Underestimated Survival Skills That Will Save Your Life When the SHTF

Whether you’re thinking about the basic skills that might be needed to deal with a sudden emergency in daily life or planning to survive the collapse of civilization, there are a number of talents that can be very handy when everything goes bad quickly. It’s easy to think that having a cell phone on-hand and car with enough gas to get you to the next state will be enough, but that supposes that someone will be there when you call or when you arrive. In most cases, it’s better to have practiced those survival skills before you need. Let’s take a look at a handful of survival skills that don’t get the credit that they deserve.

Sewing

Sewing can seem like such a simple and boring thing, so why would a survivalist ever need to know it? Survivalists are big and cool types who go off having adventures. People who sew are grandmas, right?

Imagine one day you’re out in the woods, taking a long hike. You fall, and the sharp edge of a rock rips your leg open. It’s bleeding profusely, and you realize that you have to get it closed up right away. Sewing the wound is the first order of business under such circumstances. (Meaning with a suture kit, not a needle and thread.)

Sewing also comes in handy when you need shelter. You can take pieces of fleece fabrics and stitch them together quickly into a tarp or a tent. Clothes are also likely to get ripped or worn out, and a person who’s good with a needle can make repairs quickly.

High Angle Rescue

Being able to go down a cliff can be a surprisingly useful skill, even in the modern world. This process is more technically know as “high angle rescue,” and it’s used all the time to recover people who’ve fallen down holes, over the sides of cliffs and into other places that may be hard to access. It’s a skill that requires serious practice in advance of real-world use, and you should never attempt it without proper training. If you want to truly be good at this skill you can hire safety consultants to teach you about high angle rescue and all of the ways in which you can be trained to be the ultimate prepper.

Hunting

In a long-term survival scenario, you’re going to need some protein, and that ultimately means that you’re going to have to kill something to get it. Eventually, all those nice fleece fabrics you have for exercise are also going to wear out, and one of the quickest ways to get new clothing is to take it off of the back of an animal. In most scenarios, the animals probably aren’t going to be standing around waiting to be sheered.

Hunting is another skill, like high angle rescue, at least in the sense that you don’t want to have to figure it out on the fly. That means obtaining a weapon and ammunition learning how to put them to use. Whether you intend to use a gun or a bow and arrow, it’s wise to become familiar with the weapon. Take a training course and find a target range, and when hunting season comes around, go out in the woods with a knowledgeable person and kill something.

Gardening and Raising Livestock

Hunting requires spending a lot of energy, and there’s a reason that settled human populations eventually overran everyone else who hunted. Gardening is, at its base, subsistence farming. Growing your fruits and vegetables not only saves you from having to hunt as much, but it also provides nutrients for your diet that you might not otherwise obtain. Just as sailing vessels at sea once encouraged their crews to avoid scurvy by consuming fresh fruits and veggies, your garden can save your from crippling diseases in a time of deprivation.

Raising livestock is also a worthwhile enterprise. In a difficult survival scenario, smaller animals represent smaller risks. Stick with animals like chickens or goats in order to avoid the dangers of being gored by a bull.

Preservation

When you have lots of food, it’s prudent to prepare it for those times when you expect to have nothing. There are a slew of ways to keep foods for longer periods of time. Canning preserved fruits and vegetables is still popular in many rural cultures. You’ll also be amazed to learn how many ways there are to preserve meat, from drying it out with smoke to packing it with salt.