Crisis Kit Directions 
Crisis Kit Directions 
© 1995 E. Michael Smith



In a crisis, knowing what to do is critical.  The BEST thing you can do is to read a book like Larry Dean Olson's "Outdoor Survival Skills"  or Tom Brown's guides to Rural and Urban survival, and learn what they have to teach.  Most folks I've known have had their head with them, even if everything else was packed in the luggage on it's way to some unknown country...  The right attitude about the world around you is more important than having a Crisis Kit with you.  

After all, the world consists of resources.  There is always SOMETHING around you, just waiting to be used in a new and novel way. 

Failing that, there are a score of small pamphlets, flash cards, and books that contain the standard platitudes about outdoor survival.  As time permits, I'll pick some particular ones to review and report on here.  For now, just visit your local outdoors shop or good bookstore and see what they have in stock that you like.  I've also seen a pack of playing cards, each of which has survival information on the face of it, with the standard number and suit in the corners.  These were advertised in a catalog named Quartermaster, but may be available elsewhere too.  

The booklet you get ought to cover expedient medicine and first aid, making expedient shelters, finding water, and signaling.  There will be other things covered as well, but remember mostly that no matter what some 'instruction book' tells you, you will need to improvise with the materials you have with you or can find.  Do whatever you think will work.  No booklet can answer everything for you, and you can be as creative as the situation demands. 

Larry Dean Olson's "Outdoor Survival Skills" is a wonderful book.  If you only buy one 'Survival' book, make it this one.  Please.  He teaches survival at BYU in Utah.  The 'Final Exam' is to have the class dropped in the Utah high desert some miles from nowhere with no shoes or equipment.  They then spend the weekend getting home alive.  His approach is very refreshing.  He asked one basic question, and answered it:  "How did cavemen live, with nothing but the land to live on?".  In the book, he covers making stone tools and using them to make bow & arrow, spear, shoes, clothes, fires, traps, etc.  After reading this book a couple of times, the idea of having a Butane lighter, space blanket, and canteen of water sounds like being over equipped! 

Tom Brown's "Guide to Urban Survival" and "Guide to Rural Survival" are great books.  Not nearly as concise as Olson's work, nor grounded in the technology of cave men, but very good in that they look at the world as it stands today.  For example, if you are stuck in New York City in a several night long power outage (Never happen?  But it did...) and it just happened to be in the middle of a Killer Canadian Storm that broke your windows, what would you do?  Make a snow cave in the living room?  Nope.  Build a lean-to from a box springs and mattress.  He looks at what materials, natural OR man made, are likely to be available, and how best to exploit them.  These two books are the second and third books you ought to buy. 

 Index to Expedient Camping (Crisis Kit) topics.


Directory of Regions served.  Copyright © 1995 NetSurf, Inc. All Rights Reserved.