 At least once each season I like to get out for a day or two of 
 recreational survival. You may not immediately think of practicing 
 survival skills as something to do for fun--and certainly most writing 
 on the subject is grim--but there is an intense connection to the finer 
 workings of nature involved in it, and making that connection can be 
 very satisfying. 

 I'm not talking about shivering beside a campfire in the snow or 
 eating raw grubs and earthworms. Remember, the  true survivalists 
 are always, by definition, good naturalists.

When done properly, survival outings really are fun and involve little 
if any hardship. The idea is to learn lore and skills in a comfortable, 
pleasant manner, a bit at a time, without pressure. If a life-threatening 
situation arises in the future, the well-practiced survivalist will be 
better prepared to deal with it.

Practice:</b> Once, for example, I was a member of a survival recreation 
group that met every Saturday at a friend's mountain ranch. 
We would hike up a sunlit, south-facing hill, build a fire, and for three 
or four hours work on a project of the day. One of our early tasks was 
fashioning a bow-and-drill fire-making device. This meant first scouring 
the landscape for the best materials, which meant learning how to identify 
and locate the regional tree and shrub species most suited to producing 
friction-generated sparks. Then there would be good talk and coffee 
simmering by the fire as we carved and whittled, shared information, 
and eventually assembled our bow-and-drill outfits. Next Saturday the 
project was to make no-match fires, which meant experimenting with tinders 
and techniques, and perhaps refining our equipment to a higher peak of 
performance. Once we had primitive firemaking down pat, matches were no 
longer allowed in the camp. The following sessions always began with making 
a bow-and-drill fire (even if it was raining, windy or snowing), until the 
technique was close to second-nature. After the fire was roaring and the 
coffee pot began to steam, we would take up the next objective, such as 
making primitive cordage, or Paiute quick-trigger deadfalls, or fish 
spears, or various kinds of shelters. 

If one person was more skilled or informed in a particular area, we 
followed his or her lead. Otherwise we learned as we went, relying on 
instruction manuals if necessary. These weekly camps were great fun and 
each of us learned tremendously along the way.

Put To The Test:</b> At least one of my seasonal survival trips is a two- 
to three-day trek in real wilderness. The idea is to be as self-sufficient 
as possible. Although I occasionally bring some modern equipment for backup 
(especially if young people or beginners are along), the goal is to find 
shelter, water, food and comfort using only a belt-pack survival kit for 
aid. A variation on this is to make a standard backpack-style "modern" 
camp (tent, sleeping bags, etc.), but allot primitive survival challenges 
each day: cooking meals without utensils; or making a container, from 
scratch, in which water can be boiled; or finding directions without a 
compass. Either kind of trek is a good way to fine-tune the hardcore skills 
of survival while enjoying the outdoors. This is also a terrific approach 
for teaching such skills to children, as long as the tone is kept playful 
rather than military and the work doesn't degenerate into drudgery. 

Foraging:</b> The best way to ease into survival play is to go foraging 
for wild edibles. You can do this literally everywhere, including city 
lots and suburban parks. The scope of an outing can be as minimal as a 
half-hour of mushroom searching or a full day of assembling a large-scale 
meat- and-vegetable dinner. A regional wild-edibles handbook and/or field 
course (contact local colleges, city parks and nature organizations) will 
get you started. Begin with obvious, abundant plant species, such as 
dandelions, cattails, arrowleaf and plantain, and expand your knowledge 
a little each trip. 
Dedicate several outings to finding and preparing game as well. An afternoon 
spent trying to net or spear small fish, or collecting a dinner's worth of 
crayfish tails or frog legs (your state may require a valid fishing license 
to pursue these activities), can be as challenging and absorbing as it is 
fun and valuable. 

Yearly, I combine a canoe float with fishing/foraging efforts, working 
at a pleasant, relaxed pace that by day's end produces a balanced, 
mixed-grill banquet of berries, mushrooms, salads, tuber-potatoes, 
trout, freshwater mussels, or even, if the season allows, roast rabbit, 
squirrel or gamebird. 

TREAD VERY LIGHTLY

Survival play can be hard on the land if you aren't careful. In real 
survival situations, regulations go out the window; you do what you have 
to. The recreational survivalist, however, must not break fish and game 
laws (for instance, trapping a rabbit or snaring a grouse out of season). 
Beyond strict law is the ethical obligation to tread lightly. For instance, 
don't tear boughs from trees to make a bed or shelter unless the need is 
real. Be careful with fires and fire rings (and realize that in many places 
and in certain seasons, fire making may be forbidden). Even when foraging, 
the rule is to have a light hand. Leave some huckleberries on the bushes 
for other foragers, and for the birds and wildlife who need them more than 
you do. If legal, dig up a few wildflowers to get the edible roots, but 
leave far more than you take. Taste the wild and learn the skills, but 
make the least possible impact on the landscape.

