5. Water

Chapter Five

WATER

No fire. No shelter. No food. Except in the most extreme cases, doing without these won’t kill you…at least not quickly. But nothing compares in seriousness to the lack of water. So while I always seek out locations with good supplies of firewood, shelter material, and food sources, I would trade them all for a constant supply of clean water. Always try to conserve what you have, and start looking for an alternative source as soon as possible.

You can live for more than three weeks without food, but you likely won’t make it much past three days without water. Granted, in a crisis, some people have survived as long as 10 days without water, but their ability to function will have been radically reduced after the third day. And depending on your circumstances, in as few as 24 hours you could start suffering the harsh effects of dehydration, particularly in a hot, dry, and windy location such as the desert. First the migraines and headaches kick in, followed by a rapid drop in energy. Now let’s see you get that fire going, build that shelter, or make a bunch of scorpion traps!

After only 24 hours surviving in the Kalahari Desert, the lack of water in my body brought on terrible headaches. On my fifth day there, with temperatures in the sun and on the sand pushing 140°F (60°C), my water ran out altogether. Over those five days, I had urinated only once, and that was after having drunk a gallon (about 4 L) of water for each of the first four days. On the fifth and sixth days, the few ounces I made by chewing plants and distilling my own urine still didn’t suffice. Even the act of eating the plants used up water in my system needed for digestion. The very act of chewing in extremely hot weather used up energy I didn’t have to spare. Sometimes doing nothing is better than trying something that doesn’t work.

Fortunately, I could walk out of the desert. But what if you can’t? Our bodies need 2 to 3 quarts (2 to 3 L) of water each day. Throw in heat, cold, stress, exertion, or diarrhea, and you need much more. To survive in the wilderness you need to know how to find water, make water, and even prevent your body from losing water.

One thing that people get hung up on with water (assuming they’re lucky enough to find it) is whether it’s clean enough to drink. They aren’t sure whether to drink it at all, for fear of getting sick. I go over this in greater detail later in this chapter, but for now, learn this mantra: Drink, drink, drink. You will die a lot faster from dehydration than from the effects of drinking untreated water. In fact, in all but the rarest circumstances, drinking untreated water won’t kill you. Even if you do contract parasites, most of them won’t hit you for at least a week, if not longer. Should you make it out alive, you can treat most of them (albeit with powerful drugs).

STROUD’S TIP

After drinking questionable water, crush up some charcoal and place it in a rag. Strain water through the rag and drink the black liquid. It can prevent stomach upset. Make sure you use charcoal from non-poisonous wood sources!

And water in remote areas usually is safe to drink. Sure, if you’re downstream from an African village or just outside a town that happens to use the stream as its septic system, you’re probably going to ingest pathogens. Then again, if you’re that close to civilization, you’re not in a survival situation at all! I’ve been infected with giardia, a nasty parasite that wreaks havoc on your bowels, after drinking from a seemingly pristine lake. I’ve suffered horrible bowel cramps after drinking from a seemingly pristine river. But I lived to tell the tales. And I haven’t died of dehydration.

I happen to be a huge fan of adventure races, events lasting anywhere from eight hours to two weeks, where contestants bike, run, paddle, and take on many other types of adventure travel through remote wilderness. The first one who makes it to the finish line, even if it is a week later, wins. During one such race, organizers had warned contestants not to drink the water along the route without first treating it, for fear of ingesting giardia.

The first stretch of the race was a slog through miles of thick bush during the height of mosquito and blackfly season, with temperatures cresting at 86°F (30°C). The race leaders took 24 hours to complete that stage. Many other teams, including mine, took nearly twice that.

At the first checkpoint in the race, a station where you can stop, check your time, and even eat a bit of food, most teams arrived looking terrible and suffering from the dry heaves. Not mine, though. Why? At every stream, river, or swamp—even the muddy ones—I forced myself and them to drink, because I knew that otherwise, under those extreme conditions, dehydration would soon shut us down. So when we finally made it to the first checkpoint (even though we were one of the last teams to get there), it was noted that we were in better shape than any other team.

It seems all the other teams were scared to drink untreated water, and none of them wanted to commit 15 minutes to treating their water for fear of losing ground in the race. So they ran on, hurting themselves in the process through dehydration. Not only did my team feel fine but none of us got sick, even though we drank from dozens of streams and swamps without filtering.

That said, never be cavalier about water. It is quite possible to drink from contaminated water sources and within hours find yourself knocked down from pain and diarrhea, only making your ordeal even worse. Your best bet is to assume that all water is contaminated and to purify it if you can do so.

But if your choice is between drinking untreated water or dying of dehydration…drink.

