Earth's Wildest Places / Top Dozen.

The World's Wildest Places, -There are still Plenty! Here is my list of what I consider the Top Dozen, followed by that of my Own top 12.

All Lists are in a Descending Order,-from my Favorites on "Down".



The WORLD'S TOP 12 WILD PLACES -

- 1. Oceans Worldwide, both Undersea and Surface.

2. Antarctica and It's Icesheet.


3. Caves, -Undersea, Ice, and All Remaining Land Ones.

4. The Greenland Icecap.

5. The Highest Mountain Ranges the World Over, especially the Andes and Himalayas / Tibet.

6. The Sahara Desert, including it's Tibesti and Other Mountain Ranges.

7. Papua New Guinea and West Irian.

8. The Central African Rainforest. ( Congo-Zaire )

9. Australia with it's Deserts, Outback, and Great Red Center.

10. The Amazon and it's Basin / Watershed.

11. The Arctic Ocean with it's Large, Virtually Uninhabited Islands.

12. Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter.



My Own Personal Top 12 World's Wildest Places-

1) The Sahara, 2) The Andes, 3) Antarctica, 4) The Himalayas and Tibet, 5) Caves of All Sorts, 6) Woods and Forests Everywhere, 7) New Guinea and West Irian, 8) The Greenland Icecap, 9) The Amazon, 10) Siberia, 11) The Wilds of Canada, especially it's North and Rockies / West, and 12) Patogonia and Tierra del Fuego. ( Along with it's Cape Horn, of course.)

Some Important additional personal Roundouts would be, (in also generally descending order), Kamchatka and the Kuriles, Iceland, Venezuela's Tepui Tablelands, China's Sichuan-Yunnan Area, Borneo-Sumatra and Other Indonesian Jungles, Australia and it's Outback, the Atacama, the Gobi and Sinkiang, Alaska and the Aleutians, the Great American West, the Kazakhstan Area, the Caucass Range, Madagascar, the Ethiopian Highlands, the Wilds of Maine, the World's Oceans, and Isolated World Islands, ( Kerguelen, Etc.)



Now perhaps Working from these Lists as an additional Aid, -What would be some of Your's? ( It Need Not be as many as a Dozen) Along the Lines of " 10 Greatest Tools", What would be Your Favorite Wild Places?, from Across the Face of our Still Vast, Wild World? [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

Scott, How many of these places have you visited? What was your experience there? Are you planning on visiting any of the others? Any clue how one would prepare and equip themselves to survive in any of these locations? Anything specific that you would add or substract from your current EDC if you were planning on visiting any of these locations?

Anyone else - same questions?


p.s. - Great, simple, on-topic post! I'm sure it will spark some interesting discussion.

Well, while Long and Always filled with that Traveler Spirit, I've done little actual traveling so far, and for Not all that Far. This is Due chiefly to being of small means for much of my life. Perhaps I've been there in Spirit many times!, but Not in actual Reality.

Not that I havn't Traveled any now! I've occassionally have been from Boston to NYC, (This only on a Late Night, Underground, Amtrak pass thru, so it was quite essentially no NY experience at all.).

I've also been to Philly, (The Liberty Bell a Highlight.), to Atlantic City and the New Jersey Pine Barrens, to Erie, to Cleveland, Columbus, Cincy, Wild Wonderful West Virginia, and Washington DC.

Onward across Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Richmond, Thru North Carolina, Westernmost South Carolina on one occassion, Myrtle Beach on another. Also to Northwest Georgia and the Atlanta Area, (including Stone Mountain of which I've already Fondly talked on.)

And an Airline Flight from Hartsfield to Orlando and Back, and another Round Trip Airline Flite from Cleveland to Tampa on another occassion, to the Kennedy Space Center, Alligator Alley from the Naples FL Area eastward to the Miami Area, then from there all the way down the Keys to Key West.

That's the Extent of my Traveling. Enuf to Feel that I've finally got to do some Real Traveling for Once! But still limited to the Eastern U.S. only. I've never yet been out of my own Eastern Time Zone, I havn't even yet been across the nearby border and Lake into Quite Nearby Canada. -I'm Thus Not International yet.

But No, Due to my usually limited means, I Havn't Really gotten into any Far Away or International Travel yet! But that takes Nothing away from that Traveler's Spirit and Mindset!, that I'm so Imbued with! From This, as well as from my Great Love of the Great Outdoors, and a Geographical "Globe Consciousness" -Do I come up with my list of the World's Wild Places, as I have! But No, I unfortunately have Not actually have been able to be at any of these Places yet! So I Cannot yet give any such Firsthand Accounts of Experience.

But I certainly Do plan to Get Out and Do some more Traveling, in my Lifetime! -Farther and "Better" kind of Traveling, of course.

Crater Lake, Oregon!, for instance, is a Must on my To Do list! This Spando Lake and National Park, has Always been More than a little Special to me! I've of course seen many a Photo of it all my Life!, I've Read About it, and Such! Gotta Go See that Place for myself!, Sometime! And I've Slated and Resolved that I Will!

The Grand Canyon is yet Another! President Teddy Roosevelt said something about that being the Site that every American ought to Go See! But that's not specifically why I want to go, I'd Want To Go just as Much, even had he Not said a single word.

Then of course there's Bryce Canyon, Arches and Zion National Parks, the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, and Many Things Else!

And as I say in the Thread, "Walking Around the World", I've got my Mind and Heart set on, -Someday Making a Trip Around the World myself!, -though again, Not by Walking!

I'm Gonna at Least Get to the Canary Islands!, Thats Quite a Place!, as my personal Likes and Tastes Go. It's substantially More of a Draw for me than even Crater Lake! The Azores is another Great Place, as is Madeira.

Yes, I certainly would Like to also Get to at least one, maybe at least some, of the World's Wild Places as I've mentioned,- sometime in my Lifetime! I may yet be able to Do so, or I may Not. Better of course if I Can. But even if circumstances have it that I do not, that's basically Allright too! I'll Continue to be Well Knowledged and Spirited of These!, as Always! Others will have to be Consulted, for Direct, On Scene, Impressions, regarding the World's Wild Places as I've mentioned.

I will Address your Asking of Survival Aspects and Implications of such Worldwide Wild Places, in another Post here in this Thread, -Towards keeping this one here from going on too long! It will Come. I'll also there talk some on, various Climatic, Geographical, and Etc Characteristics of these Areas, which Determine so much, their various Survivability Aspects.

I'll now go back to my original Wild Places lists, to mention some of my Topmost Places from such!, that I will Really Like to perhaps Someday be Able to Go to!

Concerning Antarctica, that Great Southern Ice Continent!, -I'd like to someday at least get down onto it's Palmer Peninsula. This may well not get beyond an Ideal, but it would sure be Nice to someday be able to go! I've Always had a certain Like and Love for Antarctica, and All the Great, Spandiferous Exploration as has Gone On there! Scott, Shackleton, Byrd, McMurdo, Amundsen, the Volcano Erebus, Ross Ice Shelf, -You Name It! This is some 90% of the World's Ice, as is the Next Item on my List, Greenland and It's Icecap, coming in at some 10% of the World's Ice. And It is quite comparatively Near!

I Want to Get Into a Good Cave or Two!, sometime. I've already been to my own local Laurel Caverns, Unique in it's Own Right. The Untouched Pristineness of Caves!, is Something Else! Of course there are Great Survival and Safety Factors in Caving too! How many Cavers might we have in our Gang?!

The Andes sometime?, Yes! as well as Venezuela's Tepuis, -Great and Unique, Mesa like Tablelands! There's a Good Number of those down there, as well. This is where Angel Falls gets it's Fame. And I'd also like to Take a Good Stroll, Deep in the Unadulterated Amazon. These and Other Latin American Aspirations, such as Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, -Do have some Actual Chance, of someday Actually Coming About!

I'd Really Love to Go to the Sahara, That May or May Not some day Come About. Papua New Guinea and Indonesia's West Irian, is essentially the same story. Australia Stands a Slightly Better Chance. Ayer's Rock and the Olgas, are Musts there! Saudi Arabia's Rub al Khali, or "Empty Quarter", I believe is Out! The Typical Westerner Can't even get into that Country!, No Derogation to Them Intended. This EQ is an Extension of the Sahara, in a general sense.

Siberia is a Possibility, of someday being Gotten To! It's Not All that Far over the Water, from Alaska's Nome and Seward! And Alaska and Canada aren't terribly inaccessible or anything from here themselves! Kamchatka!, to which I'd also Really like to Go someday, is less likely, but Still Possible!

Iceland!, I Really Want to Go there someday! And Well May! It's reasonably Near, and Icelandair Flites aren't all that costly or Difficult to Get!

Chances are Good that I won't get to various Isolated World Islands, but some of that remains on my Ideal Wish List! (The Canaries there Don't Count!, I Sure Want to be Going There!, and Quite Likely someday Will ! )

The Great American West!, the Adirondacks, Mt. Mitchell, and the Wilds of Maine certainly are at some time, gonna be within my Reach!, and I'll someday be so Going!

Due to Travel Limitations and Distance, I Havn't Been to any of Those Wild Places yet! But They Remain quite Fondly in my Heart and Mind!, I can in the Meantime Know and Familiarize myself with Such Well. And Someday when Possible, So Go! I may well be Going to One or a Few of These!, at some point. Of course Not to All of Them, -Save in Heart and Mind!

This is All for now! The Other Part concerning Survival Aspects shall come later. Again, I Don't want this post to be any longer than Neccessary! But I Want to Address your Points, and Answer your Questions too. Perhaps I could have done it with fewer words, -on this one, I'm not so sure about that. Concerning Survival Aspects, -I'll say right now, is that this still Newcomer me, is Not yet all that up on Kits and the like, though I've a Good Nodding Familiarity on them by now. So I'll be mostly Addressing the Environmental Conditions affecting such Survival Aspects. This is All for now.

Once Again, -My Regrets on my Length. I Don't plan to make a Habit of it!, and I've Cut a Good Page and a Half or so of it Off, in my Additional Editing. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]miniMe[/email]

As I said in Part One, I'll be Addressing the Survival Aspects of this Thread, here in Part Two. This is in the interests of Space Saving, Towards keeping a given post from getting longer than I'd like. I'm now Addressing and Answering such Survival Aspects here. However, my written out ruff drafts show that even this second part, may become as long as the first. Thereby, I'll divide this up into several Parts / Posts, as well. - "Cold" , "Arid and Desert" , "Jungle and Forest" , "Mountain", a brief one on "Caves", another brief one on "Swamps", follwed by another brief one on "Steppes and Grasslands" , to wrap up with "Oceanic". This post right here, is a general Introduction.

I also mentioned there in Part One, that I'll now be covering primarily the various Geographic, Climatic, or Other Environmental Conditions of such Wilderness Areas. In how they bear so much on Survival Aspects as they do.

Once again, I am still a Relative Newcomer to many of the Nuts and Bolts of Survival and Preparedness Gear, -our many Kits, BOBs, and whatall. And judging from the many Back Posts I've read, I'm Far from the only one. However, from reading such Posts, I've got a pretty good Nodding Acquaintence with them by now. But I by No means claim to be a Knowledgeable Expert or Such, in that particular Area yet. That shall come. Or at least I shall come to move a Lot Farther in that Direction.

Meanwhile, I Do have at least a Good Sense and Knowledge, of Other Areas and Aspects of Survival. Such as given Geographic Areas and their Conditions. I won't here Address particular Equipment Issues, but I will Address Areal Ones and such. These are some of the Other, Many Great Aspects, of our overall Survival and Preparedness Onions!

And so I'll be Addressing primarily these underlying Survival Related Conditions, here, regarding Earth's manifold Wildest Places. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

Here begins my mention of the Cold subareas of the World's Wildest Places, as they bear on their various Survival Aspects therein. It's in turn composed of several Subareas, beginning with the Antarctic and it's Ice Sheet. So gather up your Polar and various other Cold Wear and Gear!, -for that is the World's Wild Survival Focus, to which we shall now Go!

ANTARCTICA And IT'S ICESHEET - Antarctica, -a Very Very Cold, Windy, Bleak, Isolated, Desert Dry, Often Dark, and Mostly Lifeless, High Altitude Ice Continent! That's what she so very much is! Throw in Virtually Uninhabited as well.

If any places qualify as Truly among Earth's Last Wild Frontiers,- Then this all too often Forgotten corner at the very Bottom of our Planet, has got to be a Top Ranker among them! One of our Greatest Wild Places!, One of our Greatest Survival Challenges!

For Starters, it *Is* the Coldest place on our Planet! And by some Comfortable Margin. It so Outpaces even our North Polar Arctic and Siberia,-as Cold as we know those places to Surely Get. A Reading of Negative 128 . 6 Fahrenheit was measured at Antarctica's Vostok Station,-July 21, 1983. This is near what is known as Antarctica's Cold Pole,-it's Coldest Area, which does not neccessarily coincide with it's Geographic South Pole. ( It's Southern Hemisphere Locale, of course explains the *July* reading.)

Now thats just the Coldest we've ever measured. We've only been making readings for something like a Century. We can be pretty sure it's gotten even Colder, perhaps many a times, in the thousands and more of years before we ever arrived on it's scene. But -128.6 F still says it pretty well!

And this is before we even begin to talk about Wind Chills! The Likes of Hurricane Force Gales regularly blow down there!

And then there's the High Altitude effects of it all!, to Add in. The Continent with it's Icecap is typically around some 10,000 Feet Above Sea Level.

And then you have an entire, long Half Year of midwinter Darkness!, to have to contend with!

( Still, as Cold as this is, -Our Planet is Balmy Warm, -even here!, Compared to how Cold things can Get, and Do Approach being, out in the outer Solar System, for example. Things can conceivably get as Cold as -459.67 Degrees Below Zero Fahrenheit,-Absolute Zero. Were this to occur here on Earth, -I'd venture that you'd need a Mega Raging Bonfire, just to give you a Good Campfire's worth of Warmth! But Antarctica's Far Warmer Cold being considered Balmy?, -We Sure wouldn't consider it so here on Earth! )

At least there is plenty of water there, though in frozen form. And Fresh Water at that! Though you have absolutely No Firewood!, Nor Tinder or Kindling, in which to try to Melt it with, for thousands of miles around! The Continent is something like the size of the U.S. (with Alaska and Hawaii) *and* Half of Canada. With additional thousands of miles of Ruff Cold Seas, before you even begin to arrive at decent sources of Firewood! And you Sure Want one for plenty More than just Melting Ice for Water! Now Off along the Distant Coast, you might be lucky to find some Penguin Down, for Tinder, -but thats about it!

This Same goes for the Great Non-Availability of Shelter and Shelter Materials! In the Vast Antarctic Spaces, -You're Out in the Open! And we think our Great Plains Midwinter Winds Howl Hard? Try Down There! In some locales, you might be able to use Rocks or Ice Chunks to some extent, for Shelter. You more often may be able to build Snow Shelters or Igloos, and such like. But Forget Wood or other Plant Materials!

( I was Amazed to once have read in the National Geographic, of Antarctic Explorers actually being able to Smell Vegetation wafting on over!, from Distant South America! But come to think of it, I suppose that this could actually take place! )

Clearly, Were you to Suddenly find yourself Stranded somewhere in the Midst of the Antarctic, say in a Trans-Antarctic Airliner Crash, (Survival here a Tall Task in Itself !), -Your Immeadiate and Urgent concerns, after Crash Extrication and Medical concerns, would be Warmth, Wind Protection, and Shelter. Closely followed by a Light Source, especially if you Find Yourself Amidst the Mid Antarctic Darkness, -along with Signaling, ELTs, Navigability, Water, and Food.

Whats left of the Aircraft, along with what you find from it's Debris Field, may Very Much be your Main, or Only, Hope of Shelter. You might be lucky enuf to get some Firestarting and Fire Maintenence Materials out of that too.

You'd be even more fortunate to have any Food at all ! And here, -you're gonna Really Need It! Even if you just Sit Tight at the Plane Wreckage, and Not Heavily Exerting yourself. Let Alone if you are! Shud you have to Walk yourself Out! 2000 Daily Calories in the Temperate Mid-Latitudes can equal a 6000 Daily Demand, Down Here! You Need that, -But Where and How are you going to Get It? Forget Hunting, Fishing, Gathering, or Trapping!, -except maybe around the Far Off Coast! You'd be extremely lucky to even sight an Overflying Bird. Much Less Catch it! You just might be able to Scrap Up some surviving bits of Food from the Plane Wreckage.


BTW, I would save what additional, combustible materials, as I can, from being Reached and Uselessly Consumed by any Crash Started Flames! You're gonna Need these too! Grab some loose Seat Cushions and the like, that may be Lying about nearby, as you make your Exit. Don't just leave them sit there. Grab such to the extent you can!

Get one or more ELTs going, in the event none is Doing so already.

Get a Shelter quickly Together with what Wreckage you can.

Get a (Sheltered) Fire with what Firebuilding Materials as you may thereby be able to Access, a Going.

Begin Melting and Storing your Water, from the Heat of such Fire.

Bundle up Additionally, from what Surviving Chlothing, as you may find from the Wreckage / Scattered Baggage from the Debris Field.

Get Hold of any Surviving Light Sources from the Crash. This will Likely Result, if at all, from your initial Firelight Source. You'd Need some form of Light anyway, in order to Search any surrounding Debris Fields.

And Have some of your Combustibles and other Materials Ready to be Put into Play, for Signaling Purposes, on a Moment's Notice!

And Beware of Sudden Whiteouts popping up! Use the Buddy System, Whistle, Keep Talking or Shouting, Improvise some sort of Tether. But Don't Lose yourself, from the Site and Everybody Else!

Concerning Food, You may well have to Resort to Cannibalism. Of course only of those who have already Passed, or Shall Naturally come to Pass, shud be such Food Source Means. You Not Only have the Demands of the Moment and of the Site!, -But you may well have the Demands of a Long Journey Ahead of you! What Napoleon said of an Army Marching on it's Stomach, applies No Less!, Down Here! Speaking Purely Frankly and Factually, those who have Already Naturally Passed around you, ARE by Far, your Greatest Food Source! Avail Yourself of It! Do NOT just let it Pass You By! This may be the ONLY Food you have!, on your Long Journey to the Coast!

This is Precisely what you should Do, if you Judge that you Must make a Walk for It! Head to the Coasts! Or to Inland Scientific Stations. To the Nearest One(s) you can Ascertain and Gather. Far More Scientific Outposts are there along the Coast, than Inland, and even there along Coastal Waters, They're Quite Rare. But even if you Don't Happen upon a Station, -Your Food Availability goes comparatively Way Up here!, as oppossed to Inland. -Here at the Coast, and in it's immeadiately adjacent Waters. Though Food Gathering here too, may often be well Short of Easy!

Also, You'd be in the Warmest Parts of Antarctica, though this too is Relative. Especially if you shud be Fortunate Enuf to Reach it's Palmer Peninsula, it's Greatest Northward Extension. ( In Antarctica, -you Want to Go North!, Toward the Equator! ) But even here, You're still in a Tundra!

Also, You have the Greatest Chance of Rescue and Getting Back in Touch with Civilization, here at the Coasts, than anywhere else!

Watch Out, however, for things like Cliffs, Crevices, Bad Footings, Inrushing Cold Sea Waves, Hypothermia, and Getting Cast Off Seaward on a Breakaway Ice Floe, -Here at the Coast.

These are the sorts of Utter and Urgent!, Life or Death, Make It or Break It!, Survival Imperatives and Conditions one would Face!, if one were Unfortunate Enuf to so Find Themself Stranded!, in This Coldest!, of Earth's Wildest Places!

Remember if Nothing Else the Three Words "Warmth", "Shelter", and "Fire", -First and Foremost!. If This or Anything Like It!, -Shud ever so Unfortunately Befall you! Followed by but a Hair Behind, -by "Wind Protection"!

And May such a Truly Terrible Occurrance / Survival Imperatives as This, -Never Occur to Anyone!

This finishes the Antarctic Subportion of this. The Greenland Icecap as well as Other Subportions of EWP Survival Aspects COLD, will follow in other posts, towards keeping the Lengths down. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

This is now a Continuation of "Earth's Wildest Places,-COLD", which will now deal with "The Greenland Icecap"

THE GREENLAND ICECAP,- In many ways, this is quite similar to Antarctica. Some Notable Differences exist also, which Bodes somewhat Better, for a Survival Situation.

One of these is the Added Advantage that you'd have, in there being Far Less Distance to Travel to it's Coasts. For Greenland, -even as still the World's Largest Island, is yet Far Smaller than Antarctica.

Here too, you would want to head downward onto it's more Lowland Coasts. In many locations, you may have some Large Ice Cliffs, or Bare Rocky Mountainsides to Descend, in order to do so. Plus the ever present Dangers of Ice Crevices, Shiftings, and so on. If you successfully do so, you then have the same sort of Coastal Advantages, and Dangers, as mentioned earlier with Antarctica. As well as Much the Same Dangers and Survival Imperatives in the Greenlandic Interior!

For Greenland too is a Massive, Sprawling, Icesheet! It contains a Full 10% of the World's Ice! It's about as High and Thick as the Antarctic Icesheet. Some Two Miles Worth, in each case! It only Pales in Square Area, of such Sprawlance.

Antarctica contains some 90% of the World's Ice, to Greenland's 10% or so.

And Antarctica's in something of a Colder Position, Astronomically and Geographically speaking. But Not terribly much more so!, -Greenland Runs Up with it, Respectfully Enuf!

If Stranded and Forced to Survive thereon, You here too, Shud Do very much as you'd Do in the Antarctic. The Same sorts of Survival Imperatives, The Same sorts of Survival Practices and Priorities.

I'm sure that Wind is Much of the same concern, Temperatures are largely in the same league, High Altitudes are much the same here too, and you've got the same Half Year, Midwinter Long Darkness, as well!

Distances are only Friendlier, though. They are generally Much Shorter, in that this "Green" Land is Much Smaller.

Substantially More Population exists along it's Coasts too, as oppossed to Antarctica. Though this also is only Relative. There's No such thing, as a Greenlandic Eastern (or Western) Seaboard! And the Greenlandic Interior is as Entirely Uninhabited, as the Antarctic Interior, or some of the Earth's Other Wildest Places, -Are.

More Sea and Air Traffic, occurs along the Greenlandic Coasts, than over the Antarctic, as well.

And I think there's even more Coastal Animal Life, in the way of Seals and Birds, than you might find along the Antarctic Coast. There in the Antarctic, you might be Limited to it's Great Penguin Colonies only.

So though Much the Same, a Greenlandic Survival Situation Does have some Distinct Advantages over an Antarctic One.

Greenland and it's Icecap are incidentally Quite Surprisingly Near! At least from where I now type from in this World. ( the Northeastern U.S.) Thousands of Giant Icebergs Calve from it every year, Making for an Iceberg Alley that I am even Closer to. I've heard of the Very Loud Crunching Grind sound that they make!, as they come in say to the Newfoundland Coast! It must be Really Something to Behold and Hear!

Refer to the Previous Antarctic COLD Survival Post, for more specific Survival Techniques, Practices, and such. In that so Much the Same Applies here, as there. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

-THE ARCTIC OCEAN / NORTH POLAR ICE PACK- Along with it's Tundra, Permafrost, Isolated Large islands, Etc.

In ways this is a Cross between Oceanic and Antarctic Survival Conditions. As well as with all the well known, Standard Arctic, Mountain, and Cold Weather Survival Areas.

( Mountains of course Don't exist on the Arctic Ocean itself, -the Vast Majority of this Area. But they do exist on many of it's large islands, and surrounding Continental Land Masses. So even Mountain Survival Aspects figure in here.)

Here you have Not Only nearly Antarctic Cold, Wind, and Half Year Darkness, -but you've got to also Deal with Shifting Ice, Crevices, and Pressure Ridges as well! These can be Quite Large, -They are Nothing to just Pass Off or "Sneeze At".

For you *Are* on an Ocean now, though it's a Polar Desert type one as well. Unlike the Antarctic Continent literally on the Other Side of the World, from here. The Altitude effect is thus World's Apart as well. Sea Level here, some 10,000 Feet ASL down there. But this is Small Consolation, in this Other Polar, End of the World.

Though perhaps a Tad "Warmer" than Antarctica, -It's still well Colder than Siberia, -and it's only All Too Well known how Cold that Gets! Our Arctic North Pole is even Worse.

The Cold as it Is!, the Ice Block Filled Frozen ocean surface!, the Howling Winds!, the Months upon Months of Total Arctic Darkness!, -No Wonder it is Totally Uninhabited!, -No Wonder it is One of the Earth's Foremost Wild Places!

And it's just as Large and Extensive, as it's Great Frigid Partner to the Earth's South. This is No "Sneezeoff" either!

And it's All just Above us!, -Not Really all that Far Away! ( At least for one's as me, here in the U.S. and North America. As well as Forum Mates in Russia, Siberia, Northern Japan, Iceland, Greenland, and the Scandanavian Countries.)

It's of course the Source, of our Frigid Winters. This Vast, Empty, Forgotten Area, certainly Does have it's Direct Effects on U.S.!

I now type from ruffly Halfway between it's Central, Northern Pole, (Hint,-certainly Not it's Edge!), and our Earth's Equator. In fact, I'm a Little Closer to our Equator, - 5 Degrees Closer.

Where I once Lived in SW Pa's Washington County, -I was Not too far above the 40 Degree Parrellel. Now I'm at ruffly 40 and a 1/2 North. Taking the more Southerly Figure, ( Home is Where the Heart Is!, and Mine's certainly Back There in the Country! ), -We'll go with the 40.

This is a Whole 9th of the way Closer to the Equator! ( An 18th, if you're considering the Entire Pole to Equator Distance.)

And still our PA Winters get a Lot of that Arctic Ocean Cold coming Right Down upon us! Somewhat Warmed relative to Where it's From!, Yet often Cold as a Son of a Gun, as Far as we're concerned.

We Don't have to go too much further South, before much of these Arctic Effects disappears. But you often wouldn't know it up here! ( I know Quebec and the Area below James Bay gets Plenty Worse! )

I'm a Bit Substantially *Closer* to the Equator!, -yet this Arctic Wild Area of our World Effects me so!

And there's Much More Land and Sea Surface Area in our Equator and Tropics, than there is in Both of our Polar Areas combined. Still the Cold North Winds Blow further South, than from these one might Logically Think!

It's uniquely Interesting in it's Own Way, to actually Live nearly Half Way exact between one of our Planet's Poles, and it's Equator, -come to Think of it! I mean, for much of the World's Population, -What are the Chances?

Point here though is, is that I'm literally in Arctic Climatic and Survival Conditions, in our Winters, -even this Far South! As well as Tropical and Subtropical Ones of our Mid-Latitude Summers. Such is Another Characteristic of our Temperate Zone and Climate, when you really Think about it a Bit. ( I mean we're Not a British or Pacific Northwest Marine West Coast Climate.)

The Arctic is a Quite Near and Very Effecting, Typically Totally Forgotten Wild Area!, in other words! Such is our Arctic Polar Zone and Ocean.

Being an Ocean, and a usually Frozen One at that, -It may even be a Bit "Easier" to Extricate yourself from the Midst of Antarctica! (See such Post in this Thread), -Than from Here! At least Down There, -You're often on an Icy Plain or Plateau! Here in the North Polar Zone, though, -Foot by Foot, Mile by Mile!, -You've got Major Ice Blocks, Pressure Ridges, Crevices suddenly Opening Up on you!, Etc! On Top of Everything Else! Much More Difficult Going and Footing! As Bad as the Opposite Antarctic Footing too, can be!

For Survival and Extrication Aspects, -See what I,ve mentioned earlier under the Antarctic. Much of it's Quite the Same.

A Major Difference, is that you've got to Climb over Many Major Ice Blocks, and Avoid / Cross / and Round Crevices and the Like, the Whole Way Down!

And you're once again on an Ocean, -Not Ice Clad Continental Land! As with our More Familiar Freshwater Lakes, -One can always Crash or Slip thru Thin Ice, into this Very Frigid, Saline, Hypothermic Drink!

And you can Always Find yourself Cut Loose, on a Drifting Ice Floe too! And it can Drift North!, -Not South, where you'd Prefer to Go!

This and Pressure Ridges, -There's Nothing like this in the Antarctic South! With the Notable Exception of it's Great, Surrounding, Ice Filled Seas. Just Recall what happened to Shackleton, and his Ice Trapped Ship! But the Great Southern Ice Continent, and the Great Southern Ice *Ocean*!, -Are so Not the Same!

And That's just the Great Northern Ocean. The Arctic also has many Major, Bare, Bleak, Cold, Windswept, Mountainous, Utterly or Nearly Uninhabited Islands. As well as it's great Tundra Coasts.

Svalbard or Spitzbergen. Novaya Zemyla and it's Matochkin Shar. Canada's Baffin, Ellesmere, and Other Queen Elizabeth Islands. Wrangell. Franz Josef and the New Siberian Islands. Jan Mayen with it's Active Volcano. The Siberian Taimyr and Chuckchi. The Kola and Norway's North Cape. Alaska's North Slope. The Rocky,Wind Swept Faeroes. Iceland's "Fire and Ice" just "Below the Circle". And the Greenland Icecap Itself. The Kara, Barents, Beaufort, Laptev, and Bering Seas. Great Rivers by the Names of McKenzie, Yukon, Ob, Lena, and Yenesei,-Flowing On into It! Ptarmign and Permafrost. The Arctic is Far More than just it's Ocean Alone!

Survivalwise, You Face here a Frozen, Muddy, Treeless Tundra!,-Depending on Season. Which is of course Far More Winter, than Anything Else! You'd want to work your way South, into the Taiga and Boreal Forests! And so more often be working your way *Up* Rivers, rather than Down, here in these Arctic Parts. And Watch Out for that Spring and Summer Blackfly and Mosquito Seasons!

