Google Video about building your own survival kit
Wilderness Survival: Building and using a wilderness survival kit

The speaker (Robert Nielsen) is pretty entertaining and gives a few good tips but due to lack of time (and of lack of focus) he didn't really go into a lot of detail on survival kits or explain the methods. Presumably he is a search and rescue tech. /w wilderness EMT training.

There were few parts that stuck out in my mind:
1) When using a signal device like a chem-stick make it more effective by making it larger - whirling it in a large circle. Yes it makes common sense but no it wasn't an immediate idea that came to my mind. We usually think about chem-sticks as just providing a little light but enlarging the focus by whirling it (or a small flashlight) makes your signal a much larger and more obvious target.
2) I am left eye dominant and right handed (really screwy looking when I try to shoot a bow and arrow!) so when mirror signalling I should hold my right hand out and use the mirror with my left eye to aim for the best accuracy.
3) Don't keep food/sweets in a survival kit in bear country because you may forget about having it but the bear may be able to pick of the scent.
4) Some good thoughts about "don't expect to sleep" in a survival situation and how people create their own "fears".
5) "What makes a good survival personality" discussion was interesting - I don't KNOW if that it is true. An in-depth analysis would really interesting.
6) His perspective on the usefulness of having matches in a PSK was surprising - his advice may be relevant for a non-survival expert who doesn't know much about making fires in the first place.
7) His ideas about epi-pens. "Carry min. 2 and 4 is realistic." I don't know about your area but locally they are about $96 ea. where I come from and since they have a 1-year expiration, keeping that many epi-pens is not cheap! (Perhaps buy 2 epi-pens every 6 months and rotate them out as the expire? Use the freshest ones first during an emergency.)
8) Mature snakes have better control over the amount of venom they want to inject. Small/immature snakes may give you more venom than a adult rattlesnake.
9) His defensive tactics against cougars MAY help but realistically IMHO if you actually SEE a cougar you are just a half second away from being attacked.
10) I was about ready to call him wrong on the urban legend of avoiding bears by running downhill but then I realized he was turning it into a joke and running from bears is a bad thing period.
11) Using a family secret phrase that kids will remember that might help in doing a search & rescue the little ones. I'm not a parent but I can see how that would assist in creating confidence in a scared kid and allow them to be found from their hiding places.
12) He had a number of good hints about not getting lost.
13) He turned the rule of 3s into a rule of 4s. How useful is that - not really.

HINT: You can download the video and Google's video player to watch it at a later date. The image/sound is much better as it runs in full speed and is not dependent on your ISP connection speed. I have 5 Mb download and even still the downloaded video is much better.

Just watched it. Highly reccomended. He's obviously a professional ( and a wilderness EMT) with a lot of knowledge. I learned at least a dozen new things.

Teacher

PS Does anyone know how to get ahold of him?

He also demonstrated the use of the AMK Heatsheet. The suggested pouch for his idea of a PSK
looks like the pouch of the Pocket Survival Pak.

I liked the chemlight part where he attaches it to a piece of paracord and swings it above his head to make the signal appear larger from a distance (for signaling aircraft, for example).

Personally, I don't use matches so I agree with him to lose the matches, however I don't understand why he says not to bother building a fire? He says that if you can't get the fire to light up, the disapointment of not being successful with it will make your morale worse. HUH? I don't understand how this guy can be an experienced wilderness EMT and a SAR volunteer and say that.

He didn't recommend anything after saying "don't bother with matches"... I would've teached them about the Spark-lite, a BIC lighter, a firesteel with something to strike it, but hey.

How can he tell people to give up on building a fire?

He was good but it could have been better. The fire thing was one. He said the brain runs on glycogen, which isn't true. It runs on glucose...from whatever source it can get it...including carbs, fats, protein.

His presentation seems to be really random, really stream of consciousness. He clearly knows quite a bit but would be more effective in transfering that knowledge if his presentation were a little more organized.

I dunno if I like the concept of carving off your own chlorine from a chunk. Doesn't seem very idiot proof even in the best of conditions. A bottle of iodine tablets, while not as good as Katadyn, is still very inexpensive and there's less of a chance of over/under dose, although you still might have to think about it if your water container is not a quart/liter.

I'm not trying to sound critical, I enjoyed watching it.

sorry this is a test post. I've been having trouble posting.
Wow I can post again.

I agree. He was a little disjointed. It may have been his first presentation though as well. AS far as the chlorine tabs go; I dont see that as being a cheap alternative. If one purifies 1000 gallons of water, and you have a jug containig, say, 200 of them, thats about enough to purify your own water for quite a while. When a bottle of tincture of iodine costs $3 or so, you get a MUCH better deal on that.

Mors Kochanski teaches how to survive about a week without fire in the cold weather of Canada by focusing on clothing. I don't have much experience actually in survival and wilderness living but there must be a point here, in that fire is important but maybe not to the extent that we may think.

Frankie