Survivorman Les Stroud Answers Survival Questions From Twitter

Okay, this question comes from Scratch.

Didn't get a chance to eat today and I'm starving,

all in caps.

How do survivalists get by on like one bug a day?

We don't, actually.

The reality of a survival situation

is you spend most of your time groveling for food.

Everybody thinks you're going to make a bow and arrow

out of a piece of thread and a bobby pin.

It ain't gonna happen.

Going hungry is not that big of a deal.

Without water, you're in big trouble.

Without food, you've got a couple of weeks

before you're in real trouble.

So, when I'm in a survival situation and I've got no food,

what ends up happening to me is I become really lethargic.

That's the downside of no food.

You lose your energy, but you don't die instantly.

Hey, I'm Les Stroud and this is Survivalist Support.

[upbeat instrumental music]

All right, first question comes from JustMickeyy

and he or she asks, Not sure if anyone watched 'Platform'

on Netflix, but wouldn't it be healthier

to eat the maggots instead of the rotten meat?

Okay, so first of all, full disclosure.

I have not seen Platform on Netflix.

Actually, I haven't even heard of it,

but I have heard of maggots

and I have heard of rotting meat, and I have eaten both.

There is protein in both.

Eating rotten meat is always the thing that seems repugnant

to everybody in a survival situation.

The reality is that you can eat rotting meat.

In fact, many years ago,

most of our cultures all ate rotting meat of some sort.

We have it in many of our different recipes, if you will.

Different things that we ate were often rotting fish,

rotting fowl, rotting red meat.

It goes on and on.

The maggots are full of protein and sweetness and sugars.

The real answer to this question, eat them both.

All right, next question.

Matt Voorhees asks,@reallesstroud, that's me.

Serious survival question open to anyone.

Went on a hike today and saw a baby bear in a tree.

How close was the mom,

with question mark, exclamation point,

question mark and exclamation point.

So this person is excited.

We immediately left the area.

Okay, so an apex predator is like great white sharks,

polar bears, African lions, Indian tigers,

but a secondary predator is the kind of predator

that may eat you

but it's likely going to be an accidental occasion.

So black bears, cougars, even grizzly bears.

In the case of a black bear,

and for that matter in the case of a cougar,

get big, get scary, you can scare them away.

What does that mean if you come upon a mother and her cubs?

The majority of the times the mother will be taking off

like a shot.

She'll go and she'll hide somewhere

and the cubs will go up a tree.

How close is the mom?

Bottom line is you don't really wanna take the chance

because this is the one time when a black bear

is actually very dangerous, a mother and her cubs.

Any other time, I would work really hard

to scare a black bear away.

But when it's a mother and her cubs,

I'm not gonna take any chances at all.

So, how close was the mother bear to the cubs?

Does it really matter?

It's a mother bear and she's big and probably 340 pounds,

and you're not.

All right, this next question comes

from Steve Steve Sundell Sundell.

I'm watching 'Survivor Man' right now.

Survivor Man.

No, it's Survivorman.

One word. Get it right, Steve.

I'm watching 'Survivor Man' right now

and I still have a lingering question for survivalists.

Why not just always bring a Bic lighter with you?

You know what, Steve?

I've got the same freaking question.

If you're going to go out in the wilderness,

take a Bic lighter with you every single time.

Why not?

I agree. Why not?

Always do it.

Okay, this next question comes

with a photograph from Frosty.

Hey Les, how do you like my first attempt at spoon making?

It's beautiful, Frosty.

It's a thing of beauty.

It's a work of art.

And I gotta tell you this story.

When you take a survival class,

the first thing you ever make is not a shelter.

It's not a deadfall or a trap or a snare.

It's not a bow and arrow.

It's a carved-out wooden spoon.

That's the first thing we always teach in survival class

is how to carve out a spoon.

Then we go on to trap some animals

or gather some wild edibles,

and then the spoon comes in handy.

What we always wanna do when we're teaching survival,

those of us who are survival instructors,

is get people comfortable with their hands,

with building things, with cutting things, with nature,

but especially with using knives.

It's incredible how often I will see people

in a survival class with no knife-using skills whatsoever.

Later, when you're trying to carve out larger objects,

when you're making deadfalls and snares and traps

and bows and arrows, you're much more handy with a knife.

All right, next question comes from Arian Buck.

@reallesstroud, how do you keep

the camera batteries charged during your excursions?

I get that question a lot.

In fact, I get a lot of questions about my camera gear

and field technique.

And I love those questions because as a filmmaker

I enjoy sharing my creativity and how I came about it.

And one of the biggest issues in filming Survivorman,

and indeed in filming my adventures before Survivorman

was keeping batteries charged.

I spent a year living in the woods

and made a documentary called Snowshoes and Solitude,

and I literally took with me a car battery

and a solar panel.

Charged the car battery during the day and at night,

with the little adapter, charged my camera batteries.

And that got me through a whole year.

But it's way different now.

I can put in a small pack on my hip enough battery power

to last me a week easily.

The batteries got small, they got long lasting.

So I just charge everything up at home

and take a bunch in with me,

and it's actually not too heavy anymore.

Steve Schwinghammer.