Nearly Last but Not Least, -When your in the Water and Not Contending with Ice, -You're in the Ocean!, on the High Seas! All Normal Ocean Survival Aspects Apply. On Top of All Else. Add Superfrigid Hypothermic Waters to that Too! Unlike many of the World's Oceans, You often may have Plenty of Ice Chunks to Grab On to for Flotation. But that is Both Literally and Figureatively, -"Cold Comfort"!

The Little Thought Of Arctic! Such a Topmost Earth's Wild Place! At Once Oceanic and Polar. Lucky to Rank an Afterthought!, If and When it even gets That Much at All! Yet it Really and Directly Affects us so Much! And Along with it's Great Antarctic Sister to the South, -It Counts as one of our Greatest Survival Sun of a Gun!, Sorts of Challenges! See it's Antarctic Sister, once again, -for Much of That!


P.S.--And Finally, on Places like the Former Soviet's Novaya Zemyla Islands, -You've got some Real Manmade Mess to Have to Contend With!, even Up Here! The Soviets tested a Lot of Nuclear Weaponry up there, including by Far the Largest such Explosion ever, (Around 60 or 61).! The Place is as Radioactive as All Heck!

My Regrets and Apology on my Unintended Length once again. I Did happen to do it in 4 (Viewing Frames) this time, rather than earlier " 5 ish " ones. I'll Shoot more towards 3 - 3 1/2, in Future Longer ones. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

KAMCHATKA And THE KURILES - This Large, Sparsely Populated, Volcanic, Great Outdoors Area, is one of my more personal Favorites.

It is an Eastern Extension of Siberia into the Pacific. Much like Siberia in many ways, It's also Different in Others, with a Character All it's Own.

It's well separated by a Vast Arm of the Pacific, -The Sea of Othotsk, on a Peninsula and Island String of it's Own. The Tip of our Alaskan Aleutians come Quite Near it's Northeast. Indeed, it's Final two islands, the Kommandorskis, are Russian. (As is Kamchatka and Nearly all of the Kuriles. The very Southernmost are Japanese.) From a Narrow Northern Neck joining the Kamchatka to Siberia, the Peninsula stretches and expands, then contracts again, in a smooth, tapered, oval, -for Hundreds of Miles to the South-Southwest. For most of this length, Siberia is Hundreds of Miles More to the West, across the Sea of Okhotsk.

Finally, from it's Southern Tip, the Kurile Island Chain stretches an equal distance even more Southwesterly, to Northernmost Japan.

Another Rather Large Siberian Island, Sakhalin, also almost touches the Northern Japanese Island of Hokkaido, from a more Northwesterly Direction. It too, is a very Unspoiled, Sparsely Populated, Great Outdoors Area.

In Fairness to Nearby Japan, They Feel that many of these Islands are Japanese, not Rushan.

Like Kamchatka, the Kuriles are quite Actively Volcanic. As with Iceland, Hot Springs and Geothermal Sources Abound. This and Volcanism extend Down Along both "K"s, from One End to the Other. Earthquakes are a Very Distinct Possibility here, as well. It Sits right along the Pacific Ring of Fire.

It may be a Little Bit Warmer than Siberia, but it still gets Pretty Darned Cold! This is True even Despite it's more Southern Latitude, for a North Area. It's at the Same Latitude as the Canadian Prairie Provinces. We all know that those aren't Exactly Warm. The Kuriles just Below are at the Latitude of Washington State and Oregon. Even at it's Far Southern End, -Japan's Hokkaido is described as having a Wisconsin Climate. And the Bulk of Kamchatka / Kuriles, goes much further North. Being Astride the Pacific Helps too, towards Climate Moderation, but this is the North Pacific. I know Not whether Warm or Cold Ocean Currents Predominate here.

Kamchatka is a Land of Crisp, Clean, Forest, Moors, Meadows, Rivers, Lakes, Spongy Land, Volcanos, Steam Pits, Mountainsides, Glaciers Possibly, Fish, Game, King Crab, and Bear!

Few Live here, though it can Support Life. May it Always Stay that Way!

The Kurile String is Much the Same, minus the Forests. Far more Bare Rock takes such place.

Over here in the Northwest Siberian Pacific, -Opposite the Aleutians and the Bering Sea, -Kamchatka and the Kuriles are in a Deep, Wild, Forgotten Backwater of our World!

Survival there combines Cold, Forest, and Mountain types. Also Ocean, especially Beach and Shore, and Island, and "Smaller Area" Survival Aspects, Come into Play.

( By "Smaller Area" Survival, I'm speaking of how Smaller, though still Large Islands of the World, New Guinea, Madagascar, and Etc, often Don't have Large Animals / Mammals. Or if they Do, they are often Distinctly Smaller versions of such. The Keys Deer comes to mind. It has to do with the Food Supply, and Other Survival & Life Demands.)

To Survive in the Kamchatka, and perhaps even Thrive!, -You must Know and Practice Cold Survival, and Forest Survival.

Mountain Survival is also Very Much a Given, Though Much of the Peninsula's Broad Eastern and Western Bulges are Not all that Mountainous. It's Towering, Challenging Mountains, Runs their Length in a Central Spine. If you want to Cross from one Side to the Other, you've got to Know and Go Over those Mountains. (Unless you're a Pilot or can get a Plane Ride.) Being so Actively Volcanic, -Volcano Knowledge and Safety / Survival Savvy, -would come in mighty Handy as well.

On the Plus Side, -Volcanic Areas often = Very Good Soil! Kamchatka's rather Far Northern location, -can also = a Short Growing Season, though. Again on the Plus Side, it's Northern Locale allows Long Summer Daylight Hours!, Right Within your Growing Season. Next Door Alaska, is only All Too Well Known, for it's King Sized Vegetables!, for this very Same Reason. I'd Bone Up on Plants and Gardening, and Save and Bring in Seeds with me!, -Before even Going. As well as bring Clear Plastic and Other Materials, with which to build Greenhouses and Such. Dark Plastic too, for Mulch Purposes. Find a Good, Suitable Spot in which to Grow your Garden. Being so Sparsely Settled, -This shud be No Problem. Not even for Plenty of Good Rich Bottomland! -Such Already being so well Taken,-in so many Other Areas of the World. Make Use of that Rich Volcanic Soil ! But Take Care to Stay Clear, of Likely Lava Flow Paths and the Like!

Make Sure you're able to Fish as well! And Take Along a Firearm and Ammo, Sufficient to Protect yourself from an Occassional Encounter, with their Equivalent of the Grizzly or Alaskan Brown.

You may want to proceed Eastward or Westward, to either Coast. To a Greater Chance of Sighting or Rescue. To a Greater Augmentation of Sea and Shore Life, to your Food Sources. Of course on a Downside, you Face the Added Danger of Coastal Storms. But you can Always Move Inland somewhat, during such Times. You're also quite Far and Comparativly Safe from much of the Volcanic Danger, there on the Coasts. Except for where they start Drawing back in toward the Mountains, -the further North or South you get, from the Center.

At least a Few Words of "Get By" Russian, -could come in Handy and Helpful evry now and then. Though it can be Quite Rare to even Run into Anybody, here in this Wild and Free Land! Some Words and Phrases in a Local Native Language, such as Koryak, -can likewise be Helpful and Handy.

I might also want to Work my Way South!, -Toward Warmer and Much More Populous Japan. Assuming I Didn't Want to Stay. But Better Yet, -Staying here in the "Kamchatk!", -I might Rather!

Kamchatka comes in somewhere Midway, between both the Advantages and Disadvantages of Continental Type Survival, and the Advs. and Disadvs. of Small Island Survival. It has about the same Land Area as California.

Food and Fish, -Shud be No Problem! Firewood and Shelter Materials, -No Problem There either! Water, -No Problemo! Game, -Aplenty! Fellow Human Problems or Presence, -Little to None! Beyond just Fuel and Shelter, -From the Forest Materials, you shud be able to Build a Cabin or Cabins, -to your Heart's Content.

A Goodly Amount of Long Lasting Cold, -You Do happen to Have a Good Deal of That! Prepare and Provide yourself Well for That! Some occassional Wildlife Dangers, -Yes, You may from Time to Time Run into some of that, -Prepare Accordingly. Such Animals overwhelmingly, Will of course Depart from *you*.

So Much of the Great Untouched, Unspoilt, Clean, Crisp, Clear, and Pristine Outdoors!?, -There's So Much of It for So Far All Around!!!

Kamchatka is a Place *to* Survive!, -Shud it Come Down to that! Shud you for any Reason Have To. Kamchatka is Moreover a Place that you may *Want* To Survive in ! Shud That Too, ever be your Want or Need. (The Kuriles, now, are Far Smaller and Rockier, with All the Advantages and Disadvantages of Isolated, Small Island Survival. Much like the "nearby" Aleutians, -The Seas and Weather there, -Aren't Exactly Kind! )

These are the All Round Survival Conditions aqnd Aspects of the "Kam Chatk". It is Worthy of our Consideration and Basic, General, Familiarity. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

SIBERIA- The SIBERIAN ARCTIC, TAIGA, And TUNDRA. (Along with All Else). I've so far made some occassional comparative Mention of Siberia, -Now Let's get to Talking Front Burner on Siberia Itself!

This may come as a Surprise, but Actually Siberia is the *Third* Coldest Place on Earth! But it's Rightly Quite Firstmost, in many of our Minds. It Runs Up with the Top Two, namely Antarctica and the North Polar Arctic Ocean, -Pretty Good.

The Coldest Temperature ever Recorded in Siberia, is of Minus 89.9 Degrees Fahrenheit at Oimekon in Yakutia / NE of Central Siberia, on Feb. 6, 1933, and of Negative 89.7 Degrees Fahrenheit, on Feb 5 and 7, 1892 at Verkhoyansk, also in Yakutia. This Area is Known as the Siberian Cold Pole.

(My Source, -"The Weather Almanac",-2nd Edition, Ruffner and Bair, Avon Books, 1977 Copyright, March 79 Printing. Page 266, 2nd Paragraph.)

I know Not whether an even Colder Record Low may have Since Occurred in Siberia since 1977. But whether or not, -This still communicates the General, Prevailing, Siberian Temps Reality, Spirit, and Idea here.

These Records Stood as the Lowest ever Recorded on our Planet, -Until much More Recent Antarctic Exploration Records, Took That Away. The Latest such one as of 1977 was of -126.9 F, at Vostok, Antarctica, which is also in *It's* Cold Pole. The Date was August 24, 1960. (Same Source and Page, but the First Paragraph) I know This Varies Slightly from a More Recent Figure I've given under "Antarctica and It's Icesheet", in Temperatures. And More So in Dates, 1960 vs. 1983. It's a Different and More Recent Record / Measurement. The Entire and Typical Spirit-Reality-and Idea, is also Given here. It comes as No Surprise that Antarctica would Beat even Siberia Out.

But in that Pre-Antarctic Records would Show Siberia to be On Top, This says something for it's Role as the NON Polar Cold Pole, of our Planet!

(The World's # 2, -The Arctic Ocean, -had No Weather Stations in it's Midst, -being an Ocean, -in which to Record such Second Coldest World Temperatures. This is how Siberia comes in as Actually the World's Third Coldest. But Don't let "Third" there, -Fool you!, in regard to Siberia!)

Where I live, here in the Northeastern U.S., Most of our Cold Blasts of course Come Down from the Polar Arctic, by way of Canada. But we on Occassion get one which Originates in Siberia and It's Cold Pole. And When we Do, -You can just Feel the Dryness of it!, on your Face and in your Nose! Beyond just it's Bitter Cold. This is the Difference between a Continental Land, vs. a Polar but Oceanic, Origin. Of course Siberia gets Arctic Blasts coming Down it's way too! But I think it's Vast Land Mass is enuf to do much Cold Generation of it's Own. Plus Arctic Originating Air, could be Further Dried there, Before getting here. Especially if it Comes via Alaska, without Crossing the North Pacific. Also let's Not Forget, that even Arctic Ocean Air, is Pretty Dry as it is!

OK, -We All Along know that Siberia is Cold. But now we have a Better Idea of just *How* Cold.

Siberia of course encompasses pretty much of the Entire Northern Half, of the Vast Eurasian Continent. With Rusha's Ural Mountains typically being given as the Dividing Line, between it's European and Asian Subparts,- -Siberia encompasses everything East of those Urals, North and Northeast of Kazahkstan and the entire former Soviet Central Asian Republics, North of China with it's Sinkiang and Manchuria, North also of Mongolia, North and Northwest of Northern Japan's Hokkaido Island, West of the Northwest Pacific Ocean on a line between Hokkaido and our Own Alaska, Directly West of Alaska Itself, and South of Siberia's Vast Arctic Ocean Stretch. This Leads you Back to where the Urals meet the Arctic, at the Two Large Novaya Zemyla Islands. They are an Extension of the Urals, and are considered a Part of Siberia. Along with most Other Large, Offshore, Arctic Ocean Islands. These are Discussed under the Arctic Subportion, -of Earth's Wildest Places,-COLD. The Urals themselves, can probably be considered to be a Part of Siberia as well! Their entire Persona is Far More Siberian, than European Russian.

Also, the Vast, Bleak, and Empty Areas of Northern European Rusha, Karelia, the Kola, the entire Syktyvkar Centered Area of NW Euro. Russia, -Shud be considered "Siberia in Spirit"! Though in European Rusha, and West of the Urals, and Not Technically a Part of Siberia, -it for all Practical Intents and Purposes, is as if it Were a Part of Siberia!

Anything within this Vast, Squareish Rectangle, is Siberia! This covers an Awful Lot of Square Mileage and Territory! We're Talking 4 Million, and 235,000 Square Miles! Our own United States, even with Alaska and Hawaii in Inclusion, -is Only some 3 1/2 Million Square Miles. This Gives you an Idea of Siberia's Size and Scale. Most of us already have a pretty Good General Idea of Such anyway, but This serves to "Refreshingly Sharpen" Such! Virtually All of this Vast Siberian Area, is North of the Latitude of Mosta the U.S.-Canadian Border. And perhaps something like a Sixth or Seventh of All Siberia, -is North of the Arctic Circle,-some of that Well North.

South of the Treeless Tundra spreading across it's North, are Vast Stretches of the Taiga and Other Northern Boreal Forests. -From Europe to the Pacific! This has been Described as the Earth's Other Great Forest Lung!, -Alongside the Much More Familiar Amazon. (The Alaskan and Canadian Boreal can be Included in This as well.)

Permafrost pervades Siberia, and Well South of the Arctic Circle, in Many Areas.

Siberia is Otherwise a Land of Vast Plateaus with Respectfully High Mountains, a Vast, Bleak, Swampy Plain in it's West, Large Raging Rivers with many Rocky Tributaries Thruout, the World's Largest and Deepest Rift Lake, -Lake Baikal, -in it's South, Just Above Mongolia.

Siberia is a Land of Pioneering Frontiersmanship!, From the Urals to the Kamchatka and the Pacific Chuckchi!, From Kazahkstan and Lake Baikal to the Top of the Taimyr! From the Kola or Novaya Zemyla, to Vladivostok Bay in the Siberian Far East, Almost on the North Korean Border. They are so with their Rushan East, in the Same Way as we are and have been, with our Own Great American West. It's a Land of Gold, Diamonds, Oil, Fish, Game, Furs, Primitive Nomadic Peoples, Reindeer, Rivers, and Very Few People overall. Frozen Mammoths are being Found in the Taimyr Permafrost. It is More than just it's Hallmark of Cold.

As with the Trans-Canadian, -It has a Continent Spanning Railroad in it's Extreme South. -The Trans Siberian Railroad. But that is Atypically only in it's Very South. It certainly offers some Travel Options, if one would ever want to either Tour there, or Survive there.

Siberia Stretches over some 8 or 9 Time Zones!

Siberia includes some of the World's Greatest, Longest Rivers!, which go by such Names as the Ob, the Irtysh, the Yenesei, the Tunguska, the Angara, the Lena, the Kolmya, and the Amur! Along with Many Others.

Most of these however, Flow Uselessly North into the Arctic Ocean, with their Vast Collective / Individual, Discharges of Water. How the Arid Lands of Kazakhstan, Sinkiang, and the Gobi can Really Use It!, -just to Siberia's South.

Finally, Siberia Incudes already mentioned Kamchatka and the Kuriles, along with Sakhalin Island,-It's Eastward, Pacific, Extensions. See that Subpart, for Info on Those.

Survival in Siberia now?, -This would entail Cold Survival, Forest Survival, Swamp Survival, and Mountain Survival. Along with at least some Significant Appearance of Beach and Coast Survival, and even Arid and Desert Survival.

You of course have the Long and Bitter Cold, and Winds, to Contend with! But you also have the Months of 24 Hour Darkness to Deal With!, in at least Much of Siberia.

You have the Great Disadvantages of a Very Short Growing Season, Coupled with the Advantages, of 24 Hour Daylight!, in such Growing Season, in Much of Siberia. Greenhousing would be a Very Great Growing Technique! There are more than a few such Greenhouse Operations in Siberia Today.

There are even some Sutropical Plants!, Growing in Siberia's Far Southeastern Amur River Area. Think of That!, -Such Growing *Within* Siberia! Albeit in it's Far Southeast. They Cannot and Do Not Grow within the Vast Majority of Siberia. this Points Up some Desirability of Making for the Amur Area. But Don't be Too Fooled! It gets Mighty Cold there too! This is North of North Korea, and it's Well Known how Cold that Place has got!, During the Korean War!

The Strengths of Siberia to a Survival Situation?, in Addition to the Above? These are Water, Food, Fish, Game, Firewood and Shelter Materials, Wide Open Spaces with Very Few People, and River Transportation, -Among what I'm Sure must also be some Others.

You may also have Comparatively Easy Access to Siberia, Across the rather Narrow Bering Strait. Though such Crossing is By No Means Neccessarily Easy! But for Survival Travel or Bug Out considerations, -This is one of the Better, More Appealing, Ones. If you can Make It so, Across that Relatively Narrow Stretch, -You've Got yourself a Gateway to Siberia and a Whole Nother Continent!

Some Disadvantages and Weak Points? -The Long and Bitter Cold!, of course! Along with many Months of Far More Darkness than Light, the Very Short Growing Season, the Howling Windchill, Disorientation Amidst the Forest without a Compass, (At Least the North Magnetic Pole is on the Opposite, Canadian, Side of the Arctic,-and Thus there shud be Less High Latitude Compass Distortion.), and the Language Barrier, with What Locals there that you Do happen to occassionally Meet.

Russian is spoken here, but you may more commonly Run Across one of the many Indigenous, Native, *Non*-Russian Languages. Boning Up on a Few Words and Phrases in at Least Russian, -Might be a Good Idea. Even something as Normally "Non-Survival" as this!, -Can End Up being a Major Layer of our All Round Survival Onion!, on the Real Life Scene here! Oh!, -The Areas of Life you Find Being Relevant So!, -When yur Out There in the Field! Of course we're to Get Fire and Many Things Else Down Pat, -Before we go worrying about More Ancillary things, -such as Language! But if in Siberia, -Try fo at least a Few Important Words of Rushan, Ahead of Time. Additionally, Locals are More Willing to Help you with Information and Materials, and Often for Less or No Cost!, -if you Show yourself to Have Cared and Bothered with at least a Few Words of their Own Language! So This can be More than just some Nice Little Thing to Do!

Forest Fires also Do Occur here in Siberia, Thruout it's Vast Stretches of Forest. The Brief Summers here, Do get very Hot, Dusty, and Dry! At First Glance, One might Not Expect that of Siberia, -But it's So! You'd Want to be at least Basically Familiar with Forest Fires, -and Matters concerning their Safety, Prevention, Fighting, and Forest Fire Survival. You Have at least the Same Chance of Running Directly Into This in the Siberian Forest and Dry Season, as you Do in our American South and West! National Geographic has Done a Very Good Article on Siberian Forest Fires and Fighting, a Few Years Back. I'm Sorry that I do Not Know just what Issue this is from, -But It Is from one of the Late 90's - Early 2000's Issues.

For Siberian Survival, -You're gonna have to Hunker yourself Down In Real Good, perhaps Deep within it's Forest or Other Areas, -and Make Sure you're Well Covered!, -on Everything from Food to Fuel to Shelter!, and Many just as Important Things in Between.

You might also Want to Dig some, towards getting somewhat Underground! As regards Far Warmer Temperatures, as well as All Round General Protection. Caves, while Cool, typically are Plenty Warmer than Frigid Surface Surroundings! I Recall learning this on one of my Visits to my Home Area's Laurel Caverns. It's Not all that Deep Underground, yet it Remains somewhere around a Steady 57 Degrees F All Year Round. This by the way, is At or Near the Average Temperature of our Entire Earth. And this is an Appalachian Mountain*top* Cave! Cool Upper 50s Sure Beats Siberian Surface Winter Temps in my Book, -Any Day! Now you'd have to get X Far Down, to Derive this Benefit. But it's still Not Terribly Far Down. Even if Short of that, -You Still can Build a Fine Conventional Shelter.

You'd also Want some "Moment's Notice Mobility" too! Camouflage, Concealment, and Cacheing can be Important. As can Trailing and Tracking. And "Trail Throwing", and Escape and Evasion Techniques, shud you Find yourself Having to Deal with Underworld Cons, Remaining Soviet PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER., or Other Seedy, Shady, Types. Even without such extra concerns, I would Want to Have More than just One, Central Abode, to which I could Go To! You'd Want to have "One Placeing" Well Established. But you'd also Want to have a Good "Multi Place Mobility" Capability, Down Pat!

Beyond just Hunting, Trapping, and Fishing, -Make Sure you Know How to Dry, Cure, Smoke, Salt, and Otherwise Preserve!, Meat, Fish, and Other Foodstuffs! Additionally, Use the Frigid Temps to such Advantage here!

If you Want to Extricate yourself from Siberia, or Otherwise Reach Civilization or Rescue,-Then Usually Head South! To or Beyond the Trans Siberian Railroad, (Which you Can also Make Use Of, -or at least Sooner or Later Hail Somebody.), To at least somewhat Warmer Places such as China, Manchuria, Mongolia and the Gobi, Sinkiang, or Kazahkstan and the Former Soviet Central Asia. Beware of course, that Red China is Still PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER., along with All that entails regarding your Chances, Survival and Otherwise. Plus at least in Siberia, You're Often a Fellow Caucasian, -While in China,-You're Gonna Really Stand Out!

If in either Eastern or Western Siberia, -You can perhaps also Make for the East or the West. The Pacific or the Urals. In somewhere like Sakhalin or the Vladivostok Area, You can perhaps Try to Reach reasonably Near Japan. And like Very Empty Canada, -What Cities as there are in Siberia, Tend to be in it's Far South. If you're Trying to Reach Civilization,-You may well Want to Try to Reach one of These.

Whatever you Do, -Usually Do NOT Try to Exit Siberia by Going Downstream on it's Many Rivers! They Usually Lead Nowhere but the Northern Arctic! Which is somewhere you Definitely DON'T Want to Go!, -Especially in the Siberian Fall and Winter! Many Tributaries True Enuf do Not Flow North!. But Usually they Soon Enuf, -Lead to a Major River that Does! Proceed Alongside or On Stream, -AGAINST the Flow! Thats by Far the General Rule, if Outward from Siberia is where you Want to Go.

There are some Notable Exceptions, of course. Primarily in Siberia's Very Southeast! Where on that Major Amur River with it's Many Tributaries,-You Definitely Want to Flow Downward and Predominantly Southeastward on! Towards Japan and Vicinity. Know where it's "Jumpoff" Point is however, so you Don't Suddenly start Going way Northeastward, -Towards Northern Sakhalin!

Likewise in the Chuckchi, for example, Try Striking Across the Bering Strait, to Nome and Alaska.

Finally, whether Staying or Trying to Depart, -Avail Yourself of All the Many Blessings that the Short Siberian Spring and Summer, -Will Provide you! While also being Conscious of and Prepared for it's Pitfalls, such as Soggy Ground, and Clouds of Blackflies and Mosquitoes! I'd also be Working my Way Southward in such Time!, -Before the Siberian Fall and Winter Soon Enuf Comes Back Around!

These are some of the Foremost Siberian Survival Imperatives. It's Quite an Advantageous Survival Place! -So Long as you're Fully Prepared, and "Bundle-Hunkered Up", for the Cold!, -It's Long and Very Bitter, Windy, Dry, COLD!

Many of you have Read or Heard of "The Longest Walk", by Slamovir Rawicz. As Have I. (I've Read This in a Long Length Reader's Digest Book Condensation, if Not the Entire Book.) For those of you Not Familiar, It's an Inspiring, even Riveting, True Life Story of a Number of People Escaping from one of Stalin's Siberian Gulag Camps, On or About WW 2. Southward Across Much of Siberia they Went, -Forests and Rivers. Then the Crossing of the Trans Siberian Railroad, and the Mongolian Border. Then Mongolia and it's Mountains, the Searing Gobi. As though that weren't Enough, -They then had the Ascent Up onto and Across the Tibetan Plateau, then Over and Down the Himalayas, All the Way to British India! Utter Hardships Thruout went with the Territory. Not All Made It. But a Good Portion of Them eventually Did. This Story can count for at least some Pre-Siberia, Preparation and Familiarization. As a True Life Survival Tale, -It is of course Most Highly Recommended!

"Siberia" Means something along the Lines of "The Sleeping Land", in one of it's Native Languages. In It's Long Winter's Sleep! Make Sure that if Ever you shud Find Yourself There!, -That you are Bundled up in the Equivalent of your Best Survival Winter Wear and Sleeping Bags!

Now for some Lighter "Comic Relief", -"Siberia" is "Iberia"!, if you just Take the "S" Off. A Quite Different Place!, to say the Least!

Sorry again about the Length. Try as I Might, I wasn't able to Keep this one to around 3 1/2 Viewing Frames, as I WAS Able to Do in the One Before This. This one here came in at a Not Too Bad, "Slightly Above Five" Until in my Previewing, -I had to Break a Paragraph or Two Down. This Brot the Final Viewing Frame Result up to 6. Once again my Regrets, and I Hope to Regularly Have More 3 1/2 ers at General Max, as my Last One was! With some Further Late Nite Editing, this has Expanded some More.[color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

ALASKA And THE ALEUTIANS. A Preliminary Note,- I was originally going to do perhaps Iceland here. But Tords Length Considerations and Better Reassurance on such, -I've Decided to do Alaska and the Aleutians. I Think this is going to be one of the Shorter Ones. And I Want to Better Show that it can be Done by me. So Let's now Head from that Mid North Atlantic Wild Place location, to this Mid North Pacific One!

ALASKA And THE ALEUTIANS- This, as Many to Most people know, is a Long, Curving Chain of Islands, to Alaska's Southwest. (It of course is a Part of Alaska Itself.) These Islands are either Actively Volcanic, or Volcanically Formed.

They are Much Like the Kuriles, in Many Ways. In Size, Rockiness and Treelessness, Rough Seas and Weather, Volcanoes and Hot Springs, Lengths, The Same Kind of Oceanic Curving Arcs!, probably in Other Ways as Well!

They're reasonably large Small Islands, All in much the same Size Range. (With the exception of Many Small accompanying Islets.) They're typically in the 10 - 50 Mile Range. ( 6 - 30 Km.)

There are at least 27 Major Ones. They Stretch for some 1500 Miles!, -Towards Siberia's Kamchatka. And we're Not even includeing, the Two Russian Kommandorski Islands, which are an Extension of Them, Separated by some Distance, and much Closer to Kamchatka. As to Climate, Topography. Etc, -They'd mayswell be considered Aleutian Islands.

These Aleutian Islands are Mountainous, Bleak and Treeless, and Very Often quite Rugged and Rocky! Coastlines more often than not, are Quite Jagged!, with many Twisting Bays and Whatnot. The Soil, or perhaps oftentimes Lack of it, and the Atrocious Climate Make them so Treeless! It's considerable Northern Latitude has something to do with this as well.

Cold, Wind, Rain, Fog, Ruff Seas!, -These are essentially the Everyday State of Affairs!, in the Aleutians!

It just so coincidentally Happens, that this Island Chain, Delineates the Meeting Place, of Cold Arctic Waters from the Bering Sea, and the Warmer Pacific Waters just to it's South. This Makes for the Ever Atrocious Cold, Wind, Fog, Rain, and Ruff Seas and Weather!

Beginning from the Southwestern Alaska Peninsula, Itself Nearly 750 Miles Long, (This is Before you even Get to the Aleutians), This 1500 Mile Chain begins. For all Practical Purposes, the Peninsula can be considered Aleutian as well. It has Things such as Mt.Katmai and the Valley of 10,000 Smokes! This Begins right Above Kodiak Island.

The Aleutians themselves then Continue all the way from Unimak Island to Attu. Well Known and Famous Names such as Unalaska, Umnak, Yunaska, Atka, Adak, Kanaga, Tanaga, Semisopochnoi, Amchitka, Agattu, Shemya, and Kiska, -Take their Places in Between.

East to West, They are Subdivided into 5 Ruff Subgroups, -The Fox Islands, The Islands of 4 Mountains, the Andreanofs, the Rat Islands, and the Near Islands. Nearest to Siberia, that is, These, in the form of Attu, are the Farthest from Alaska Proper. Or for that Matter, from anywhere Else in our Lower 49 U.S., North America, and Indeed, -All of the Americas.

