About the Authors

John and Geri McPherson have gathered wilderness skills, to some extent, for their entire lives, John growing up in the Appalachian Mountains of New York State and Geri in the woods of Minnesota. They continue to live on the homestead that they have built (log home and outbuildings, outhouse, no electricity, gravity-fed water), beginning in 1978. Their focus has been the primitive side of outdoor and wilderness skills, and since the mid-1980s they have been writing about and teaching what is presented in this book. “Survivorman” Les Stroud trained with them on two occasions during the early 1990s.

They have been featured in many local, national, and international media over the years, including Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, Backwoods Home Magazine, The History Channel, National Public Radio, and Voice of America TV. Their writings have appeared in other media, as well. Known internationally as leaders in the field of primitive skills, John (eight years a paratrooper) and Geri McPherson are in their fourth year of teaching these skills to the survival instructors of the U.S. Army Special Operations Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school.