Rationing and Preserving Water in Your Body

ALMOST AS IMPORTANT AS PROCURING WATER TO DRINK is the ability to preserve the water stores in your body. The best way to do this is to minimize your exertion, if at all possible. With this in mind, I have one simple rule from my friend Dave Arama: If you don’t have to stand, sit; if you don’t have to sit, lie down. You also lose more water when you talk than when you don’t, and when you breathe through your mouth as opposed to your nose.

Of course, when you’re in a survival situation and trying to build a shelter, gather food, find water, or just get out, you don’t have the luxury of sitting around. Nevertheless, there are measures you can take to keep your body’s water loss to a minimum.

First, although you will have to work, try to keep your workload to a consistent level that minimizes perspiration. After all, through sweating, one of your body’s primary methods of cooling itself, you lose moisture through your pores. In hot, windy conditions, you may find yourself tempted to strip down to all but the bare minimum of clothing. Don’t! One of the fastest ways to have water sucked from your body is through convection: those warm breezes will only serve to dehydrate you more. So wear a loose-fitting shirt to slow the process, and get out of the wind if you can. You also lose a fair bit of moisture through your head, so cover it to help slow the loss of moisture, as long as you can do so without overheating.

What about rationing any water supplies you have on hand? Like many topics I cover in this book, this one is bound to spark debate among survivalists. Let’s say you have enough water to drink 8 ounces (237 ml) a day for one week, but you think you may be on your own for two weeks. You have a couple of choices: Drink the water in a week and hope you find another primary water source in the meantime, or cut your daily intake down to 4 ounces (118 ml) and stretch it out for two weeks.

Some survivalists argue that you’re better off drinking the 8 ounces a day, thus keeping the water in your body and your organs fully hydrated. But I believe that if you’re stuck for a long period of time and are unable to find an ample water supply, having those 4 ounces every day can be an incredible physical and psychological boost. Although I can’t prove that physiologically this is the best strategy, personally I would opt for rationing.

STROUD’S TIP

Make sure you have enough water for yourself, given the situation. Make sure everyone in the group has enough water for themselves. Repeat these two lines over and over!

Physiology

TO APPRECIATE THE IMPORTANCE OF WATER FOR OUR WELL-BEING, let me remind you that you should drink a minimum of a gallon (about 4 L) each day, even if you’re sitting in the shade doing nothing. Water is constantly being used by our bodies through normal processes such as breathing. Throw in the extra stress of surviving in the wilderness—which may entail extreme physical activity, perspiration, vomiting, diarrhea, and bleeding as a result of injury—and you can see how the situation can become dire. Even digestion, particularly after eating foods that are sweet or spicy, as well as those high in salt or protein, uses up precious stores of water in our system.

From everything I’ve read, death by dehydration is horrible and painful. In fact, you can start to feel the many adverse physical and mental effects of dehydration after dropping your body’s water supply by as little as 1 percent. In addition to the headaches I noted above, nausea, poor judgment, and depression are all symptoms of dehydration, symptoms you don’t want to be dealing with anytime, let alone when you’re trying to survive in the wild.

Thirst is not a good indicator of your body’s need for water: you may not notice when you need more. While surviving beside a lake in Canada’s boreal forest during a heat wave, I forced myself to drink about 8 ounces (237 ml) of water every hour, whether I felt thirsty or not. This simple act kept me feeling refreshed and even helped mask the hunger pains I otherwise would have suffered, as I had little food at the time. Oh, I was still hungry, but drinking regularly, almost constantly, seemed to take away the pain.

So in a survival situation, setting a mandatory time to drink each day, especially in the winter (when you don’t normally feel like drinking), will help you get past your mind’s lack of attentiveness, itself another symptom of dehydration. If you are not alone in your ordeal, then you have the added responsibility (and sometimes advantage) of looking out for the others in your group. The buddy system used by underwater divers should be used in survival as well. Check others for red or pink skin and excessive sweating, two sure signs of overheating. A dehydrated person will often be slow, clumsy, or withdrawn, and show poor judgment (I must have a lot of chronically dehydrated friends!). This simple test also works well: pinch the skin on the back of the hand. If the pinched skin returns very slowly—that is, does not “snap” back quickly—to its original shape and form, the person is suffering from dehydration. Another sign is urine color. Dark yellow indicates dehydration. And if you are not peeing at all, you are not drinking enough water, period.

Some guidebooks distinguish between mild, moderate, and critical levels of dehydration. Don’t get bogged down in semantics. Dehydration is a quick killer and preventing it should remain among your highest priorities.

Finding and Collecting Water

REGARDLESS OF YOUR LOCATION, KEEP THIS IN MIND: Almost every environment has water present to some degree. Your ability to survive will likely depend on your ability to find and collect it. The more proficient you are at identifying indicators of nearby water, the better off you’ll be.

