitted that my meal looked far more appetising than theirs! I was probably carrying less weight of food too.
The following day, a beautiful German girl scrutinized by every move with great interest as I improvised an Alpen bannock, cooked in my home‑made folding handled frying pan.
Cover of Jack-Knife Cookery
Carrying flour and knowing how to make use of it on the trail I can attribute directly to my acquisition of “Jack‑Knife Cookery” by James Austin Wilder.
Not to be confused with an inferior book of similar title by the “Woodsman’s Thong” (!)
The real Jack‑Knife Cookery book was first published in 1929, but has undergone several reprints. My copy dates from the twelfth printing from 1965.
Written for boy scouts, this book begins by proposing a scenario where you have only flour, raw meat and a jack-knife. How would you go about feeding yourself?
The reader is then introduced on how to cook “twister” and “kabobs”, both of which may be cooked on green sticks over a “plug‑hat hole” fire.
Twister bread cooked on a stick
From here, Wilder introduces the reader to cooking dampers and other foods, cooking on or in coals, “Imu” cooking, how to cook vegetables without a pot, mixing without a bowl, how to cook in a billy, making stews and many other useful subjects.
All of this is illustrated with Wilder’s own drawings and anecdotes/“yarns”, so is clear and highly readable.
Having fed the inner (young) man and grabbed the attention of the reader, Wilder moves on to discuss camping and related topics.
This is 1920s’ style, of course, so of interest to anyone who understands that they may have to survive outdoors without Goretex, GPS and freeze‑dried rations.
The third part of the book logically drifts into survival and emergency advice, peppering it with additional recipes and cooking techniques, including fun stuff such as boiling water in a glass bottle.
One oddity is Wilder’s alternative to Morse Code.
The section on friction methods for starting fires is entertaining, if not as technical as that in “Northern Bushcraft”. This section includes a story about using a fire‑plow/fire‑plough, a technique many survival manuals do not bother to include. There is also a “sawing” friction method using sections of bamboo which I do not recall often seeing in other works.
This book has been a great influence on many young outdoorsmen, myself included.
To this day, I may sometimes be found in the kitchen mixing flour and sultanas together when I feel peckish.
Jack‑Knife Cookery is a great book. I treasure my copy, which sits in pride of place on my shelves next to “Camping and Woodcraft”. I thoroughly recommend adding a copy to your survival library.
Now the bad news. I have been unable to locate an on‑line or Kindle copy of this book. The only search engine hits I get are dodgy sites with bad English that want your credit card details first, so steer well clear of those.
Printed copies may be found, although on‑line prices tend to be high. I have seen copies offered for as little as $30, so shop around before you part with hard‑earned cash.
If ever a book should be preserved on Internet Archive, it should be this one! If anyone reading can make that happen, make it so.
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Phillosoph

Survival Library: Chapter 8, John Wayne

Trivia: I share my birthday with John Wayne. Some years, a TV channel will schedule a day of his films. Good, unpretentious entertainment! That is me sorted for the day!
I once watched something where a character declares “I try not to have high expectations. I am, therefore, seldom disappointed. Occasionally, however, I am pleasantly surprised!”
John Wayne Bushcraft cover
That is not a bad philosophy, and I was reminded of this when I began to read “The Official John Wayne Handy Book of Bushcraft”.
This could be really bad, have hidden pearls, or just be a bit of a giggle.
Firstly, I will answer a question I usually save until the end of these reviews. This book should NOT be used as a primary survival guide. Some fields are omitted, others lack adequate detail.
Some of the content was useful. There is a section on dealing with a riptide, which is not a topic I have seen in many manuals,
Each section is only a few pages long, so I expect much of this content was originally an article in “The Official John Wayne Collector's Edition” magazine.
Many of the sections only deal with a single topic or subject, such as a single type of knot or a particular type of campfire. That works well for certain topics and is a presentation style I may experiment with.
In other places, the treatment of the topic is rather brief, and in a few places additional illustrations would have been useful. The latter is odd, since in general the book is quite well illustrated, both with drawings supporting the text and photos from Wayne’s films.

Tools

The book starts with a section on how to make a variety of tools using primitive means. No mention is made of the risk of silicosis from stone knapping. Improvise a nose and mouth covering when making stone tools. Eye protection, if you have it, is also prudent unless you are a big Rooster Cogburn fan.
Several places in the text you are told to hit the back of an axe or knife blade with a stick or stone. Do not use a stone! The technique is called “batoning” for a good reason.
If you made yourself a stone knife as suggested at the start of the book, hitting it with another stone will waste hours of your careful work!
The section on making a whistle was disappointing. Acorn cups may be quite hard to find in certain seasons and regions.
The section on making a bow shows the first finger hooked over the top of the arrow, which must result in considerable friction.
Correctly, the book advises that hunting with a sling requires a vast quantity of practice. Incorrectly, it says the weapon is also called a “slingshot”. [Wikipedia also gets this wrong!] Sling and slingshot are quite different weapons using quite different principles.

Knots

The chapter on knots deals with one knot per section.
In some of these sections more information on the application of such knots might have been useful.
For example, the Alpine Butterfly knot is covered, but no mention of the quick and handy way this may be tied.
The section on the half hitch actually shows two half hitches in the illustration.

Food and Water

The chapter on food and water mentions water tapping from trees, which some survival manuals neglect.
Distilling water using sun, a bottle and a soda can
The edibility test is described in detail, but no mention is made of prioritising the test for foods that are most abundant in the area.
There are sections on line and rod fishing and fish trapping, but no mention of night/trot lines. The latter section could have used some illustrations of various fish traps.
There is a section on “knife hunting” with a caution on how dangerous it will be and the high likelihood of injury.
Use the knife to cut a stick and make a spear. If in terrain where there are no sticks, you are unlikely to get close enough to use a knife, anyway.

Fire

The chapter on fire I thought was quite good. Some fire‑lighting techniques not often covered, with some useful illustrations.
Some discussion of various types of campfire. Uses for charcoal, and emphasis on properly extinguishing your fire.
Wet rocks in a fire may explode into fragments, not “shrapnel”, which is a different thing.
Using a bottle of water to light a fire
I would still recommend reading the fire discussions in Kephart and Northern Bushcraft, however.
There is a section on using a Mylar space blanket as a reflector for your fire. This is a legitimate application, but perhaps some mention should have been made that a higher priority use for such an item is waterproofing your shelter roof or wrapping yourself.

Shelter

The chapter on shelters was much less satisfactory. It starts with a description on how to cut down a tree because it may be where you want to make a camp! Camp somewhere else, yahoo!
You are told to hang a hammock using a figure eight knot, but no real explanation nor illustration.
Building a raised bed suggests using logs for the short side. Two long logs with shorter sticks between them seems far more practical.
There is a description on how to make a five foot diameter teepee. Not sure what for. I could not lay down in such a space, let alone someone John Wayne’s height!
One of the illustrations incorporates ideas such as using natural windbreaks such as rocks, but seems to show the bed laid perpendicular to the fire.
There is a lot about this chapter I feel could be improved.
One error that really has me scratching my head is that in several sections the authors describe shelters made with “poncho liners” when they clearly mean ponchos.
You would think a retired Green Beret and a SERE course graduate would know the difference.
You would think that the editorial staff of the magazine might have picked this error up.
You would think some of the readers of the magazine might have written in about this obvious error the first time it appeared.
To confuse a liner with a more external layer is itself a really bizarre mistake for native English speakers to make!
“Make a map” could have mentioned that birch bark or similar and charcoal could be used to make a portable map.
The section on tying a tourniquet talks about an overhand knot, but clearly shows either a reef/square knot or a pair of overhands.
Another objectionable section is the recommendation to shoot any snakes on sight!
You should not kill anything unless you have a legitimate reason. This saves ammunition, if nothing else.
As a later section notes, most snakes will not bother you if you leave them alone. If there is a danger of stepping on a snake, carry and use a walking staff.
At the end of the book is an advert for a survival training school where both authors work. The various points raised above do not really form a recommendation.
After finishing this book, I started browsing “The Official John Wayne Handy Book for Men”. This begins with some bushcraft information. I found this description of making a bow and arrows better written. Some of the other articles on the same topics are also superior.
It mucks up the illustration of how to identify the North Star, however.
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Phillosoph