Attu is on the *Other* Side of the (Non-Adjusted) International Date Line! It's at about 173 Degrees EAST Longitude! If you were from here to Travel Directly South, You would be Hundreds of Miles WEST of Most of New Zealand! Even the Start of the Aleutians at Unimak, would Take you Many Hundreds of Miles West of the Main Islands of Hawaii in this Scale. It just Goes to Show, the Actual Length and Breadth of our Nation and Continent.

Very Few People live here, including Not all that many Native Aleuts.

The Surrounding Seas, however, are Rich in Fish and Other Sea Life! This, along with some Local Livestock Grazing, and a Tiny Amount of Subsistance Farming, -Is the Economic and Livlihood Base of What People there Are. What Livestock there is, is probably Sheep more than anything else.

We have some Vital Military Outposts every here and there, The Japanese in WW 2 Actually Invaded and Occupied Attu and Kiska. We and the Canadians eventually Drove them back out.

Russians and Aleuts, had a Lot of Back and Forth Historical Activity here, Before we ever Arrived on it's Scene. That had to do primarily with Fishing and Furs.

Now as to How to Survive there! This Calls for Island Survival, Sea Survival, including Beach and Coast, Weather and Sea Wisdom, Cold Survival, Mountain Survival, Grasslands Type Survival, and Trying to Grow some Things in a Ruff Land! Add Hunting, Trapping, Gathering, and Fishing to that! Boating and Seamanship too.

One Thing you DON'T Have here!, Unfortunatey, is Forests!
Or for that Matter, even a Single Tree! -In 99 . 99999999 % of Locations! You will Not be Able to Avail yourself of Forest Survival Techniques. It would Sure come in Handy if you Could! But here in the Aleutians, -You just Cannot!

You'd want to do a Lot of your Gathering on the Beach and Seashore. You may be able to Garner some Berries and other Limited Plant Life, as well.

Shelter Materials, as well as Firewoody Fuel, -Can be Quite Dicey and Iffy! Your Best Bets here, beyond Rocks and Stones, (Plentiful), would be Turf, Thatch, Sod, and Other Grasslands Survival Techniques. You'd have to Use such Grasslandish Materials for your Fuel and Fire Sources, too!

Food is Plentiful from the Surrounding Seas, and perhaps also from Onshore Bird Life. Other than perhaps Birds, Food may be a Good deal More Difficult, to Wrest from the Land.

Fresh Water on the Land is Plentiful, but you may have to Store and Catch it!

It might Not get as Cold here as Nearby Siberia, or much of Alaska Proper, (Somewhat Moderating Ocean Climate just to the South), but Along with the All Round Atrocious Weather, it still gets Plenty Chilly and Cold here. If you've Got to Prepare for the Cold, in even the Lower Rockies at Summertime!, -Then you Certainly've Got to Prepare for it here!

As Important, if Not even More Important, would be Rain and Wind Protection!

If Stranded or Having to Survive there, I would Seek to Find one of the More Survival Conducive Locations that I Can, here in this Harsh Land. I'd Fish and Gather, Collect and Store Fresh Water, and Get my Rocks and Grasslandish Shelter Established. I would Have much Securely Dry Storage Areas. Rain Protection here Remains a Prime Order of the Day!

I'd have a Small, Seaworthy Boat, by which I can Scoot between Islands, and Do some Marine Fishing. In the Not All that Many "Good" Sea and Weather Days!, Up here in the Aleutians, at least for the Most Part.

Signaling might be Possible with Offshore Fishing Vessels. Or Perhaps even with Airliners Heading on Down from Anchorage to Tokyo. This Latter is a Possible Option for Kamchatka Survival too, of which I earlier there Forgot to Mention.

I would Take Maximum Advantage of Rather Rare Good Breaks in the Seas or Weather. For All Calls of Livlihood and Survival. As well as of the Brief Aleutian "Spring and Summer". You again here have both the Advantage of Long Summer Daylight Hours! (Though here you're a Little Too Far South to Get the Midnight Sun.) (The Latitude of England!, as a Matter of Fact. The Curve of the Aleutians Does Dip so.) But also the Short Alaskan and Arctic Growing Seasons! Plus the Often Atrocious Aleutian "Soil" Conditions!

And then there's Always the Earthquake, Volcano, and Tsunami Dangers! Knowledge and Preparations along These Lines, -Shud be Added to your Survival Package ( Or "Onion" ), as Well.

Were I to Want to Attract Attention or Rescue, and Extricate myself from the Aleutians, -I would Work my Way to one of the Scattered Settlements. Preferably, and Especially if I'm in the Eastern Half of the Aleutian Islands, -to the Alaskan Mainland. Afterwhich I'd Want to Hug the Cool, ( but Plenty Warmer than Most of Alaska! ), South Coast of Alaska to Anchorage.

These are What I Find to be the Survival Imperatives and Characteristics of our Aleutians! This is How I would "Make Best" for myself, Up There!

Finally, the Aleutians can be Used as a sort of Island Hopping Land Bridge towards Kamchatka!, -if you for any Reason ever Needed or Wanted to Go there! The Devil of course, as the saying goes, would be in the Details! The Aleutians and their Climate, Sure Aren't Gonna Make it Easy for you!

Well I,ve just Noticed that I've Made a Boo Boo in my Title! -Of "ALASKA And THE ALEUTIANS", whereas this was Thruout, only one on it's Aleutians! This had been my Intention from the Start. So the Main Body of Alaska Itself, Shall Appear sometime Later on it's Own, -as Another of the World's Wildest Places,-COLD ! "Alaska" in a Way is still Appropriate in this Title, -but it can certainly be Misleading! Thats certainly Not my Intention! So Knowing this now, Please Understand This particular One, -to be Only about the Aleutians!

Well I did this in 4 (Viewing "Pages"). Not Too Bad on the Length Front, I Think. Plus Only Half over the 3 1/2 I was Shooting For. Since Found,- What Comes Out as 4 Viewing frames in the Review Process, -Comes Out 5 in the Final Posting. (Due to Yellow Sidebar) [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

ALASKA - ( Itself Now.) I'll Try for Another One, on the "Lesser Length" Front. Though I Initially Ended up doing somewhat Good there on the Last One, the Cumulative Effects of some Neccessary Edits, Have it now that it Isn't so Good there. I Think I can Do so with Alaska Itself right now, I'll Try so again. So we'll Detour from Iceland for a Bit yet, and just Head Up thru the Aleutians and the Peninsula, to the Main Part of Alaska Itself! As a Song says, "North to Alaska!". Lets now Look and Turn North. To Alaska Itself!

ALASKA ( Itself.) - Here's one of the Great Areas of the World, Synonomous with The Great Outdoors, Frontiersmanship, and the COLD ! In the Far Northwest of Canada, / America, / and the Americas North and South, -She (Or is Alaska a He?) Reaches Outward from there, towards Siberia and the Eurasian Continent!

656,424 Square Miles of Such! This is a Sizeable Fraction of the Area of Both of it's Larger North American Neighbors, -Canada and the Lower U.S. They Come In at Three Million and 849,674 and Two Million and 879,854 Square Miles respectively. ( Funny, but I Think I once Recall that the Square Milage of the U.S. minus Alaska may have Come In at a Little over 3 Million Sq. Miles.) (My Source, from which I Subtracted for This Value, -and It Does Check Out, -is the 1997 Edition of the World Almanac.) So 3.8 Million, and 2.8 Million, Next to 6/10 ths of a Million Square Miles, is about It. Thogh Dwarfed in Comparison, Alaska Gives a Sizeable Enuf Addition, and is Huge. Obviously our Largest State, which with Both it's Southeastern and Aleutian Panhandles, -Can Stetch between Charleston SC and San Diego! If Overlaid on our Lower 48. Many of us do happen to Already Know that. It's Great Central Bulk would Take Up most of our Great Plains!, if similarly Overlaid.

It's in the Northern Arctic Regions of the World. It's one of the Last Great Frontiers, and one of the Earth's Greatest Wild Places!

Fish, Game, Forests, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Tundra, Oil, Permafrost, Glaciers and Ice Floes, Volcanos, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Native Peoples, with Eskimos and Aleuts, Totem Poles, Dogs and Dogsledding, Treks and Hikes, Campfires, even some Forest Fires Beware!, Winter Cold and Snow, Salmon, Bears Polar / Black / Grizzly / Kodiak / and Brown, Fiords and Inlets, Landslides, Avalanches Down around Jeneau and Elsewhere, Snowshoeing and Cross Country, Bush Flying, Pioneering and Frontiersmanship, Mountaineering, Anchorage and Fairbanks, Ketchikan and Sitka, Defense Installations and an International Air Hub, Geology and Landforms, Gold and Other Prospecting, a Great Pipeline, Auroras and Midnight Sun, (As Well as Noon Darkness), Giant Vegetables, The Arctic Circle, a Far Reaching Oceanic Island String, The Mighty Yukon, Caribou Herds, Mt. McKinley, Katmai and it's 10,000 Smokes, Kodiak Island, The Malaspina and Other Glaciers, The Historic Russian Heritage, The Mega Quake of 64, People Usually Few and Far Between, ( But Usually Great and Helpful Company when They Are Around! )and Last but Not Least, -So Much of The Great Outdoors! As Well as Many Other Such Things in Between! Alaska is All These Things and More! I Admit thats quite a List, but Thats also Quite Alaska!, as well.

I Love and Am Drawn to Alaska Quite So! So Many of These Things are "Right Down my Alley", and in Many Ways and Respects, I Consider myself to be an Alaskan At Heart!

I would Like to Share Something of This Great Wild Area with you, includeing various Important Things concerning it's Survival Aspects.

Now How's It for Living and Surviving Up There?!

Well, it Revolves primarily around Cold, Forest, and Mountain Survival, as well as All the Other Sorts of Survival Subareas, mentioned in such Places as Siberia, Kamchatka, and the Aleutians. Some of these Lack only Trees and Forest. Alaska Overall has No such Lack, even if some Sizeable Subareas of Itself Does.

All of the Other Survival Techniques and Practices mentioned regarding Other COLD Wild Areas of the World, -Can Usually be Very Much Applied here as well.

I'll Add that in Much of Alaska, -You may be Well Inland. If you Want to Get Out, -Then you'd generally Want to Work your Way Southward andor Coastward. The Yukon and some Other Rivers would Serve you Very Well here.

The South Coast and Southeastern Panhandle, though Cool, are Uncharacteristically Wet, Warm, and Mild, for Alaska. As Oppossed to Most of the State's Weather and Climate, and the Public Perception of Such. This is a Lot like Britian or Seattle. This is the Moderating Oceanic Effect, from the Vast Pacific just Below. It Rapidly Decreases the Further Inland you Go. It's additionally Stopped, by Mountain Ranges such as the Chugach. I would Consider Placing a Higher Priority on Chooseing to Survive in This part of Alaska, than many Others. This would also be a More Preferred Coast, that I'd Want to Work my Way Towards. The SE Panhandle is particularly Filled with Fiords and other Inlets, Inside Passages, and Steep Forested Mountains Rising right up Out of the Sea!

Have and Use things like ELTs and GPS, Strike Out Towards, andor Try to Establish Radio Contact with a Settlement, and be Consciously Aware of Compass Problems, this Close to the North Geomagnetic Pole! River Floatdowns are a Great Way of Reaching a Settlement as well.

Some of your Most Crucially Important Things!, in Alaskan Survival, would of course be, -All Matters related to Fire, Shelter and Shelter Materials, Warmth and Dryness, Wind and Rain Protection, and Food and Water. Fortunately, At least these Last Two are Often quite Readily Available. As Often Fuel, Firewood, and Shelter Materials also are. Make Fish and Fishing, -a Major Part of your "Food Front", as well. Coupled with Having Smoking, Salting, Drying, and Other Food Preservation and Storage Techniques, -Down Pat.

Beware of a Lot of Soggy and Boggy Grounds and Swamps!, as well.

Signaling Can and Would be Very Important, and Possible, especially with Aircraft! Have such Equipment and Knowledge About yourself, Beforehand!

Warmth / Shelter / and Cold - Elements Protection is Foremost! Followed Closely by such things as Food and Water. Followed in Turn Closely by Things such as Compass, Maps, and Signaling.

Along with Mountaineering Knowledge, Rock and Other Climbing Knowledge would Come In Very Handy and Helpful too!

I would also Want to Find and Make Use of, some Sheltered Valleys and the Like, in the Mountains. They Moderate and Enmilden the Predominant Climate. It's Still Cold in the Winter,( and I'm Sure much of Autumn and Spring too.), but Less so. The Matunuska Valley is such a Place. This is Precisely a Reason Why it is such a Rare Alaskan Agricultural Breadbasket. I'd Try to Locate and Make Use of such Natural Shelters. (Or *More* Sheltered Areas anyway.)

Additional Pluses are that you still are in the United States, and that Nearly Everyone, Speaks or at least Understands, English.

Alaska would be a Fine Place to Stay! Though it's certainly Not the French Riviera or Tahiti either! But whether Staying or Trying to Extricate yourself Out, -You're Gonna Have to Survive! While There, You're gonna Have to Hold Fort, Make Best for Yourself, and Survive! This so has been a General Introduction to Alaska!, as well as One concerning some of it's Foremost, All Round Survival Aspects.

See Other E.W.P.-Survival Aspects,-COLD Mentions, -for some More such Survival Specifics. Many to Most of those are Very Applicable to Alaskan Survival as well.

Now concerning the Length Factor, Lets See how well I Did?!

Well I Did Do this one in 3. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

CANADA And ITS WILDS - Before Heading over to Iceland, Lets Stop Over in the Canadian Wooded Wilds! It's just a Stone's Throw from Alaska.

Canada is the Second Largest Country in the World! Had History been just a Little Different, It could have Become even Larger! As concerns Alaska, Greenland, and the Hudson Bay.

Had Alaska Not become a Part of the American Union, It could have Ended up being a part of Canada!, to which it is a Natural Geographic Adjunct.

( Heck!, Had the Czarist Rushans Not Cut their Losses, -We could have been Facing the Soviet Rushans during the Cold War from the Canadian Yukon! -Not *From* Alaska as we actually Did! Imagine All of Alaska as just an Extension of the Vast Soviet Siberian Gulag, and Forward Military Deployment Area. Mt. McKinley would Instead have Received some sort of a PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. Glorificational Name! Seward's Folly became our Smart Move! )

But Had we Not, It could now be Russian or Canadian.

Greenland too, Could have become Canadian, if the Winds of History id have just been a Little Different. Just Look at a Map, and See How Close the Two are!, for a Good Stretch of Greenland's Northwest. Why!,-They're just Across a Narrow Channel from One Another! But Far Off Denmark got there First.

And if the Vast Hudson Bay just happened to Instead be Land, Canada, Already the Second Largest Country in the World, at 3 Million, 849,674 Square Miles!, Could be even Larger!

Alaska in it's West, Greenland to the East, and Hudson Bay toward it's Center.

Even without these Additions though, Canada's Still by a Large Margin, -the Second Largest Country in the World.

( No Hudson Bay?!,-The Vast Ice Sheets which once Bore Down on Canada, -Would Never Have that! I Like it there Better than Not anyway. Cold Canadian Winter Blasts would be even Worse, in it's Abscence. Though I suppose the Bay getting Iced Over, -Does a Lot to Negate such Effect anyway. Even so, I Like this Giant Bay being there!, as oppossed to Not.)

From Skagway and the Klondike Area near the Alaskan Border, to the Easternmost Tip of Newfoundland! From it's Southernmost Point along Lake Erie, (Not All that Far Above me!), to the Top Tip of Ellesmere Island, -a Good Half Way Across the Arctic Ocean to the Pole! My Own Country is Honored up here!, in Mountains known as the "United States Range". This All is the Scope, Scale, Depth, and Breadth!, of Canada!

Lakes Galore!, Crystal Clean Freshwater Rivers, Forests, Fish, Game and Wildlife, Glaciers, Great National Parks like Banff and Jasper, Scoured Rocks of the Canadian Shield, Bush Pilots and Flying, Bears Black,Polar, and Grizzly, Outdoorsmen, Mounties, Wheat Fields on it's Own Great Plains, Rocky East Coasts and Forested Western Ones, Great Rivers in the McKenzie and St.Lawrence, the Northern Side of the Great Lakes, It's Own Native Indian Peoples, Eskimos, Bitter and Long Lasting Cold!, Maple Syrup and Sap, It's Maple Leaf Flag, Hockey, Molson and Labatt's, (Though I Do happen to be a Teetotaller.), French Quebec, and Majestic, Forested, Rocky Mountains of it's Own, -There in the Great Canadian West! These and So Much More!, are Canada and It's Great Outdoors!

Canada is an Outdoors Country Thru and Thru! France is Cultured, Greece is the Basis of so Much Western Cililization, No One Outdoes an Aussie when it Comes to Being Australian, Southeast Asia's got it's Buddhism, Italy's got it's Pasta and Wines, My America is the Heart, Hub, and Hope of Freedom in the World! And Canada has Gots it's Great Canadian Outdoors!!! If Canada is Not of the Great Outdoors!, -Then Pele Doesn't Play Soccer!

Canada Holds a Topmost Place in my Mind and Heart, Outdoorwise and Otherwise! If One's Got the Cold Taken Care of!, -It Isn't Too Bad of a Place at All!

Now it Does get as Cold as a Son of a Gun!, Up There! Ranking Right Behind places like Siberia and Greenland! I Know this from more than just Books and Such. I Get the Bottom Dips from it Many a Time!, in Many a Winter!

Canada's Record Low Temperature, (Again from my Earlier Mentioned 1977 Source.), was - 81 Degrees F, at Snag, Yukon, Feb. 03, 1947.( Greenland's Record came in at only some 5 Degrees Colder.)

Canada's also got the Very Short to Nonexistant Mid-Winter Daylight Periods, -Months at a Time! And Very Short, but at least Well Sunlit, Growing Seasons as well. It Shares All These Sorts of Characteristics and Drawbacks, as has been already mentioned, regarding Other Far North Locales.

You are Right in the Thick of the Whole Compass Mess too!, when you Start getting to Close to the North Magnetic Pole. It is Right There, in Northern Canada, Amidst it's many Queen Elizabeth Islands. Its on This, the Canadian Side of the Arctic, Not the earlier Siberian One.

Otherwise, from a Survival Standpoint, Canada is Much as the Other COLD Northern Wild Places already mentioned. Minus the Volcanos (Excepting but a Few near the U.S. Border), Minus the Treelessness of some of Those Locales, (Though Canada's certainly Got some of These as well!), Minus at least for the Most Part, -Coast and Island Survival.

Otherwise, -It's Quite Much the Same! With a Northern Continental Twist, as Siberia has.

Cold Survival, Forest Survival, and Mountain Survival!, are the Core of it's Cirricula! Other Types mentioned elsewhere under EWP-Survival Aspects-COLD, Figure In as well, But These are the Three Centermost!

Grasslands Survival and "Sodbusting", would be a Prime One of These! So much of South and West Central Canada is the Northern Extension of the North American Great Plains. British Colombia's Conifer Forested Mountains are Not a Part of the Scene here!

A "Rocky Sort of 'Grassland' ", -Exists in so Much of the Quebec and Ungava Canadian East!, as well! Here however, You Not only Don't have Trees, You Don't have Grass either! Groundwise, It's more Akin to a Desert Plateau, -though the Rain and Snowfall may be Plenty More than what would Qualify as a Desert. You'd largely have to Find and Assemble Rocks, for your Shelter here!

Elsewhere Across much of Canada, Your Prospects often are Much Better! The Atlantic Provinces have Much Fish, and often Good or Decent Growing Soil. Ontario's Great for Forest Resources, Streams, and Lakes! The Grassland Plains have Rich Soil! Nearly Everywhere between the Hudson and the Rockies!, is Lake, Fish, and Stream and River Filled! And Often, though Not Always, Forest Filled as well! That Canadian West and Rockies, is also Very Forest, Fish, and Game Filled! The Northwest Territories Ground gets Progressivly Barer, the More North and Northeast you Go, but the Vast Part of It, is still Chock Full of Fishing Lakes! Baffin, Ellesmere, and the Other Queen Elizabeth Islands, are of Ungava / Canadian Shield type Rockiness. Here this is Often probably even Worse. These Islands however, Make For a Sizeable Part of Canada's Total Territory! And They Take a Great Swing up toward the Pole! Far More than even the Northern Siberia Taimyr, or it's large Arctic Islands, Do! Survival here in the High Canadian Arctic, would Involve a Lot of Fishing, Sealing, and Etc. And of course, -Cold Protection! Now on the Other, Western Side of the Canadian Rockies, This shud be a Good, Promising, Survival Location. It's Richly Forested, and Has All the Marine West Coast Advantages as Southern Alaska. You also could Avail yourself of the Coastal and Sea Riches there! But Between the Sea and Mountains, you Often might Not Have All that much Elbow Room to Maneauver Around in! Many Coastal Mountains may Plunge right into the Sea!

But Taking it from the Western and Central Canada Core!, -Survival again would involve the Cold, Plentiful Fresh Water, Plentiful Fish and Game, Plenty of Forest Resources for Fire and Shelter!

This for the Most Part, is one of the Most Sparsely Populated Parts of the Entire World! That has it's Advantages and Disadvantages. But in my Book at least, It's Far More of an Advantage!

You'd just Have to Hunker Down in a Survival Conducive Area, Keep the Heck Warm at All Times! And I Mean Assuredly Do So! Backups of Backups of Backups! Lots of Firewood and Shelter Materials! And Lots of Ready Access to Such! You'd certainly Want to Have an at least Reasonably Rich and Reliable Food Sources, on Hand. And Water too, though that one Shudn't be a Problem. With the Exception of being in a Rain Shadow. It would be Good to be Near a River or Stream. For Transportation Purposes, Not Only Fish, Food, Bathing, Washing, and Water. Across so Much of Canada, This shud be No Problem either!

If you Don't Want to Survive and Stay, -Then Work your Way South / to Settlements. Settlements usually are Synonomous with the South! As well as at least being Not as Cold. Down here towards the U.S. Border, -You have Canada's Trans Continental Railroad. You can Use it to your Advantage, the Same Way you could Use the Trans Siberian Railroad mentioned earlier. Also like Siberia, What Canadian Cities and "Civilization" as there are, are Concentrated in the Far South, Towards the U.S. Border. Make For Here! Also as in Siberia, Don't Follow the McKenzie Downstream! It Too only Leads to the Northern Arctic! Though it may be a Way of Reaching a Settlement. At least Canada Only has One such Major, Arctic River, whereas Siberia has Several. You might Want to Follow the Yukon River Northwest, though. It Flows Not to the Arctic, but thru Alaska to the Bering. It would be a Way of Getting to the Major City of Fairbanks, though that Locale is on a Major Southern Tributary of the Yukon. You can either Roundabout Sail to it, or make an Overland Portage.

Cold, Forest, and Mountain Survival are once again At The Core!, of Canadian Survival.

The Lakes and Waterways, Forests, Fire and Firewood, Shelter and Shelter Materials, and Fish and Game!, would be some of your Coremost Watchwords!

And "Cold Protection" would be a Greatest of These!

Other Important Areas such as Signaling, would Come Into Important Play, too.

Such is Cold Canadian Survival! ( Canada has a Briefish Spring, Fall, and Summer too!, Use Those to Maximum Advantage! Includeing Getting Further South During such! )

Such is Canada! And Such is Canada's Survival Aspects! She's Great in so Many Ways All Around! She is Truly one of the World's Greatest and Wildest of Places! The Truly So Great Canadian Outdoors! But She Gets as Cold as a Son of a Gun!, as Well! Be READY For That!!!

[color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

ICELAND.- OK, -Now Lets Head on over to Iceland!, -That Arctic, Mid-Atlantic Land of Fire and Ice!

From the Canadian Wilds, as we Fly Past the Greenland Icecap once again, We Descend over the Angry North Atlantic thru some Half Foul or More of Weather, to Reykjavik's Keflavik Area Airport. This Weather Often Likes to Turn on a Dime, and It Does so, here on our Approach. This of course is Often a Turn Toward the Worst.

We Have Met Iceland in Her Southeast. -The Population Center of What Population There is! Thats Only a Quarter Million, in this Indiana Sized Island Country. (Iceland is Slightly Larger.) It Comes In at 39,699 Square Miles. It's one of the World's Reasonably Larger Islands. And a Quite Isolated One at that!

This Population is of Many a Fine Scandanavian Farmer and Fisherfolk!, -Direct Descendants of the Norse Vikings. Their Language is a Scandanavian one, -Icelandic. Which is Very Much the Old, Original, Norse. But Many Icelanders are also Quite Fluent in English as well, -This Shud usually be Little to No Problem. In Fact, our English is Related, to those Germanic and Scandanavian Languages. So it's Not Totally Foreign.

This Land is just Below the Arctic Circle. It's Northern Coast only Skirts It. Only One Small Northern Island, Grimsy, "Breaches It" a Bit. The Rest of Iceland Sits in an about 180 Mile North to South, and 300 Miles East to West, of a Squareish Oval, just South of It. Plus some Small Outlying Islands, of course. Now Thats still Pretty Darned Far North.

Though the Warm Gulf Stream just to it's South, Does Moderate the Climate some,- It Still gets Cold Enuf. And This Does Qualify as One of the World's Wild Places,-COLD! An Arctic and Antarctic Ocean and Continent it is Not. A Siberia, Canada, or Greenland it is Not. But a Pristine Wild Place, Arctic, Northern, and Cold, -It Definitely Is!

Though Possessing All that Goes with that, Iceland Additionally has Many Unique Characteristics All it's Own!

First of All it's a Large Island. In the Midst of a Cold, Polar Area of the World's Oceans.

Next, It's Very Volcanic! It's one of the World's Foremost such Volcanic Areas! Every Last Cubic Inch or Centimeter of it's Soil, was Formed via Volcanic Eruption or Lava Outflow. Were there No Volcanism there, There would be No Iceland! It's Area would just be More Cold, North Atlantic Water.

It Uniquely Sits Over Not just a Tectonic Plate Boundary Alone, (-Which it Does). And Not just Over one of the Earth's Deep and Rising Hot Spots Plumes Alone, (Which it also Does). But it Sits Over BOTH ! At One and the Same Time Both!

Its also been Thought by some, that some Distant Killer Asteroid, May just Happen to Have Struck Here!, -Setting Off or Accelerateing this Process! If so, -What a Place to Have Hit!

Even Without a Possible Asteroid Impact, The Other Two Coincident Factors, would be Enuff, to Bring Nearly 40,000 Square Miles of Mid-Oceanic Icelandic Land Mass, About! And it so Has.

Half of Iceland is also on the European Side of the Mid-Atlantic Rift, while the Other, Western Half, is on the North American Side. Where Iceland specifically Sits, upon such Undersea Rift, This Icelandic Rift Runs generally NE to SW, within the Middle of the Island Country. Iceland's literally being Ripped, Rifted, and Stretched, Along this Seam! New Volcanic Land, Continually Fills the Void, though! It's Not being Split into Two Islands as such. This is How Iceland Grows! This is How Iceland's Gotten as Big as it's Got!

Being as Volcanic as They Come!

And Being in the Arctic North Atlantic as She Is!

This is How this Icelandic Wild Place, is the Land of Fire and Ice!

It's Often been said, that both Iceland and Greenland have been Misnamed! And They Have! Like the Proverbial Blind Man Describing an Entire Elephant, by *Only* the One Tiny Spot he has Touched!, -Ice and Green Land's Too been Mis-Touched and Misnamed! Much of the Greenlandic Coast is Rock and Mountains, though it Turns to Towering Ice Not All that Far Inland! Some Parts of that Southern Coast even have Greenery! This is the "Greenlandic Elephant's Eye"!, that the Viking who Named it, -Saw and Touched. And Thus it's Description and Name. And Likewise Iceland Too!, Had First been Touched in a Quite Atypical, Unrepresentative, Spot. In a Far Northwestern Fiord, which Uncharacteristically Ices Up! The Gulf Stream Doesn't Reach there. The Viking who First Named Iceland, -Saw Only That! And Thus his Misnomer! Greenland is the One that shud Really be called Iceland! And Iceland is the One that shud Really be called Greenland! Though Much of the Icelandic Landscape, is Bare Brown or Otherwise Dark, Volcanic Ground. But She has More than a Little Green as well! But What has Happened Happened, and now we are Stuck with this Misnomered Convention! So Long as we now Really Know Whats What! Thats the Important Thing.

And Iceland Too, has a Few Sizeable Icecaps! Making Up perhaps 10 % of the Country, especially in it's Southeast! It's Not All entirely Ice Free! They get Thousands of Feet Thick too!

Just to Iceland's North, is the Frigid Arctic Ocean Ice Pack, and Floes! As well as Much of the Eastern Greenlandic Coastal Waters. The Ancient Greek Voyage of Pythias and Crew, Came Up Here, Reporting Such to a Tee! In What they came to Know as Ultima Thule!

So Iceland is an Almost Unique combination of Fire and Ice!, in our World. A Few Other small locales also Share something of This. Norway's Arctic Volcanic Island of Jan Mayen, a Good Ways Northeast of Iceland, and the McMurdo / Mt. Erebus Area of Antarctica, being Two of the Few. They're Small and Local. While Iceland is as Big as one of our Typical States.

It's also such a Perfectly Clear, Clean, Great Outdoors Locale! -Land, Sea, and Air! Though European, It's Set Well Apart from Europe and All of it's Development and Buildup, (And America's too, for that Matter.), in It's Great Isolated, Wild, Free, and Natural !, of a Mid-Atlantic Location. Little to No Pollutants to speak of are Generated here.

I Like and Love Iceland and it's Unique, Wild, Untouched, Volcanic Outdoors so! It is One of my More Favorite Areas of the World, Wild or Otherwise!