I separate water-finding and water-collecting methods into what I call primary sources and last-ditch efforts. The amount of water the human body needs to thrive is much more than what you can get by licking dew off leaves or peeing in a hole and distilling the condensed water. If you are going to make it out of the wilderness alive, you will need, often desperately, to find a primary water source.

Locating Primary Water Sources

The best primary sources of water are those that flow. These include rivers, streams, and creeks. If these aren’t available, you have to move on to progressively more stagnant bodies of water. Lakes and ponds are the next best primary sources, followed by swamps, marshes, fens, bogs, et cetera. Snow, slush, and ice are also primary sources of water.

To locate a primary source, your best bet is to study the topography of your surroundings. You need to understand the different indicators of water around you and react to them.

Look at the water source you have found. Scan the shoreline or check upstream for contaminants such as dead animals. The higher the altitude of your source (such as a mountain stream), the purer the water. Remember that even the sweetest-smelling and freshest-looking mountain streams may have an upstream contaminant you can’t see.

Walk Downhill: There are subtle differences among regions, but walking downhill is usually an effective strategy for locating water because it is a sucker for gravity. Valley bottoms are great places to find water.

Observe Changes in Vegetation: Be on the lookout for changes in vegetation, which may indicate availability of water. If you see a place where vegetation is darker or denser than in the surrounding area, there’s a good chance you’ll find water there, even if you have to dig for it.

Watch the Sky: Another small trick that I’ve often used in survival situations (but it takes a seasoned eye) is to look for subtle changes in the color of the sky. Typically, the sky directly over a source of water will look bluer than the rest of the sky, reflecting the water source. And early in the morning, due to moisture content and temperature differences, low-lying clouds and fog tend to congregate directly over a body of water.

Follow Animal Trails: Animals need water too, and their trails may lead you to a life-giving source. If you see numerous game trails, they may even make a formation, much like a series of veins (or like a river system on a topographical map). Where the sections join and create a V, the point of the V will indicate the direction of water. But be warned that following animal trails can sometimes lead you nowhere.

Follow Birds: Birds congregate near water, and the direction of bird flight in the early morning or late afternoon might indicate a source. Grain-eating birds are never too far from water; when they fly straight and low they are usually headed for water. But note that these are subtle indicators and following them doesn’t guarantee you’ll find a source.

Bear in mind too that most wild creatures urinate and defecate in the same place they drink. So once you’ve located a primary source of water, move at least a couple hundred yards from the spot where the game trail meets the water, preferably upstream. Giardia cysts tend to sit closer to the surface of a lake, so if you can weigh a vessel down and send it to the lower depths you have a better chance of retrieving uncontaminated water. A weighted jar or can with a rope tied to it works well. Once you’re sure the vessel is full of lower-level water, pull it up quickly to minimize the amount of surface water that gets in.

Track Insects: If you see insects (especially bees or ants) going into a hole in a tree, there may be water in the hole. Plastic tubing can be used to siphon the water, or a cloth can be stuffed in the hole to absorb it. The presence of swarming insects also indicates that water is near. Bees are never more than a few miles from a water source, although they have irregular watering times.

Use Ice, Snow, and Slush: If you find yourself trying to stay alive in a part of the world or during a season of the year when ice, snow, and slush are present, you have a good source of water at your fingertips, particularly if you are able to make fire. As with many aspects of survival strategy, however, opinions about eating ice, snow, and slush are subject to debate; mine don’t jibe with the prevailing sentiment.

Many instructors will tell you that you should avoid eating snow, largely because it will reduce the temperature of your body, which will then consume precious energy during warming. This is true, but given the vital role that water plays in survival, I believe the opposite. Eating snow and ice will cool your body down and may slightly abrade the inside of your mouth. But if it’s the morning and you’re working hard to assure other aspects of your survival, eating snow can help to maintain an optimal body temperature. And the fact is, you need that liquid.

You have to be careful about eating ice and snow later in the day, though, when you’re tired and the air is cooling off. Eating snow when your defenses are down can do you more harm than good. This applies not just in the dead of winter, but in springtime too—anytime you are eating snow.

The ideal is to be able to melt the ice and snow and even heat it before you drink it. If I don’t have a fire available, I like to fill a water bottle (or similar vessel, or even a Ziploc bag) with snow, and slip it inside my clothing during the day while I work or in my sleeping bag (not touching my body) at night while I sleep. It takes a while for the first bit to melt, but once that’s done, the rest melts quickly. If I can manage to do this overnight without chilling myself, it’s great to wake up to find the water melted and ready to drink.

Water from snow (or rain, for that matter) is very low in salt and minerals, which we need to survive. But that is a longer-term concern that should not affect your decision to eat snow, if you need to, during a survival ordeal. Add edible plants and grasses to your melting pot to help supplement these missing nutrients.

Last-Ditch Water Sources

If you have exerted your best efforts to find a primary source of water and have come up empty, you need to turn to last-ditch water sources, those that may not keep you thriving but will at least keep you alive for a while.

