The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival: A Guide to Shelter, Water, Fire, Food, Navigation, and Survival Kits

As someone who enjoys spending time in the outdoors and teaches an outdoor adventures class to high school students, I approach this resource through both a personal and professional lens. Personally, for the time I spend in the wilderness, I value having the knowledge and preparation to deal with whatever may come my way. Since I am someone who can get overwhelmed with too much information, I appreciate how this survival guide lays out perfectly just what I need to know without overwhelming me with more than I need. It is simple, direct, and easily digestible. As a teacher, this book is an incredible resource for outdoor survival as it is very accessible to all levels of learners. I appreciate the clarity from the get go, starting on page 3 with "How to Use this Book", to the engaging chapter introductions infused with personal stories, clear outline of objectives, and straightforward summary in each chapter. The content within each section is clearly laid out with concise step by step instructions, while simultaneously keeping the information engaging with language that allows the author's voice and passion to show through ("And that's the magic of friction fire starting!" pg 82). This makes you feel like you are in person with him teaching alongside you! The way the information is presented is encouraging rather than intimidating, allowing the reader to recognize that gaining these skills is truly attainable. The visual learner in me (and my students) appreciates the clear graphics and photographs that support the content along with the crisp layout of the entire survival manual. This survival manual is not only informative, but also very visually appealing, which is a large part of what makes the information so approachable, especially for my students. Another wonderful aspect of the book is that Jason supplies resources throughout the chapters for those who would like to seek further information, in addition to providing a chapter specific resource list provided at the end. This list is especially thoughtful in how he provides a quick annotation of the resource and how or why it might be useful to the reader. Moreover, this list is followed by an extensive general resource list, which I find as an unselfish gift to people who would like to explore these wilderness survival skills further, and I appreciate how he highlights his current and past instructors and other colleagues in this field. Whether you are into day-hiking, backpacking, car camping, bushcrafting, teaching, or simply interested in learning new skills, this is the survival manual for you. I can't recommend it enough!

I attended Alderleaf Wilderness College in 2008. When I heard that Jason Knight, co-founder and lead instructor at Alderleaf, had written a book on wilderness survival skills, I had to check it out. After purchasing and then reading the digital copy I have decided to invest in the paperback. Here’s why It has been 14 years since I attended AWC with very little time for ongoing survival training. I am now retired and ready to get back at it. Having forgotten so many details over the years I felt a bit overwhelmed. Of the many survival handbooks and field guides I have on my book shelves, each being packed with detailed and necessary information, I had nothing to help me put it all together into one organized process. A set of instructions so to speak which could easily help me get started again. In his book, Jason has organized in six chapters a wide-ranging training for outdoor survival; shelter, water, fire, food, navigation, and survival kits, in such a way that the book is the perfect "take along how to guide". The step-by-step instructions in each of these six disciplines are easy to follow, efficient, but thorough. Jason also covers the four survival priorities (shelter, water, fire, and food) based on the Rule of Threes. He then explains how to correctly priorities them in order of importance according to your unique set of circumstances. It’s brilliant! I enjoyed the interesting personal stories Jason tells of himself and friends creating their own real life wilderness peril situations to hone their survival skills. He then uses those as a point of reference for some very practical dos and don’ts for creating your own survival training scenarios. The bibliography pages contain a list of other great books from bush crafting to foraging to edible and medicinal wild plants and many others that you may like to add to your wilderness survival library. There are also links to online companion information for each of the six chapters in the book. Excellent photos, charts and drawings are also included to enhance your learning experience. The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival by Jason Knight provides basic to advanced training but it is written in such an organized way that it makes learning the skills and understanding the content easy. It literally could help save your life. I highly recommend this book not only as a read through, but a serious training companion to keep with you in your ongoing outdoor survival learning experiences. Well Done Jason! Thank You

The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival book by Jason Knight is a exactly that, it contains the “essential” skills needed to survive in the outdoors. I had the privilege of attending one of Alderleaf’s week-long outdoor survival classes back in 2010. This course, along with the great instructors, literally propelled me to a degree focused on wildlife and now a profession in wildlife management. For my skill level, this book was a great refresher course on the wilderness survival training and bushcraft skills I obtained at Alderleaf almost twelve years ago. One of the many areas in which the book excels is it’s clear, concise and focused approach to conveying the essential outdoor skills and mindset needed to survive in the outdoors. Each topic is clearly identified by priority and then explained in detail. The book will walk you through exactly how to construct your shelter, purify water and create fire from materials obtained from your surroundings. It will also explain which shelter to use for specific situations and what water purification method is best given your circumstances. It does this for each important area to ensure as many scenarios are covered as possible. Overall, the book is a well written and easy to understand outdoor survival handbook. It is a great addition to the collective knowledge on wilderness survival and bushcraft. If you want the essentials clearly explained, this book is for you.