Most of What Small Population as Does exist, is Peppered Every Here and There around the Coast. More like Sprinkled! Far Far Fewer, in the Inland Interior! Like Hardly Anybody. Though you may See Icelanders Touring their Own Country there. Much of the Interior is Uninhabited, and Uninhabitable!

This Area Isn't so Uninhabited for No Reason! It's Ruff there!, for Life and Survival! And Not Only from the Cold or Oft Times Lack of Vegetation. Nor the Huge Glaciers which Overlie Part of it. Or Quakes or Volcanic Activity. It's also in the Often Bare, Rocky Ground! It's also in some of that, being Talus or Other sorts of Loose Scree. Footing's of course Bad to Non-Existant on such Spots! There's of course the Capricious to Bad Weather too!

But a Part of this may also be Due to, Settler's Natural Tendancy to Settle on the More Life Conducive Coasts. Or perhaps Up River, to some Extent.

For That is Where the Fish Are!, to say the Least. Iceland is such a Fishing Country and Culture! It's Surrounding Waters are one of the World's Great Fishing Grounds! Iceland is to Fish and Fishing!, as Coffee and Carnival are to Brasil!

Geysers and Geothermal Hot Springs Abound! Icelanders have Very Shrewdly and Skillfully Tapped into this!, for Very Much of their Water and Home Heating Needs!

Occassionally, Entirely New Volcanic Islands Spring from it's Nearby Sea! The Latest in Ages of Volcanic Additions, to the Icelandic Landmass as a Whole! Surtsey Sprang Forth in 1963. As Did Heimeay in 1973.

So How's It for Trying to Make It and Survive here?!

Ruff Enuf, but Far from Entirely or Prohibitively Too Bad!

You're on a Rather Sizeable Island, with both the Advantages and Disadvantages of Such.

You've got Few, but Friendly, Helpful, and Down to Earth People! Well Familiar with Iceland and Her Ways!

You've got Birdlife, Beachlife, and a Fish and Seafood Rich Waters and Coast! Fish Rich Rivers too!

Plenty of Fresh Water! At Least Much Food, Depending on where you're At.

Maybe a Satisfactory to Good Amount of Fire and Shelter Materials, Depending also on where you're At. But Precious Little of This will be in the Form of Trees, Shrubs, or Other typical Woody Plant Materials! Iceland's Not a Land of Forests! It is Sufficiently Above the Latitudinal "Treeline", to be Predominantly Timberless so! Trees and Forest only Exist in the Occassional Sheltered Pockets. And even Parts of That have been Cut Down, since the Vikings Arrived.

Shelter Materials will consist Largely of Soil, Rocks, Sod, Thatch, and Grass! Building Such at least partially Underground, would also Help.

Game Exists, but it's Smaller and I'd say Less Plentiful, than in say Canada.

Icelandic Survival would Sum Up to, a Combination of Cold / Arctic, Grassland, Sea and Coast, and Rocky Desert Survival. With some Mountain Elements, and of course Volcano, Earthquake, and Other Disaster Awareness, thrown in as well. Hunting, Fishing, and Trapping Skills and Equipment, would be a Great Addition too!

If in the North or Interior, Follow Southward, Eastward, or Westward Flowing Rivers, to the Coast. Beware of Rocks, Rapids, and Such, All Along. If in the North, you may also even Want to Head for it's Coast. It Beats being in the Interior! Strike Out for Iceland's Second Largest "City", -Akureyri, up here on the Northern Coast. (But Well Inleted.) Being a State Sized Island, you Don't have all that Terribly Far to go, to Get to a Coast. Some Parts of the Coast are More Hospitable / Inhospitable, than Others. If in a Less Hospitable one, Work your Way Up or Down, to a More Hospitable one. Most Ideally, You'd Want to Work your Way South or West, to the Reykjavik / Keflavik Area!

Iceland is a Progressive, First World, Developed Nation. As a Part of This, They Have Good Search and Rescue, Game Warden, and Etc. of Activities / Capability, in Place.

There is also I Believe, an at least Reasonably Good Island Ringing Road or "Highway". Make Good Use of that!, if you can.

Many of the Same Survival Techniques mentioned for Other Earth Wildest Places COLD, Apply here as well. As also mentioned though, Notable Icelandic Differences also Do exist.

Again, All in All, -It's Not an Alaska or Siberia! But it's Not the Cool Wet Washington, Oregon, or British Colombia Coast either! It Presents Quite an Across the Board Survival Challenge!

This is One of the World's Greatest Wild Places COLD and Arctic!, and This is How you're Gonna Have to very much Survive here! In Iceland's Fire and Ice! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

PATAGONIA And TIERRA DEL FUEGO - We've been up in the North Circumpolar Area for a while, Now Lets Return to the South.

The South American Continent, to which This Area Belongs, Does Stretch Far Enuf South, Far Enuf Toward Antarctica, To Be Well Out of the Tropics. A Good Part of it's Southern Reaches are at the Latitude and Climate of Northern Canada. (Though Not of Canada's Norternmost Queen Elizabeth Islands, -Just Think of Much of Continental Northern Canada, for such Climatic Comparisons.)

Patagonia is the Majority of Southern Argentina, and Much of Southern Chile.

It is Certainly Cold Enuf, to Qualify under "Earth's Wildest Places, -COLD.

There is Far Less Land, and Far More Ocean, in the Southern Hemisphere than in the North. And What Land there is, Usually Doesn't Stretch toward it's Southern Pole, as Land Masses Do in the Northern. The South American Continent though, is a Great and Noteable Exception.

True, Much More of It is the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Andes, the Pantanal, the Chaco, the Pampas, the Atacama, the Altiplano, the Guyanas, the Cerrado-Caatinga-Sertao, the Llanos, the Brazilian Grasslands of it's Center-West, the Selvas, the Mato Grosso, the Tepuis, and Chile's Great Central Valley. With the Exception of the Towering Andes, -Most of Those are Tropical or Subtropical. This is What South and Latin America is So Well Known for!

But a Cold Area!? Many would Not Readily Think so! But Sure Enuff It Does, in This Other Well Known Area of Patagonia and the Tierra Del Fuego. At least it's Names are Well Known, -if Not so much it's Cold Clime.

Also somewhat Unique for Cold Areas of the World, -This Area is Quite Tapered and Skinny, -what is known as the Southern Cone. The Further South toward the Antarctic you go, the Thinner Patagonia and Tierra Gets. It's Quite a Different Affair in the Cold Northern Regions, where These tend to be major Continental Land Masses. Similarly the Arctic and Antarctic Play these Reverse Roles. Everything seems to be Reversed in the Southern Hemisphere!, from Seasons to Weather System Soins to This!

This is Relevant to the Fact that Nowhere in the Cold South, is All that Far from Surrounding Oceans.

But the Mighty Andes Mountains, the Second Greatest Range on Earth!, Plays the Spoiler here! They Put Up a Great Rain Shadow Wall, Against the Moisture Laden, Pacific Prevailing Westerlies! With the Vast Part of Patagonia being East of this, it's as if it were Deep Inland! Patagonia is an Increasingly Cold, Dry Desert. (Though Not so Much as say the Sahara or Sonora.)

Isolated, Bare, Barren, Chilled, and Rocky, Few People Live here. It Truly is One of the World's Great Wild Places!

The much Thinner Chilean Side of the Southern Andes now, Chilean Patagonia, is in Contrast very Wet, Windy, and Rainy! But Cold as well! Much of it's Well Forested!, some of the Most Untouched, Unspoilt, and Spandiferous on the Planet! But even This Increasingly Thins and Bleakens the Further South you Go!

Quit Thinking of the South as Warm!, if you Are. Think of It as we Do our Cool to Cold North! For Down Here, -Thats Exactly What it Is! Again, So Much is Reversed, Down There!

Finally, Both Chilean and Argentine Patagonia Merge in their Southernmost Reaches, -of Tierra del Fuego. This is also the Coldest, and Bleakest Area, once again. This is the Land of the Fabled Cape Horn, the Southernmost, Storm Tossed Tip of the South American Continent! It's the Land of Both Magellan's and Darwin's Famous Voyages.

It's the Gateway to Antarctica!, Across the Drake Passage. Some 600 - 800 Miles from Antarctica Itself! Though Thats admittedy with a Great, North Reaching Peninsular Extension of Antarctica, -The Palmer Peninsula. You'd have to again Go another 700 Miles or so, Before you're Really at the Main Antarctic Landmass and Icesheet. But Still even the Tip of the Palmer, is at the "Latiquivalent" of Central Alaska! And Tierra / Cape Horn is about 55 Degrees South, the Latiquivalent of Central Ungava / Quebec, or Central British Colombia and Prairie Provinces. From Tierra Locales like Ushuaia and Puntas Arenas, Argentina and Chile Meets the Antarctic.

Tierra Del Fuego is a Part of Greater Patagonia, but With Additional Character All it's Own. As Long Island is a Part of New York State, but also Different Enuf to have Much Flavor and Character All it's Own! Considerably Different in Ways, yet Not so Totally Separate or Apart. They are Their Own Identities, but They are also Both Patagonia.

Tierra del Fuego is the Size of one of our Typical Eastern States, say Indiana or West Virginia. While Patagonia as a Whole, might be at about the Size and Area of Alaska.

These More Southern Andes technically are also a Part of Patagonia, but are Better Viewed as being a Part of the Andes as a Whole. They Peter Out to Much Lower Heights in the Tierra Area. Making One Last Showing, in the Spectacular Cliff Heights of Cape Horn!

Actually, a Small and Obscure Group of Non-Descript, Rocky Islands, is a Little Further South than the Horn. The Islas Diego Ramirezes. This is the True and Technical, Southernmost Reach of the Continent, -Indeed of All the Americas. But By and Large, the Horn Justifiably is It!

Talk About the Constantly Worst Sea and Weather Conditions on the Planet, or Something rather Close to It!, -These Waters are It! Rounding the Horn, can Pretty Well be Called the Supreme Test of Seamanship! It Follows that Conditions Onshore in Tierra, Can't Be Much Better!

Fortunately there are some *Comparatively* Calmer Water Passages Cutting Across Tierra del Fuego, such as the Beagle Channel and Strait of Magellan, which Makes it at least somewhat Better Sailing.

"Tierra del Fuego", as many know, Means "Land of Fire" From Magellan's sighting of Many Indian Campfires on the Nearby Shore, Ruffing it in this Bleak Land of Their's, which they Knew so Intimately Well.

I Don't Know just What, Patagonia may Mean.

Just as well, for the Most Important thing to Know, is just What Patagonia and the Tierra is!

A Ruff, Sparsely Isolated, Windswept, Cold, Predominantly Dry Land! With Pretty Much only One Difference in it's West, and Southern Tierra. And thats Wet and Rain! And it is Mostly Plains and Plateau, as well. It's Less Prevalent Andes Mountains, are what Makes it So Dry! A Cold, Empty, Arid Region!

However, Good Freshwater Streams from the Andes, Flow Eastward over It. From the Andes to the Atlantic, Not Often all that Far Away, Down Here in this Tapering Cone. But it Does Provide Freshwater, Fish, and Irrigation!

Glaciers too!, Exist in the More Southern Reaches of the Chilean and Argentine Andes! Some Reaching the Sea, to Calve Off Icebergs! At Least one of these, is among the World's Few Presently *Advancing* Glaciers.

This is Bleak, Cool-Cold Ruff Land!, Down Here! This Isn't any sort of a French or Italian Riviera!

English and Other Non-Spanish Place Names become More Common, the Further South you go. After the Many Explorers and Others, who've Pioneered this Area so. But Don't Take that as an Excuse Not to Learn at least a Few Good Words of Spanish, if you're ever Down There!

I Like, Value, and Enjoy Patagonia and the Tierra So! Better Yet, I More Love It! It Holds it's Head and Shoulder's Well!, -Among the World's Great Wild Places!

But How's It for Making It!, and for Survival, Down There?! Whether One Likes It or No!, Whether There by Choice or Circumstance, -How's One to Best Tide Thru and Survive?! As Well as Best Make It Out?!

Well, for Starters, It Revolves Around Cold, Arid and Desert, and in some Areas, Mountain Survival. It also would Much Involve a type of Grasslands Survival. With Ocean and Beach / Shore / Island / or Coast significantly Thrown In as well. Some Others may Make their Contribution. But Forest and Jungle Survival would Not be among them. Except on the Atypical Chilean Southwest Coast, Patagonia Vastly and Virtually has No Trees! Forest and Woodland Survival is Not an Option here. Not thruout Most of the Patagonia-Tierra Area anyway!

So if you shud Find Yourself Down There, What would be your Best Options for Survival?

First Off, the Further South you are, the Less Distance you'd have to Travel to get to the Ocean. And that Ocean would Preferably be the Atlantic. So as Not to Have to Cross the Towering Andes.

Even in the Patagonian North, (and Thus it's Widest Part), you Don't have Terribly Far to Go. Distances are Not Continental Down here. Except for the North-South Patagonian Distance, which would be Semi-Continental. Which could be 1000 Plus Miles. East-West Distances in it's Widest Northern Part, are typically 500 Miles or so.( Now it's Very Widest Area in the North, a rather Thin upper Strip, may Go to 800 Miles or so.)

No Use Crossing the Andes to it's West!, Unless you're Already in the Andes, or over there on it's Western Side If Not Too Far to their East.

You might in some Circumstances Judge it Better to Strike Westward, to the Pacific Coast. But Even Here just East of the Andes, You'd Usually Want to Go East, to the Atlantic. That would be the Much Better, All Round Thing to Do! No Great Mountain Barrier! There are Plains and Plateau, Albeit a Desert Like one. Distances a Little Longer, but Still Not Continental.

And there are a Good Number of River Pathways, Giving you a Clear One Eastward! They Usually Go Pretty "Straight Shot East"!, Not Heavily Meandering to do so!, like you'd Find in Many Parts of the World. They're also a Great Direction Indicator. And They're a Rich Source of Fresh Water and Food! Rich for the Patagonia, and Rich for you.

Ideally, Raft, Boat, or Otherwise Float Down somehow. But Beware of Rocks, Shallows, or Rapids, though.

You can at least Follow them down from Ashore, in such areas, or even for their Total Distance. Even Doing that for the Total Distance, is Better than having No River Guiderail, or Food, Fish, and Water Source, at All!

Plus you're More Likely to Run Into an Isolated Outpost or Settlement, here in the Quite Empty Patagonia.

But "Go East!, Young Man!", to the Atlantic!

Even if Caught Well Between such Eastward Flowing River Areas, the Sun shud provide a Ready Eastward Beacon and Reference Point. Though Skies are Often Cloudy, even here in Rain Shadowed Patagonia. But one can often get a Perfectly Good Idea on where the Sun is, even on many a Cloudy Day!

Though Both Patagonian Coasts are Quite Isolated and Seldom Visited, you Stand a Better Chance of Hailing Passing Seacraft, or Aircraft, in the Atlantic East, over the Andean or Pacific West!

True, the East is Much Drier, and the West is Quite Wet! But Especially given Patagonia's many enuf Eastward Flowing Rivers, -This shud be No Insuperable Disadvantage or Problem.

Go East in this Survival Situation! It is the Far, Far, Better Thing to Do!

And once on Patagonia's Eastern Coast, then Start Following that Coast, Striking Northward. Towards the Argentine Pampas, if Need Be. The Pampas are a Great Pasture and Grain Area as well! This of course Bodes Well, for Survival Situations. When you Get There, You are in the Orbit of Big Buenos Aires! Which in this Situation Equals Extrication, Civilization, and Rescue!

On your Way, You Won't be Able to Avail yourself of Trees and Conventional Firewood, once again. Nor such Plant Shelter Materials. Unless you're in that Small, Cut Off Area of Patagonia, in the Chilean West.

You're gonna Have to do Grasslands / Desert type Survival, and Rock / Turf / and Earth type of Shelter Building. Grass and Grasslands types of Firebuilding too! Though along Riverbanks, you may well find a Good Supply of More Conventional Wood. Perhaps Some anyway!

There is some Patagonian Game, which you can Hunt and Trap. Bird's Eggs may be a Reasonably Available Good Find. This is the Land of the Rhea!, or South American Ostritch. Or Nandu ( N(y)andu ), as you may hear the Natives call it.

Once you Do Reach the Atlantic Shore, (or Pacific for that Matter.), -You're Within a Much Richer Food Source Area! As regards both Sea and Land! The Air too, as Far as Birds are concerned. Much of this will be Seabirds. Gulls, Skuas, Petrels, -You Name it! Seals, Fish, and Other Sea Life Abounds! Whales are Off the Coast. The Normal Inland Patagonian Wildlife would Abound here as well. Deer, Llamas and Llama Like Animals, Puma, Fox, Rodents, Chinchilla-Vizcacha, the Rhea-Nandu, even a Few Marsupials. Among Other Animal Life. Here along the Patagonian Coasts, -You can Tap Into this! East of the Andean Slopes, This is your Best Food Source. Followed by that on and along the Eastward Flowing Rivers. Followed by what you could Find on the Eastern Slopes of the Andes. Followed more Meagerly, -but Not Neccessarily Sparsely, by What you'd Find Amidst the Great Patagonian Dry Plains Itself.

There may be some Food Sources Differences in Tierra and Southwest Chile. But it Shud be Similarly Rich, perhaps even Richer!

There we Have it, for the Basic Patagonian Food, Fire-Warmth, Water, and Shelter considerations.

Navigation and Direction Finding, would be Very Important in this Very Flat, Open, Sprawling Area too! It's Expanses will often be Landmark Poor.

Now as to the Patagonian Andes Themself, -Another comparatively Small Area within, This would entail All within the World of Mountaineering and Mountain Survival. See the Earth's Wildest Places Post on the Andes, to Come, for that.

This is South America's Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego! This is Survival in, and Extrication From, Patagonia and the Tierra Del Fuego! A Fine Outdoors Place to be!, but it's Leaner on Survival Provisions than Many! Still it is Far from the Worst! If ever Caught, or Otherwise Finding yourself in Pat or the Tierra, -This is What you'd be Faceing! These are the Things you Must Do!

I went Further on the Length than I'd like to. I'll Continue to Try to Keep it Down. I Have been sometimes Able to Do that, within this Thread, which gives me Cause for Hope there. Regrets and All Due Apologies once again. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

SOUTH GEORGIA And SIMILAR ISLANDS - This Sizeable, Cold, Bleak, Windswept, Isolated, Mountainous and Glacier Clad, South Atlantic Island, -is the Centerpiece of a Horseshoe Shaped Island String. This Stretches from South America's Southern Tip at Tierra Del Fuego, Clear Across to the Mid-Atlantic, Before Doubling Back to Antarctica's Palmer Peninsula, by way of the South Sandwich and South Orkney Islands. The South Shetland Islands Wrap this up, Closest to Antarctica's Palmer. The Falklands or Malvinas begin this Island Chain, Much Closer to South America and Argentina. It shall be Discussed after This One, in a Post of it's Own.

Due to the Horseshoe type Curving Back of this Chain, -Each End, -The Falklands and South Shetlands, -are Actually Closer to Each Other, than either is to South Georgia, the Chain's Central Anchor Point. Let Alone the South Sandwich ones, the Most Distant of All from Any in the Chain.

Well Further Across much of the Southern Atlantic, is Norway's Bouvet Island. It is Too Far East, however, to be considered a Part of this Same Geological Formation and Chain. It has the Same Utterly Rotten Sea Conditions and Weather!, and is probably just as Ruff, Rugged, and Rocky! It will be Discussed Later, under ISOLATED WORLD ISLANDS.

It's East Enuf to be Quite Close to the Greenwich Meridian. Whereas the Easternmost South Sandwiches, are a Good Thousand Miles further West than Bouvet. Still, the South Sandwiches *are* Quite Near the Mid-Atlantic. South Georgia and Other Scotia Islands may Not be in the Mid-Atlantic, but They're Still a Good Quarter of the Way Across, nevertheless.

These Islands are all within about 52 -63 Degrees South Latitude. The Roaring 40's and the Angry South Atlantic! The Antarctic Circumpolar Ocean! This is Pretty Far South and Cold! Just Picture once again 52 - 63 Degrees North, To Get the Spirit, Flavor, and Idea! The Weather and Climate here is as Bad as I said for Cape Horn, or Worse! (See Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego.)

These also Qualify to be Covered under "Earth's Wildest Places, / The Survival Aspects.-ISOLATED WORLD ISLANDS". But also Being COLD Such as they are, They will be Covered here. Some Other Isolated World Islands are Down At or Near these Latitudes, be it North Polar or South Polar. But All of these, with the Exception of Norway's Far North Atlantic Volcanic Island of Jan Mayen, (and Ones such as the Arctic Siberian Islands already Discussed.), will All be Addressed under EWP, Svl. Aspects, ISOLATED WORLD ISLANDS. That will Come sometime Later.

All of these Islands in the South Georgia String, also Called the Scotia Islands and Sea, -All are Typically Small, Windy, Cold, Rainy, Foggy, Rocky, Sea Swept by some Pretty Ruff Ones!, and Isolated. Some can be Pretty Big for "Small" Islands, though! Looking at my Globe, the Falklands are perhaps 100 Miles Across, South Georgia is maybe 70, and Coronation island is maybe 20 or 30.

They have been Formed by Long Ago Volcanism, though they are Not Neccessarily Volcanic now.

We'll from this point on Discuss primarily South Georgia, the Chain's Frigid, Forbidding, Jewel and Centerpiece!

Virtually Anything Discussed as Characterizing South Georgia, is Equally Applicable to All Else Down Here! (Except some of the Other Islands may Not have Glaciers.) So we'll let South Georgia do a sort of Double Duty here. Beyond whats already been said relating to them, We would have to Skip over these Less Important, More Minor Islands, anyway.

So How is South Georgia?

It is a Longish, Slightly Curving, (With the "Grain of the Chain"), Ovalish yet somewhat Rectangular, Ruggedly Mountained, Bare, Snow Capped and Glaciered, Windswept and Sea Lashed, Bleak, Ruff, Rugged, and Rocky!, 70 or so Mile Long Island! In the Deep, Cold, Southern Ocean! It might be Lucky to be 20 or 30 Miles Thick. at it's Thickest!

What Columbus said of Dominica's Mountainousness to his King and Queen, -Can be said just as Much!, of South Georgia! Columbus Didn't have to say a Word to Make his Point, -All he Had to do, was Crumple up a Piece of Paper Before his King, which he Did. That is as Much the Story of South Georgia's Mountainousness!, as it is of Dominica's!

Hardly Anyone Lives there! This is of course Due to it's Atrocious Conditions and it's Smallness. But even if that were Not so!, It's Isolation, Obscurity, and Remoteness, would be Enuf to Make it, Virtually Uninhabited So!

It's Cold as it is! Plus this High Altitude, Ruff and Rocky Place, Does get a Winter!

This is the Famous Life-Saving, Make It or Break It!, -Destination of Shackleton! As he and some Select Men set out on Not the Best of Boats in Any Sea Conditions, Let Alone These!, of the South Atlantic Drake Passage! Toward South Georgia! They so Set Out for South Georgia, Without the Best of Navigation Equipment or Observing Conditions! It Came Down to Knowledge, Determination, Discipline-Both Self and Group, Tenacious Endurance, and Sea Sense and Real Top Notch Seamanship! And They Finally Made It! Thru Ruff Seas and Weather, Utter Hardships and All, -They Finally Made It!

But to the Wrong Side or Coast!, of South Georgia! -It's Southern Underside. But this could Not be Helped, in that They were *Coming* from it's Southern Underside! They Knew that Very Well.

As if their Hardships that they've Already been Thru were'nt Enuff!, They now Knew they had Miles of Icy, Rough, Over-Mountain and Overland Travel Ahead of Them!, Before they could Come Out at What Made For Humanity and Civilization Down here! This was the Tiny Whaling Station at Gritivkyn, on the North Side of the Island. They Used only the Barest and Sketchiest of Maps, if even That! An "Educated Gauging of It", as They had Done earlier, Out on the Sea!

But They Made It so!, into Lonely Gritivkyn! Word was Finally Relayed, of the Entire Group's Status and Plight. A Far More Standard Rescue was Soon Enuff Made, to a Large Part of his Men, Still Left Behind, as in the Circumstances They had to be, on Elephant Island. This Island is Far Closer to the Antarctic, one of the South Shetlands. A Part of this Entire South Georgia / Scotia Island String.

As an Isolated World Island, and Great Outdoors Wilderness Location, I Like, Love, Respect, and Regard South Georgia so!

As a Hiking and Survival Locale, I Respect It so! More than Anything Else. It's a Real Bear!, as Shackleton's Crew only All Too Well Knew and Experienced!

It's Coldness, It's Roughness, It's Atrocious Winds and Weather, It's Exposure, It's Rain, It's Mountains and Glaciers, It's Lack of Trees, It's Lonely Isolation, It's Many Ever Present Perils and Dangers!

This is South Georgia!

This is Survival in South Georgia!

But it's a Very Crisp, Clean, Great Outdoors Location All the Same! It Truly Takes it's Place!, in the Ranking of the World's Great Wild Places!

Be That as it May!, or rather Is. If Down Here, -You are Going to Have To somehow Survive! Survive and Make It Out! -In These Quite Non-Survival Conducive of Conditions! There may be a Little More of Man's Prescence there than in Shackleton's Day, -but Not Much! It's Still so Very Much the Same Old South Georgia Survival Challenge!, as Ever! It's just a Fact, that if Down There, -You *Will* Have to Face the Same sort of Survival Challenges and Conditions, as Shackleton and his Crew Faced! South Georgia makes No Differientiating Distinction, between either You or They! It may be Quite Ruff and Hostile, but it's Nothing Personal. It's just Nature and the Outdoors being Nature and the Outdoors! It Feels that we are on It's Turf, and at It's Pleasure!, -Not Vice Versa! Its so Thruout the Entire World of the Great Outdoors!, and South Georgia is No Exception!

So How's Specific Survival Down Here?!

What Will you Face? How Will you Hold Tight and Over? What Will you Do?, and Just as Importantly, Not Do? How Do you Plan on Getting Out? Of Reaching your Own sort of a Gritivkyn. (Which just as "Easily" could be Gritivkyn Itself.)

South Georgia would Involve, Cold Survival,Mountaineering and Mountain Survival, Sea and Coast Survival, Glacier Survival and Savvy, and to some Substantial Extent, a Kind of "Grasslands Survival".

It would Not Usually, if Ever, Involve Forest or Woodland Survival! South Georgia is Another Cold Area of the World, Where you Cannot Readily Avail Yourself of This! But there *May* be *Some* Trees and Forest in *Some* Areas, -I'm Not Sure on That! Count on Grasses and Such, and Rocks and their Like, for your Fire-Fuel and Shelter Needs! What Plants there are, are your Non-Woody ones. You're Not going to Find even these Grasses and the Like, in so Much of South Georgia's Bare, Snow and Ice Covered, Mountains!

Tussock Grasses and Such. They are Highly Nutritious!, at least for Animals. And All Grasses Do happen to be Edible. And there are an Awful Lot of Grasses on this Planet! I Don't know for Sure whether Tussock Grass is an Actual Grass.

(All Birds too are Edible, at least until I heard about the Discovery of a Very Poisonous One in New Guinea, over the Past 15 years or so! I Believe this Bird is Partly Orange, and may also have some Black. I am Not Entirely Sure about these Colors, though.)

You're Obviously gonna Have to Do a Lot of Cold Protection and Preparation!

Altitude can Become somewhat of a Factor, though Not Everests, the Mountains Do get Pretty Darned High!, -Nevertheless!

Glaciers Abound!, Complete with their Crevices and Other Pitfall Dangers.

Avalanches too, should certainly be Possible.

You'd Want Wind and Rain Protection! Especially the Cold Rain Protection! ,-No Diminishment whatever to the Imperatives of Wind Protection as well! As in Any Cold and Wet Climate, -You're gonna Want to Keep Warm and *Dry*!

Fresh Water shud be at least reasonably Accessable! Even if you have to Melt Snow and Ice, to Get at it!

South Georgia may have some Streams. One would Think that such a Wet, Mountainous, Snow and Ice Clad, Sizeable Island as This, Ought to! But the Island may Not have what one might consider Major Rivers. Even if it Does Possess some, They would have to be Short, on such a Smallish Island.

The Island is Small compared to more Usual Land Areas. But Large!, for one of the World's Typically Small, Isolated World Islands! If One Wants to Consider a Vermont or New Hampshire Sized Island (Perhaps), to be Small, then So Be it. But it so Much Comes Down to What you're Comparing it To! New Hampshire and Vermont *are* Two of our Smallest States. But That's an Awful Lot of Ground to be Tramping Around in! If Anyone Owned that Much Property, They'd be a Land Baron or Something! So South Georgia is at Once either Small or Large, Depending on How you're Looking at It! If you've Got to Survive Here!, and also Hike your Way Out!, -You're gonna be Viewing It as Rather Large!

Food may be Very Iffy to Non-Existant!, in the Interior.

But it can be Quite Abundant and Rich!, -Along the Coast! All the More Imperative Reason, to Strike and Head For, that Coast! Others of course would be to Gain a Gritivkyn type Rescue, and to Get the Heck Out of the Glaciers and Mountains! You may well Find Rich Sea, Bird, and Shore Life!, Along the Coasts! Seals and Whales shud be a Part of Such. Though you're Not likely to have Ready Access to Whales. But Seals Do Come up onto Rocky Beaches! Where They can be Available as a Good, On Hand, Food Source. Head for the Coasts for This and All Other Reasons to Go There! Avail Youself of This Greater Coastal Bounty!

