I am posting this topic because I want to hear other peoples experiences and opinions on what they think about it. How long could one person survive in the wilderness if they had training, pocket survival kit and few knives on them. I 've gone on many wilderness survival trips in Northern Ontario and it's not easy to survive in there even if you have a survival kit on you. My question is do you think that anybody has a chance to survive for 1 year in the wilderness ? I say no ,at least not in the wilderness of northern canada.

I know I couldn't. But remember, the PSK is for the "survived small plane crash with filed flight plan and help's on the way" scenario.

Remember that Natives used to live there. Define training though. I've spent over $10,000 dollars in training and spent as much time as possible using the skills.

I've spent time with only a knife and the clothes on my back.I would say I'd have a 50% chance of making it for a year by myself if I was dropped off in the early summer or spring. If I was dropped off in the early winter I'd say it drops off to 3% or so....and I would likely make a POW look like a stuffed turkey.

I'm talking about the areas south of Timmons mind you. Much further north than that there isn't as much variation in flora and I wouldn't feel as comfortable with my odds.

If you have the skills you're set. Know that there are STILL natives living as hunter gatherers up there.

-NIM

Groo's nailed it right there. PSK's are short term survival aids only. They're used to help a person survive until help arrives, or until one can make their way "out".

As you touched upon, trailrider, Long Term Survival is also going to be relative to the locale one finds themselves within.

The most time I ever existed in such a situation was 7 days during a "training exercise". It was in a prime spot in the Blue Ridge mountains. To this day I still say God, Luck, Ancestral Spirits or whatever you prefer were on my side because everything went right, especially where procurring food was concerned. At one point I made a joke about throwing together a tripod and working up a fire to dry all the meat I was getting and the "instructor" made a face the likes of which I hope never to see again.

It also would have been a very different story if during that time I would have been required to be on the move

In any case, if it appeared that I was going to be in an LTS situation, my BOB would be with me, and I think my plan would be to make it to a spot where year round survival would be a somewhat easier prospect.

Yes it's true that natives still live up there but they live in communities and they have guns and snowmobiles in winter, for a lone individual with a knife and few survival items it would be next to impossible, even in the old days when an Indian was banished fro a tribe as a punishment for something that individual would die alone it's the community of people that allows them to exist and survive there.

Your post has the tone of a strawdog argument. If you don't believe you will not only survive, but thrive please write a last will and testament on your 3 sheets of Rite in the Rain with the golf pencil before opening a vein with the x-acto blade. Personally I would initiate the STOP acronym and then emerge a year later with a first nation wife and baby , 30 lbs overwieght on a dogsled pulled by a pack of wolves. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Wow. So many variables. 1 year to "survive" is quite a while. A well-equipped person could survive a year or longer if well-equipped meant ample shelter and a reasonable food and water supply for the period. Other than that, I would say no, probably not. I just don't think a normally-equipped PSK is going to be enough to survive a winter in northern Canada.

Now, if the question is, how LONG could a person survive in the wilderness in northern Canada . . . If their PSK included sufficient shelter or a method of making/obtaining shelter and food and/or a way of obtaining food and water then who knows. A week? A month? Perhaps longer. Shelter, water and food are, of course, the three essentials for a stay of much length. And the more training you have the less "stuff" you probably need in your PSK, but the three essentials of sufficient amount/quantity/quality will definitely make a difference.

Our public television station ran a program called "Alone in the Wilderness" a while back which featured a man who spent more than a year in the wilderness of Canada or Alaska or someplace like that. He spent the summer building a cabin (he was a terrific craftsman with the hand tools he had) and then just hung out in the winter. I believe some supplies were flown in. He chipped ice each day in the nearby lake keeping a hole large enough for his water bucket to pass through. The fire in his fireplace kept him warm even at 50 below. Very interesting documentary. He WAS well-equipped!

Assuming, of course, no exposed surface deposits of kryptonite.

And... a couple of novels written on reindeer skin parchment. You gotta do something on those lonely nights when the wife isn't in the mood. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Guess I'd better be thinkin' on the scale of, say, the collected works of Shakespeare. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />