The Survival Tin ~ by WoodlandsTV

Transcript

Justin Sterry: One of the great things about being out in your own personal woods is coming out and doing something that you enjoy, whether it be bushcraft, walking, bird watching, or in my case, practicing survival. I'll talk a little bit about the principles of survival. There's four main principles: fire, water, shelter, and food. In a woodland like this, it gives you the opportunity to practice all these, from purifying your own water from, whether it's a buggy bog or a running stream.

Food is the plants, fungi, insects, and the animals what are around us. We're lucky enough to have rabbits and deer around here. And then shelter: what trees, what conditions, winter, summer, and what to use. Hazel's always a good one. It's flexible. That's one of the primary things about having your own woodland.

Basically, when it comes to survival, we think of it as a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid is the actual will to survive. The will to go on, against all odds, when you're feeling cold, hungry, thirsty, and everything seems to be against you.

To deal with these stresses, you need confidence, skills, and the ability to put the skills into place. On top of that, if you're lucky enough, you've got your kit. And with kit, we carry our survival tin with us. The contents of the tin is usually personalized to the person you're using.

For example, one of them is water. The simple fact of carrying water purifications gives you the ability to have safe drinking water. You may not have a water bottle with you. We use condoms. They hold about a liter of water. One tablet purifies about a liter of that. Also, if you've got a wound, burn, or cut, you can roll the condom over it, stopping the dirt from getting into it.

Brass wire. Primary use of brass wire will be to make snares to acquire rabbits or bigger game. But they can be used in shelter building, or particularly if you're using fires, as we did with the tripod. Fire's a very important one. Waterproof matches. Magnifying glass. Candle. I carry on my knife, that's a lighter, which produces sparks.

Cotton wool. It quiets the tin, is used as a tinder, and if you do cut yourself, it absorbs. An array of fishing hooks, primarily for fishing, but you can catch wild birds with them as well, i.e. pheasants. Talking of fishing, artificial lures. I guarantee when you want a worm, you can't find them, or if you don't catch the fish, the worm is dinner.

Little brass button compass for navigation purposes. Whistles for communication through the woods if you're with other parties, or to attract attention to yourself if you're injured. Fishing line, again. Again, shelter building, clothes making. Ready-made fishing hooks. Ready to go, so you're not tying hooks, particularly if you've been a day or two, and you're feeling a bit tired and lethargic.

It's quite a lot of content in a small tobacco tin. This is a custom made tin, but if you're boiling water, you can even make a little nettle tea in that size tin.