Collect Rain: Most of us have heard about the ravages of acid rain, but this isn’t a concern when it comes to survival: you can drink rainwater anywhere on earth. To harvest enough to keep yourself going, you need to use as big a catchment area as possible and contain the water in some sort of receptacle. If you don’t have a suitable container on hand, dig a hole in the ground. This should hold water for a while, but you will need to line it with clay, plastic, or some other impermeable material, and keep it covered.

Collect Dew: Heavy dew has been known to provide water for wilderness survivors, and there are various ways to procure it.

If you find yourself in an area of long grass, heavy with morning dew, you can make like native Australians and tie rags or tufts of fine grass around your ankles while walking through the dew-covered grass. As the rags or grass tufts absorb the dew, wring the water into a container. Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of this procedure! It is surprising how much you can get. If there’s no long grass in the area, the only source of dew you’ll have is on leaves, which you can lick. Here you’ll run a significant risk, however: some leaves contain oils or toxins that might aggravate your system or cause diarrhea, resulting in you feeling worse than when you started.

STROUD’S TIP

My friend and survival companion Allan “Bow” Beauchamp has a couple of unique water-collection methods that are very effective: Moss cups can collect large amounts of rainwater. Here’s what to do. Cut a large square sheet of green moss and lay this on the ground moss-side up, or, best-case scenario, right on a flat rock. Then, using rocks and dirt, bank up the sides of the moss sheet until you have what looks like a square moss “cup.” Using one large piece is the best and will retain the most water. You can also collect punky wood and leave it out on the ground for the night. When you wake up in the morning you’ll find that dew will have settled in these dry pieces of wood. Simply pick them up and wring them out.

Make a Vegetation Still: Vegetation stills can be used in many parts of the world and require only a few simple components, though collecting the water does demand patience. It can take as long as 24 hours to obtain up to 1 quart (1 L) of water, and that’s under ideal conditions.

You will need some green, leafy vegetation—gathered from trees, bushes, shrubs, or grasses—along with a clear plastic bag and a small rock. Choose a sunny location with a slope on which to place the still, and follow these steps:

1. Fill the bag with air by turning the open end into the breeze or by “scooping” air into it.
2. Remove from your gathered vegetation any sticks or spines that might puncture the bag. Fill the bag half to three-quarters full of the vegetation (or tie the bag onto the end of a branch). Do not use poisonous plants; they will produce poisonous liquid.
3. Place a small rock in the bag to weigh it down.
4. If you have a piece of tubing, a small straw, or a hollow reed, insert one end into the mouth of the bag before closing (remember to tie o? or plug the tubing so that air will not escape). This will allow you to drink the condensed water without untying the bag. Then tie the bag securely shut as close to the end as possible; it’s important to maximize the amount of air space in the bag.
5. Place the bag on a slope in full sunlight. The mouth of the bag should be positioned higher than the base of the bag (which contains the rock), to keep the bag from slipping or blowing away and to keep the water dripping to the lowest point.
6. To drink: If you don’t have a tube to draw the condensed water from the still, loosen the tie around the bag’s mouth and drain. Retie the mouth securely and reposition the still to allow further condensation.
7. Change the vegetation in the bag after extracting most of the water from it, to ensure a regular supply of water.

If you can’t fill a bag with vegetation, tying it to the end of a branch with lots of leaves will do the trick. Just make sure it’s in a sunny spot. If this tree had been poisonous, the water it produced could also have been poisonous. Don’t take chances unless you’re sure of the source tree or bush.

Make a Solar Still: I’m always leery of survival skills that require the effort of digging a hole. Nevertheless, the solar still can be an effective method of collecting water, particularly in a very dry location such as a desert. To make a solar still, however, you need four components: a sunny spot, a receptacle in which to catch the water, a clear plastic sheet approximately 6 square feet (.5 m²), and some type of weight to place on top of the plastic. You’ll also need to dig a hole, so a shovel or trowel would be useful.

You can build a solar still without digging a hole if you are lucky enough to have a large container like a barrel. When surviving on a small tropical island off the coast of Belize, I had at my disposal one half of the large plastic container that my life raft had come in. Using this container saved me a great deal of digging.

Solar stills can take a couple of hours (or more) to make, and their yield is not very high. How much you get depends largely on the ambient temperature, the types of vegetation you include, and access to direct sun. A still such as this may produce water for two to four days depending on the moisture content of the soil or sand itself, and must be moved every so often. The added bonus, however, is that the outside of it also serves as a great dew or rain-catch. You’ll likely need at least three solar stills to meet your daily water-consumption needs.

