Survivorman Les Stroud Answers Survival Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

okay this question comes from scratch didn't get a chance to eat today and i'm starving all in caps how do survivalists get by on like one bug a day we don't actually the reality of survival situation is you spend most of your time groveling for food everybody thinks you're going to make a bow and arrow out of a piece of thread and a bobby pin it ain't going to happen going hungry is not that big of a deal without water you're in big trouble without food you've got a couple of weeks before you're in real trouble so when i'm in a survival situation and i've got no food what ends up happening to me is i become really lethargic that's the downside of no food you lose your energy but you don't die instantly hey i'm les stroud and this is survivalist support [Music] all right first question comes from just mickey and he or she asks not sure if anyone watched platform on netflix but wouldn't it be healthier to eat the maggots instead of the rotten meat okay so first of all full disclosure i have not seen platform on netflix actually i haven't even heard of it but i have heard of maggots and i have heard of rotting meat and i have eaten both there is protein in both eating rotten meat is always the thing that seems repugnant to everybody in a survival situation the reality is that you can eat rotting meat in fact many years ago most of our cultures all ate rotting meat of some sort we have it in many of our different recipes if you will different things that we ate we're often rotting fish rotting fowl rotting red meat it goes on and on the maggots are full of protein and sweetness and sugars the real answer to this question eat them both all right next question matt voorhees asks real lestrade that's me serious survival question open to anyone went on a hike today and saw a baby bear in a tree how close was the mom with question mark exclamation point question mark and exclamation point so this person's excited we immediately left the area okay so an apex predator is like great white sharks polar bears african lions indian tigers but a secondary predator is the kind of predator that may eat you but it's likely going to be an accidental occasion so black bears cougars even grizzly bears in the case of a black bear and for that matter in the case of a cougar get big get scary you can scare them away what does that mean if you come upon a mother and her cubs the majority of the times the mother will be taking off like a shot she'll go and she'll hide somewhere and the cubs will go up a tree how close is the mom bottom line you don't really want to take the chance because this is the one time when a black bear is actually very dangerous a mother and her cubs any other time i would work really hard to scare a black bear away but when it's a mother and her cubs i'm not going to take any chances at all so how close was the mother bear to the cubs does it really matter it's a mother bear and she's big and probably 340 pounds and you're not all right this next question comes from steve steve sundell sundell i'm watching survivorman right now survivor man no it's survivorman one word get it right steve i'm watching survivorman right now and i still have a lingering question for survivalists why not just always bring a bic lighter with you you know what steve i've got the same freaking question if you're going to go out in the wilderness take a bic lighter with you every single time why not i agree why not always do it okay this next question comes with a photograph from frosty hey les how do you like my first attempt at spoon making it's beautiful frosty it's a thing of beauty it's a work of art and i gotta tell you this story when you take a survival class the first thing you ever make is not a shelter it's not a deadfall or a trap or a snare it's not a bow and arrow it's a carved out wooden spoon that's the first thing we always teach in survival class is how to carve out a spoon then we go on to trap some animals or gather some wild edibles and then the spoon comes in handy what we always want to do when we're teaching survival those of us who are survival instructors is get people comfortable with their hands with building things with cutting things with nature but especially with using knives it's incredible how often i'll see people in a survival class with no knife using skills whatsoever later when you're trying to carve out larger objects when you're making deadfalls and snares and traps and bows and arrows you're much more handy with the knife all right next question comes from arien buck at real estate how do you keep the camera batteries charged during your excursions i get that question a lot in fact i get a lot of questions about my camera gear and feel technique and i love those questions because as a filmmaker i enjoy sharing my creativity and how i came about it and one of the biggest issues in filming survivorman and indeed in filming my adventures before survivorman was keeping batteries charged i spent a year living in the woods and and made a documentary called snowshoes and salted and i literally took with me a car battery and a solar panel charged the car battery during the day and at night with the little adapter charge my camera batteries and that got me through a whole year but it's way different now i can put in a small pack on my hip enough battery power to last me a week easily the batteries got small they got long lasting so i just charge everything up at home and take a bunch in with me and it's actually not too heavy anymore steve schwinghammer it's really hard not to comment on that steve schwinghammer how do you prepare for a trip do you binge in the morning before to stay full as long as possible or would that cause problems great question i don't get this question very often so i want to answer it honestly i don't prepare at all the reason