Again, immersing yourself in exactly those experiences can teach you not only where your demons lie, but the discipline to overcome them. Having to exit such an experience should not be seen as a failure, but a lesson. The next time, you will be better able to produce the discipline required to push through those barriers. In that sense, it’s much like physical conditioning.

Gaining Confidence

This is the easier mental skill to train for as it will be produced automatically as part of the process of learning wilderness skills. However, arrogance or its milder cousin, overconfidence, can be the cause of not only physical danger, but longer-term mental health as well. If you thought that you had mastered building that shelter when in reality, you only learned the skill, the inability of building that shelter in a wilderness situation can leave you exposed to hypothermia as well as frustration or depression. To some extent, this can happen to anyone, including the most seasoned wilderness instructor. This is one of the many reasons why complex tasks are usually completed only once the most basic and needed ones are carried out. Not one wilderness instructor I know will tell you not to build a good shelter first.

As I already stated earlier, drilling and immersion experience will greatly help prevent such a scenario. Studying your circumstances and prioritizing properly will help take care of the rest.

Adopting the Right Mental Attitude

When faced with a survival situation, take the following simple steps to help set yourself up mentally for the journey ahead.

Recognize that panic is possible—Spend a moment recognizing your level of panic. Assess it, use it. Accept that a sense of panic is part of the process, but that you cannot allow it to consume you. When you are able to recognize and accept your feelings, you will allow them to be a part of you rather than giving the panic energy by fighting it.

Face your problems one by one—Don’t look at all your problems as one, big, giant problem. Rather than facing the whole survival situation, take a step back, set some immediate priorities, and then view them as small, independent problems. Many of these problems can wait. Solving all these individual problems one by one is the solution to the puzzle of survival. In fact, rather than calling them problems, you could refer to them as roadblocks, challenges or barriers. These words suggest obstacles that can be broken through, navigated around or simply ignored altogether, whereas “problems” is a more negative word implying that solutions may not always exist and that you can’t move forward unless such a problem is solved. A 100-mile walk is never conquered in one giant leap. It’s conquered one step at a time.

Lay out and keep an inventory of any equipment or random items you have—This serves both as a useful (mental) list of resources, but also forces your brain to slow down.

Keep a positive and upbeat approach. Make jokes with yourself (or others when present), and reflect on how much water you currently have in the glass. If you got to this stage, you’re obviously alive. Start from there and add any successes to the tally.

Focus on your tasks—Do not allow your mind to wander too much. It’s not healthy initially to spend all your time thinking of that hamburger or shower or how much you miss people close to you. There will be plenty of time for such reflections later. On the other hand, visualizing the desired outcome and dreaming of successfully navigating the journey can be helpful.

Surprisingly enough, these techniques are often needed during self-imposed survival experiences as much as they would be during actual emergencies.

I cannot stress enough that simply reading this book is not sufficient (that would equate to overconfidence). The mental aspects of wilderness living are as much a skill as building an excellent shelter. It has to be mastered. You have to drill and immerse yourself. Finding your own boundaries and experiencing the things you struggle with are extremely important. A total level of honesty with yourself is required. You can seriously impair your survival or even enjoyment of these skills if you are lying to yourself about your level of competence.

Finally, keep in mind that many of the shelters described in this book use a lot of natural resources and may damage an environment. When practicing or trying out these designs, do it in such a way to minimize the impact on the area. Afterward, always level the site so it looks the same way it did when you arrived. Also keep in mind that there may be laws or regulations you have to adhere to. So, when planning a trip to practice the skills described in this book, always read up on any laws and rules that apply to the area you’re going into. In some countries, there’s a “ramblers right of way” over private land. This benefit can only be maintained when people crossing into these properties leave no trace of their presence and ask permission to camp wherever possible.

Acknowledgments

There are a lot of people who make a book such as this a reality, from editors and production teams to publishers. To you I owe my thanks.

Below a few individuals in no particular order, who stood out for helping without gain:

I owe my thanks to Tom Hennessy from hennessyhammock.com, who was willing to share so much about his hammock designs with me. Even though I’d used his designs for well over a decade, there was still much he was able to teach me.

A big thank you to Arnold Dohr, who welcomed me into the Austrian Alps, facilitated the making of snow shelters for the photographs, chauffeured me about with boundless energy and who taught me what it was like to be a real Styrian man.

Reuben Akkermans, who helped build some debris shelters in return for nothing more than a nice meal and some candy floss.

A mention should go to Alan Macquarrie, who loaned me some of the modern tents from his impressive collection.

Ofer Israeli, who, though he did not directly help with this book, set me on my trail when I was but a child.

Anthony Kelly and Niall Wilson, who regularly saw structures set up on their land.

Liam McGlinchey for an unbiased proofread of the first draft.

Last but not least, Louise, who supported me with the writing of this book and was an immense help with the photographs, the travels and everything else, as always.

About the Author

Born in the Netherlands, Anthonio Akkermans studied wilderness skills since he was a child. While still a youngster himself, Anthonio established a youth group that allowed children and teenagers to come out into the woods and learn earth-living skills once a week. This youth group gradually evolved into a school called Wild-Live, based in the United Kingdom.

From the early days, he traveled regularly to a number of states in the US, Yukon territories, Israel and Turkey, where he learned more native skills while teaching what he already knew. He still enjoys traveling and regularly teaches primitive skills in the most unique environments.

An active journalist for various publications, he previously published a book about earth-living skills titled Bushcraft Skills and How to Survive in the Wild, which is sold worldwide.

When not teaching adults on his courses, Anthonio has other commitments. He teaches teenagers through various local charities and shares skills in the archaeology department at Queens University Belfast and other expositions about how our ancestors lived their lives through demonstrations and lectures. He reproduces a huge array of artifacts for various museums, universities and television companies. On several occasions he has worked as a consultant on television and radio programs. He enjoys learning new skills, traveling locally and in different terrains around the world.