It's really hard not to comment on that.

Steve Schwinghammer, How do you prepare for a trip?

Do you binge in the morning before to stay full

as long as possible or would that cause problems?

Great question.

I don't get this question very often

so I wanna answer it honestly.

I don't prepare at all.

And the reason why I don't prepare it all

is because when I'm going out to film,

I want it to be as real as possible.

I know I'm going out, I know I'm making a film,

and I know I'm eventually going to go home.

So that nullifies some the reality

of being in a survival situation.

So, if I were to also prepare by either gorging on food

or slimming down and trying to make my stomach smaller

so it doesn't hurt as much when I'm in the woods,

either way, both of those ways in my mind are cheating

because when you get lost in the woods,

you don't prepare the night before thinking

I'm gonna be lost tomorrow.

And so, I needed to have that reality there

so I didn't prepare at all.

I just go in as I go in.

if I had a big breakfast that morning, great.

If I didn't, I didn't.

Tufos1 asks, Les, how do you disinfect your hands

in the wild after handling meat you're about to cook?

In this very disinfected society, I struggle

because I believe and agree with science that points out

that we have a lot of bacteria

that is healthy and that we need.

Now, out in the wilderness,

there's even more of that healthy bacteria

and even less of the nasty stuff we're going to get

in the grocery store from a shelf.

So, I'm a big supporter of getting outside

and getting dirt up your fingernails

and being part of the bacteria that's in nature.

So to answer your question, Tufos1,

I don't disinfect my hands after handling meat

I'm about to cook in the wilderness.

In fact, I eat a lot of the wild meat I might catch

or come upon raw, like carpaccio or sushi.

I don't disinfect my hands.

I go with the flow.

I believe that it's actually made me stronger

over the years.

Chad Harman asks, How do you keep from inhaling

a ton of smoke when starting a fire?

It killed me the few times I tried and I'm a smoker.

You kind of don't.

There is one trick when I'm doing the fireboat

and I'm blowing into the embers and all that,

you just turn to the side.

It's like [blowing].

Or if I'm down and I'm trying to get a fire going

on the ground, getting it started again,

it's like [blowing].

So otherwise, absolutely I've gone, argh,

and choked and sucked in so much smoke.

And meanwhile, you're trying to get your fire going.

So not a good time to stall.

So, there's not a really great answer to that question

other than turn to the side and breathe, dude.

Crista wants to know, @reallesstroud,

the following is suddenly driving me nuts.

How does Survivorman brush his teeth while out there

for 7 to 10 days?

Or does he?

Oh, you're never gonna wanna kiss me because I don't.

I mean, I'll use my finger.

Sometimes you can take roots, like spruce roots and things,

and kind of do like a, you know, cleaning of your teeth,

but mostly you're out in the bush.

You ain't cleaning your teeth.

And yeah, it is kind of gross.

@TrabantGirl, Les Stroud, if you truly only had

one single pick at a survival tool,

what would you pick, no matter what the terrain?

Easy answer, and I get this question a lot.

I would have a way to start a fire.

Oh no, no, you've gotta have a knife.

No, you need an ax.

Starting a fire is probably the most difficult thing

in a survival situation.

I don't wanna rub two sticks together.

Fire is just one of those things

that serves so many purposes

that I feel that the best survival skill

is knowing how to get a fire going.

So my number one tool, a method to start a fire,

preferably a butane torch lighter style.

All right, hopefully I'm pronouncing this correctly,

Edymnion, @reallesstroud, thoughts on Altoid tin

survival kits as set and forget items?

What would you put in yours?

Interesting question.

Don't get me going on survival kits.

Here's the first way I wanna answer this question, though,

is to say if you're going to have a survival kit,

do not buy it off the shelf.

Don't do it.

Turn away, walk out of the store.

Come back when you're ready to seek out your own items

for your survival kit.

Pick the things that are high quality.

Know that you know how to use them.

Learn how to use them.

Put your own kit together.

That's the answer I will always give

as far as which is the best survival kit to have.

It's the one that you make yourself

with items you've sourced that you know how to use,

because anything else is just a case of trinkets.

You open it up.

Most of it's probably going to be junk,

if it's bought off the shelf,

and half the time you won't even know how to use them.

So, that's my answer.

Build and keep your own survival kit.

All right, this looks like a serious question.

Misterhamtastic wants to know,

What would you say to someone who wants to take a year

or so and walk the Great Trail through Canada?

Any advice on planning or anything?

I could go on for the next hour

on giving you advice on this one.

Do it.

Don't hesitate, do it.

Don't think about making money over that period of time

or the money you have to make before you go in

or what you're coming out to.

Just do it.

Too many of us do not embark on an adventure

because we're obsessed with or concerned about

our at-home lives, our regular lives.

If you're going out alone or you've got a partner,

I say do it.

I spent a year living in the woods

and I remember getting a question one time,

How can anyone afford to spend a year living in the woods?

And the crowd went a little silent and I just took a breath,

and I just answered, You can't.

And I got a standing ovation with that answer

because the truth is you can't put these roadblocks

in front of you before you're about to embark

on a great adventure.

Just embark on it.