why i don't prepare it all is because when i'm going out to film i want it to be as real as possible i know i'm going out i know i'm making a film and i know i'm eventually going to go home so that nullifies some of the reality of being in a survival situation so if i were to also prepare by either gorging on food or slimming down and trying to make my stomach smaller so it doesn't hurt as much when i'm in the woods either way both of those ways in my mind are cheating because when you get lost in the woods you don't prepare the night before thinking i'm gonna be lost tomorrow and so i needed to have that reality there so i didn't prepare at all i just go in as i go in if i had a big breakfast that morning great if i didn't i didn't twofos1 asks les how do you disinfect your hands in the wild after handling meat you're about to cook in this very disinfected society i struggle because i believe and agree with science that points out that we have a lot of bacteria that is healthy and that we need now out in the wilderness there's even more of that healthy bacteria and even less of the nasty stuff we're going to get in the grocery store from a shelf so i'm a big supporter of getting outside and getting dirt up your fingernails and being part of the bacteria that's in nature so to answer your question twofold one i don't disinfect my hands after handling meat i'm about to cook in the wilderness in fact i eat a lot of the wild meat i might catch or come upon raw like carpaccio or sushi i don't disinfect my hands i go with the flow i believe that it's actually made me stronger over the years chad harmon asks how do you keep from inhaling a ton of smoke when starting fire it killed me the few times i tried and i'm a smoker you kind of don't there is one trick when i'm doing the fire bow and i'm and i'm blowing into the embers and all that you breathe you just turn to the side it's like or if i'm down and i'm trying to get a fire going on the ground getting started again it's like so otherwise absolutely i've gone and choked and sucked in so much smoke and meanwhile you're trying to get your fire going so not a good time to stall so there's not a really great answer to that question other than turn to the side and breathe dude krista wants to know at real estate the following is suddenly driving me nuts how does survivor man brush his teeth while out there for seven to ten days or does he oh you're never going to want to kiss me because i don't i mean i i'll use my finger sometimes you can take roots like spruce roots and things and kind of do like a you know cleaning of your teeth but mostly you're out in the bush you ain't cleaning your teeth and yeah it is kind of gross at trouba girl let's start if you truly only had one single pick at a survival tool what would you pick no matter what the terrain easy answer and i get this question a lot i would have a way to start a fire uh oh no no you gotta have a knife no you need to axe no you starting a fire is probably the most difficult thing in a survival situation i don't want to rub two sticks together fire is just one of those things that serves so many purposes that i feel that the best survival skill is knowing how to get a fire going so my number one tool a method to start a fire preferably a butane torch lighter style all right hopefully i'm pronouncing this correctly eddie minion at real lestrade thoughts on altoid tin survival kits as set and forget items what would you put in yours interesting question don't get me going on survival kits here's the first way i want to answer this question was to say if you're going to have a survival kit do not buy it off the shelf don't do it turn away walk out of the store come back when you're ready to seek out your own items for your survival kit pick the things that are high quality know that you know how to use them learn how to use them put your own kit together that's the answer i will always give as far as which is the best survival kit to have it's the one that you make yourself with items you sourced that you know how to use because anything else is just a case of trinkets you open it up most of it's probably going to be junk if it's bought off the shelf and half the time you won't even know how to use them so that's my answer build and keep your own survival kit all right this looks like a serious question mr hemtastic wants to know what would you say to someone who wants to take a year or so and walk the great trail through canada any advice on planning or anything i could go on for the next hour on giving you advice on this one do it don't hesitate do it don't think about making money over that period of time or the money you have to make before you go in or what you're coming out to just do it too many of us do not embark on an adventure because we're obsessed with or concerned about our our at-home lives our regular lives if you're going out alone or you've got a partner i say do it i spent a year living in the woods and i remember getting a question one time how can anyone afford to spend a year living in the woods and the crowd went a little silent and i just took a breath and i just answered you can't and i got a standing ovation with that answer because the truth is you can't put these roadblocks in front of you before you're about to embark on a great adventure just embark on it prepare for it write things down make a lot of lists there's my pragmatic answer for you write down a lot of lists get it all focused in and go for it mike henley asks what would you say are the top five edible winter plants in the tomogame region for those of you who don't know where tomogame is tomogamy is in my opinion the canoeing mecca of the world there is no place where you can carry out long distance river to lake to river canoe trips like you can in tomogram ontario canada it is stunning there and not very many people go there it's not a a major national park kind