The headline and first paragraph in the link below, at first glance is a bit misleading but the accompanying news story provides a more detailed narrative of a hunting couple who shot and wounded a moose then get lost trying to track the moose. Once they find it, the moose is skinned and the hide is used to keep the couple warm overnight at temperatures around the freezing point.

A married couple who spent a cold night lost in the woods of western Newfoundland shot a moose calf and used its freshly skinned hide as a life-saving blanket.
Steve and Sheila Joyce of Steady Brook, N.L., were hunting Tuesday afternoon when they wounded the animal and then became disoriented while tracking it through woods between Corner Brook and Bonne Bay.

As dusk fell and the temperature dropped to a few degrees above freezing, they realized they were hopelessly lost.

That's when they suddenly came upon the wounded calf and killed it, a recovering Sheila Joyce said Thursday from their home.
She recalled saying to her husband: "That's a godsend. We could skin it and use the skin to keep warm. And through the night we both kept speaking about how we were so thankful for it.v"We never would have made it through the night because we were both wet, shivery and cold."

Link to full news article.

I have never been to that province, so I googled it to see the landscape and found this video. I hunt remote northern forests with my wife too, and my concern about sheltering in a fresh moose skin is bears. Apparently Newfoundland is known for huge black bears. I don't understand how a couple can hunt the northwoods and not have at least a lighter between them to make a fire. They were lucky that they survived the cold and did not get attacked by a black bear in doing so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhg5sOsS_pg

Probably not a good idea to put aside your survival pack, either.

Since they were tracking the animal, why could they have not backtracked? With a wounded moose and two trackers, there should have been plenty of sign. Of course, i have never tracked in those woods.....

What? No map? No compass? No clue?

Hope I not being too hard on them (newspaper articles are famously inaccurate about anything connected to wildness), but it sounds like they went out without much in the way of the basics.

Good move on the Moose "blanket" (although the bear issue could have been very, very bad), but some basics like navigational gear might have prevented even one night in the bush.

HJ

Exactly! How can they even camp without preparation? It's just insane!


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This get's a Thumbs up from me,they did with what they had where they were.The bears are drowsy,if not hibernating.They learned a Good Lesson,& I'll bet they will be advocates for being prepared to their friends/relatives & that is a Goodthing!

Wow. Just wow. Kudos to them for being resourceful but being prepared would have been better. Apparently they traipse around the wilderness with less gear than I carry when going to class.

I read it as they had gear but left it behind to track, thinking that they'd come back to the gear once they found the animal. I'm not a hunter but many of my friends who are seem to do the same thing. They sacrifice preparedness for lightness and mobility, thinking of the tracking as a minor detour where nothing could possibly go wrong. Not being a hunter, maybe I just don't get it, but the post-shoot period seems to be the most dangerous part of the hunt to me - wounded animal, other predators, and an adreniline rush.

not only that, the woman apparently had no survival gear, making the mistake of assuming she and her husband will always be together and he would have the supplies.

This is why I went away from a survival "kit" and go with pocket carry. A kit gets left behind with the rest of the stuff you don't want to be burdened carrying. What's distributed in your pockets is on you, no real convenient way to leave it behind. Take DR's PSP apart and stow the parts in various pockets and you have a pretty darn good EDC.

I have kits, but they're much bigger than typical micro/mini survival kit where you compromise to make everything fit in a certain form factor like it's a game. GHB, Truck/96 hour kit yada yada yada, but if I'm out traipsing around in the backwoods, those small items of survival are in my pockets.

Lost??? Doh, compass/map/GPS (with truck waypoint) -- more stuff that was inconvenient? Haven't we had this conversation?

Great story, lots of lessons.

Regarding the couple, good on them for doing their best despite poor planning. They say that good judgment comes from bad experience, so I expect their judgment has just gone up a notch.

So glad it's sleepy season for the bears. Imagine being wrapped up in a fresh, messy moose skin when a bear shows up... ugh.

Reminds me of my maternal grandfather, from Bay Roberts, NFLD who used to sing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Martha%27s_Sheep

They ignored the Basic Rule of survival: If you take survival gear with you, you won't need it; if you don't, you will. Don't tempt Fate.

Sue

I teach my daughter (and practice myself) NEVER walk away without your fanny pack (contains survival gear) on, not even to go pee in the bushes...

Even after preaching that for years went on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters area of Minnesota and left my fanny pack in the canoe while we got out to drag the canoe up some small rapids.

I slipped in knee deep water and soon as the water hit my flotation vest, I got swept down stream. My daughter (further down stream from me) fished me out with a paddle as I floated past her.

Didn't travel far at all, but how quickly I found myself out of control (except being able to turn myself around to fend off rocks with my feet), wet,and away from my gear with nothing but my minimal survival gear in my pockets (knives, multitool, lighter, magnesium block, compass, etc) scared the hell out of me. Now I NEVER (REALLY) take my fanny pack off.

Experience is a harsh teacher.

Moving water exerts tremendous force. You were smart to have that gear on you. It would have been uncomfortable, but you probably could have survived with just those few things for a while.

Great info SamHain, thanks for sharing that. Glad you were OK.

A thought: how secure are the items in your pocket against getting washed out when tumbling in fast water? Something to consider.

i keep a big ditch kit in my PFD,more about that later.
while not as bad as the mountains the canoe country up north can have a lot of hazards.i'm surprised that more are not lost or killed.

Really glad you were OK Sam!

"Deep Survival" has numerous stories about how this type of tunnel vision when under stress is hardwired into us.

Preparations do go far, but, as the book describes, emotion is a far more powerful determiner of our responses than reason. "The best laid plans o' mice and men. . ."

Susan, I've got a similiar saying: You won't need it till you don't have it.


Samhain, My lesson was somewhat less painfull then yours. I went out with only a flashlight looking for an overdue hiker. It died as soon as I got into the trees. I made it back to basecamp, and he spent the night out. Thankfully he was a gear hog and didn't have to rough of time.

Good point Glock-a-Roo.

I keep everything "dummy corded" with a braided paracord lanyard secured to my belt.

One of the men on the trip with me lost his Leatherman sheath and all off his belt on the same stretch of rapids.

Looks like you got it covered bro! Good job.