Clear, accessible, enticing and trustworthy: a brilliant overview of the essentials of survival. Jason Knight, a prominent wilderness skills, bushcraft and survival skills teacher and mentor, has distilled his decades of teaching experience into an exciting and pithy guide. The book is well structured and outstanding in its awareness of survival priorities and its precision of information. It is also eminently readable. Each section starts with a story that fires up the imagination and helps highlight the importance of the information to follow. There are useful boxes highlighting and summarizing key information, and clear illustrative photos. And in demonstration of Jason Knight's depth of experience, the shelter and fire chapters, for example, include “troubleshooting” sections, generally not present in other survival books, providing tips on how to overcome common problems and increase your chances of success. As a wilderness guide in Africa, I have had many an occasion to reflect on the importance of the skills explained so clearly in this book, which is a fine resource for anyone preparing for an outdoor camping trip, wanting to understand how to survive, or simply wanting a deeper way to engage with the wild outdoors....while also being fun to read. Highly recommended!

The manual entitled The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival: A Guide to Shelter, Water, Fire, Food, Navigation, and Survival Kits by Jason Knight is an excellent introduction into the basic wilderness survival concepts/principles, determining what your priorities should be and lays out easy to learn techniques that will greatly improve anyone success in surviving an unplanned potentially life-threatening event. The manual is written in a clear, concise, logical and practical manner so readers are able to easily follow along and gain a basic understanding of how to cope with the basic needs of survival whether it happens in the backcountry or as a catastrophic event in your backyard. Jason uses photos well and uses step by step directions to clearly articulate how to perform various tasks identified in the manual. I am particularly glad to see in the front of the manual that he covers off psychological aspects of being lost and how this can greatly reduce your chances of survival if not controlled. I can speak to this personally over the past 40 years when I have been disorientated several times in non-descript terrain during cloudy or low visibility conditions. The worst thing you can do is to start doubting yourself and let panic set in. The acronym SPEAR is an excellent term to remember. Once you sit down, take a breath and evaluate your situation you can usually reorientate yourself and find your way out or take the appropriate actions to keep yourself safe. I know of several people that became lost where panic and fear have taken over and all common sense went out the door. Luckily for them they were found by others in not so good of shape, however it could have turned out a lot worse. I think anyone going out into the back country even on short hikes (hour or two) should have basic knowledge of how to survive if need be. No one plans on getting lost, getting caught in inclement weather or being disabled while on a hike, however there is always a chance this could happen. Being unprepared could result in various types of issues: the unnecessary stress on your loved ones and friends, the activation of search and rescue operations which may involve significant logistical efforts and costs or even your life. A few things I would recommend for consideration include: • Reference to related articles, information and other options be included at the end of each module or chapter instead of at the end of the manual. • In some of the modules/chapters several examples of techniques or tactics were provided in detail while other modules/chapters they only provided one example or only briefly identified other options. It would help if each module/chapter include at least three practical tactics/techniques with detailed photos, descriptions and directions of how to complete. I would highly recommend to anyone from the novice individual to the experienced outdoors person to obtain a copy of The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival: A Guide to Shelter, Water, Fire, Food, Navigation, and Survival Kits Manual by Jason Knight. It is an excellent compilation of practical and useful wilderness survival information, practices, techniques and strategies that may be applied by anyone. Glen Longpre

I was a student in Jason Knight’s wildlife tracking intensive many years ago and found him to be an excellent instructor. He has a knack for breaking complicated topics into a logical and efficient format and this has translated well into his wilderness survival guide. I own a couple other wilderness survival handbooks, such as the SAS Survival Handbook and Les Stroud's Survive! I think both are excellent books but they almost had too much information that made it difficult to know where to start. Jason Knight’s wilderness survival guide is a perfect blend of the right amount of useful information, easy to follow instructions and helpful photos. It has a clear chapter layout that follows the survival priorities it lays out at the beginning, which is very helpful for figuring out where to start. One thing that I particularly appreciate is the logical layout, which makes it easy to follow and helps with retaining information. It starts by discussing the psychology and physiology of survival, lays out the survival priorities, then goes into detail for each one. It has a handy guide for creating a survival kit. I highly recommend this book and think it will be useful to anyone interested in wilderness survival skills, whether a beginner or seasoned veteran.

Bought this to start my emergency prepping (grab bags, survival skills and equipment etc). Easy to read and understand with useful diagrams. I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys being outdoors, hunting and road trips and of course those wanting to ensure they are prepared for emergencies

Short & sweet. Does the job and great starting point for the complete noob, like me who still can't manage to start a fire without chemical fire starters, not even a metal rod, but that's my failing.