Here are the steps for building a solar still:

1. Select a sunny site where you believe the soil contains the most moisture. The lower and damper the spot, the better.
2. Dig a bowl-shaped hole about 3 feet (1 m) around and 2 feet (.5 m) deep.
3. If possible, fill the hole with non-poisonous vegetation. Pour salt water, water contaminated with bacteria or urine into and onto the sides of the hole.
4. Place your collecting receptacle (the wider the better) at the bottom of the hole, preferably in its own small hole. Do not let any impure water, salt water or urine get in the receptacle (cup).
5. If you are lucky enough to have a drinking tube (or can fashion one out of available materials), settle it into the receptacle and stretch it out so that it terminates above ground. The tube allows you to step up to the still and drink from it without disturbing it.
6. Cover the hole with the plastic sheet; the sheet should be anchored around its perimeter with rocks or other heavy objects. Place a small rock or other weighted object in the center of the plastic sheet, ensuring that the lowest point of the sheet is now directly above the receptacle.

The idea behind a solar still is that solar energy heats the air, soil, and vegetation (if available) in the hole by passing through the plastic sheet. Moisture from the soil—all soil has moisture—evaporates and condenses on the low point in the plastic. Added vegetation (non-poisonous!), such as leaves, grasses, or seaweed, can help speed up the process, and since solar stills also purify water, the condensed water that collects on the underside of the sheet will be fit to drink.

Creating a Solar Still

1. A last-ditch water-making method, the solar still can produce and purify enough water to keep you going for a while. Place a receptacle in the middle of a vegetation-lined hole.

2. Put a plastic sheet on top of the hole, with a stone over the receptacle. The receptacle under the plastic catches and collects the droplets that con dense from the vegetation.

Water from Plants

The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert live where heat extremes are a part of life. In adapting to this harsh climate, they have mastered the art of extracting water from plants. They are able to travel long distances, seeking out roots along the way, which they cut into chunks and mash. The water they squeeze out and drink helps to replenish them.

The Bushmen know that where there is vegetation, they can find water. But in most cases, the process is painfully slow and produces only enough liquid to wet the mouth. What’s more, for you or me to be able to locate and correctly identify a water-bearing root or plant requires instruction from a local expert. Even then, the chances of finding one of these plants are slim, making it not worth the effort for most people.

Despite my hesitation about relying on plant innards to provide water, there are a few notable exceptions to the rule. Green bamboo is an excellent source of clear, odorless water. Simply bend the green bamboo stalk, tie it down, and cut off the top. Water will drip from the stalk during the night into a waiting receptacle.

Reaching into a rotted birch tree, pulling out the wet, spongy and punky wood and squeezing it in your hands can also produce water. Banana or plantain trees provide water too, if you have a tool to cut one down. Chop down the tree, leaving a stump about 12 inches (30 cm) high. Make a bowl-shaped depression by scooping out the center of the stump; water from the roots will immediately start to fill the hollow. The first few fillings will be bitter, but the rest should be palatable. The stump will supply water for a few days.

Vines can be a good source of water if you can properly identify them. (Poison ivy and moonseed are both poisonous vines, and they’re found not just in tropical jungles but elsewhere.) The most water I’ve ever found in a plant came from a water vine I discovered when I was surviving for a week in the swamps of Georgia.

To extract water from a vine, cut a notch as high as you can reach. Make sure this is the first cut; if you cut the bottom first, the water will recede with capillary action. Next, cut the vine off close to the ground. Catch the liquid dropping from the cut vine in a container or in your mouth. When in the Georgian swamps I simply cut one end of the vine, let it drip for hours into a can, and ended up with fresh clear water (and a few swimming ants).

Some plants, such as the pitcher plant in northern Ontario, act as natural receptacles, catching water in their cup-shaped cavities. But again, you must have had on-site instruction in plant identification to be sure you are collecting water from non-poisonous plants.

The milk from unripe (green) coconuts will also provide your body with much-needed liquid, though it’s not water. While you may survive for some time on milk from mature coconuts, note that these contain an oil that acts as a laxative. However, I’ve survived primarily on coconut water mixed with rainwater for a week in two separate tropical locations without any ill effects.

The following trees (most of which are found in tropical locations) can also provide water:

Palms, such as buri, coconut, sugar, rattan, and nips, contain a sugary, drinkable liquid. If you bruise a lower frond and pull it down, the tree will excrete liquid at the site of the injury. Cut another slice every 12 hours to renew the flow.
The Baobab tree, which is found in the sandy plains of northern Australia and Africa, collects water during the wet season in its bottle-like trunk. Water can occasionally be found in these trees even after weeks of dry weather.
Some of the trees in the banana family can hold up to 2 quarts (2 L) of water at the base of the chevron of their leaf stalks (where the leaves attach to the trunk).

Water from a Well

Remember when you were a kid at the beach and you dug a hole so deep that water eventually started seeping through the walls of your creation? Well, you can use this method to procure fresh water in a survival situation. (If you’re going to the effort of digging a hole, however, and have the necessary hardware on hand, you’d be better off making a solar still.)