Build Your Survival Library: Chapter One

My girlfriend was telling me how her sister in Brazil had managed to acquire a piece of land. Living on her own land is something that my girlfriend has often said that she would like to do.
“You will have to teach me survival”, she added.
I admit I was a little surprised by that request. She is an incredibly practical person.
When she was a little girl, she would escape her toxic home environment and live on the beach, catching fish. I suspect there is quite a bit she could teach me.
However, she is a very wise lady, and part of wisdom is knowing what you do not know!
What should I put on her reading list, I pondered?

Camping and Woodcraft (Kephart)

My first thought was “Camping and Woodcraft” by Horace Kephart. Photo of Hoeace Kephart
Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to know this is one of my favourite books. I prize my old 1927 reprint of the 1921 edition. Around 884 pages, yet fits in an M65 jacket pocket.
This book is definitely something I will save, come the apocalypse.
It is rightly called a classic and a title that every outdoorsman should read.
The book is out of copyright, so I have a number of alternate editions in PDF, found for free on-line.
Camping and Woodcraft may have been written over a century ago (1906/1916), but is still a wealth of useful knowledge. It is no bad thing to know how things may be done without Gore-tex and GPS.
Kephart often mentions Nessmuk. Nessmuk's book “Woodcraft and Camping” is worth a read.

The Survival Handbook (Greenbank)

Cover of The Survival Handbook, Greenbank
The first book I actually sent my girlfriend was “The Survival Handbook” by Anthony Greenbank. This may also be encountered with the alternate title of “The Book of Survival”.
Greenbank's book seldom appears in recommendations for survival libraries. It seems to be relatively unknown.
It is an excellent book and is a must-have in my opinion.
The Survival Handbook is a great book since it includes many possible emergency situations that other manuals neglect.
Packed with useful information and easy to read and navigate. Even readers “not into survival” will find something of worth within its pages.
This book was first published back in 1967, long before the “survival craze” when many manuals were produced. Consequently, there are a few minor points that need updating.
For example: current advice is to remove ticks by gently pulling them with tweezers, rather than the older approaches in this and many other books. Fisherman's Knot
I would also stress that you should not join different ropes with a reef knot, even with a couple of half-hitches added. Always use the fisherman's knot, as is later recommended by Greenbank. A fisherman's knot is a pair of overhands, so is probably easier to learn and remember than a reinforced reef.
Scorpion claws are not poisonous. Claw size is generally inversely proportional to potency of sting.
I am also dubious as to whether any coat worthy of the name would make a good signalling kite. It seems more prudent to keep your coat on and use your shirt for a use where a garment may be potentially lost.
Of course, no book is perfect and remains perpetuatlly up to date. This is why we should read more than one book on any topic. The more angles you look at something from, the better you will know it.
These very minor points aside, I would wholeheartedly recommend a copy of Greenbanks's Survival Handbook for any survival library.
Usefully, the Survival Handbook is a standard sized paperback, so there is no reason that one could not put it in a ziploc bag and carry it with you in a rucksack pocket.

