SHTF NEWS

A popular movement in the prepper community is the belief that you can just go out in the woods and live off the land if SHTF; hunt and fish, use bushcraft skills. There’s no need to stock food supplies and other gear, you’ll just head out into the wilderness like people did in the past.

Let me tell you why I don’t think that’s a viable option. I’ve done a lot of studying of the past; 16 and 1700’s and life for the pioneers and settlers of that time. Daniel Boone and others who lived off the land almost always brought large supplies of food with them if they would be in the wilderness for an extended period of time. Living conditions were also much different back then. Population for one thing, between 1700 and 1720 the population of the US was 250,000 to 466,000, not many people at all, that’s less than most large American cities these days. Now, the population of the US is 331.9 million people. A vast difference. You’re not going to find many places where you can just go out to the wilderness and disappear anymore. Animal populations were also vastly greater is those days, than they are now. Danielle Boone wrote that he could go out and kill thirty deer in one day. These days you’re lucky if you see more than a handful in an entire hunting season. Beavers and Buffalo were also plentiful in those days. Fish back then, much more plentiful. Our animal populations are nothing like this now. They’ve been hunted and fished to minimal levels, died off, changing river patterns from dams and climate have reduced the fish population greatly. You’re not going to survive eating squirrels or small game if your group is more than one person and even then, it would be unlikely. Whatever game there is now will probably get wiped out quickly by people with hunting experience or the hordes of desperate people leaving the cities. If you’ve never hunted or fished, then quite honestly you will have little to no chance of making a go at this after SHTF. Just read a few of these historical recollections and you will see that life was hard, extremely hard, even for people who were much more self-reliant than people of today are. People these days don’t have to be self-reliant. They don’t have the skills or life experience to live off the land. Watching You Tube videos does not qualify as experience or even having real life skill. Even “bush crafters” of today I would imagine would be hard pressed to actually survive long term like this. They may do this for a few days here and there but it’s not a fulltime lifestyle for them. People of those past days had to do much more work to survive and had all those skills and experience.

People never really went out with nothing to live off the land. They brought supplies. Even Daniel Boone. He would bring horses stocked with gear, in fact he was deeply in debt most of his life from buying supplies on credit to pack with him into the wilderness. He would set up multiple camps with some kind of main base. Most times he brought other people with him as well.

Think about all the other work that will have to be done in a true SHTF scenario. Shelter, water, food, firewood, security are just the basics, not to mention all the other stuff that will come up. How will you stay warm? How will you get clean water?

I think it’s foolish and dangerous to assume you are going to be able to go out and survive off the land. Without some base line supplies. If you have kid’s or family to take care of, why are you taking such a chance with their survival. Why wouldn’t you still be stocking base line supplies? Thats the way the real bush crafters did it back in the day, you should take a lesson from them. Most people who lived through the great depression stored food for the rest of their lives in case they ever had to go through that again. Don’t make it any harder than it already will be, because it’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do.

The world has changed drastically. The idea of living off the land in the woods is romantic, but it’s unrealistic as a viable method on its own. Have a baseline of supplies at minimum.