You might Not have all that Far to Go to Get to a Coast, -But you Do Have an Awful Lot of Mountain and Glacier Hurdles to First Get Across!, in Order to Do so! So if it could be Rated on an Index, -This might be the Equivalent of at least Hundreds or More Miles, of a Ruff, Flat Surface, Wintertime, Canadian Hike!

As Atrociously Bad as the North Coast Sea and Weather Conditions typically Are!, This Northern Coast is probably the Better of the Two! The Southern One, in the Direct Face of Antarctic Blasts, is Most Probably Worse! Try for a Coast!, -But Try for the North Coast, as Oppossed to the South Coast. Some Coastal Areas may be More Advantageous than Others, as Far as Food Sources Go. Here I Do Not Know of specifically Which. The North is Still the All Round Far Better One to Strike Towards! Here you also Face the Civilized and Developed World to the North, whereas on the South Coast, You Only Face Bleak and Empty Antarctica! There is an East and West Coast too, but these are Minor "Ends" of the Island.

Pick and Work your Way Out of those Glaciers, Cliffs, and Mountains! Surviving as you Do! Work your Way to a South Georgian Coast!, again preferably it's Northern.

Occassional Shipping Does come in to Gritivkyn. There may even be Occassional Air Traffic, if there's an Airport. On such a Large and Important Island as This, There probably is an Airfield. Passing or Visiting Ships and Aircraft, -Signal for Them!, andor Wait for Them!

There may also be a Science or Nature Station or Two on the Island. Or a British Defense Installation or Two. Stike and Head for Them!

And as a Last but Not Least!, Things like Good Maps, Compass, and GPS and the Like, would Sure come in Very Important and Handy!

This is South Georgia with it's Fellow South Sandwich and Scotia Islands! And These are some of your Topmost South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands Survival Characteristics and Imperatives! You're in for a Ruff, Exposed, Wet, Windy, Cold, Highly Deprived, Mountaineering Stay!, -Shud you ever for any Reason Find Yourself Having to Survive Down There! South Georgia may Not be among the Very Coldest of the World's Coldest Wild Places, but it's Very Ruff and Cold Enuf! South Georgia is Nothing to Pooh Pooh over or Sneeze At! Just Ask Shackleton or Any of His Crew!

Tried again on the Length Front and Didn't Pull Thru on this one. Regrets and Apology. Will Cotinue to so Try. I Did Do it Before, and I Think I Can and Will Do It Again. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

The FALKLANDS / MALVINAS - Though a Part of the Great South Georgia / South Sandwich / South Scotia Islands Chain, -The Falkand Islands or Malvinas also Sufficiently Stand Off Apart from It, in it's Own Right.

Like South Georgia, It is Stand Out Large in the Chain! In Fact, a Good Deal even Larger than South Georgia!

It's also Very Near Argentina, Tierra Del Fuego, and South America, Unlike the Others. (If you can Call being some Three or Four Hundred Miles Off as Quite Near! But Relative to the Rest of the Chain, -It Is!)

It also has a Long Established British Settler Prescence.

And the Whole Matter of British and Argentine Counterclaims to the Twin Island. And the Falklands War which had Resulted. Though Places such as South Georgia, also Played a Minor Supporting Role, and Acted as a Side Front, in that War. But Vastly and Virtually, the Falklands Stands Apart and Alone, in This Regard as well!

The Falklands or Malvinas Themselves are Two Main, Large, Rocky Plateau type Islands, of about the Same Size and Shape, Facing Each Other across a relatively Narrow, Split Down the Middle, of a Channel. Many Other Smaller Islands and Rocks Accompany it so.

It has a Quite Cool to Cold Climate too. But it is Not as Bad as South Georgia and the Other South Sandwiches. The Falklands has More of a Scottish type Climate than They. However, the Falklands or Malvinas is Right Next to Southernmost Patagonia! And it's Only a Little Ways North of Tierra Del Fuego and the Horn! So it Gets More than a Little, of the Same Bad Seas and Weather! The Falklands or Malvinas are at a somewhat More Northerly Latitude than South Georgia. And Certainly over any Others among the South Sandwiches or Scotias! This Accounts for it's somewhat Warmer and More Hospitable Clime!

Now as to Why I also Call them the Malvinas. This goes back to the British Calling them the Falklands, and the Argentines Liking to Call them as the Malvinas. Very British and Argentine Spanish Sounding Names!, I'll Add. It's Easy to Call Them as One or the Other, if you Personally Lean or Stand, Behind One or the Other! But When you See Areas of Merit and Possibility to Both Claims, It's Not so Easy. And so I Do Fairly Make Mention of Both. I Give a Little More Weight to "Falklands", since that is the Conventionally Understood Name. And the Brits will Feel that if they Have Rights to the Territory, then they also Have Right to the Name.

But Beyond Fairness and Consideations to Both Sides Angles, -I Personally just Happen to Like, Love, and Prefer the Name "Malvinas" Anyway! While at the Same Time, Not Particularly or Personally Liking or Careing For!, the Name "Falklands" (With All Due Respect, -because I can See How in Itself, -It is a Fine Name! As is Also "Malvinas"!)

As to the Pro and Positive Aspects of the Argentine Feeling and Claim, -It Shud be the Malvinas!

But Just as Much to the Pro and Positive Aspects of the British Feeling and Claim, -It Shud be the Falklands!

Briefly, Without Getting into the All Round Controversial and Political Issues, the Argentines have a Natural Proximity on their Side, While the British have a Long Established Settlage. The Climate is Far More British and Scottish, than Warmer Argentine or Latin American. Also, the British have essentially Developed the Place, to the Extent that it's been Developed, -Whereas it's Always been a Forgotten Backwater to the Argentines, even back when they earlier had any Chance.

Argentina Feels that by Rights, this very Proximate Land is Their's. And I'm Personally Inclined to Very Much Agree. It's Obviously Much Closer to Argentina, and Well within it's Normal and Natural Sphere of Influence. In at least This Way, It shud only Naturally Belong to Argentina.

But I Understand and Respect the British Points and Feelings too. I Understand How They'd Feel, if we had Gone In and Annexed their Bahamas Possession, (Before it's Independence.), which is Proximate to us. In a Similar Falklands / Malvinas Situation.

A Good Compromise Solution, might be to Divide Up the Islands Between them Both. East Falkland goes to the British, West Falkland to the Argentines. With Each getting all appropriate Accompanying Islands. They are, After All, Mirror Images of Each Other in Nearly All Respects!, It's Not like One would be Getting More than the Other!

But Until This or any Other Settlement may Possibly someday Come Along, the Falkland Islands are British.

Thats That on That.

Now as to Survival Down Here! It's something of a Ruff Scrabble type of Scottish Sheepherder and Fisherman, type of Survival and Living Down Here! Everything so far said concerning South Georgia and Co.,-Largely Applies Here as Well ! Minus the Glaciers. Minus the Mega Mountains. Minus Some, but Only Some!, of the Roughness!

Few People Live here! Even the British Population is Not that Great! There is Far, Far More Sheep and Other Livestock here, than People. That can be a Boon and Have it's Food Value, in a Survival Situation! Thats Another Difference with South Georgia!, Wild, Empty, Mega Mountainous South Georgia, Doesn't have Sheep Grazing and Raising! So Far as I know, anyway.

Work your Way to one of it's Many Inlets, or elsewhere on it's Coast! You Have even More Food Sources Available to you here! Many such Coastal Locations will be Ruff and Rocky. But it's as a Plateau Mergeing into the Sea, -Not as Mountains Crowding Right onto the Beach, as you might often have in South Georgia!

It's Cool to Cold Survival again! It's Sea and Coast Survival. It's "Grasslands" Survival!, certainly of the Thatch, Turf, and Sod type! You Can't Avail yourself of Forests or Firewood here! You Don't Really have any Mountains to Speak of. So Mountain Survival to a Good Measure, Does Not Apply.

Food and Water are Much as on South Georgia, and here again, your Focus and Aim would be More the Coast! Except that here on the Falklands or Malvinas, You have Much Better Inland Food Sources and Survival Resources / Capability, as well! You can also get to Coaxing Along a Garden, and May be Able to Make the Land your Primary Food Source, over the Coast.

Shelter would Have to be of the Ground / Rocks / and Sod House type!

Fires and Stoves would Have to be of such Grassland Materials and Types, as well!

In the Falklands, however, it shud be a Fairly Quick and Easy Matter, to Come Upon Settlers or British Personnel and Authorities. As such, It's Not Really a Survival Situation, or if so, Wouldn't be so for Long! Though a Quite Wild and Frontiersy Place, the Falklands are Settled, though with Few. Unlike so Many of the Other World's Wild Places as we've Talked On, or Will Come to Yet Meet! These are the Falklands / Malvinas Survival Imperatives. But you probably Won't be Needing them!, -Not for Long Anyway! It would be for a Lot Longer, however, -if you Wanted to "Survive as a Settler", Down There!

Finally, a Very Important Falklands Survival "Last but Not Least"! And that is the Matter of Minefields! Going Back to that Falklands War mentioned earlier. The Argentines had Sowed it with Thousands upon Thousands! Maps are Inaccurate or Missing!, if They've even been Made at All! The Argentines had Made the First Land Grab Move in that Conflict. They had Time to Sit and Wait, Before the Distant Brits were even Able to Get There. They Prepared the Meadows and Moorlands Well with Minefields! I'm Sure the British have Located and Cleared Many by now. But Chances are Good that Many yet Remain! Minefields have a Notorious Way of Being Like That! So Beware and Be Aware of Mines and Minefields!, if ever Down in the Falklands, for any reason!

See!, Truly Wild and Untouched Areas of the World *Aren't* Mined! *Some* of Man's Touched Areas Are! The Falklands / Malvinas is Such a One! Be Aware and Beware!

This is It now, for the Falklands / Malvinas. Now it's Time to Go Back North! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

THE WILDS OF MAINE - We now Fly Back North Across the Equator and the Atlantic, to the Great Outdoor Wilds of Maine! This is quite a Great, Wild, Empty, Crisp, Clean, Clear, Outdoors Wild Area that I Like & Love a Lot! Our Plane Touches Down in a Place like Portland or Bangor. We are now In that Great Wild Maine Outdoors!

Forests, Lakes, Fish, Mountains, Moose, Potatos, Lobsters, Seafood, Rocky Sea Bashed Shoreline, Great Outdoors Country Folk, Gem Hunts, Mt. Katahdin, and Wide Open Spaces with comparatively Few People! This is Maine! This and More is Maine! -The Great Maine Wilderness and Outdoors!

Just one Look at a Map of the Northeastern U.S. Shows this to be so! So Atypical for an Eastern U.S. State!, -Maine *Is* Empty!, Maine IS Wild! You See All the Built Up Developedness of New England and the American Northeast on such a Map, -And then you Come to Maine! Maine is Different! You Suddenly See a Great Thinning Out of Things!, and Emptiness on that Map! Such is Maine! Maine can be, and Often is, Such a Refreshing Change! After All, It abuts Right Up with Canada!, -Moreover, even up Into Canada! The Land and Life is Rugged and Harsh Enuf here, for even such an Eastern American Locale as This, to be so! You've Only got a Stone's Throw North, -Before you're in One of the Wildest, Emptiest Places in the World, -Canada's Ungava, Labrador, and Quebec! No Darned Wonder!, Maine is so Wild, Empty, and Isolated! Up there in our Nation's Far Northeastern Corner. It's one of the World's Great Wild Places!, -Right Here in the Good Ole U.S.A.. And in our East at that!

You'd Think that anything Really Wild within the U.S. would have to be in Alaska or our Great American West! That is Indeed Largely the Case. But we've Got some Others as well!

The Adirondacks, the Appalachians, the Everglades, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Wild Wonderful West Virginia, New York's Finger Lakes along with Champlain, the Louisiana Bayou, Upper Michigan, the Ozarks, Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns, the Nebraska Sandhills, Acadia and Shenandoah, the Great Smokies, Mt. Rushmore and the Dakota Badlands, Bristlecone Pines-Sequias-and California Redwoods, and So Many Great and Spandiferous National Parks! (Though the Majority of this last One is Out West.)

And to This we Add, -The Wilds of Maine! Truly the Largest and Wildest Area of our Entire East!, Second Only to the Appalachians as a Whole.

(Only 40 per Square Mile, -This Isn't as Sparse as some Other Great Wild Areas of the World. But still Maine has only One and a Quarter Million People in the Entire State!, for such a Population Density of 40 per Square Mile. And a Lot of Those are Concentrated in Places like Portland, Augusta, Bangor, or Other East Coast Locales. These are Based on 1990 Figures. Comparatively Few People Live up here! It may Nominally be a Part of New England, as Well as Being of New England in Other Ways too. But This is *Not* Connecticut or Massachusetts! It is a Place like Bangor, but it is Not Boston! And this is in a 35,387 Square Mile State. Thats a Bit Smallish for even an Eastern State, but a Towering Giant!, when Stacked Next to it's Far Tinier, Fellow New England States as it is! Thruout the Great Majority of Maine, -You *ARE* going to be in Very Empty, Sparse, Wilderness! You Will Know and Feel it to be so!)

Maine is a Good Ole Country Folk Area as well! It may be Well Cut Off from Other Kinsuch Country Areas well to it's Southwest, such as Kentucky, and Other Great Country Hicks / Hillbillys / and Hoedown of Areas. But though Maine may Not be Hillbilly, It certainly is Country! Without a Doubt! Though Maine may Not Entirely Know It, It Shares a Kinship with Other such Great Outdoorsish Country Areas of our's!, All the Same!

America and Americans shud Get to Know Maine a Little Better! Our Own Fellow Brother and Sister, People and State of Maine. While also of course Very Much Leaving it the Heck Alone! -The "Leave Only your Footprints!" Principle. Americans Shud Know that it is There! We shud be so Aware. It is also *Our* Maine, -Not Only that of the Maine Down Easters Themselves! It is There and Available!, to Go Up to, and Get a Taste of! It's Most Definitely Not!, just Another Developed Northeastern State. In Many Ways, It's Not even just Another typical New England State! If it's Fellow States just to it's South and West are as "England", -New England, -Then Maine is as New Scotland, New Wales, or New France!

So Just How is It!?, Up there in Maine? As Both a Great Outdoors Experience, and as a Survival Imperative?

First Off, It's a somewhat Northern Locale. Though on the Southern Fringes *of* Such Great Northern Wild Areas,-COLD. It as such entails, Winter Living, and Cold Survival!

It's also Heavily Forested! It would involve Woodland and Forest Survival! This Boons and Bodes Well for Firewood and Shelter Materials considerations.

It is Four Seasoned Continentally Climed. This includes a Good, Long, Cold, Winter! This certainly Calls For Cold Preparedness and Survival!

If you're Coming from somewhere like the Yukon or Siberia, -True, -You are Going into an Oftentimes "Warmer" Area. But you're Not Going Down to Miami or somewhere! Don't be Fooled or Misled! Cold Arctic Blasts Always Strike Well South! And can Catch you Short! 20 or 30 Below is 20 or 30 Below!, Regardless of whether that be in the Yukon, or More Southerly Maine! Be Just as Prepared! If Arctic Blasts can Strike and Dip Down into the Carolinas!, They Can and Assurredly Do!, Sock and Cover the Likes of Maine!

It has a Rocky and Deeply Indented Seacoast! This Calls for Sea and Shore type Survival! Good Seamanship as Well, would be Well Advised!

The Northern Extents of our Appalachians Come Up into here!, Summiting Off in Mt. Katahdin! This is the Beginning and Ending of the Appalachian Trail, Depending on How you Look at it. Depending on whether you are Beginning or Ending your Trail Journey here. (Another, More Westward Running Trail shud Begin and End here too!, as I Make a Case For, in "Another Appalachian Trail") Maine too!, is an Appalachian Mountains State! This Calls for Mountaineering and Mountain Survival Skills and Techniques!

There are Freshwater Lakes, Fish, and Streams Galore! This Brings the Wide World of Fishing!, to the Fore! Including that Wide Sub-World, of Survival Fishing Techniques!

Similar Hunting and Trapping, Knowledge and Preps, would Serve you Well Up Here, too.

Being Four Seasoned, Maine is Not All Winter! As Wintry as it Often is! Summer with it's Summertime Dry Spells and Downright Droughts!, -Does Come to Maine too!

Which Includes the Very Real Possibilities of Forest Fires! Across Much of Maine's Great Forestland. The Vast Majority of the State *is* Forested! The "Whole State" could conceivably Burn up, as Largely Happened in a Drought of the Late 40's. Forest Fire Safety, Knowledge, Awareness, Sense, Prevention, Detection, Fighting, and Fire Escape and Survival Techniques, are Vital!, Up Here! Who says Forest Fires only happen in the South and American West! Some Can and Do Happen in the East as well, and Maine is a Prime One of Them! Admittedly, however, Most and Many of the Greatest, Do typically Occur Out in the Great American West.

(See "Wildfire Loose, -The Week Maine Burned", by Joyce Butler, Down East Books, Camden Maine. I'm Using the Second Edition Reprint, with a 1987 Copyright. The First Edition came out around the 30th Anniversary of the Fires, in the Late 70s. She Tells a Very Illuminating, even Riveting, Account! Her Only Real Drawback, is that Often, She seems to be "Describing Grass Grow"!, with some of Her particular Style. But Otherwise Superb!, and Well Documented and Researched. Not Much elsewhere to Find Fault with!, and So Much to Compellingly "Keep you Within the Pages"! Joyce Butler's Excellent Work on the Statewide, 1947 Maine Wildfires, once again. I can Only Highly Recommend It!)

But at least Maine *Doesn't* have Earthquakes to speak of! Though Once in a Great While, There's a Really Big One in New England, Eastern Canada just to it's North, Offshore in the Atlantic, or elsewhere in the Eastern U.S. It's something you can Pretty Well Keep on the Shelf!, up here in Maine. But you shud still Keep it in the "Could Happen" Department. On that Part of your Overall, Preparedness, "To Do" List.

Volcanos, however, -Maine has Absolutely None! The Nearest Being as Far Off as Iceland, the Mid-Atlantic, the Carribean, Mexico and Central America, Alaska, and the American and Canadian West! You Won't have to be concerning yourself Any!, with Possible Volcanic Dangers, in these Maine Centered Parts!

Hurricanes so Rarely Ever come up here as well!, and when they Do, they're often somewhat Understrength. Joyce Butler in her Book does speak of one which Came Up to Maine, in 1938. (Page 219).

Tornados are More Common, but are also Quite Rare! So Much so as to be Almost Unknown. But Each and Evry of our 50 States has Gotten Them! I Think this even Includes Alaska and Hawaii. And a Number of Other Countries Get Them too! Albeit Much Less! The U.S. and it's Great Plains Come in as King!, when it Comes to This Subarea of Weather Emergencies! Maine Once in a Rare While Gets one too! But as a Usual General Rule, Most Probably Won't!

Some Other sorts of Survival Imperatives are also Out!, in Maine. Beyond just such Obviousities as Desert and Jungle Survival.

I'm Referring to Less Readily Obvious things such as Swamp and Grasslands Survival. Maine is Not under a "Near Rockies" Rain Shadow. If it were, it could Involve Grasslands or even Desert Survival, even at This Latitude. Maine Simply is Not Under such. And it's Own Appalachians are Not High Enuf, to Do so. Maine as such is Well Forested, -So Grasslands Survival does Not come into play here. While Maine may well have some Swamps, It is Not the Louisiana Bayou either! And so Swamp Survival is at least for a Large Part, a Non-Player, up here in the Wooded Wilds of Maine.

To more specifically Survive up here, You've Got to be Prepared for the Cold! You've Got to Avail Yourself of the Rich Resources of it's Forests! These being Food, Fish, Game, Water, Firewood, and Shelter Materials, among Others. More than just your Tent or Other Survival Shelter, -You Can, and Shud Come To, -Build Yourself a Cabin of some sort! Shud you be there for Any Significant Length of Time. You Have *Got* to be Fire Safe up here!, Especially at Any Time Outside of the Wet Season! Use the Streams. Work your Way to Homes, Farms, Firetowers, Towns, Roads, Clearings, or Settlements. Follow the Streams Eastward to the More Settled and Developed Coast. Caution, There will be some Rocks and Rapids. If in the North, Strike South or Southeast. Or perhaps North to Canada's Nearby St. Lawrence Seaway! You Surely shud be Able to Signal to a Passing Ship there! If in More Central or Southerly Parts of Maine, Head Out East. Or West toward New Hampshire and Vermont, but These are Quite Isolated, Mountainous, Wild Areas too. Or you can here Strike a Little South to Nearby Massachusetts, -Surely a Civilized Area.

In any event, as in the Falklands / Malvinas, -You're still in "Settled" Enuff of an Area, that it Shudn't be All that Hard or Long, Before you can Reach Civilization or Rescue! (If indeed you Even Want to Come Out!, of the Wilds of Maine!) Maine too!, I'm Sure has Good to Great SAR and Other Emergency Capabilities as Well! Even Better I'd Imagine, than in those earlier Lonely Falklands. ( Nothing Meant to Take Away from that of the Excellent British Authorities and Personnel, that I am Sure to be Down There! ) Survival can Very Well be a Pressing Imperative!, here in Maine! The Weather and Elements Don't Care a Hoot!, at What Capabilities as we've Got! But either Soon Finding your Way Out, or Soon Having your Way "Found" Out!, Shouldn't be Much of a Problem! Unless of course you Don't have an ELT or Anything!, there in the Deep Maine Woods and Interior! But Otherwise, When in Maine, -It's Not like you're in the Mid-Sahara or Tibet!

These are What Maine both Is and Is Not! Both Survivalwise and Outdoorswise. These are the Wilds of Maine! The Great Maine Outdoors! Wild, Free, and Natural! I Love, Value, and am Drawn to It So! -Only Naturally and Of Course! And Whats More, It is Really Not All that Far Away! (At Least to I and Others here in the Northeast / Canadian Southeast.) Try for Having at least some Nodding Awareness and Acquaintence, of the Great Outdoor Wilds of Maine! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

SPITSBERGEN - SVALBARD - We now Go a Good Ways Northeast, Past Greenland and Iceland, to Norway's Large, Far Arctic Island Group of Spitsbergen. ( Perhaps Also can be spelled Spitzbergen.) ( And a.k.a. Svalbard). It actually Means "Cold Coast" or "Cold Rim", in the Old Viking Norse Language. And that is Very Much Exactly What it is!

They're so Much like Siberia's Large Arctic Islands talked of earlier. And They Share that same Cold Arctic Ocean Area. Spitzbergen too, is Such an Island. The Only Major Difference being, that it Belongs to Norway, Not Rusha. Rusha has the Others. As such, Spitzbergen is Off in the Far Western Arctic Ocean, whereas the various Siberian Ones are Farther East. Though Not Quite so Far West as Greenland, It is Off Toward that Direction.

It's 352 Miles from Northernmost Norway Itself.

( Things start "Crunching Together", the Closer to the Pole you Go! Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, Norway's North Cape, Novaya Zemyla, the Islands of the High Canadian Arctic!, They Do Start Coming All Together, -Just Look at a Globe!, -This Shows it Well! And you *are* Getting Ever Closer to the Pole, at These Latitudes! This Figures into my mentioning How it's Off in Greenland's Direction. "Normally", if Greenland were at *Lower* Latitudes, Greenland would be Much Further West! An Interesting Effect!, Up Here in these High Arctic Latitudes! )

It Comes In at some 39,000 Square Miles, the Size of many typical Eastern American States. That Makes for a Pretty Large Island!

Actually, it is 4 Main Islands, Along with Numerous Smaller Ones, Clustered Together. The Largest One, Spitzbergen or Svalbard, is the Namesake for the entire Cluster. It Counts for More than Half of the Group's entire Area.

Svalbard is the Norwegian Name for the Entire Cluster. While "Spitsbergen" Began as just the Name of this Largest, Mainmost, Island. Thru Common and Conventional Useage, -"Spitsbergen" too, has Come to Mean the Whole Island Group. The Two Names are now Synonymous. Spitzbergen, at least Outside of Norway, is the More Commonly Used One. And it is the One I shall Predominantly Use here.

This Whole Bleak and Frigid Territory, has Only some 4,000 People! Many of these are Norweigan and Russian Coal Miners. Were there Not Coal, There'd be even Fewer People, -Plenty Fewer! Now if there were Only 4,000 People in one of our Eastern States, -That would be Pretty Sparse Indeed! It Gives some Additional Idea, of it's Vast, Bleak, Expanses!

Spitzbergen, just like it's Fellow Siberian Arctic Islands, is Cold, Bare, Barren, Mountainous, Ruff, Rocky, Rugged, Rainy, Windy, Foggy, Icy, Ice and Glacier Covered, Sea Bashed, and Otherwise Bleak! The Weather and Seas are Often Nasty and Sour!

The Islands are so Barren and Cold, that Aside from Lichens, They have Next to No Plants! You Do Not have Those as a Food, Firewood, or Shelter Materials Source!

You May be Able to Avail yourself of Rich Fishing Waters in this Area! So Strike Out for it's Coast!, shud you Find Yourself there! But Watch Out for the Cold Ruff Seas and Weather!, there on the Coast as well!

Survival here Includes Firstmost Cold Survival. Arctic Cold Winter exists for Much of the Year. Along with it's Many Months of 24 Hour Darkness! And What Passes for it's Spring and Summer, Certainly's got to be on the Cool Side! When you're Up this Far North!

In July, Temperatures can get up into the 3 to 9 Degrees *Centigrade* Range. It Occassionally Shoots Higher. Even in the Spitzbergen Summer, You can sometimes expect Drops to Negative 7 Degrees Centigrade. Now Those are just the Short Summer Temps!

Their Fall and Winter Temperatures can typically Get Down to Negative 20 Degrees Centigrade. And it Can at Times Get to Negative 40 Degrees Centigrade!, in their Winter.

Spitzbergen Survival also Involves Absolutely No Forest or Firewood Resources! Nor is there Any such Shelter Materials! Not even Turf or Grasslands Materials! Unlike Many Other Non-Forest Locations of the World. You'd Have to Use Rocks, Earth, Ice, or Snow, for your Shelter Purposes!

Survival on Spitzbergen also Involves Sea and Coast Survival. Protect Yourself from Storms, and from the Ruff, Cold, Salty Seas! And Avail Yourself of the at least Relatively Richer, Sea and "Beach", Food Sources! Land Based Food may be Little to Non Existant! Sea Based Food could be Abundantly Rich! Know How to Find and Gather Beach Life. And Know How to Fish!

You Want to Protect Yourself from the Wind, Cold, Ice, Snow, Wet Waters, and Rain! Keeping Warm and Dry would be Paramount!

Fire Towards your Warmth, Light, Cooking, Dryness and Drying, and even Morale is a Paramount Neccessity! Yet there are Virtually No Such Sources for Such, on the Land! How Do you Possibly get Around this Conundrum?! Perhaps your Only Fire Fuel, may Come from Dried Seaweed and Such, as you can Gather. What already might be Dry on the Shore, Others that you can perhaps Gather from the Waters, and Set Out to Dry! Plus some Driftwood, but that can be Hit or Miss, and there may be Too Little of that anyway! Maybe there are some Other Small Tinder Sources that can be Found. But on a Place like Spitzbergen, All Three of These may be just Too Little! In Quantity and Quality. Seaweed, even if you can Gather Oodles of it, -are Not Logs! I Guess in a Truly Worst Case Scenario, where you Truly had Absolutely No Fire Sources!, -That Bundling Up, Insulation, Keeping Dry, and Sheltering would be your Only Options! You'd have to be Ready to Signal and Such!, and Otherwise be Actively Seeking Rescue. If Thats Not Enuf to Tide you Thru, and keep you Warm and Dry Enuf, -Hate to say it!, but it's Possible that you Might Not Make It! Well the Eskimos and Others somehow Do It! So there Must be a Way to somehow Get This Done! The Eskimos perhaps Use Seal and Whale Blubber and the Like. Desert Survival is Similar in these general Firemaking Regards, but at least in Many of Those, you can often eventually Scrap up Enuf wood!, for a Fire!

Water on Spitzbergen may be reasonably Easy to Get, if in the form of Melted Ice and Snow. There may also be some Rainfall to Catch, or Puddles, Ponds, or Lakes. There may even be some Streams. You may be Able to so Catch or Gather some to All of your Water. It might Not Always be Neccessary to Utilize Ice or Snow for this.

The Polar Bear, and Spitzbergen has them, is a Definite Danger to Watch and Be Wary for! For This Bear Views Man, as just Another of His Food Sources! If it's Hungry and Wants you for Dinner, It's a Pretty Sure Bet, that it Will Kill and Eat you! Unless you can either Stop it somehow!, or Avert, Avoid, Evade, or Escape It! It is *Your* Predator!, -And *You* Are IT'S Prey! -This Great White Bear of the North! Nothing Personal !, It's just Trying to Survive and Have Dinner, just like we or Anything Else! This Caution of course also Applies to Any Other High Arctic Territories, that this Great White Bear Frequents or Inhabits, -Not just Spitzbergen.

You'd Want to Know and Use Signaling!, as well.

Navigation and Orienteering is Quite Feasable on these Islands, Provided there's No Fog.

You shud also Set Out for one of Spitzbergen's Rare Outposts or Settlements! This is Not so Easy as it may be, say in the Falklands. Spitzbergen is a Mighty Big, Empty Place! With Outposts and Such, Few and Far Between! But it is Possible! It Can be Done, -So Try to Do So!