of situation so you have stunning vistas amazing canoeing and not very many people there it's fantastic so it's a great question to ask but it also leads me down another road top five edible winter plants in the tomography region this is a tricky answer because as i like to say in a survival situation if you're not on a tropical island it's pretty hard to be vegan it's pretty hard to be vegetarian it's almost radically impossible so you need to be able to in a winter situation in tomogram catch game like snowshoe hare which are easy to catch just the same to answer your question mikey certainly cattail is always a good winter one because you can if you can get through the snow through the ice down to the bottom through the freezing cold water the the growth for next year is down there and they can be anything from an inch to six inches long and it's a beautiful edible it's kind of like a cucumber other than that you're reduced to a lot of wild teas spruce teas pine tea willow tea birch tea boy that's about it it's hard to gather wild edibles in the winter time in northern canada but go to tomogram you'll love it okay with the radically esoteric and creative web name of graham he asks i've got a long trip in the scottish highlands in winter what should i pack in my car for an emergency whoa great question graham i can't say this enough that you know when i teach about having survival kits there's my personal survival kit there's the group survival kit if i'm traveling with people i'm also teaching survival kits for in the home home survival kit but what's often overlooked and it's so easy is a car survival kit for emergencies so really the first thing you need for your car is you know one of those sort of bins plastic bins with a nice tight fitting lid size wise oh you know enough that could take 12 bottles of wine or 24 bottles of wine but that big and in that you pack everything you think you'll need some way to start a fire way to cook and boil water insulation material like a sleeping bag or something like that it's your car you can set up an emergency kit for your car and just leave it and forget that it's even there and that afternoon that you decide to take that shortcut because it's going to be so cool oh i wonder what that's going to be like over there and that's where you get the flat tire and you notice that your spares also flat you're going to thank me for having a car survival kit so what should you pack in it use your own sort of powers of intuition and ingenuity what do you think you need if you were stuck with that car on a remote hill in the highlands of scotland kathleen stokes phillips asks gotta ask you the silliest question well actually she's asking it on capital so gotta ask you the silliest question where do you find toilet paper to go poo lol depending on where you are usually the best toilet paper in the woods is moss most of the moss you'll find if not all of it is not poisonous to the touch leaves are tricky you do not want to wipe your butt with poison oak you do not want to wipe your butt with poison ivy you do not want to wipe your butt with a cactus plant so find moss that's toilet paper in fact my favorite kind of moss which sadly for the lower 48 you can't really get but up in the boreal forest there's a mosque called sphagnum moss and for years it was actually used by indigenous cultures as their diapers as their toilet paper it has antiseptic qualities to it it's my favorite toilet paper it's soft and it's good whether it's moist or dry and that's where i should stop there or it's gonna become too much information jalana kia i like that name jolana kia asks if perfect balance isn't part of your survivalist skill set how are you going to make it past your 70s hmm good point you might not do so well and that's why i still to this day and for the sake of a guy with a back that is beaten up by by carrying canoes heavy packs and playing hockey i still do yoga every single day because balance is important something that's overlooked in a survival situation is one of the key components of whether or not you will survive something is actually your fitness level and so even for hardcore wilderness survival my yoga helps me a lot when i gotta scale that rocky area and climb through that go through that swamp balance is really important so how are you gonna make it past your 70s without balance with difficulty everyone thank you so much for the questions obviously some of them were silly and some of them were serious and i like approaching survival that way anyway because the thing is you gotta laugh if you're in a survival situation remember there is only one thing you want to do go home you don't want to get to the other end of a survival situation and go oh i wish i'd made a better a-frame shelter man i wish i'd tend to hide you want to go home in a survival situation so humor is important to keep your spirits alive i'm really grateful for these questions they've been great i'm les stroud and this has been survival support

Channel: WIRED

Views: 793,549

Rating: 4.9568529 out of 5

Keywords: science & technology, innovation, ott tech support, les stroud, les stroud wired, wired les stroud, les stroud survivorman, survivalist, survival, survival wired, wired survival, survival wired interview, les stroud survival tips, les stroud survivalist, les stroud surviving in the wilderness, twitter tech support, twitter, tech support twitter, tech support survival, survival tech support, how to survive in the woods, survival apocalypse, apocalypse survival, surviving, wired

Id: hblks-lQhVo

Length: 16min 28sec (988 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Yazashmadia]

Has some interesting answers. I especially like his answer on those off the shelf survival kits - they sound nice in theory but they're almost always gimmicky.

[u/Ajarofpickles97]

I love Les so much seems like the kind of man I would have a beer with