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Are we still the same people who lived completely self-sufficiently in nature thousands of years ago? Who at that time produced, gathered or hunted everything they needed to live by themselves, and who managed to survive the ice age without any form of technology? Could we also still manage to do the same today, or have we become pure “civilization people” in the course of time?
This question is more present today than ever before, as a glance at current horror news about energy shortages, climate change and possible world wars makes clear. And indeed, more and more people are looking for ways to prepare themselves for a possible catastrophe in such a way that they can still lead a pleasant and happy life afterwards.
Back to nature, the home of our ancestors
One possible solution could be to re-learn all those skills and abilities with which our ancestors were once completely at home in nature. For even though we like to speak of “wilderness” today, the forests, meadows, mountains and steppes of this earth were once our home, where we could move around as we do in our neighbourhood today. Even today, we like to speak of “Mother Nature” because for thousands of years she was just that for us: a life-giver who provided us with everything: food, shelter, water, orientation, recreation, entertainment and much more. Neither nature nor we humans have changed much since then. We have merely forgotten to recognize the riches and treasures that nature has in store for us, and we have forgotten what we need to do in order to not only survive outside our civilization, but to live a happy, fulfilled and enjoyable life.
Wilderness survival training: relearning old knowledge
In order to be able to relearn all these old skills that have been forgotten, there are special wilderness and survival trainings all over the world. A survival training is a kind of course or class that prepares participants for survival in the wilderness. Through theoretical and practical exercises, people learn how to meet their basic needs such as food, shelter and water in non-civilised areas. Participants have to learn how to find natural resources and use them properly in order to be able to satisfy your basic needs. In this way, one can already acquire basic knowledge that enables one to survive in an emergency situation in the wilderness. However, this still has nothing to do with a comfortable life in nature. For that, you need a lot of other skills that you have to acquire over a longer period of time: Tracking skills, hunting methods, tanning hides and making clothes, building tools and weapons, and much more. To learn these skills, there are special long-term and specialized training such as bow-making courses, workshops on making clothes out of leather, or training where you learn to build teepees, yurts, or log cabins yourself. Long-term training start with a so-called “One Moon”, where you live self-sufficiently outside in the forest for a complete lunar period (28.5 days) and learn from a mentor everything you need to become native here. But there are also even more intensive and extreme courses, where you spend a complete year in the wilderness in Canada or Africa, for example.
How can I find suitable wilderness or survival training for me?
There are countless wilderness and survival schools worldwide that offer courses, seminars, and training in all variations. Unfortunately, there are also huge differences in quality, so it is difficult to know which training courses are really worthwhile and which are a waste of time and money. To make orientation a little easier, there are some wilderness school networks where you can find a very good overview of the whole range of wilderness courses and survival training. These usually also have very good quality controls, so you can be sure that you are getting really high-quality courses when you book them here. A very extensive and reliable network in Europe is Heiko Gärtner’s wilderness school network, which operates mainly in German-speaking countries, but also offers many English-language courses and is active worldwide.
Conclusion
The answer to our initial question is: Yes, we are still the same people who survived the Ice Age with nothing but a few stone tools, campfires, and furs. The only thing that makes us different is that we have almost forgotten the old skills and knowledge of living in nature. However, we can learn them again and prepare ourselves for a life with and in nature, whether for the joy of being outdoors or as training for the extreme case. The only thing we need is a good survival trainer with whom we can go into the wilderness together and learn important skills.
