Foreword

It was 1989 and I was a punk kid attending a major primitive living skills conference. Toting a smelly deer hide, I walked up to him and asked his opinion about softening the skin based upon advice I’d just been given by another instructor. It was my first brain-tanned deer hide and I wanted it to be perfect. After listening to me ramble on, he looked at me quizzically, cocked his head, and said, “Son, we don’t really care how it ‘looks’—we want it to work.”

This was my first encounter with John McPherson, and his words of simplicity and practicality have rung through my head ever since.

Years later, the world’s interest in relearning indigenous living and survival skills has grown by leaps and bounds. Whether it’s a new magazine article, book, or TV show, more and more people are exploring the art of primitive living skills and self-reliance. Yet, as in any other “craze,” many who have dubious credibility in what they preach are eager to feed upon the body of this growing interest. Legions of media producers and editors who have zero experience in survival skills give their two cents’ worth about what it means to “survive in the bush.” Many of these productions not only are ridiculous in their format, but are filled with errors that, if taken literally by a starry-eyed and naïve public, may very well cause their demise.

Little by little, the simple, commonsense survival skills that kept every race alive upon the planet were being sensationalized in order to sell one more book or gain one more viewer. Commonsense reality had turned 180 degrees into a shameless bureaucracy of company-sponsored deception that honored how a survival skill “looked” rather than whether it “worked.”

In similar fashion, on the educational front line, well-intentioned professors lectured students about how indigenous peoples lived, even though the vast majority of these professors had never even camped in the wilderness—let alone created fire with sticks, a canteen from a gourd, or a sleeping mat made from cattail.

Over time, the repetition of survival assumptions, half-truths, or outright lies became an all-too-trusting public’s “truth” about outdoor survival and primitive living skills. The majority of the public didn’t care (and still don’t). A plethora of survival books, as well, have been written by authors who are not survival instructors; and, judging by their works, they haven’t bothered to try out the supposed lifesaving skills they regurgitate upon the page. Even more common are survival skills practitioners who, while proficient in many physical skills, don’t psychologically live what they teach. This “walk-thetalk” concept goes much deeper than simply doing a hand drill every other morning while living in the city. It is an all-encompassing life attitude that affects every decision one makes in their quest to do more with less. All indigenous living skills revolved around people becoming more self-reliant within their environment. The quest for the all-important calorie ruled the day, and there was no time or consciousness for complicated, flashy skills that didn’t put meat in the pot. In essence, truly living a self-reliant life (whether the lifestyle incorporates literal “stone-age” skills or not) demands a lifestyle commitment on all levels that few can stomach.

I can count on one hand the number of survival instructors I know whose passion for survival skills includes living a self-reliant lifestyle. On this hand are John and Geri McPherson. They practice what they preach—psychologically and physically—and have done so for a very long time. The Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living is a pioneer in the field of no-bullshit primitive living skills and is loaded with practical, time-tested tips, tricks, and photos that manifest only from many years of “doing it.” True to John’s advice given to me nearly two decades ago, this book is written in a style and spirit that embodies primitive living skills that really work.

 

Cody Lundin

 

Cody Lundin is founder and director of the Aboriginal Living Skills School and author of the best-selling books 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive! and When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes.