Char cloth is an excellent portable tinder that man has made for centuries. With a few modern conveniences you can make your own quite easily as demonstrated in this video by Colin Outdoors. This particular way actually is one of the easiest and safest. You can obviously substitute the materials but I like how this uses easily available materials that we can all procure with a trip to a decent shopping center and many of the materials (like the alcohol stove and the chicken wire)  are available on Amazon.

Of course their are weatherproof tinder substances you can purchase but char cloth has a proven track record and can be created by anyone in quantity as long as they have access to some basic tools and scrap cloth. I suggest you have multiple tinder choices when you think you’ll need to start a fire.

The second part of Iris Canterbury’s new series on woodsrunning and survival aimed at women. I posted part I and I’ll continue posting her useful and tips:

Dave Canterbury from Dual Survival isn’t allowed to make the YouTube videos that put him on the map, but his wife can. Here Iris Canterbury shows off the gear she takes to the woods which is different than what men would in some respects and you men out there who plan on outfitting your wives and daughter need to recognize the different needs women may have. This includes a greater need for self defense, so while I may be happy to take to the woods with a shotgun, Iris carries a light backup pistol as well. The woods are full of two-legged predators, unfortunately:

Via Zionism’s Survival this video shows a Wal-Mart Employee viciously attacked from behind by the accomplice of two thieves he was following. I post this so you can see how criminals operate. In many situations there will be one or more separate from the group that attracts your attention waiting to ambush you. In this case the ambushers was just running security for the thieves but sometimes they will be “bagmen” waiting to kidnap a woman who is distracted by others or a “hitter” looking to take out a target.

Always be aware and ready for people entering your personal space from behind:

Not that I think most people will get the chance to process big game after TEOTWAWKI but for those of you who luck into a deer but have not actually butcher one before (and a surprising number of hunters don’t butcher their own) this series of video from Expert Village provides a good guide to getting the deer cleaned for transport back to your base camp. There are books that have great step-by-step instructions (Like John and Gerri McPherson’s Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills) but I’m a visual learner so I like to see things done before I do them.

Now I haven’t butcher a deer myself, I have cleaned a great many fish. There’s no comparison obviously but this – if you have never seen an animal processed before you may want to go watch a fish being cleaned first to build up a little tolerance. Now that so many of you have been through a school system that allows you to opt out of frog dissection you may not have the stomach for this. This is very bare bones but should get you started but a note of caution, this is not a video featuring the safest of knife handling: Continue reading →