The SAS Survival Handbook (Wiseman)

Cover of The SAS Survival Handbook, Wiseman
For a more “conventional” bushcraft/survival manual, Greenbank's book is nicely complimented by “The SAS Survival Handbook” by John “Lofty” Wiseman. Also available with the alternate title of “The SAS Survival Guide” or “SAS Survival Guide”.
A revised edition was published in 2009.
Probably the only thing wrong with this book is the title. Even way back in 1986 when this book was published, it was already a cliché that nearly every other survival-orientated item was claimed to be either SAS, Special Forces or Green Beret. I will stress that John Wiseman is a verified genuine former member of the SAS, however.
The SAS Survival Handbook is an excellent choice for any survival library. It is easy to read, yet very detailed. Copies may be found at very reasonable prices.
The original book was nearly a foot square (228 x 238 x 22mm). I remember looking at my copy and wishing for an edited-down smaller version more suited to carrying in the field. Someone else obviously felt the same, because a few years later a Collins Gem edition was released. Amazingly, this was pocket-sized yet preserved all of the original content!Collins Gem edition of SA Survival Guide, Wiseman
My Gem edition has spent several decades in a ziploc bag in a side pocket of my rucksack. It has travelled from Hong Kong to Brazil and up to Iceland. If nothing else, it has served as an educational way to spend my time while waiting for a bus.
Both sizes of SAS Survival Guide include a coloured section illustrating various edible plants. Other Collins Gem titles may also be of interest, such as “Food for Free”.
The SAS Survival Guide/Handbook is another “must-have” for any survival library. In fact, get the large version for your bookshelf and the Gem for your pack.
Between Kephart, Greenbank and Wiseman you now have a pretty sound foundation for your survival library. It does not hurt that your survival library happens to be relatively compact and lightweight.
If you brought the Gem edition of the SAS Guide, all three books should fit in your bug-out bag.
If you buy the titles recommended above, you have acquired a lot of useful information for a relatively modest outlay.
I suggest that at least some of your library is hardcopy, for when the power is out.
How about some free books to supplement these?

US Field Manuals

Many readers will be familiar with “FM 21-76”, the US military survival manual.Cover of FM 21-76
On-line copies are freely available from a number of sites, there being no copyright on US field manuals. Many on-line copies lack the appendixes, such as the extensive illustrated appendix of edible plants, for example.
FM 21-76-1 was a related publication about SERE.
The current version of FM 21-76 has been redesignated FM 3-05.70.
Many of the sites you can download FM21-76/FM 3-05.70 from will have other field manuals on topics of interests such as navigation, hygiene and first aid.
If you want a printed copy of a field manual, these are available from a number of publishers. Price, cover and sometimes title will vary.
While these survival manuals are now described as “all services”, they were originally written as advice for downed aircrews, and this should be remembered when reading certain sections.
US field manuals tend to be clearly written but are not necessarily concise: FM 3-05.70 is 676 pages long.
There is also sometimes a tendency in field manuals for information to become institutionalized. New content may get in, but older, possibly no longer accurate content is slow to be removed.
I cannot do better than the advice Robert DePugh gives: FM 21-76 should be carefully read at home, and then left behind with other items not worth taking along.Air Force Handbook 10-644
Also worth a look are the Air Force manuals AFM 64-3, AFR 64-4 or AFM 64-5. Latest version is AFH 10-644 (also found here). These are a little harder to locate on-line.
The military manuals are not as “easily digestible” as Kephart, Greenbanks or Wiseman. They are, however, “information dense” and provide excellent background and context for the other books, at a price that cannot be beat, free!
The exception to the above statement is AFM 64-5 (1952). This is a compact and very readable work. It has several gems of information that are not often seen in many other works.
If I have one quibble about 64-5, it is that many of the illustrations are remote from the relevant text. Better and additional illustrations of some of the plants described would have been welcome.
As for any older text, some of the advice or information given may be out-of-date. For example, in the section that recommends any part of a seal, including the liver, may be used, no mention is made that the liver of the bearded seal (like that of the polar bear) is toxic.
If any publisher wishes for a new survival title, an updated version of 64-5 would be worth considering.
I would highly recommend that AFM 64-5 is the first military survival manual you consider reading.
The above recommendations will have given you a pretty comprehensive survival/bushcraft library.
In later blogs, I will review other titles, including those that are more specialized in their field.
You will also need some books on self-defence. For these, scroll down and follow the links.
I am very short of money at the moment, so you custom or donations will be very much appreciated!