Survival on Spitzbergen and on the Other High Arctic Islands is Dicey and Hard ! I Don't Think One would exactly Want!, to Stay On and Survive here! But if Circumstances Have it that you *Have To* Survive here!, -Then This is How you would Have to basically Go About Doing It! It is Better to *So* Survive here, Long Enuf to Tide Yourself Over to Finding a Settlement or Signaling a Rescue. Rather than Trying to Do an Indefinite sort of Stayon Survival !, Here on Frigid, Bleak, and Empty Spitsbergen!

With perhaps Only Minor Differences, -All that Holds True here for Spitzbergen Survival, -Also Holds True on Any Other Large Arctic Islands. From the North Siberian Arctic, to Canada's Baffin and Ellesmere. Survive on Spitzbergen or any of Those if you Must! But Seek Extrication and Rescue, if you Can! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

Norway's JAN MAYEN ISLAND - Heading Back Southwest toward Iceland now, about Halfway in Fact, -We Come to Norway's Small, Isolated, Mid-Sea, Jan Mayen Island.

It is one of the Many Isolated World Islands, to be Covered in some Depth Later. But we're Covering Jan Mayen here, in that it is such an Earth's Wildest Place,-COLD.

It too is Lonely, Isolated, Small, Bleak, Bare, Barren, Cold, Foggy, Ruff, Rocky, Sea Bashed, Horrendously Weathered, and All the Rest! As we've by now Become somewhat Well Familiar with!, in Such High Arctic or Antarctic Latitudes.

But with One Major Twist and Difference! -It is Volcanic! And Often Actively so! This Isn't Totally New! We've met it in Iceland, Alaska and the Aleutians, and Kamchatka and the Kuriles, for example. But Spitzbergen and a Good Number of Other Places we've "Been To" Lately, are Not Volcanic. So Jan Mayen with it's Active Volcano "Beerenberg", are something of a Standout! When you Think of Norway, You Don't Think of Volcanos! But in so far as Jan Mayen, like Spitsbergen is a Part of Norway, and Not a Possession, Colony, or something, then Here Norway actually has a Volcano! It is the Only Such Volcano, anywhere in Norway. Beerenberg is some 7,000 to 7,500 Feet High!

Beerenberg has Many Glaciers, Five of them Reaching the Sea. This will Present both it's Problems and Oppurtunities, in a Survival Sense. For Instance, It would be a Ready Fresh Water Source! There are No Lakes, apart from Two Seawater Lagoons. And the Only Streams are Meltwater Ones from the Glaciers. Again, a Great and Ready Freshwater Source!

Jan Mayen and it's Volcano are maybe some 600 Miles West of Norway Itself. So it's Not like it's Way Off in some Other Part of the World! Jan is actually Closer to Greenland and Iceland, than it is to Norway. 2/3 of the Way over towards Greenland, in Fact. And it's Still Several Hundreds of Miles North of the Arctic Circle! At 71 Degrees North.

It is in Fact a Part of the Same Mid-Atlantic Geologic and Tectonic Formation, as Iceland is. Right to the Same Northeast / Southwest Orientation, of Iceland's Central, Formative, Fault.

Besides the Beerenberg Volcano with it's Lava Flows, the Place has Not Much More, than a Tiny Airstrip and a Weather Shack!

Some Excellent Reference Sources for Jan Mayen and Beerenberg, (As Well as for Most Other Isolated World Islands, if in a Different Guide in a Given Source / Series.), Are Lonely Planet's "Norway" Guide, Bradt's "Guide to Spitsbergen", and Older National Geographic Maps Going Back to the 50s or 60s!

(Lonely Planet's "Antarctica" Guide, Very Well and Comprehensively Covers the Majority!, of Most Other Isolated World Islands! You Like Can't Get This Anywhere Else! But a Small Weakness with Lonely Planet. It's as if Back in School, -your Geography or Social Studies Book Covered 40 of our States so Comprehensively Well!, but Not All 50! Lonely Planet even mentions some Mysterious, Mythical, Legendary Ones once Thot to Exist by some, but that have since been Canned! Such as Trulsklippen! there's Additionally Something I just Like and Love about that Name "Trulsklippen"!, and Had to briefly Make Mention of it here so! Ones such as That are Great Sea Lore!, if Nothing Else! But Back to the Real Ones. Lonely Planet Completely and Comprehensively Covers Most!, if Not All of Them, -So Well! )

Jan Mayen and it's Beerenberg happens to be in their Excellent Norway Guide. Bradt Covers it Very Well too! And if you can Come Across the Appropriate and Excellent National Geographic Maps, -You can See Excellent, Detailed Maps, of All of These so Obscure, Isolated World Islands! Jan Mayen Included. Access and Avail Yourself, of these Excellent Reference Sources!, if you Can!

Now as to Survival On, and Rescue or Extrication From!, -Jan Mayen and it's Beerenberg Volcanic Lava Flows!

First, You're Dealing with Cold Survival, Sea and Coast Survival, Atrocious Seas and Weather, Bare Treelessness, Much 24 Hour Mid-Winter Darkness, and Other Such High Arctic Samesort, as we've Met Many Places Already! It's also Awash Amidst the Cold Greenlandic Ocean Current. That of course Makes For a Colder Land!

Jan Mayen is Pretty Bare of Plant Life, but it's Surprisingly Present in More Sheltered Areas, for an Arctic Land! it is a Little Further South, and thus a Little Warmer! Still it is Not Enuf to Support any kind of Animal Grazing.

You're on Quite a Small Island Too. It's Only some 30 Miles Long, by 8 or so Miles Wide! (My Quick Estimation from Kilometer Dimensions given in the Bradt Guide, which are 56 .3 Km by 15 .8 Km.) This Doesn't Give you a Lot of Maneauvering Room to Try to Survive In! Let Alone on a Place so Bare!

It has something of a Dumbell Shape, one End Larger, the Other Smaller.

The Best Landfalls, are in the Pinched Off Middle. Tides are only some 2 and 1/2 Feet in Range.

And then of course there's the Whole Vital Matter of Volcanic Awareness and Survival !, on Jan Mayen! Volcanos can be Something Else!, Like No Other!

Food,-Get that from the Beach and Sea! Aside from perhaps the Quite Occassional Plant, -You Can't Get that from Land! Unless you can Nab a Bird!, or perhaps even Bird's Eggs.

Water,-Again, you shud Have a Perfectly Adequate to Abundant Source!, from the Glaciers and Meltwater. The Volcanic Soil is Quite Porous, however, a Lot of Water Drains Right In! Try to Prevent a Lot of that, with Collecters, Spread Plastic, Etc.

Fuel or Firewood, -Maybe some of the Meager Plant Materials in a Poor Man's "Grassland Survival", at Best! Occassional Small Woody Plants Do Grow every Here and There!, though.

You Can also Make Use of some Volcanic Steam Pits and Other Volcanic Heat and Warmth Sources!, for Some of your Warmth, Cooking, and Other Needs.

Shelter,-Some Natural Rock Shelters Scattered About, Plus what Rocks and Volcanic Soil as you can Arrange for a Shelter, -May be Pretty Much your Only Option and Best Bet!
You might be Able to Scrap Up enuf of those relatively Rare Woody Plants too, for Shelter Uses!

Air Signaling is a Sim Hope with a Dim Chance! For Jan is Usually Socked In by Fog and Cloud Cover! However, at least an Occassional Sea Vessel Arrives or Passes By! At least an Occassional Aircraft Makes Use of Jan Mayen's Air Strip. Be Ready to Contact and Make Use of Them!

You'll have to Work yourself to What Settlement or Installation on Jan Mayen there is. Small Weather Station, Volcano Observatory, Etc. Being such a Small Island, This Shudn't be Too Long or Difficult! Except that the Volcanic Landscape, can Provide some Really Tuff and Dangerous Going! There are Cliffs, in a Number of Places on Jan Mayen, as well ! Once you Do Make some Human Contact, You shud be Pretty Allright, and Sooner or Later on your Way Out of there!

This is Cold, Mid-Atlantic, Volcanic Jan Mayen Island! And This is Survival On!, and Extrication From!, this Cold, Mid-Atlantic, Volcanic, Jan Mayen Island! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

SCANDANAVIA And KARELIA - Heading East over to Norway Itself, We Arrive at our Next Wild Place Destination, -Scandanavia.

While some of it, Primarily the Southernmost Parts, are Not Purely one of the World's Wildest Places, -So Much of the Rest of it is! The Great Majority of it!, as a Matter of Fact, is! It's a Large, Colder, Ruffer, More Obscure, "Sidewing" of Europe! Its Far More Open and Wild!, than Most of More Typical Europe. Typical Europe is of course Not Known for Things such as the Great Spacious, Clean, Unspoiled, Outdoors or Wilderness! As such, Europe for the Very Most Part, is Not considered one of the World's Great Wild Places! And Greater Europe is so Not being Covered here.

But Some Atypical Parts of Europe certainly Are! Are to be Counted Among the World's Great Wild Areas! The Alps, Pyreenes, and Scandanavia!, are Chief among them! Though Small when Stacked Next to Greater Europe as a Whole, -Some, -Scandanavia being a Perfect Example, are Themself Quite Large! The Swiss and Austrian Alps will be covered Later under MOUNTAINS. The Great Scandanavian Outdoor Wilds!, will be covered here under COLD. Even Europe!, Still has some Wild and Untouched Areas! Of All Places! In Europe, it's Precisely *Because* Scandanavia is COLD, that it has Remained WILD!

Greater Europe was Once a Magnificent Wilderness!, Thru and Thru! I Understand that Western Man and Civilization had to Live, Grow, and Develop there! We Had to Tap and Tame that Wilderness, Make Use of It. If it could have been Done with Less Carelessness and Disregard, It could Now be at least a Little Wilder, than it Now Is. A Better Outdoors Place! But I Know that this is Monday Morning Quarterbacking, and it's Easy to Monday Morning Quarterback After the Fact! Europe couldn't Avoid Becoming what it Very Much now is!, -Nor could even my Own American East! But in Both Cases, -We Could have Retained at least a Little More Wild, Clean, Outdoors!, -than we Did! At least Much of that is Water Over the Dam now. The Question now is Mostly, -"What Do we Do Towards Best Stewarding and Preserveing the *Rest* of our Remaining Wild Areas?" And we Still Have Plenty!, -Worldwide! The World is Still a Very Wild and Empty Place! Lets Keep it that Way! Lets Enjoy, Safeguard, Value, and Appreciate!, -What we Still Have Yet Much Got!

With the Exception of the "Europeanish" Southernmost Regions, Quite Few People Live up in Scandanavia! Of those that Do, Many have a Very Frontiersish, Feel and Flavor! Both in They, and in their Vast, Wild, Scandanavian Land! They are "Europe's Canada"! Or "Great American West"! They are "Canadish", Right Down to the Midnight Sun *and* Mid-Noon Darkness, of the Scandanavian North! Of course there are Cultural and Other Differences with Scandanavians and Canucks, -But so Much Between the Two of them, is Very Much the Same! (Hockey, BTW, is a Little to No Difference Similarity! -for a Little Bit of Lite Comic Relief.) Scandanavia is Europe's Northern Frontier Backwater! May it's Coldness and General Ruffness continue to Discourage All but the Few and Most Hardy, from Coming here! Let Scandanavia Remain Scandanavia!

While even All of Scandanavia may Not be Fully Undeveloped and Wild!, the Countries of Scandanavia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Russian Karelia area just East of Finland, -are nonetheless Very Empty, Natural, Free, Unspoiled, Spacious, and Wild! It so Deserves at least a Very High Honorable Mention here! But Absent the Stockholms, Oslos, and Helsinkis of it's Far South, Scandanavia as a Whole, would Rank on the Honor Roll !, with Any of the Others!, on This Roll of Earth's Wildest Places! Scandanavia has a Few Cities and such, and European Ones at that. But Otherwise, We'd be Very Remiss, to leave it Off the List, just over the Likes of that!, on it's Southernmost End! We will Not be covering areas like Stockholm here! A Fine City!, but we're Talking of the World's Greatest Wild Paces here!, Not the World's Greatest Civilized Areas or Cities. We just Can't Leave that Greater, Far Wilder!, Portion of Scandanavia Out! And so This Addressing This, in this Post. Lets now Talk About Scandanavia!, and Scandanavian Survival!

Scandanavia's Upper Portions go Well Above the Arctic Circle! Scandanavia as a Whole, is at an Alaskan Latitude! It certainly Qualifies as a Northern, COLD Place!

Norway is the Westernmost of these Scandanavian Lands. It is Mountainous!, almost Alone among Scandanavian Countries. And Heavily Forested!, as are the Other Scandanavian Countries too! Norway Alone Faces, the Angry Atlantic!, in Scandanavia's West. Via it's Steep, Rocky, Forested Mountains, Cliffedges, and Fiord Filled Seacoast!

Cold Survival, Mountain Survival, Forest Survival, and Sea Type Survivals, -Apply here!

Next Door Sweden, the Middle Portion of Scandanavia, -is Very Much the Same, Minus Norway's Fiords and Mountains. ( With the exception of those Swedish Mountains in Sweden's Western Parts, which form the Border with Norway.)

Sweden also has a Long Seacoast. But it is "Inland" to the East, in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia. And it is Far Smoother!, with essentially None of the Norway type Inlets and Fiords! So Sea Survival would Apply here in Sweden, and Nearby Finland just over the Interveneing, North Running, Gulf of Bothnia. Sea Survivals come into Play in these Two Eastern Scandanavian Areas, as well! If you're in Scandanavia, even well "Inland", -You Can't get away from the Sea! Thats just a Scandanavian Fact of Life! The Sea is so Much a Part of the Overall Scandanavian Way! The Finns and Karelians in Scandanavia's Far East, are Least so this way of All. But Never the Swedes, Danes, or Norweigans! Never the Icelanders!

Finland and the Finns are Not Culturally Scandanavia. But Geographically they are! They are as Much a Part of the Scandanavian Wilds!, as Any Other! In Fact, They and Their Vast Lakes and Forests!, are an Exemplary Topmost Part of Such! And Iceland, while Many Mid-Ocean Miles Off the Scandanavian Tableland (Norway / Sweden / Finland-Karelia), is as Fully Scandanavian!, as the Pope is Catholic! It's been Settled by Viking Norse Scandanavians, Thats as Scandanavian as they Come! Similar to Hawaiians being for the Most Part Indistinguishable from Continental North Americans, -So Too are the Icelandics, from their Close Scandanavian Brethern! Iceland Greatly Merits it's Own Mention, as One of the World's Greatest Wild Areas! And So has been Covered, previously. The Scandanavian World / Sphere extends as Far West as Greenland, -Almost to North America! In that Greenland is a Danish Possession, and Aside from Inuit Eskimo and Other Natives Already and Still There, it's been First Settled by Scandanavian Vikings. Now Denmark, How Does it Figure into the Scandanavian Picture? It is 100 % Scandanavian, but this Small Area, is *in* that Southernmost, "Europized" Area. And thus Not a Part of the Great Scandanavian Wild Areas. It's Not even on the Scandanavian Tableland, but a Bit South. Just South of Norway and Sweden, Across the Straits, on the North European Mainland Itself. It is Scandanavian, and of the Sea! But it is Not Part of the Great Scandanavian Wilds! Clean, Tidy Scandanavian Farms and All, Yes! Environmentally Friendly and Conscious, Yes! A Part of the Great Scandanavian Wilds?, -No! And It will Not be so covered here.

While Norway is it's Mountains, Sweden and Finland are Scandanavia's Great Flatlands! Sweden's Western Portion, while certainly Heavily Forested, have some Cleared Areas as well. Some level of "Grasslands Survival" can Come Into Play here. Finland's Eastern Portion of This, is even More Untouched Forest! Most of it is Still There, Untouched and Uncleared. Though a Good Logging and Lumber Industry certainly Does Exist in Finland. But it is Even More Forested, than is Sweden. (Itself Well Forested!)

The Main thing interfereing with Finnish Forests, is it's Many, Many Lakes! It's an Equal to Canada or Minnessota's 10,000 !, in this Regard! As in the Canadian Shield, the Glaciers have Scoured these Out of the Bedrock, -Leaving Oodles of Freshwater Lakes in their Wake! Forest, Fishing, and Lakes Survival, -Comes so Much into Play!, here and Thruout Scandanavia's Wilds. ( Mountainous Norway still has so Much of This, as well! )

Glaciers once Thickly Covered All of Scandanavia! The entire Tableland is yet Measurably Rebounding from This! It Continues to Rise Upward!, from the Removal of All that Onetime Overburden!

Norway Calls For Cold, Mountain, Forest, and Seacoast Survival !

Sweden Calls For Cold, Forest, and Seacoast Survival !, with maybe some Grasslands Survival thrown in as well !

And Finland Calls For Cold, Forest, and Seacoast Survival ! But also with the New Addition of SWAMP Survival ! Not Only Streams and Lakes!, but Bogs and Swamps Galore!, Abound in Finland!

As well as in it's Karelian Cousin just to it's East! This is an Area that was actually a Part of Finland Itself, Before the Soviet Rushans Took it as their Own. It is about as Big as Finland is now. Karelia's North is a Semicircular Arctic Peninsula known as the Kola. Some Mountains Exist in the Kola. It is Best Known for Rusha's Two Major Arctic Ports, Murmansk and Archangel. (The 2nd I Think's Not on the Kola, but Still in Karelia.) But Other than that, Karelia is just Overwhelmingly the Bleak Karelian Wastes! BTW, Anything that can be said for Finnish Conditions and Survival, Can also be said for Karelian Survival and Conditions! Their Lakes, Forests, and Landscapes are so Similar!

Further East from Scandanavia and Karelia, is Bleak, Siberia Like, European Arctic Russia. Which Meet Up with the Northern Urals and Siberia Itself, in it's East. We've Come some Full Cicle, among Earth's Wildest Places, COLD. Meeting the Urals once more.

On Swamp Survival again, Most to All Things Commonly Known, from the Better Known, World of Tropical and Subtropical Swamp Survival, also Apply up here! But with a Coldland Twist! Swamps can also Provide you with a Food, Fish, Water, Fuel, and Shelter Materials Source.

Finland's and Sweden's Many Freshwater Lakes and Streams are Filled with Fish! So Do certainly Know and Practice Fishing!

The Scandanavian Forests are also Filled with Game! Avail Yourself of these Techniques and Skills as well. They are Full of Fire and Shelter Materials too!

Survival in the Real Scandanavian Wilds, would essentially entail, First and Foremost, Cold Survival! -Keeping Warm, Keeping Dry, Keeping a Fire Going, Making and Keeping your Shelter Sealed and Up, Food, Etc.

Food is Reasonably Plentiful, and can be both Land and Sea Based. Fresh Water is Plentiful as well.

Skiing, particularly Cross Country, as well as How to Use Snowshoes, would be Very Good and Useful Things to Know!

If One Seeks Rescue and Wishes to Extricate themself from the Scandanavian Wilds!, then one shud generally Work their Way South, but also Often Eastward or Westward toward the Nearest Coast, -Within such general North to South Trends.

Sweden has Many Eastward Flowing Rivers. They are Great Fresh Water and Transportation Resources! They Lead you Directly East to the Coast!, and they often Provide you with a "Conveyor Belt Path" Right Over to there!

These can be Both a Helpful Advantage, and a Hindering Drawback! They can Lead you East, toward the Bothnian Coast! Beware of Rocks, Rapids, and Shallows, though! Once on the Swedish Coast, then you may Want to Continue Working your Way Southward.

But Herein Comes the Rub of the Hindering Disadvantage! There Comes the Matter of Having to Ford or Otherwise Cross these Many, now perpendicular Rivers. And this is Usually Worst along a River's Mouth. Which is exactly what you've got!, there along the Coast! You'll just Have to Ford, if Shallow and Slow Enuf, or Cross by Boat or Other Floatcraft. Know How and Where to Best Ford, Pole Walk Across, and Etc. Sometimes there may be a Handy Bridge or Ferry Nearby, Other Times Not! You can even Have similar Crossing or Fording Problems Further Upstream, though this Holds Better Prospects than at a River's Mouth.

If you Alternatively Forgoe the Coast to Avoid this sort of Problem, Then you Don't Have the Advantage of the Coast's Guiding Effect South. Nor Better Food Sources or Rescue Prospects there! You'd just Have to Make Sure you're Heading South, by some Other Means! In Sweden, thats Not as Sure or Easy as Following South along the Coast!

Thoughtful Judgement Calls, are of course a Major Part of the Survival Process.

Rivers and Coasts are also where the Outposts and Settlements are! This Bodes Better for your Rescue or Extrication. Settlements also Tend to be along Lakeshores, especially in Finland and Karelia.

Scandanavian Countries also have Many Hiking Cabins!, as well as Well Marked Trails, and the Like! Use these to Best Advantage!, if you shud Come Across Any!

In Norway, Get Down Out of the Mountains! And Head toward one of the West Coast Ports or Fishing Centers. Or Head Down their Eastern Side, to Sweden! Beware of Cliffs and Other Dropoffs while Doing so! Generally Work your Way South here too. Do this Anywhere you may be, on the Main Scandanavian Tableland!

It may Take you something of a While, to Get to an Outpost or Settlement. But Once you Do!, Scandanavian SAR ans Such is Good to Very Good! At this Point, your Survival Worries shud Begin to be Over!

Until Then, -You're of course Gonna Have to Survive! This has been Generally How you would Have to Go About Doing That!, Here in the Great Scandanavian and Karelian Outdoors and Wilds! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

MOUNT WASHINGTON, NH, -Being Such an Infamously Known Cold Area as it is!, I'm Covering Mt. Washington here, though I'd Normally Address it under "Earth's Wildest Places,-MOUNTAINS". This is a Killer Peak!, if you Havn't yet Well Heard Already!

This is the Highest Peak in the NE U.S., -Coming in at 6,288 Feet ASL . Its of course in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Pride and Hallmark of Such! It's Quite World Renowned and Famous! -Notoriously Famous!, as we Shall See!

(Though Not the Highest in the Appalachians or Entire Eastern U.S.. That Honor Belongs to Mt. Mitchell, NC, at 6,684 Feet ASL.)

This Peak is Only so Well and Notoriously Known!, -For it's Utter Cold ! It's Deep Winter Freeze! It's Capriciously Atrocious Foul Weather! And it's Hurricane Force or Greater of Winds! And Winter Winds at That! -Talk About Wind Chill !!! Put Those All Together!, in One Time, Place, or Outing! Thats Mount Washington for you!!

It's Record Cold comes in at Negative 47 Degrees Fahrenheit!, on Jan. 29, 1934.

It's a Rather High, Roundish Mountain, which Reaches up into some of the Faster, More Upper Level Winds. The Good Mid Level Upper Winds. And it Stands Alone! There's the Northeastern Corridor of the Jet Stream further Above too. -One of the Two Such Worst Areas of the World for This!, the Other being Japan.

It so Catches and Funnels these reasonably High, Fast Winds, around it's Bare and Bald Obstruction. It so Accelerates these Winds to Hurricane Force or Greater! You have Absolutely No Shelter from This!, if Caught Out in the Open! And Winter Winds once again!, Not Summer Ones! The Highest Winds ever Recorded in the USA, and perhaps even on the Planet!, Have Been Recorded at Mount Washington! They've been Measured at 231 Miles per Hour!, on Jan. 29, 1934. Which is also the Same Date of it's Record Low.

There could be some Altitude Effects too, particularly for Unaccustomed, Unacclimated, Lowlanders.

Even in Summer or Other Warmer Times of the year, This Mountain can be a Killer! The Higher you Go, the Colder it Gets! The Capricious, Atrocious Weather, -Can Turn on a Dime at Any Time! And so Often for the Worse! Higher Up, even in Summer, You can be in for some Very Wintry Winds and Temperatures!

It's a Killer Mountain once again! Like a Moth to a Lovely Flame, Many a Hiker's been so Lured! Only to be "Burned" by this Mount! Like Cape Hatteras NC is the Graveyard of Many an Atlantic Ship, This Mount has Been such to Many a Hiker and Climber! Mt Washington takes the Prize!, for This, here in the Northeast! Be Aware and Beware!, Shud yoe ever Decide to Make Acquaintence with Mt. Washington, NH ! Or if Circumstance shud ever Find you there! You've Got to Really Know What you're Doing!, if you Ever Plan to be Meeting Up with Mount Washington! You've Got to Know the Mountain!

Ask Anyone Who's Been There!, and Has Personally, Firsthand, Seen and Experienced it's Wrath! Just Ask Somebody who so Knows!

Many People who Have Come to Know!, -Have Not Lived to Warn and Tell you about It! Don't Ever Become One of Them Yourself!

A Very Dangerous Killer Mountain! This is Quite Commonly Known Societal Knowledge. Its Quite Common Knowledge here in our Mountaineering, Hiking, Outdoors, and Survival Communities.

I've come across a Good Post or Two on this Mount here on our Fora, from Someone who Lives in the Vicinity, and is Well Familiar and Experienced with It! The Place is Only World Famous for Such!

Deeply Below Zero Temperatures! Hurricane Force Winds that go with That!, Along with their Accompanying Wind Chill! The Altitude! Blizzards, Deep Snow, and Massive Icing Over! "Turn in a Moment!" Atrocious Weather! Caught Out in the Open!, -*This* Sort of an Open! This and More!, -That is Mount Washington for you! The Place is again Only World Famous for Such!

I'm a Little Rusty on my Mt. Washington, but This is Very Much and Essentially It! I Didn't Used to be so Rusty. This!, is the Very Cold and Super Windswept!, Mount Washington sort of Wild Place COLD!

Once again, if Ever There!, -Be Aware and Beware!

[color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

TIBET -Being as Vast, High Altitude, and Cold as it is!, -This Wild Area could Very Well Belong Right Here within the Sphere of "Earth's Wildest Places,-The Survival Aspects,-COLD"! But it can also Quite Justifiably and Appropriately Come Under "The Himalayas and Tibet", -Itself under MOUNTAINS. And This Latter one is How we're going to do it here. So See the Upcoming Post Section, "The Himalayas and Tibet". It will be under "Earth's Wildest Places,-The Survival Aspects,-MOUNTAINS", for Coverage on That.

Being Such a Great Cold, Wild Place, It had to be Basically Mentioned here. Less would be Remiss! But It's even More Due under Mountains! And I Refer you There.

But Tibet!, -What a Place! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

GLACIERS And ICEBERGS - - -(This is the Last COLD E.W.P., in Two Parts.)

Part One - GLACIERS -

These Great Moving Sheets of Ice!, -Ice Rivers, to be More Exact, are a Uniquely Interesting Cold Area of our World, All their Own! Malaspina, Aletsch, Hubbard, and so Many Others!

If our World is yet so Glaciated Now, Think how it Must have been, in even Colder of Times!

Now Along with All these Well Known, and Not so Well Known Glaciers, are Both the Mountain and Continental (Gr. & Ant.) Ice Sheets from which they Spawn, and the Icebergs and Moraines which they Leave Off in their Wakes. These are All Parts of our Wild Iced World.

What Ice Water in it's Frozen Form Does!, on our Planet! Of just What this Interesting World Ice Phenonomom Actually Is! They Together are a Great Assemblage of Uniquely Cold Wild Places, in their Own Right! There's Nothing Else Like Them!, on our Planet! OK, Things like Landslides and Lava Flows could be Somewhat like them, to a Point. But Other than That!,.....Ice and our World! It can Really be Something!

Includeing on How Many Times this Planet's been in the Grip of Ice Ages, (As Well as Warmer Times than Now!), and the One or Ones to which we Shall No Doubt Return!

Will Mankind as a Whole be Prepared and Ready for It?! Global Warming or No!, This Renewed Ice Time is Coming Sometime too!, and We're Gonna Have To be Prepared and Ready for It! We Must Think over More than Only our Short, Immeadiate, Here and Now, of Terms!

The Great Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, Continental in Scope, and Often Two Miles High!, are Phenomomal in their Own Right! They are at the Heart of Most of our World's Iceberg Activity. Nearly All of the World's Icebergs are Born that way. They have already been Well Addressed, back in the "Antarctic Icesheet" and under the "Greenland Icecap." But their Icebergs of which they Spawn, were Not. It is Time to Discuss them now.

So Back to Glaciers and Icebergs In and Of Themself now! As we Know and Experience Them in our World right now. First Off is the Glaciers.

Most, but Not All the World's Glaciers, Fall Directly off the Continental Ice Sheets. Of the Greenlandic and Antarctic Sort.

But some also Calve Off of the *Non*-Polar, High Mountain Glaciers of the World, wherever they may reach the Sea. Those Mountaintop Ice Fields. Such as Canada's Colombia Icefield and Iceland's Massive Vatnajokull! They may Pale Next to those of Greenland and Antarctica!, but can Still be Absolutely Huge!, on our Own Human Scale! They even make their Appearance on Equatorial Mountaintops, such as Kilimanjaro and the Peaks of the Peruvian and Ecaudorian Andes!

Ice Does Flow, however, and Off into Downflowing Glacial Flows they shall Go. They so Fan Out, from their Mountaintop Parent Ice. Snaking Downward, they take the Path of Least Resistance, Gouging Out Great U Shaped Valleys, as Today are Very Evident in Places like Norway. Ice Moves! Seemingly Solid, It is at least Semi-Liquid! Gravity Governs. Downslope toward the Lowlands they go!

Sometimes they even Reach the Sea. Then Glacier Borne Iceberg Calving Begins. Ice Chunks Great and Small Chip Off! Thundrously Crashing to the Waters Below! Creating Immense, Far Sweeping Waves! Do Not Expose Yourself to either of these Dangers! Do Not Position Yourself into such Close In, Harm's Way! You Don't Want to be Under or Near Such!, at Such Time! Sometimes they'll be Chipping Off in Rapid Succession!

Some of this Glacier Calving even happens in Antarctica and Greenland. But Bergs the World Over, are Far from Limited to just that! But Regular Glaciers too Play their Part.