I have dug for water in many places, often to no avail, but was successful when surviving in the plains and forested regions of northern South Africa. There, I found a mud-hole contaminated by wild boar feces and urine. I moved a short distance downstream of the mud-hole and dug a small hole in the soft sand. Within a short time I had a hole full of water—muddy, but free of animal feces and bacterial pollutants.

You will need to dig a hole deep enough to allow the water to seep in. How quickly it enters the hole will depend on how deep you dig and the concentration of water in the soil. Once seepage begins, use a rag to absorb the fluid, then wring it into your mouth or into a container. You may find water

wherever green vegetation is found
wherever damp surface sand is found
in valleys and other low-lying areas
at the foot of the concave banks of dry riverbeds
at the foot of cliffs or rocky outcroppings
in the first depression behind the first sand dune of dry desert lakes

Dig in a dry riverbed like this one and you may find water.

What a difference a storm makes! This riverbed was bone dry but suddenly started flowing as a result of faraway rains.

Water from Rocks

No, this is not a misprint! Believe it or not, rocks can be good (though inconsistent) sources of water, even in extraordinarily dry regions such as the desert. Depressions, holes, or fissures in rocks may collect water during rainfall. Any kind of flexible tubing can be used to suck the water from these difficult-to-reach spaces. Some types of porous rock may even act like sponges, soaking up water during a rainfall. You can get the water by inserting flexible tubing into a crack or hole in the rock. But bear in mind that every rodent in the area will also drink from—and likely urinate or defecate in or near—this same water. So if you can collect the water and boil it, you’re better off. Wiping the dew off rocks in the morning with grass or cloth is another method of obtaining water from rocks.

Water from Animals

Fish usually contain a drinkable fluid, although you have to be careful. Large fish in particular will have a reservoir of water along the spine. You don’t want to drink the juice from the flesh, however, as it is very rich in protein, and digesting it actually depletes (rather than replenishes) your body’s water stores.

Gross though it may seem, animal eyeballs contain water. Extract it by cutting a small slice in the eyeball and sucking it.

Water from Urine

Few survival issues cause as much controversy as this one.

Some people are huge proponents of drinking urine—even in non-survival situations! Urine therapy has been used in various cultures for millennia. This therapy involves drinking urine or massaging it into one’s skin for medicinal or cosmetic purposes. During the Renaissance, some people even used urine to clean their teeth.

My feelings on drinking urine? Don’t do it! The primary dangers come from its salt and toxin content (the same dangers apply to drinking salty ocean water). The salt content (about 2 percent) tends to cause further dehydration, so it’s a case of one step forward and two steps back. Urine also contains metabolic waste by-products, such as formal-dehyde, ammonia, and dissolved heavy metals. The less diluted it is, the greater the concentration of the by-products you’ll be ingesting. There are numerous documented cases of people dying from drinking their own urine.

If any case, if you’re already dehydrated, you’ll produce little urine. When I was surviving in the Kalahari Desert, the one time I did pee during the week, I produced very little and it was a disgusting yellow-brown color. A safer option than drinking your urine is using a solar still, as described previously, to distill your urine.

Purifying and Filtering Water

THERE IS ONE HARD AND FAST RULE regarding water purification and filtration: If you have the ability and energy to do it, do it.

STROUD’S TIP

Here is a neat trick developed by survival expert Allan “Bow” Beauchamp, assuming you’re lucky enough to have two large plastic bottles (like a Pepsi bottle) or similar containers on hand:

“Fill one bottle one-quarter full with urine. Tape the mouth of this container to the mouth of the second container. Now lay them horizontal in the sun. Cover the clean container with some sand or soil and leave the contaminated container exposed to the sun. The contaminated container will heat up, causing evaporation. Moisture will migrate into the previously empty, clean container, leaving the residual waste behind.”

As I mention above, rainwater collected in clean containers or from non-poisonous plants is safe for drinking. You should, however, purify water from all other sources. The quickest and easiest way to do so is with water purification tablets, iodine, or chlorine. If using iodine, which has been shown in medical experiments to be more effective than chlorine, mix no more than five drops per quart (liter) of water. Shake well and let the water stand for 30 minutes before drinking. Two drops of chlorine bleach is sufficient for a quart of water.

Note that these quantities are for relatively clean water. If you’re using water that you suspect is contaminated, double the amounts suggested here. You should also increase the amount of time that the water sits before drinking, to give the agents time to kill any microorganisms.

Since it’s unlikely that you’ll have any of these items on hand, you’ll probably have to revert to the old standby: boiling. You should boil water for five minutes to ensure you kill all possible harmful pathogens. Some people say you can get away with as little as one minute of boiling at sea level, adding one minute for each additional 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level. Note that boiling will not neutralize chemical pollutants.

