Winter is always the "most wonderful time of the year" unless you happen to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere and literally up to your eyeballs in snow and ice.

How are you going to locate food when you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere in the cold dead of winter?

If the weather is bone-chilling cold, you can always choose to take the easy way out simply by throwing up your hands in defeat. In other words, you can simply choose to die of starvation, dehydration and hypothermia, etc., or by some combination thereof ... or you can choose to stay alive by using the brain that God gave you.

In the end, you can choose to lay down and die OR you can search your memory bank for some of those clever and ingenius methods of food procurement like the kind of stuff that you can still remember discussing in that great survival forum on the internet(www.equipped.org).

Lay down and give up ? No sir. We're not going to give up, not now and not ever! Instead of giving up, we're going to set a trapline, we're going to bait a fishline, we're going to forage for edible wild plants, etc. We're going to do whatever it takes to stay alive, even if it means doing things that might be considered "quasi-legal" if they were carried out under normal circumstances.

As a last resort, I daresay that some of us would even resort to eating "exotic" stuff such as insects.

The question then is HOW are you going to procure food given that even the native Indians had a difficult time living off the land and surviving in the dead of winter?

LW.

Great topic, and one I have been thinking about as well. Here are a few resources:


Year-round plant use by the coastal Miwok Indians of California:

http://www.friendsofcortemaderacreek.org/cn/miwokplants.pdf

Another California harvesting calendar:

http://www.primitiveways.com/harvesting_gathering.html

A more academic source re winter plant foods:

http://www.herbvideos.com/ewpindex.htm#west%20woodsp://


I'm thinking survival would be tough without securing sources of animal fat. Trapping and hunting suggest themselves as necessities.

For most of us medium-sized, fat-bearing critters that are easier to butcher and cook, but not life-threatening to harvest, would be the better targets unless you are desperate, experienced, etc. I'm thinking beaver, racoon, opposum, etc. over rabbits and squirrels. Otherwise bigger game like deer, bear, moose, elk, etc. would be more substantial resources.

And cooking as stew or soup instead of roasting to capture all nutrients and fat.

Thoughts?

Always keep a couple of fat friends around.

As far as food goes, there's a reason many natives died of starvation during the winter if they weren't able to stock up enough food or something happened to their caches. Getting food burns calories and if you burn more than you end up finding you'll be screwed that much sooner.

If you do find yourself lost and foodless during the winter there's a few things you can do:

1. The inner bark of many trees is edible, especially pines, firs, elms, beech, willows, maples, and basswood. Oak and cedar inner barks should be avoided.

2. Young buds of many trees, especially maple, basswood, and beech are edible.

3. Only two of the over 10,000 lichens are toxic, the rest are edible WITH PROPER PREPARATION. Lichens are very acidic and this acid must be neutralized before you can eat them. The easiest way in the woods is to boil them up with some hardwood ashes. The sodium hydroxide (lye) from the ashes will neutralize the acid.

4. Any bird is edible.

5. Pretty much any mammal you find in North America can be eaten. Mouse, vole, and chipmunk bones can be eaten after they've been boiled for a while. Like Izzy said, suck the marrow out of larger bones.

6. Pine needles tea, willow twig tea, rose hip tea, etc... They won't give you much in the way of calories but the more warm fluids you are putting into yourself the fewer calories your body needs to burn to keep warm.

Those are off the top of my head. Like I said at the beginning, you need to make sure it doesn't cost more calories to get the food than you receive from the food.

-Blast

I resemble that remark!

What about reptiles, we must not forget them. Might be hard to find (calories spent vs. calories gained), but good source of protein.

Fishing also comes to mind.

Yes, but do you find gators where there is a "dead of winter"?

To me, it means you've already gone below zero (US zero, not simply freezing) several times, and there is a bunch of snow. You are going to have to know the plants, and hope you can fish/hunt/trap. Of the ravens get a snack in April when you thaw. *laughs*

That is why you prepare with proper supplies and communicate your intentions to others, while carrying signals and fire and shelter making gear.

If it gets that cold here in DFW, the people will think it is TEOTWAWKI for sure. I just put the shorts up in the last two weeks. We all have to prep for where we are. I remember winter training at Ft. Drum NY thinking I would be in deep doodoo if I had to forage without being able to hunt/trap/fish. It was hard enough finding the ground under the snow to build a fire, much less find edibles.

Decaying wood generates some heat and might contain insects and larvae. (mmmm) Wood facing the Winter sun's path in the sky (South in the Northern Hemisphere) would be the warmest and have the most probability of munchies.

You might even be lucky enough to have chestnuts roasting over an open fire!

Well, today would be one of those dead-of-winter kind of days here in Southern Manitoba. Temps are at -28 C right now and the windchill is the equivalent of -43 C.
If caught outdoors, fire and shelter would obviously be the first priorities ... but a warm tea made from pine needles or rose hips would help keep the chill off and supply you with some vitamins.
Food wise, hunting, snaring or fishing would be the best bet. Red Squirrels, Whiskey-jacks and other small birds are usually plentiful in the Boreal forest, and could be hunted with little more than a few good sized rocks or throwing sticks.
Snares set along rabbit runs are an effective way to hunt 24 hours a day.
Pine nuts can either be gathered direct from the trees or like many times while out hunting, I have come across caches of them left by squirrels.
Winter survival can be tough up here, but it can be done.

OK, so at the risk of losing my ETS membership card I have to ask a few, perhaps dumb, questions:

- I love pine nuts (from the store). Are these found on the pine cone? If so, how does one "open" the cone and get them?

- Pine needle tea? What, just boil some water and toss in some needles (I assume green)? Any set ratio (ie, 20 needles per ounce)?

- Blast, you mention the inner bark of several trees. After 6 years living outside of California, I can now identify a birch tree. So, by the inner bark, you mean all the stuff inside the outer layer?

Yeah, I've pretty well neglected plants in survival thinking. I probably should go outside and play with the cattails that grow everywhere around here.

Since it is the dead of winter in Detroit, remember to wear your paracord knit cap to keep your feet warm.

Methinks it's time for Sir Blast to publish a book. I too have left the wild edibles sorely neglected.

Is there any "One Book" that is recommended reading?