Glaciers and Ice Sheets are What Created such Things as Cape Cod, Long Island, and the Great Lakes! They Plowed In the Rich Soils which now Make Up the American Great Plains and Canadian Breadbasket! This is Why the Rock of the Canadian Shield now Stands Exposed! Our Continental Glaciers and Ice Sheets *Exposed* It!

Rich,Swift Meltwater Streams form Atop, Inside, Underneath, and Ahead of the Glacier!

The Vary Greatly in Volume and Magnitude, Depending on the Time of Day, of When, Whether, and How, the Sun may be Up! It may somewhat Approach a Trickle when you Awaken in the Morning, yet be a Roaring Torrent, Once the Afternoon and Evening's Well On!

This Provides you with a Rich and Ready Fresh Water Source! Even in Weaker Running Times!

But be Alert and Careful in Crossing or Trying to Cross Glacial Streams!, as you would with Any Others! -Even More So! This is an Important Glacial Survival and Safety Point to be Aware of!

For Atop the Glacier, to Name just one such Danger, Water could be Coursing thru a Deep and Smoothly Cut Channel! Not Only will it Sweep you Down and Away!, and Hypothermically at that! -But you Won't be Able to Climb Up Out of it! It's a High, Vertical or Nearly Vertical, Slippery and Smooth Surfaced Wall! Just Try Climbing Up Out of That! So Better Yet, Be Ever Watchful and Careful!, so as Not to Fall so In in the First Place! These Glacial Surface Streams also Often Lead Deep Into the Glacier Itself! The Ice Equivalent of an Underground River. In Addition to All Dangers already mentioned, You could Now at Times be Without Any Air!, Down There. And it's Gonna be as Dark Night Down There too! You probably Won't Make It Back Out Alive, in any event! So as with an ordinary Crevice, or Cliffedge, (Glaciers have these too!), Don't Find Yourself Falling Off or Over! Don't just Carelessly Slip or Fall into One! Preparedly, Observationally, and Thoughtfully so Seek to Avert and Avoid All Such!

These Great Crevices can Appear Any Time and Any Where! They can even at least Begin to Open!, Right Before your Feet! Or Underneath. Such as Ones Thinly Covered with Ice or Snow! They can Snap and Crack Open on you at Any Time!

These Crevices can be Hundreds of Feet Deep! You're in effect Falling Over, and Into, an Ice Cliff! And Wedgeing Yourself into an Ice Vise!

Be Ever Alert to, and Aware of!, -Their Potential Prescence and Dangers! Do you Really Want to Be Stuck in a Hole, a Cold Hole, that you Can't just get Out of! And with perhaps a Cold Night's Darkness Beginning to Descend?! Think of it That Way! Know How Best to Safely Cross or Circumvent them! Ropes and Other Crevice Extrication Gear can be a Very Good Idea, and a Must!

On and Around a Glacier, -There are also Many Steep Sided Glacial Ice Cliffs! Of Varying Heights. Climbing Knowledge, Equipment, and Techniques, particularly those in Ice Climbing, Come into Vital Play here!

On a Glacier, Pay Attention to Each Step! You may Be Glad that you Did! You may Pay Dearly if you Don't! This Isn't any Walk Across the Lawn or Park! This Applies even More so in Glacier Travel, than in Many Other Outdoor Activities or Survival Tasks! Much as It Very Much also Applies in Those!

On a Glacier, at least you can Note which way the Water's Flowing, as an Indication of it's Down End, and Lower Altitudes. Though the Latter may be Fairly Obvious Otherwise.

Some Glaciers are Quite Wide, as well as Long, in Extent! Many Undulations may Pervade your Surface. You so may Well Not be Able to See Much Around you for Much of a Distance!

And There's the Ever Present Danger of a White Out Forming Up on you!, as in Any Other Arctic or Cold Weather Situation.

Weather Otherwise can Make Turns for the Worse on a Dime! You can be the On Scene Effectee here!

You'll See Much Rock and Soil Mixed in with your Glacial Ice, in Varying, Alternating Bands. Glaciers are a Good Ways from being 100 % Total Ice!, and You'll in all Great Likelihood be Seeing Such! -Don't Be Surprised!

I'm Sure there's Other Good and Important Glacial Survival Tips that have Not been Mentioned.

But a Final One which Does now Come to Mind, is, -To Get Off the Glacier. Work Towards Doing This! Unless, of course, it's Really the Best Way and Means of Travel, in your Given Situation of the Moment. Or you in a Similar Way Must Cross It. But Otherwise, Try to Avoid Glacier Crossings and Travel!, for the Most Part! And Make Sure you Carefully Know What you're Doing!, if you Do!

Food, Shelter, and Firewood Materials on a Glacier are just about Non-Existant! You've Got to Carry What you so Need there, in with you! Without of course Carrying Too Much.

Water is about the Only Survival Resource that's likely to be Naturally Plentiful, there on the Glacier's Surface.

And of course it should be Fairly Obvious, that Cold Survival, Plays such a Crucial and Central Role!, in Glacier Traverses and Survival!

These are the Glaciers of our World! And This is Safety and Survival On and Around Them! One might Not Readily Think of it! But Glaciers, along with Icebergs which are to Follow Next, are Truly one of the World's Great Wild Places!, -COLD!


A WORD ON ICE CAVES - Finally the Most Shimmering, Crystal Beautiful of Ice Caves!, Often Form on and within Glaciers! Oh!, -How I Personally Love Them! Beyond just such a Great Beauty!, There is also Such a Great Peace!

But This is to Come under the Purview of CAVES !, Here within Earth's Wildest Places. Later to Come. Not here under "Glaciers and Icebergs" or Earth's Wildest Places-COLD. Though it's Doubtless Also a Part of this Glacial World too!

A WORD ON AVALANCHES - The Allied Matter of Avalanches also will Not be Discussed here. It's a Great and Important Part of Both the COLD and MOUNTAIN Survival and Wild Place World's. But is of course by it's very Nature, Not a Specific Part of Wild Areas in Itself. And so Won't be Discussed as a Topic in Itself, -Anywhere here in EWP. It is of course a Type of Disaster, as Oppossed to an Area. There could be some Due Touching on it, every here and there. As we are Doing right now here. But No Area of Topical Addressage of it's Own! Brush and Bone Up on Avalanches though! And Be as Alert and Careful regarding These, as with Anything Else mentioned here!

-ICEBERGS WILL NOW BE NEXT !

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GLACIERS And ICEBERGS - - -( This is the Last COLD E.W.P., in Two Parts.)

Part Two - ICEBERGS -

These Massive Sea Chunks of Ice, Calving and Floating by the Thousands, are a Unique Aspect of our Cold and Oceanic Wild Worlds, All their Own!

Personally, They have something of a Unique and Special Place with me! What a Beautiful and Grand Sight! And What a Great Part of our Total Wild & Natural World and Great Outdoors! From the Most Massive Mountainish of Bergs, Down to the Smallest of Chunks and Ice Flows Floating by! They All Have that Great Ice Hunk Beauty All the Same!

Beauty can also Equal Danger Too!, in their World! As in so Many Other Natural and Outdoors Matters as well!

Be it a Titanic type Collision, a Crashing Calveoff from a Glacier Face, complete with the Large Resulting Sea Wave!, or a Sudden Iceberg Tipover Shift! Among I'm Sure Others.

Icebergs can be Very Pretty and Attractive! And except for Small Fry, are Always an Imposing Sight! But Icebergs Can be, and Often Are, Very Dangerous as Well! Watch How Close you Get to One! And Don't be Caught Under a Calving One!, Nor Caught Up in it's Massive, Resulting Wave!

They Form Predominantly in Greenland and Antarctic Waters. But can also form Locally in Non-Polar Areas, where "Ordinary" Mountain Borne Glaciers Meet the Sea! But by Far the Vast Majority come from the Sprawling, Continental in Size, Antarctic and Greenlandic Ice Sheets. At some 90 % of the World's Total Ice!, and some 10 % of the World's Ice, Respectively! All Other World Ice Sources count for something like Less than 1 %! Not Only Continental in Dimension, these Ice Caps can be as Much as Two Miles High!

From Greenland, especially it's Western Coast, and From All Around Antarctica, they Calve!

In and Around Antarctica, they have an Entire Unobstructed, Globe Circling Polar Ocean, to Play, Drift, and Float About in! This is sometimes called the Antarctic Ocean. Itself made up of those Cold, Windy, Ruff, Southernmost Portions of All Three of the World's Greatest Oceans, -the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Indian. No Land Interrupts Anywhere!, Quite Unlike the Situation in the Northern Hemisphere. Though Southern South America and Antarctica's Palmer Peninsula make a Good, Joint Effort at a Pinchoff! Still, even that Leaves Nearly a Thousand Mile Gap!, -the Infamous Drake Passage. This Circumpolar South Sea, is the Area of the also Infamous Roaring 40s! The Counterpart of the Far Off North's Angry Atlantic!

This is the Stomping Ground, of the Antarctic Iceberg Breakoffs! Occassionally some Bergs Breaking Off from the Antarctic Ice Shelf, are as Big as Small Countries or States! On the Order of Belgium, Delaware, Rhode Island, or Connecticut! Small States and Countries!, -Mega Large Icebergs! This may have Increased somewhat Lately, and Where So, It could possibly have to do with any Global Warming that may be Going On.

In the North it's Greenland's Iceberg Alley! Along Greenland's West Coast, though I Don't See how Eastern Greenlandic Icebergs cannot also Appear. In the West, they are initially Shunted Northward, by the West Greenland Current. This eventually Takes them far enuf West, where they then Meet the South Flowing Labrador Current. Where they then Flow South often to Well Below the Grand Banks and Eastern Canadian Maritime Provinces! They can even Dip somewhat Below 40 Degrees North. -my Own Latitude! The Furthest Southerly Siting of a North Atlantic Iceberg!, I Beleive was as Far South as Bermuda! Thats about at the Latitude of North Carolina! They Play Havoc and are a Shipping Menace, to Everything within this Area!

Many Approach the Canadian Maritimes and East as well. They Make a Terrific Grinding Racket!, when they Beach up onto Places like the Labrador and Newfoundland Coast! It is Really Something to See, Hear, and Behold!

The International Ice Patrol, in Practice Largely the U.S. Coast Guard, (At Least as of my June 1968 National Geographic Source), -Keeps Tabs and Track On!, this Icy Parade! I'm Sure Canadian Bodies Well Participate as well. They are Marked for Better Visibility, Size and Other Characteristics are Noted, Positions and Track Projections are Relayed, Ships are Warned!

Eventually, of course, they Melt Away until they Merge entirely with the Ocean. This has to Accelerate in the Later Stages, Due Both to an Ever Smaller Mass to so Work on, and Increasingly Warmer Southern Waters. They've Held their Pride for a Good While! But the Sea eventually Wins Every Time!

Irreagularly Shaped as a Prevailing Rule, They are Often quite Inherently Unstable! As the Sea Works Over and Melts their Much Larger Undersides, Center of Gravitys, Weights and Balances, and Previous "Stabilitys" Become Repeatedly Upset! *Tipovers are Sudden and Commonplace!* Unpredictable too! Smaller but Still Sudden and Dangerous Shifts also Take Place!

An Iceberg can probably Split on you Without Warning as well! A kind of Sub-Calving of it's Own! Should you be Using one Mid-Ocean as an Emergency Float! Let Alone with Tipovers and Other Sudden Lurches and Shifts! *You* May be On such a Berg! Watch For and Be Wary of All of These!

The Vast Part of the Mass and Volume of an Iceberg, is of course Under Water! Large and Imposing as the Visible Above Surface Portion is!, -Thats Only "the Tip of the Iceberg"! Some 9 / 10ths is Hidden from Sight!, Invisibly Below the Surface! I've Heard Figures Vary here, but they're All in this Same General Ballpark. It would have to do with the particular Composition and Density of the Ice, How Much Bubbled Air may be Dissolve within, Sea Salinity Levels, Etc. But just as the Bulk of an Ice Cube as you may put into a Drink, is Mostly Below the Water Level of your Glass, So too is an Iceberg or Other Floe in the Ocean. It's just the particular Physics of the Way Ice Floats.

Beginning with Sharp, Jagged Edges at Calving!, the Sea, wherever and whenever it so Touches and Works on the Berg, Progressivly Rounds and Smooths these Out.

Icebergs even Change Color over Time! They Age Beautifully! Just Look at some of the Color Photo Sections of the appropriate Lonely Planet Travel Guides! And you will See what I Mean!

This Color Change has a Very Important and Useful Survival Application as well! You're gonna Want the Blue or Bluer Bergs, for your Fresh Water Source! This may Not be so Important with Continental Icesheet Born Bergs, which are Fresh Water to Start With anyway! But for Arctic Ocean Ones, Formed by the Freezing of the Ocean Surface Itself!, You're gonna Want the Blue or Bluer! This is an Arctic Fresh Water Source Must!

For Survival Purposes, You may be Able to Get Onto a Nearby Berg or Ice Floe, to Use such for Flotation Purposes!

Remember, however, that you are on a Cold Platform, that Shifts and Tipovers Can Occur!, and that Sooner or Later, your Float Platform is Going To Melt Itself Away!

Try to Find a Stably Shaped One, or at least one Reasonably so! This may be Hard to Gauge, with Most of the Berg Invisible Under Water!

This Float Platform will also Provide you with a Rich and Ready Fresh Water Source, Out Amidst this Saltwater Ocean! Don't Carelessly Over Chip Away though!, or you may Further Shorten the Life of your Float Platform!, even if only by a Little Bit! Out Here, -You Don't Want even That! Final Rescue could be a Hair'sbreadth Away!, -This could Make All the Difference!

If you Can't Find at least a Reasonably Stable Berg or Floe for your Float, then Chances are Virtually Certain!, that you'll Experience Shifts andor a Tipover!, Sooner or Later!

As to Major Subcategories and Types of Survival, The Only Two when it Comes to Icebergs out on the Open Ocean, would be Cold Survival and Ocean Survival. There is Little to No Coast Survival to speak of. Climbing Skills and Equipment, Especially Ice, Mountain, or Glacier type ones, could come in Very Useful and Handy. (In the Climbing up onto, Getting Around on, and Climbing Back Off, a Berg. Bergs will of course Vary, in Ease or Difficulty here.)

For Food, You're gonna have to Fish, andor Go After other Sea and Bird Life.

Fresh Water, -Shud be No Problem whatever, even Out Here with Salty Sea All Around. As mentioned earlier, Just Get it from your Very Berg!

Warmth, -Only the Chlothes and Other Bundling Ups as you've Already Got!, and have managed to Keep from Getting Wet, or can Dry in Time.

The Utility and Imperative of Building a Fire in this Cold, could be No Less than in a Land Portion of the Arctic! You Need Warmth and Dryness All the Same! On an Iceberg, that will probably Have to Come Exclusively from What you're Wearing!

Shelter, -No Plant Materials, Most Most Probably, No Rocks! Perhaps you can Make Use of the Ice Itself, for This, andor Hollow Something Out. Other than that, Shelter is just What Tents, Tarps, Bags, or Whatnot, as you Happen to Have Brot in with you!

Things such as Signaling can be Very Important! The Fire of earlier, assuming it can even be Built, has This additional Use here! And if you have anything to Cook, then for that purpose too!

Someone Shud ideally be On Watch at All Times! For Signaling and Rescue Purposes. For Berg "Shift Warning" Purposes. Among Others.

Even if Bergs could hypothetically have None of these Disadvantages and Difficulties, You'd Want to Get Off anyway! Sooner or Later!, and of course This Means Sooner! Because for just One Thing, your Iceberg Flotation Platform, is Gonna Sooner or Later Entirely Melt Away into your Surrounding Ocean!

All this Applies in the event you even Do Come Across an Iceberg or Floe, that you can Use as a Float! The Only Thing More Dubious than Survival Efforts on an "Iceberg Float"!, is Trying to Build and Keep, a Fire on One!

Chances are Better, that you'd be Facing Ocean Survival Alone! And Cold Ocean Survival Efforts at That!

However it's Not like All Bergs Cannot be Climbed Upon, and Made Use Of!

I Fondly Recall, a Picture I Came Across in a Book on Antarctica! It's one of those Old Time Drawings. From the Days of those Old Wooden Sailing Ships! And Early Antarctic Exploration. It Shows some Members of Such a Crew, Among the Icebergs of the Southern Antarctic Ocean. These Crew Members had Climbed Up on a Nearby Iceberg! They were there on a Fresh Water Collection Mission. The Sketch Clearly Shows a Number of them, at the Base of some Pretty Good Puddles, that had so Collected. They're Scooping Up Fresh Water, to Take Back to their Ship!

Others of the Crew, however, are Shown Having a Jolly Good Time!, Slideing Down a Good Hilly Section of the Berg, Having the Fun of the World! The Time of their Life! Their Ship is Shown Off in the Background, at a Goodly Distance. What Fun! And What an Adventure! At One and the Same Time! Old Time Sailors and Adventurers, and Current Ones, Did and Do Things like That!

They probably Took Turns, at Both the Fun and Games, and the Important and Serious Business at Hand, the Fetching of Fresh Water Supplies, for their Present and Future. Some of the Water Fetching Guys, probably Weren't Interested in the Ice Sliding Fun and Games, and so Deferred and Declined.

But To Each His Own! Here in the Drawing, and on the Berg, there was Room Enuff for All Such from All! Imagine that, -Having a Berg All to Yourselves like that! And Being Able to Let Loose so, Like Kids! There was No Pre-Empting Adult Responsibility Getting in the Way!, -Save Water Fetching! They Had the Chance for some Good Ole Jolly Merriment and Fun!, and They so Took it to Full Advantage!

It was Additionally a Great Chance to Get Off and Away!, for Awhile, from the Confines of their Ship! That probably Figured into the Jolly Ole Fun!

But even if Sea Life were a Paradise!, I for One would Have a Jolly Fun Time!, Sliding Down an Ice Hill on an Antarctic Iceberg, -Myself! They Did Too!

And there was Probably Nobody within a Few Thousand Miles or More!, of Those Guys! They Had the Whole Area to Themselves!, Not just the Iceberg!

Of course They Have to Be Aware and Alert to Tipover Possibilities!, as anyone else! As I'm Sure They were. But then again, they may have Located a Quite Stable Berg, as the Picture seems to Indicate. Still, on an Iceberg, You Keep Such Alertness Up!

I Like, Love, and Enjoy this Picture!, and Have from the Moment I Saw It!

Perhaps some of you have Seen it too. I've either Misplaced the Book, or I had Seen it in a Library. I would Like to Post this Picture, with this Post. But Between Unavailability, and Unfamiliarity at Present on How to Post a Picture, I'm Unable to at Present.

But some of you may Know What I Mean! And I'm Sure that Many of you, -Can just Picture It!

But Beyond All This, the Picture also Shows that Not All Icebergs are Total Climbing Demons!

Oh This Picture! And What it Stands For and Conveys! Adventure Fun on an Iceberg!, that you Have All to Yourselves! Coupled with the Crucial Business of in This Case, Getting Fresh Water.

These are Icebergs! This is Iceberg Survival Options. A Float, and a Fresh Water Source, are about the Only Things They Have in Abundance! They are of course So Beautiful, Dignified, and Magnificent!, in Their Own Right! And Can certainly Be Deadly Dangerous too! They Make For a Great and Unique Place All Their Own!, Among the Earth's Wild Places!, -Cold and Otherwise!



AFTERWORD - We've just been Thru a Survey of the Earth's Foremost Wild Places, -COLD. With Their Survival Aspects being a Major Part.

From Greenland, to Iceland, to Siberia, to the Wilds of Canada, to Alaska, to Kamchatka, to the Scandanavian Wilds, to the Aleutians and the Very Similar Kuriles, to Patagonia and Tierra, to and Around the Horn, to South Georgia and the Sandwiches, to the Falklands or Malvinas, to the Forested Wilds of Maine, to Both the Arctic and the Antarctic, and Any Other such COLD Places in Between! We've Been To and Thru them All!

You Now Have a Better Taste and Awareness of Such! Than you perhaps had Before.

Includeing of some Important general Survival Aspects of Such! Circumstance could *Have* Us in Any of These! Its Not Only a Matter of Liking, Loving, or Getting to Know Them Better as a Great World's Wild Place! It Can also Mean your Make It or Break It Survival!, Shud Circumstance Place you There! The Same of course Goes for the Many NON - Cold, World's Wild Places to Follow! You just May Have To Hunker Down and Survive!, in Any of These Someday! They Have Many Important Survival Implications.

Much of Survival and Well Being in any Given Environment, -Begins with an Awareness of the Conditions! It would be Good to Have at Least a Nodding Familiarity and Acquaintence, -with Such Great Wild and Outdoors of Places! This is Another Part of our Across the Board, Areas of Emergency and Survival Preparation. Know at least the General Environmental Conditions *of* Such World Wild Places, Know some Chief Survival Practices and Tips for Each!, to Say a Least!

We Can't Know Everything, but Someday you may be either Glad you Did!, or Rue and Regret that you Didn't! -Back When you Had Something of the Chance To!

Evident Also from this Grand Tour of the COLD, -Should Be that even in Today's World, -There *Are* Still Plenty of Wild Places Left! So Many Completely and Pristinely and Untouched!, So! This World is Still Far From Chock Full or Crowded Up! Its Far From being All De-Wooded or Depleted! What of This has Unfortunately been Done, is Surely a Cause for Concern. And there certainly has to be some Intelligent and Informed Development, as Well! But It Need Not Intrude into an Awful Lot of the World's Great Wild Places as I mention. And it's Far!, Far!, Far!, from True, -that All the World's Wild Places are Suppossedly Gone!

This has been Earth's Wildest Places, -The Survival Aspects, -COLD. We now Move into the Earth's Many Other Wild Places, Beyond just the Cold! -Though Many of These at Times, -Can be Far from Warm!

We're now Moving into the COOL Wild Areas of the World! There are Only Four of These. After that, we Shall Move into the World's Blazing Deserts, Followed by the Various Other of Earth's Wildest Places! Now Shed some of Those Layers from your Cold Gear!, -For We now Move into the Earth's Great Wild Areas, -COOL !

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E.W.P. -COOL, - ( There are Only Four of These.)

NEW ZEALAND - Ah!, -This Crisp, Clean, Clear, Mountainous, Forested, COOL, World Wild Place!, and Great Outdoors Location! One of my More Top Ranking Favorites! Talk About Places that you'd just Like to Go Off and Relax to! Or as a Place to be Left Alone in Peace! Minding your Own Business, and Neither Bothering, Nor being Bothered, by Anyone! Just in it's Cool, Forested Outdoors and Grassy Meadows! The Mountains, Trees, Clouds, and Sky!, -Being the Only Things that Tower Over you! This and More is New Zealand! New Zealand is It!

These Two Large Islands!, North Island and South Island. Deep in the Cool, Temperate, Mid Oceanic Region of the South Pacific and the Southern Hemisphere. Off in a Far, Isolated, and Very Obscure Corner of the World! Far from the Maddening Crowd!

It has Only Australia for a Neighbor, -Itself Quite Wild, Obscure, and Isolated!, 1,000 or More Miles to the West. And the even More Isolated, Obscure, and Scattered South Pacific Islands of Polynesia. (Though Some of Those are Well on the Tourist Map, Nonetheless)

This is our First COOL World Wild Place! Too Far South and Poleward (The South or Antarctic One!) to be Pacific Tropical, It's also yet Too Far North toward the Polynesian Pacific Tropics, to be within the Scope of COLD. It Comes in Neatly and Nicely, Right Down the Middle!, -as COOL ! New Zealand is the World's Foremost Purely Wild COOL Place! New Zealand is COOL !, in Both Commonly Understood Senses of the Word!

Much Cool Continental Temperate Areas also Occur, on the Continents. Canada, Much of the United States, Japan, Korea, Europe, Much of Rusha, Northeastern China, -but these are typically Far Too Populated and Developed!, to be considered Wild! At One Time, Magnificently Yes!, Today, -No! This is Not to say that there Isn't Much Great Outdoors Wilds left within them! For There Indeed Are! But it is to say, that they're All Round Developed to the Point, of No Longer being All Round Wild! So Such Vast, Cool Continental Temperate Areas of our World, -Shall Not be Discussed here as Wild Places. Beyond this Honorable Mention, They will Not.

New Zealand Shares it's Spandiferous COOL World Wild Placeing, with Three Other Sizeable, Fellow World Island, Locations. Namely Australia's Tasmania, Japan's Northern Island of Hokkaido, and the Island Nation of Ireland. These Cool Islands are all Quite Sizeable! They're Not among the World's Many Small Ones, though also Not among the Largest. They are Not Madagascars, Greenlands, or Borneos! They All Come In somewhere Midway, between being considered "Islandational" and Continental. These Four are essentially It!, for the World's Great Wild Places, COOL ! New Zealand is First Up at Bat, here!

New Zealand has Forests, Mountains, Streams, Rivers, Rapids, Glaciers, Lakes, Fish, Game, Kiwi Birds and Fruit, Hiking Trails, Sheep and Sheepherding, Maori, Fiords, Volcanos, Hot Springs, Grass and Greenery, and Clear Clean Fresh Waters in Abundance! They Pervade it's Coolness!, and It's Coolness Pervades Them!

New Zealand, Being Long so Geographically Isolated as It is!, -Has Developed Many Unique Plant and Animal Life Forms, All it's Own! Found Nowhere Else! Their Flightless Kiwi Bird being just One. Along with the Likes of Madagascar and Other such Noteworthy World Places, -New Zealand is Such a Place! Right Up There so!

New Zealand is Definitely Volcanic!, It Sits Right Atop it's Portion of the Great Pacific Ring of Fire! This Means it's Earthquake Prone as well! But it's Not as Volcanic, as some Other Actively Volcanic Areas of the World!

( VOLCANOS Themself will be Treated as a Great Wild Area of the World in it's Own Right, Later under MOUNTAINS. More than just a Type of Disaster Alone, They of course also actually Qualify as One of our Earth's Great Wild Places! And as such will be Worthy of Inclusion and Mention there. Avalanches and Earthquakes for example Cannot be so Qualified. By their Very Nature. But Volcanos Can, and here Will.)

It's one of the Many Volcanic Areas of the World, Coming Complete with Both the Promise and Perils!, that Go with the Volcanic Territory. Live in the Proximity and Shadow of Volcanos as the Kiwi New Zealanders Do!, and you Get Volcanic Benefits such as Very Good Soil! But you also Take the Risk! You Live at the Volcano's Pleasure!, It Does Not Live at the Pleasure of you! You are a Guest on It's Turf!, Not Vice Versa! This in Fact is How New Zealand was Formed!, to Begin With! No Volcanos!, -No New Zealand!

New Zealand's Pride and Highest Peak, Mt Cook, is a Volcano. As Mt. Fuji is to Japan, Mt Cook is to New Zealand! It is just as Emblematic. At 3,050 Meters ASL, I'd estimate that to be at about some 9,500 Feet.

Volcanic and Earthquake Preparedness, Awareness, Safety, and Survival, are certainly High Ranking Aspects of the New Zealand Survival Scene! As also are Tsunami Matters! Including those that Originate from Far Trans Pacific Elsewhere!

Also, as in Iceland, Yellowstone, the Kuriles, and Elsewhere, Much Geothermal Hot Spring Activity takes place here in New Zealand, as well ! New Zealand is very Well Known for this.

New Zealand also just Happens to be, a Friendly, Fellow English Speaking Culture and Country! And though Country and Wild, also a Developed, Peaceful, Stable, First World Country too! You're Among Plenty of Friendly, Decent, Down to Earth, Country Folk! Intimate With and Knowledgeable Of, Their Great New Zealand Outdoors!, to the Core! They've Carried Over with them, Much of that Great British, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish Heritage as Well! As Well as of course the Contribution of Many Other Immigrants! -All New Zealand Oriented and "Lured"!

But there's Rather Few of Them! Only some 3 and a Half Million People!, in a Large, 154,454 Square Miled Area! -About the Size of California. It is Widely Said that there are Far More Sheep than People there!, some 50 Milliion, in Fact! Even Other Livestock Outranks People by a Factor of Several! You've got a Great, Sparsely Settled, Outdoor Area! And Many of Them are in the Neat, Clean Urban Areas of Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch, among Smaller Others. 85 %, in Fact! And What People there are, are Progressive, Educated, Sensible, and Friendly! You've Got a Friend!, in New Zealand! Both Australia and it's Aussies, and New Zealand and it's "Kiwis", are Great South Asian and Pacific Friends!, in this Quiet Corner of the World! Both in Freedom, and More Personally and Culturally. A Fellow Euro-Caucasian or Not, the Survivor too, has a Friend!, in the Typical New Zealander!

New Zealand is also a Main Gateway to the Antarctic! Christchurch on the Eastern Coast of South Island, is the Center for This. From Here, the Antarctic Coast is Only some 1,500 Miles Off! Thats Not as Close as Chile's and Argentina's Tierra Del Fuego. Or their Ushuaia and Puntas Arenas Antarctic Centers. But it's Still Right Up there with them! New Zealand is a Prime Player, in International Antarctic Activity. And Christchurch is it's Link, to that Great White Continental Ice Plateau, to it's South!

New Zealand also has a Respectable Amount of the Isolated World Islands, in it's Vicinity. The Chathams, the Antipodes, and the Kermadecs, to name some.

The Antpodes are Almost Directly on the Opposite Side of the World!, than London. Hence their Name.

My Own World Antipodal Point, is about 800 Miles Southwest of Perth, Australia, in the Indian Ocean!