In both Africa and Alaska, I was able to bring water to a boil in plastic and glass bottles. The method is simple and is best accomplished if you have a rope and some long branches. Follow these steps:

Your plastic bottle will become black and misshapen but should not melt through, if you are careful.

1. Make a tripod by propping three similar-sized sticks together.
2. Tie the rope to the top of the bottle using a clove hitch.
3. Suspend the water-filled bottle above a fire so that the flames lick the bottle without completely engulfing it or going above the waterline. Boiling water over hot coals minimizes the risk that your bottle will melt, although this can still happen if the bottle gets too close to the coals. Heat until the water boils; you do not want to overheat the bottle so that it breaks or melts.
4. I suspect some fairly nasty chemicals are released when a common water bottle is heated this way, but I would rather take my chances with them than with the parasites.

Filtration without a high-quality, store-bought filter is not as ideal as purification because filtration likely won’t remove harmful microorganisms from the water. What filtration will do is remove larger matter such as dirt and sediment, sticks, leaves, and any bugs or critters living in the water.

The simplest way of filtering or clearing stagnant, foul-smelling water is to place it in a container and let it stand for 12 hours or so. There are several, more active methods of filtering; most involve letting the water flow through layers of different types of material such as pebbles, sand, cloth, and charcoal. You can layer these materials over a receptacle with openings at either end, such as a piece of bamboo or hollow log.

Construct your filter so that the water passes through successively less porous layers of filtering material over a receptacle. A typical filter might begin with pebbles or stones, followed by sand, cloth, and then crushed charcoal (not ash), which is by far the best filtering medium available. As with most filtering systems, the water will become progressively clearer the more you filter it.

Region-Specific Water Considerations

Arid Regions, Deserts, and Canyons

Searching for a primary source of water should be your main goal, but in the world’s drier places there’s less chance of finding one. For this reason, you’re likely limited to creating stills and ground wells to collect water.

A prevailing thought is that your best bet for finding water in arid regions is to look in valley basins or at the bases of sand dunes. But knowledge of your particular locale may tell you something different. When I was in the Kalahari Desert, I learned that the best place to find water was not at the bottom of the sand dunes but rather at the top. The hills there act like wicking agents and actually draw the water from the ground up. So it made more sense for me to look for plants (which had water in their roots) near the tops of the dunes rather than between dunes, where the only thing growing was brittle grass.

Given the sometimes radical temperature variations that can occur in these areas, you also might be lucky enough to find condensation on metal surfaces in the morning. Use a rag to absorb the water, then wring the water out into an appropriate receptacle.

Boreal and Other Temperate Forests

These areas have primary water sources in abundance. Follow game trails to valley bottoms or use topographic indicators to locate streams, rivers, or lakes. Watch out for stagnant and still water, or areas potentially contaminated with animal feces such as those close to beaver dams.

The Arctic and Polar Regions (cold weather season)

Winter is the toughest time to convince people to keep rehydrating. It’s cold—who feels like drinking cold water as well? Yet I have always found that I am in much more need of drinking on winter treks than in tropical locations.

There are a number of reasons for this. Often your exertion level is higher: walking in snowshoes or deep snow takes lots of energy. And when it’s cold, the very dry ambient air sucks the moisture out of you in much the same way that the desert wind does. I eat snow constantly while I work and travel outside in the winter. Clear and regular urination is the reward, indicating to me that I am properly hydrated. Dehydration in cold conditions also hastens chilling, substantially increasing your risk of hypothermia and frostbite.

Luckily, you are surrounded by all the water you need, thought it’s in an altered physical state. Melting it is your goal, but if that is not an option, eat snow and ice, particularly in the morning or while you’re working hard.

Slush is best for melting because it’s mostly water anyway, followed by ice, which is denser than snow, and then snow. If you’re melting snow, pack as much into your pot as possible. Always retain some water in the pot, as it will make your next melting session much easier.

If you’re not lucky enough to have a pot on hand, there are other (though slower) methods. You can improvise a sack from an item of clothing or other fabric. Fill the sack with slush, ice, or snow and suspend it near your fire. Place a receptacle under the sack to catch the drippings.

Another technique is to place ice or packed snow on a rock over a fire. Hold the ice in place with small stones or other heavy objects and tilt the rock slightly to let the melted water run off. Collect the drippings in a receptacle.

It is also possible to spread snow out on a dark sheet (such as a tarp or garbage bag), and let it melt in the sun and then drip into a container or a depression made in the sheet. This requires the right air temperature, however—not too far below freezing—and a spot protected from chilling winds. You can also use a piece of coiled birch bark and small hot stones to melt snow into liquid, or even warm it for drinking.