Prepare for it, write things down, make a lot of lists.

There's my pragmatic answer for you.

Write down a lot of lists.

Get it all focused in and go for it.

Mike Henley asks, What would you say are the top five

edible winter plants in the Temagami region?

For those of you who don't know where Temagami is,

Temagami is, in my opinion, the canoeing mecca of the world.

There is no place where you can carry out

long distance river to lake to river canoe trips

like you can in Temagami, Ontario, Canada.

It is stunning there.

And not very many people go there.

It's not a major national park kind of situation.

So you have stunning vistas, amazing canoeing,

and not very many people there.

It's fantastic.

So it's a great question to ask,

but it also leads me down another road.

Top five edible winter plants in the Temagami region.

This is a tricky answer because, as I like to say,

in a survival situation, if you're not on a tropical island,

it's pretty hard to be vegan.

It's pretty hard to be vegetarian.

It's almost radically impossible.

So you need to be able to,

in a winter situation in Temagami, catch game,

like snowshoe hare, which are easy to catch.

Just the same, to answer your question, Mikey,

certainly cattail is always a good winter one

because if you can get through the snow and through the ice

down to the bottom through the freezing cold water,

the growth for next year is down there.

And they can be anything from an inch to six inches long.

And it's a beautiful edible.

It's kind of like a cucumber.

Other than that, your reduced to a lot of wild teas,

spruce teas, pine tea, willow tea, birch tea.

Boy, that's about it.

It's hard to gather wild edibles in the winter time

in Northern Canada.

But go to Temagami.

You'll love it.

Okay, with the radically esoteric and creative web name

of Graham, he asks,

I've got a long trip in the Scottish Highlands in winter.

What should I pack in my car for an emergency?

Whoa, great question, Graham.

I can't say this enough that, you know,

when I teach about having survival kits,

there's my personal survival kit.

There's the group survival kit,

if I'm traveling with people.

I'm also teaching survival kits for in the home,

home survival kit,

but what's often overlooked, and it's so easy,

is a car survival kit for emergencies.

So really the first thing you need for your car is,

you know, one of those sorts of bins, plastic bins,

with a nice tight-fitting lid.

Size wise?

Oh, you know enough that could take 12 bottles of wine

or 24 bottles of wine, about that big,

and in that you pack everything you think you'll need.

Some way to start a fire, a way to cook and boil water,

insulation material like a sleeping bag

or something like that.

It's your car.

You can set up an emergency kit for your car

and just leave it and forget that it's even there.

And that afternoon that you decided to take that shortcut

'cause it's gonna be so cool,

oh, I wonder what that's going to be like over there,

and that's where you get the flat tire

and you notice that your spare's also flat.

You're gonna thank me for having a car survival kit.

So, what should you pack in it?

Use your own sort of powers of intuition and ingenuity.

What do you think you need if you were stuck with that car

on a remote hill in the Highlands of Scotland?

Kathleenstokes-phillips asks,

Gotta ask you the silliest question.

Well, actually she's asking it all in capitals

so, Gotta ask you the silliest question.

Where do you find toilet paper to go poo? LOL.

Depending on where you are,

usually the best toilet paper in the woods is moss.

Most of the moss you'll find, if not all of it,

is not poisonous to the touch.

Leaves are tricky.

You do not wanna wipe your butt with poison oak.

You do not wanna wipe your butt with poison ivy.

You do not wanna wipe your butt with a cactus plant.

So, find a moss, best toilet paper.

In fact, my favorite kind of moss,

which sadly for the lower 48 you can't really get,

but up in the boreal forest,

there's a moss called sphagnum moss.

And for years it was actually used by Indigenous cultures

as their diapers, as their toilet paper.

It has antiseptic qualities to it.

It's my favorite toilet paper.

It's soft and it's good, whether it's moist or dry.

And that's where I should stop there

or it's gonna become too much information.

Jelaniakea.

Oh, I like that name.

@Jelaniakea asks, If perfect balance

isn't part of your survivalist skillset,

how are you going to make it past your 70s?

Hm, good point.

You might not do so well and that's why I still,

to this day, and for the sake of a guy with a back

that is beaten up by carrying canoes,

heavy packs, and playing hockey,

I still do yoga every single day

because balance is important.

Something that's overlooked in a survival situation is

one of the key components of whether or not

you will survive something is actually your fitness level.

And so even for hardcore wilderness survival,

my yoga helps me a lot.

When I gotta scale that rocky area,

climb through that, go through that swamp,

balance is really important.

So, how are you gonna make it past your 70s without balance?

With difficulty.

Everyone, thank you so much for the questions.

Obviously, some of them were silly

and some of them were serious,

and I like approaching survival that way anyway,

because the thing is you gotta laugh.

If you're in a survival situation,

remember, there is only one thing you wanna do: Go home.

You don't wanna get to the other end of a survival situation

and go, Ooh, I wish I'd made a better A-frame shelter.

Man, I wish I had tanned a hide.

Nuh-uh-uh.

You wanna go home in a survival situation.

So, humor is important to keep your spirits alive.

I'm really grateful for these questions.

They've been great.

I'm Les Stroud and this has been Survival Support.