If you need to collect sea ice, it’s important to know the difference between new sea ice, which is essentially frozen, salty sea water, and old sea ice, which is a remnant of a glacier that has calved off and is therefore fresh water. New ice is milky or gray in color, does not break easily, has sharp edges, and tastes extremely salty. Old ice, on the other hand, is a distinctive blue or black, shatters easily, has rounded corners, and tastes relatively free of salt. You can lick the salty ice once a day, however, to satisfy your body’s need for that nutrient.

On the Sea or Open Water

Having spent a week surviving in a life raft in the Caribbean Ocean, I understand how difficult it can be to obtain fresh water. Yet for all that I experienced during my week adrift, it was nothing compared to the 38 days that Dougal Robertson, his wife, Linda, and their children endured in 1972 when their boat sank after being rammed by a pod of killer whales 200 miles (322 km) from the Galápagos Islands.

The Robertsons used their ingenuity and intense will to live to survive for five and a half weeks on the open sea. They caught rainwater in the canopy of their dinghy. When the water became dirty and contaminated from the paint peeling off their raft canopy, Linda resorted to administering water enemas to her family with a plastic bottle, which allowed them to absorb it without actually ingesting the contaminants.

Rainwater is an important source of water when you’re at sea. Maximize the area in which you’re catching it, and ensure that your catchment system is clean. Wipe off all encrusted salt with sea water just before it rains. Rainwater is relatively clean and safe to drink (though not completely free of pollutants), so it would be a shame to contaminate it by catching it in a dirty receptacle. You can also use rags to collect dew and condensation from your boat.

When you’re on the open sea, you can readily obtain drinking water from salt water by using a store-bought still or, provided you have the materials, to make an above-ground solar still. To do so, follow the instructions earlier in this chapter but use a large receptacle such as a bucket instead of a hole.

Jungles

Procuring water usually is not an issue in the jungle, as these tend to be extremely rainy places. Locating a primary water source should not be a problem, and harvesting rainwater is also an option.

In the Amazon rain forest, I found that the feeder streams to the rivers were better than the rivers themselves, which were subject to huge variations in height, volume, and turbidity. Rivers in these areas can rise by 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 m) not long after heavy rainfalls, and turn the color of chocolate milk with all the mud and dirt they’re carrying. Feeder streams are cleaner and less variable.

Plants, particularly water vines, and bamboo, banana, and plantain trees, can also be an excellent source of water.

Coastal Regions

If you’re stuck on a beach and have no primary water source available, you can get a good supply from the ground itself by digging a beach well. Walk well back from the ocean’s edge. When you reach the base of the back of the first dune, begin digging. The water you obtain here should be sufficiently filtered by the sand to desalinate it, especially the top few inches.

Should the water still be salty, you can desalinate it yourself, although the process takes a lot of energy. Build a fire and place rocks in it to heat them. Drop the hot rocks in the water still to create steam, and catch the steam in a cloth held over the hole. The desalinated water can then be wrung from the cloth.

Here’s an easier way to find fresh water on the coast: when the tide is out, look for small rivulets making their way to the sea. These may indicate a freshwater stream just above the low-tide line.

Swamps

Though most people find it hard to believe, I don’t have a problem drinking unpurified swamp water in North America. It’s not as clean and refreshing as water from a mountain stream, but it will keep you alive, and that, after all, is the goal. Clearly, filtering and purifying is recommended, but if you don’t have that capability, as I’ve said before, better to drink than dehydrate.

The obvious issue with swamps and bogs is that the water tends to be slow moving and full of muck. But this doesn’t necessarily mean it contains parasites. On the contrary, I’ve drunk water from a clear river that wreaked havoc on my gastrointestinal system and I’ve drunk water from swamps with no ill effects.

Obviously, you want to filter swamp water as best you can, to minimize the sediment and dirt you’re ingesting. At a minimum, you should let it sit for 12 hours, so that the heavier stuff settles.

If you follow a game trail to a swamp, it’s especially important that you collect your water a good distance away from where the animals congregate and do their business.

As I mentioned in the Coastal Regions section, you can also use the earth to filter swamp water by digging a pit about 50 feet (15 m) from the edge of the swamp. The water that fills your pit may still require filtration, but it should be cleaner than swamp water.

Mountains

Mountains are good sources of water, especially in temperate climates. Depending on the season, snow and ice may be available for melting or eating. Snow lingers long into the summer at higher altitudes, particularly on north-facing slopes and in hollows.

Water courses are fairly obvious on mountains, so it shouldn’t take more than a few moments of surveying the topography for you to determine places where there’s a regular flow. Look for deep fissures and valleys in mountainsides where water accumulates after precipitation. And if all else fails, follow the mountain down to the nearest valley where you’ll increase your chances of finding water.

On mountains, water often collects in deep fissures and valleys such as this one. Here, I’m drinking straight from the source.