Where's Your's?! If you were to Draw a Line Straight Thru the Center of the Earth, or Poke a Needle in the Same Way thru your Globe!, -Where on the *Other Side*!, Would It Come Out!? A Very Interesting Curiosity!

This is What's of particular Note, about New Zealand's Isolated Antipodes, World Islands.

Aside from that, Other Discussion concerning New Zealand's portion of the Isolated World Islands, Shall Come Under the Same Name, -ISOLATED WORLD ISLANDS, at a Later Point.

Many of These New Zealand Outliers are somewhat Closer to Antarctica. They are All Small, Cold Lonely, Windy, Rainswept, Isolated Islets and Rocks! A Foretaste of What we'll be Seeing, in ISOLATED WORLD ISLANDS to Come.

New Zealand and it's Wild, Cool, Clean, Fresh Unspoiled Great Outdoors!, In Short, -I Like and Love It! It's my Kind of Place! -Cool Wild Place!

And so How would One Best Go About Survival Down Here?! -In This the *Other* Down Under? If you either Wanted To!, or Circumstance Had It that you Had To!, -Try your Hand at Survival Down Here!, -How would it Be?! How would you Go About Doing It?

Well First Off, You're in a Cool, Temperate, Often Mild, Mountainous and Forested Area of the World. You're on One of Two rather Large Islands. Each of which so has some Elements of Continentality. You're in a sort of Mid-Zone, between "Islandness", and Continentality. With Highly Fertile Lowland Soil!, once you get out of it's Many Mountains. Volcanic Mountainsides too, shud be Quite Fertile. Volcanic Soil is Like That! You have Few Other People Present, in this Low Population Base! The Land is Wild, Rural, and Unspoiled and Undeveloped! Seacoasts and All that They Provide for Survival!, are Never All that Far Off! It's Many Geothermal Resources can be Put to Good Use as well!

So New Zealand Survival Revolves Around that of the Forests, Mountains, and Seacoasts! Along with a Healthy Assist from New Zealand's Many Pastures and Grasslands, in a Form of Grasslands Survival.

Richly Agricultural in the Lowlands, You as a Survivor can also Avail Yourself of Food Resources that Way! As well as by Garden Style or Greater, Growing some of your Own!

Food is Plentiful and Readily Available! As is Fresh Water! Fire and Shelter Materials are as Well!

Being a Predominantly Cool Area as It is, Temperatures Often Don't get Heavily Cold, -Excepting High Altitudes and Mountains!, and some of the Southernmost Reaches. You Must Still be Prepared and Fully Dressed for Any Cold Contingency!, However! New Zealand is Not the Tropics!, It is in Fact Well Outside of Such! It's Maori Natives are Polynesian, Yes! But This is No Longer Tropical Polynesia! You're Now a Little Too Close to Antarctica!, for That! Though Cool, the Cold is Not to be just Pooh Poohed, Papered Over, or Otherwise Passed Off!, -Down Here! Be Mindful and Aware of any Cold Possibilities!

Be Able to Stay Warm and Dry!, and So Protect yourself from the Rain! It's Not Nearly as Rainy as say Ireland! But Rain is Far from Unknown here!

Keep in Mind that you are in the *Southern* Hemisphere! And that Seasons and so Many Other Things, are Reversed from What we're Used to Knowing in the North.

New Zealand is Technically Four Seasoned, but in this Milder, Cooler Climate and Conditions, Divisions are Not so Pronounced or Sharp, as in many places else!

Compass Directions too are Reversed! Though you are Far Enuf Away from Antarctica and it's South Geomagnetic Pole, that your Compass shud be Perfectly Reliable, with No "Near Geo-Pole", of Foulups! You Must Get Used to the *New* Pole and Direction, that you will be Operating By!

Volcanic, Earthquake, Tsunami, and Hot Spring Survival Matters are a Rather High Ranking Must!, once again!

Sea and Aircraft Signaling could be Quite Important, too!

Avail Yourself of the Rich River, Lake, Forest, and Other Outdoor Resources!

If Not Already At or Near the Shore, -Work Down from the More Central Mountains and Streams, to the Coasts! Nowhere in New Zealand are you Very Far from such Rich Coastal Food Sources! Much Fish, Seabirds, and Other Sea Life, will be there! Perhaps even Larger Game such as Seals or Large Turtles, in Places. And It could Well Be your Key to Being Located, Extrication, and Rescue, too! Here at the Shore! Follow Inland Streams to Such. There will in all Liklihood be some Rocks, Rapids, and the Like, to Have to Deal With, in Doing So!

Get an Idea of Which Coast you Want to Go Towards, the Eastern or the Western, on whichever Island you happen to be on. And Whether you then Want to Track, either North or South! As a General Rule in New Zealand Inland to Coastal Travel, -It's First East - West, then North - South, if Need Be.

Work to Where some Cities, Towns, Ranches, or Settlements are!

You may be On Your Own for Awhile!, in the World of New Zealand Survival! But Once you Do Reach some of New Zealand's Established and Settled Population, You shud be in Good Hands! And your Survival Concerns shud Begin Being Over! New Zealand SAR and Such is Good to Great! Perhaps Small!, But Helpful and Quality what there is! Get Yourself to the Coast and Developed!, and Thereby Get Out!

New Zealand Survival can be Hard and Harsh! As in Many an Anywhere! But in Many General Respects, It's Not *as* Hard or Harsh!, as in say the Real Siberian, Saharan, or Antarctic Parts of the World! But Don't be Too Lulled by that either! Prepare Yourself Well!, for New Zealand Down Under Survival!

And Besides, -You just Might Want to Stay! As either a Survivor or Non Survivor Resident!

New Zealand and Kiwi Survival! Another One of Earth's Many Great!, and Remaining!, -Wild Places! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

TASMANIA - Tasmania, -Oh How I Love that Place! "Tassie", as the Aussies Call this State Sized Southern Island of their's. Wild, Cool, Isolated, Sparsely Settled, Forested, Mountainous, Tassy is my Kind of Place!

Though Sparsely Populated, It Does possess a Rather Few Developed Towns and Cities. It has some 475,000 People all told, -Less than Half a Million! And a Large Part of these, Live in Tasmania's Few Smallish Cities, such as Hobart and Launceston. Which Makes the Already Sparsely Settled Countryside!, even More so! In the Late 90s, Tasmania even Lost Population! There is also some Forestry, Fishing, Farming, and Ranching, Going On. All the Same, You've still got yourself a quite Large and Rather Empty Place in which to Roam!, and Feel Yourself to Pretty Well be Left Alone!

You also have the Advantage, of being within a Friendly, Fellow English Speaking Area! And Friendly, Knowledgeable, and Helpful People and Pioneering Country Folk!, in Many Other Ways Besides!

"Boulder Shaped" in a "Circleish Square", She sits just off Australia's Southeastern Coast. A Coast which Already Dips Well to the Continent's Southeast! Into Increasingly Cool to Cold Southern Antarctic Waters. Tass is a Part of Australia, a State of it's Own. It's about 150 Miles South of the Australian Mainland, Across the Stormy Bass Strait. Several Important Islands lie in this Channel, Closer to the Australian Mainland. The Furneaux Group, Flinders, and King. They are Much, Much Smaller than Tasmania. It, Tasmania, comes in at 26,200 Square Miles.

It's Highest Mountain, Mt. Ossa, Comes in at 5,300 Feet High. Thats somewhat Representative of the Tasmanian Highlands as a Whole. And Thats Pretty High, for a Pretty Cool-Cold Southerly Locale! Here in the Far Southern Hemisphere, where "South" effectively Equates to Meaning our "North"!

And so Tasmania has a Decidedly Cool, Forested, Mountain Climate! -The 2nd Ranking *Non*-Continental COOL Wild Area in the World, the Other being just mentioned New Zealand. They're in the Same General Part of the World, but still Separated by a Good 1,000 to 1,500 Miles of Ocean. Tasmania comes in Midway as such a Cool Wild Area of our World, between New Zealand, and Japan's Northern Island of Hokkaido. Not Neccessarily in Size, but in COOL Wildness!

Like as with New Zealand, It's Far Enuff South to be Cool!, yet Far Enuff North Not to be in the Icy Grip of the Antarctic Cold Belt!

It is Another, Different Sort of Australia! None of it's Parent Continent's Well Known Red Deserts or Tropical Northern Jungles, Down Here! Tass is Cool, Cloudy, and Wet!, as Oppossed to Their Hot, Sunny, and Dry!

Like Madagascar, New Zealand, and Other Large sort of Isolated World Islands, -Tasmania has Evolved Many Plant and Animal Life Forms!, -Uniquely All it's Own! As Well as Having Australian type Marsupials, from the Nearby Land just to it's North. Which Itself is Quite a Uniquely Isolated, World Lifeform, Area!

Some Deforestation and Other Environmental Changes heve Occurred in some Areas of Tasmania, but So Much still Remains Unspoiled, Untouched, and Wild! And of Damage and Degradation as has been Done, Early Native, Pre- European Man, is now Known to Have Done it's Good Share of Such too!, in Tasmania and Other Parts of the World. Previous New Zealand and Madagascar being Two Prime such ones. Deforestation, Species Extinction, and Other Sorts of Environmental Havoc! Both New Settlers and Previous Natives! Just Look at All the Slash and Burn going on in the Tropics now! But Still Much of Tasmania has None of this assorted Enviro-Destruction.

But it's yet Australia Thru and Thru!, as Much a Full and Equal Part of Australia, as any Other! But in a Different Sort of Way!, -a Tasmanian Way! A Refreshingly Cool!, Great Tasmanian Outdoors!, Sort of Way! Wild, Free, Untouched, and Natural! Tasmania Indeed is Quite Different! From the Austral Outback to the North, though Not All that Different from it's Cool Climate Cousin, our earlier mentioned New Zealand. This is Tasmania! This and More is Tassie!

I Love the Place!, and I would Really Like to Go there someday, to Live, to Visit, or to Survive!

So How Does one now Go About the Task of Surviving There? What are the Prevailing Conditions, and Techniques, -of Tasmanian Survival?

It's Mountains, Forests, Lakes, Fields, Coasts, and Streams!, Can Provide Generously for the Survivor!

Tasmania so Comes Down to, Forest, Mountain, Seacoast, Grassland, and Cool, Temperate Survival.

There's even a Good Healthy Dose, of our Old Friend Cold Survival, Here! It Can Indeed get Cold here! An Antarctic Cold Snap can Always Come Up!, even into the Lowlands, Let Alone the Mountainous Uplands! Tasmania is one of the Few Australian Places that Pretty Regularly gets Snow! If Not Often more than a Dusting.

But Tassie is still Far Enuf North, to By and Large be considered a Cool Place!, rather than a Cold Clime!

Food, Plentiful! Fish and Coastal Sealife, Plentiful! Fresh Water, Plentiful! Firewood, Plentiful! Plant and Other Shelter Materials, Plentiful! "Fish" here includes Rich Inland Lake and Stream Fish Life, as Well as Coastal, Marine Fish Sources.

Tasmanian Rivers and Streams Provide you with Ready, -if at Times Rocky and Rapids Filled,- Transportation Routes toward the Coast, or Elsewhere Inland. They also so Serve as a Valuable Direction Indicating Means. And for their Greatest Bountiful Benefit of All!, -They're such a Rich Fresh Water, Fish, and Food Source!

You can Stay either in the Isolated Inland Interior to Survive!, (Especially if you Want to Stay, and Have an even Better Chance of Being Left the Heck Alone and at Peace!). -Or you can Move More to the Coasts for your Survival! Where you now Have even More Bountiful Sea Food Resources! And an even Better Chance of Location, Extrication, and Rescue!, if That be your Desire.

If you're Seeking a *Little* More Warm!, in This Cool to Cold Land!, -Then Move toward the North Coast, as Oppossed to the Southerly Ones, the Lowlands as Oppossed to the Highland Plateaus and Mountains!

You may also Want to Work your Way to one of the Towns along the Coast. Or to one of the Far More Scattered Towns or Settlements, Sprinkled every Here and There, in the Interior. Those Occassional Coastal Towns, are More on the Northern and Southeastern Coasts, than Elsewhere. The Major Centers of Launceston and Hobart, are on the North and Southeast Coasts, Respectively. Caution here!, -Launceston is somewhat Inland, on a Deep Running Inlet. With a Small Total Tasmanian Population, These Towns have Got to be Small! So Worry Not about any Great Urban Congestion or Anything Down Here! -Not Down Here in the Tass!

Here on the Tasmanian Coasts, Most Especially the Northern, Followed by the Southeastern, -Rescue and Re-Integration "Back into the World" is Most Possible! And Reasonably Likely, at least on those particular Coasts. Keep in Mind that Tasmania is in a Very Isolated, Obscure, Backwater Part of the World! And that it's Coasts, -Especially it's Western, Southern, and to some extent it's Eastern Ones!, Are So Too! They are No Exception to the General Rule!, and so Hailing or Signaling a Passing Ship or Plane!, -May Take some Time and Doing! Even here on the Coasts, your Best Chance for Such! You Stand a Far Better Chance of Doing so in the Hobart or Launceston Areas, Heck!, if you're that Close to these Centers, -You'd Mayswell just Go in and Talk to someone, rather than have to Signal Seaward or Skyward anymore! Elsewhere on these *More* "Settled" Northern and Southeastern Coasts, your Chances of Successfully so Signaling, are Still Somewhat Limited! But Far Better than say on the Southern or Western Coasts!

But Signaling Chances or No, You Stand a Much Better Chance of Rescue and Extrication on the Coasts, than you Do Inland! Strike and Head for These!, if that is What you Seek!

Once you Do so Meet Someone, Your Tasmanian Survival Experience shud Soon be Over! In this Reasonably Well Developed (Where It Is), First World, Friendly / Knowledgeable / and Helpfully Peopled Area! An Area of Good to Great SAR and Such Besides!

I'm Sure that the World Renowned Australian Flying Doctor Service, Operates Down Here as Well! Includeing via their Ground Based, Emergency Radio Comm, System. After All, They're Very Isolated! An Outback of their Own! At least the Equal of Many Another in Australia! After All, They're a Part of Australia!, Full and Equal as Any Other! No Less than Hawaii, is as Full and Equal a State of Our's!, as Any of our Others. So One can be Quite Sure!, that the RFDS is Down Here! This is Only a Further Boon to One's Survival and Extrication Chances! Seek it Out, and Avail Yourself of it's Excellent Services!, if Ever Down There.

Survive in the Forests, Mountains, Streams, and Beaches! And Work your Way Down to the Coasts! Those are the All Round, General Keys, to Tasmanian Rescue and Survival! It's Not a Siberia!, Nor an Antarctica only some 2,000 Miles to it's South! But Tasmanian Survival, as Richly Resourced as it Often is!, Can be a Rugged Challenge and Harsh!, as Well! Let it's General Coolness Kid or Fool you Not!

Aside from that, Enjoy the Great Tasmanian Outdoors!, and Cool Wild Place! It's Indeed one of the World's Wild Great Ones! You just Might Like to Stay!, to Live andor Survive So!

And Last but Not Least, -Watch Out for that Tasmanian Wolf and Devil!, -Just Two More of it's Uniquely Strange Faunal Life Forms! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

Japan's Northern Island of HOKKAIDO - This Norternmost Island of Japan's Main Four, is just South of our earlier mentioned Kuriles, Sakhalin, and Southeasternmost Siberia. Kamchatka is some 1,000 and More miles Further North, beyond the Kuriles. Korea is reasonably Nearby, and Northeastern China's Manchuria, -Much a Great Wild Area of it's Own!, is Not Far Off either.

They Can and Do get a Lot of Siberia's Cold!, -these Hokkaidan Neighbors. But Hokkaido Itself, while it too can get Definitely to the Cold Side!, is nevertheless Milder Enuff to generally be considered within the Cool Zone! It's Far Enuf South to be so. But Still has been Described as Having an All Round Wisconsin Climate! We All Know Wisconsin gets Cold! Hokkaido is a Midway Transition between the Cold Siberian and Asian North!, and Japan's Warmer to Subtropical Main Islands to the South! Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and the Ryukyus. Hokkaido Serves as the Climatic Link and Bridge! Between the COLD and the COOL! Hokkaido is a Decidedly Cool, Sizeable Island, and Wild Area of our World!

It is rather Sprawling and Flattish!, for a Japanese Island! It's the Second Largest of Japan's 4 Major Islands. At 30,144 Square Miles, about the Size of some of our typical U.S. Northeastern States. This is out of a Total of 145,850 Square Miles for All of Japan. Most of Japan is Chock Full of Mountains!, -The Famed Japanese Alps! They're a Very Wild Outdoors Place in their Own Right!, in an Otherwise Very Populous, Developed, Non-Wild Japan! But Quite Unlike such Typical Japan!, Hokkaido's Far More Spread Out, Plateaued, and Flat with Lowlands and Plains! It's Not Totally so!, now. It Does have it's Mountains and Highlands too! But Quite Unusual for Japan, It Greatly Flattens and Spreads Out!

This can be a Boon for Survival, in Subsistence Gardening, Small Scale Agriculture! Coupled with the Good, Rich, Volcanic Soils! You may be Hampered a Bit by a somewhat Pinched Growing Season though! And you're No Longer Far Enuf North, to Get Much Benefit of Longer Summer Daylight Hours! With it's Adverse Survival Gardening Implications. Nor again, to Go Back to the Positive Side, -Do you Have the More Northerly Mid-Winter Daylight Darkness! Make Use of Hotbeds, Cold Frames, and Greenhousing and so on!

Unlike Most of the Typically Very Populous Japan, Hokkaido has Quite Few Residents or Settlers!

It is Japan's Wild Pioneering Frontier Land to it's North! (Not that the Japanese Alps to the South, Aren't Also so Very Much So!). Hokkaido does have Some Limited Development, Every Here or There! But It's Mostly a Wild, Untamed Frontierland!, of Anything But!

It Too is as Volcanic!, and Earthquake Prone!, as Anywhere in Japan! Japan as a Whole is as Volcanic and Earthquake Prone as they Come! And Hokkaido is No Exception! If Japan perhaps Doesn't Take the World Prize in this Area!, then it Strongly Vies for It!

Even if Hokkaido may be Relativly Somewhat Quieter, in the Volcanic and Tectonic Departments, Over it's Fellow Japanese Islands to the South!, -Who Knows When it may again Rumble Awake!? Volcanos and Quakes are Like That! Japan is just Too Susceptible in these Ways!, to Chance or Hazard such a "Safe Guess"!

As Anywhere Else In or Around Japan, Volcano and Earthquake Awareness and Survival Concerns!, Rank as a Front Burner Matter!, on any Total All Round Plate, of Japanese or Hokkaido Survival!

Plus No One Ever Forget!, -Tsunami Awareness and Survival too! Not in Japan!, Shud one ever Lightly Pass Off This! The Japanese Language, After All, Lends it it's Very Name! And such Tidal Waves can Originate from Far Further than Only the Japanese Home Islands! They can Cross the Entire Pacific, from as Far Away as Chile! As They Did in the 1960 Chilean Mega-Quake!, the Largest Ever Known! These Rare Very Largest Ones!, are Strong Enuff to Set the Entire Planet Ringing like a Bell! Well Aside from just That, This Sent Tsunamis Across the Entire Pacific!, Including to Japan and it's Hokkaido! Even Normal Major Cross Pacific Quakes!, Do This!

A Number of Important Survival Considerations regarding Hokkaido and Greater Japan have already been Touched Upon. So What Else is also Foremostedly Involved in General Hokkaido Survival and Rescue?

Beyond only the Great Geological Forces of Quakes, Volcanos, and Tsunamis!, the Bane of So Much concerning Japan!, -There's more Customary and Ordinary Matters of Survival as well.

These Revolve Around Forest, Mountain, Seacoast, Lakes and Streams, and Grasslands Survival.

And at least in Hokkaido's Wisconsin like Winter, -Throw in Cold Survival as well!

You might Want to Survive, or Otherwise Stay, -either in the Interior, or Along the Coast.

Or if Caught Inland and Not Wanting to Stay, -You might Want to Work your Way to the Coast! For Better Survival Chances! And for Better Signaling, Being Located, Extrication, and Rescue!

Once Located so, then Japanese SAR and Other such Resources, being at least Good, Perhaps Very Good, -Should Soon be Well on their Way to Getting you Out of your Survival Situation! And Back Homeward!

On your Journey toward such Contact, Work also Toward Major Urban Centers!, such as Sapporo! -In Addition to the Coast. Most of these on Hokkaido are Indeed on the Coast. Though Scatteredly so! What such Urban Centers as there are! But These Population Centers are Better than just any old Section of the Wild Hokkaido Coast! Though for Rescue and Extrication, -Even That certainly Beats Inland!

As to Staying or Not in This Fine in Many Ways of a Land!, Keep in Mind that there's the Great Language Differences and Barrier! Few will Speak or Understand English! Bone Up on at least some Basic Japanese!

The Apparently Hard and Intimidating Part of their Language!, -Essentially has to Do Only with the Writing Script! "Polite Japanese", Can also be Involved as Well! Otherwise, it's Astonishinly Logical, Beautiful, Simple, and Easy! Learn that Part! And Only the Bare Bones Basics of That! -If you Don't Have the Time or Inclination for Languages! Largely to Entirely Ignore the Script! Go for the Spoken Language! You Really Don't Need to be so Afraid of Japanese! It's Far More of a Linguistic Mouse!, than an Elephant!

You Already Know a Major World Language!, and One of it's Harder to Hardest Ones!, -English! Most of you Anyway! This Deflates the Impression that One Cannot Learn a Language! Let Alone a Simple, Bare Bones version of One!

More than just Acedemic or Nice to Do!, -Some Language Awareness around this World!, -Can Come in as an Important and Useful Survival Skill and Aid! Not just for Knowing How to Basically Communicate in another Language in Itself!

But you might be Surprised at How Quickly and Helpfully Locals Warm Up to you! -When you've Shown Yourself to Have Taken the Care and Consideration!, to Have Learned at Least Something!, in Their Own native Language!

Prices Come Down!, Accurate Directions are Given! Resources are Pointed Out! Local Knowledge and Advice Flows! Lodging Becomes Cheap or Free! Not Always now! But Still Often!

So Try to Have Learned at least a Few Words, of an Area's Language! It Can Really be an Importantly Useful Survival Aid and Skill!

But Whether you Do or Not, -Ther'll Still be a Great Language Difference! Unless you Know at least a Good Bit, -You'll Still be at something of a Language Disadvantage! This may Figure into Whether you'd Want to Stay or Not.

Then again, if you're Doing Pure Wilderness Survival!, You might Rarely if Ever, *Need* to Understand or Communicate in the Language!

Also, Even More Standout!, than your Language Differences, -Will be your Personal Physical Ones! You're in All Liklihood a European or European Descended Caucasian!, The Great Assemblage of Locals! (What Again that there Are!, in Hokkaido!) ,-Are Japanese Asians / Orientals! Quite a Standout Physical Appearance Difference!, to say a Least! It Doesn't Bode too Well for Blending In!, or Trying to Keep a Low Profile! Even if you Weren't Additionally an "Object of Curiosity"! Let Alone when you Doubtless Are! This too may Enter into the Downside, of your "Do I Stay?", Assessment.

Back to Language Matters, You also can so Read Notices and Signs, and Hear What the Locals About you are Saying, -Perhaps About you!, in Their Native, On Scene, Language! That can be Important, Even Life Saving Important!

Land and Climate Wise, You may be Inclined to Stay!, as you Might in say the Falklands! Culturally, Though, -You May Not! Nothing Against the Natives, -It's Just a Matter of Language and Other Standout, Survival Bearing, of Differences! The Falklands are also Culturally on so Much More of our Own Wavelength! Hokkaido just is Not! Not saying One's Better than the Other! But Just that They are Radically Different!, from One Another!

This is Japan's COOL Northern Wilds of Hokkaido! And This is Northern Japanese Hokkaido Survival! It's Quite a Place! If you Don't Mind an Earthquake Rumble under your Feet, or Other Survival Challenges and Hardships!, -Every Once or More of a While!



FURTHER NOTE - Japan Proper, Will Not be Covered under "Earth's Wildest Places". Being it's so Predominantly being in the Populous and Developed!, as Oppossed to the World's Wild, World!

With the Brief Honorable Mention Exception concerning the Wild Japanese Alps!, already Given. My Hat Must Gladly be Off to It! And It so Gets and Deserves!, -Such Honorable Mention here! It however, is Too Far Enmeshed, in Japan's Definitely NON Wild, World!

Hokkaido, once again, is Very Different! Very Wildly Different! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]

IRELAND - This State Sized Island Nation, -about the Size of West Virginia, -is a COOL, at Least Largely Wild!, Great Outdoors Area of our World! These are the Great and Green, Wild Clean Irish Outdoors!

Much of Ireland, Especially it's Ruff and Rocky Western Coastal Face, is Very Wild! And Ruggedly and Rockily Undeveloped! Often Entirely so!

Much of this is the Well Known Irish "Gaeltacht", the Celtic Old Country, now mostly in Ireland's West. For Both Better and Worse, They still Cling Tenaciously and Admirably, to Old Irish Ways! As also Does New, More Modern and Developed Ireland, the Celtic Tiger, Do so for Better or Worse too, in it's Other Ways. You will Meet Both Kinds, were you to Visit or Try to Survive in Ireland.

There are Many Friendly, Helpful, Conscientious, Hospitable, Down to Earth Types in Ireland! That can Help you Greatly!, as Far as Seeking Local Knowledge and Advice is concerned. Merry and Jolly Old England!? -How Bout Trying on Merry and Jolly Old Ireland!, for Size! That is when *Some* of Them Aren't being Too Down, Glum, or Dour about their Rain! That could Account for at least a Lot of that! Blame It on the Rain! But there's the Jolly Good Time Side of Them too! There is Much Exemplary and Upstanding!, in Many of Them. As a Visitor or Survivor there, This will be one of the Things you Run Into! Along with their Rich Reserves of "Local Knowledge Help"! Tune and Tap Into it!, if you ever Have to Survive there!

This Wild, Free, Natural, Open, Spacious, Ruff, Rugged, Rocky, Often Forested, Hilly and Mountainous, Soaked and Swampy, Rural and Rustic, Undeveloped, Untouched, Unspoiled, Isolated, Cool, Clean, Crisp, Clear, (When the Quite Ever Cloudy Skies will Permit It!), Fresh, Foggy, Misty, Rain Soaked, COOL Irish Countryside Wilds!, and Great Irish Outdoors!

It Does so Qualify, as One of the World's Great Remaining Wild Places!, if Not Among it's Greatest.

Ireland is All These Things and More!

It is More than just the Land of Shamrocks, Leprechuans and their Pot of Gold, Feisty Whisky Drinkers, Potatos, Clancy Lowered the Boom types, Great World Class Literature and Theater, Blarney Stone, Northern Ireland News, or St Patrick Complete with his Parades and Day!

Towards an Accurate Picturing of some of it's Scene and Backdrop, -A Small Part of it is now a Part of the United Kingdom, but Most of the Island Nation is it's own Independent Republic.

It Directly Faces both the Angry North Atlantic!, and the Warm North Flowing Gulf Stream! The Angry Atlantic comes Complete with their Prevailing Westerlies!, and with Torrents of Marine West Coast Climed Rains! It No Less Faces the Angry North Atlantic, than Canada's Labrador, Norway's Fiords, Greenland, Iceland, Maine's Rocky Coast, or Other Similar North Atlantic Locations Do!

Ireland is First in Line!, to Get this Onslaught! It Often can Rain as Much as 9 Days out of 10, Especially on it's Exposed West Coast!

However, Much of this Rain is a Gentle Drizzle or Mist, the "Softies" (or Something Similar), as the Irish Put it. The Rain is Often on the somewhat Warm or Mild Side, as well. More of a Warm than a Cold Rain!

But Don't be Misled! Ireland gets it's Downpoured Torrents!, and More than just a Few! She's Still one of the Foremost Rainfall Areas of the World! Other Cool Areas of the World certainly Get Theirs! But Ireland Gets Inordinately More!

Still, it's Not like every Last Day of the Year is a Wet and Rainy One! (OK, Maybe a Wet One, at least so Far as the Ground is concerned!) Even on the Rain Soaked West Coast! Let Alone in How it Gets Increasingly Less Rainy, the Further Eastward you go! Such as on Ireland's Great Central Shannon Plain, and it's Eastern Coast. The Sun Does Shine Sometimes!, in Ireland! Even if sometimes as only a Brief Break in the Clouds.

Someone's Remarked to me, that Whenever you Fly Out of Shannon, and After Clearing the Clouds a Bit, -You're in Blazing Sunshine! On Any Day of the Irish Year, -Even on Those of the Grayest, Rain Drenched Downpours!, Beneath your Cloudbank and just Below! A World of Difference!, Between you on the Aircraft, and Someone Standing Below you on the Ground! Maybe just Thousands of Feet Away from you! Something to Think About!, for a Moment. The Cloud Hidden Irish Skies Belie It! It's Gray, Rain Soaked Opposite!, is a Predominant Irish Reality!

Much of the Irish Soil, is of an Ever Wetdamp, Soakenness and Sogginess! Especially in the River Valley Lowlands, Lake Areas, and Many Bogs! The Country certainly has it's Share of Swamps and Wetlands, -Probably More Than it's Share! Though at least some of these have been Drained or Filled In, in Development projects. This After All, is Where Ireland and Other Boggy Wetland Areas of the World, Get their Rich Peat Reserves from! How they've been Able to Come By it! With it's Great Survival and Country Living Uses as Fire Fuel!, Among Other Things. No Rain and Wet!, -No Bogs or Wetlands, -No Peat!

Over Rich in Water!, Ireland will be the Last!, or One of the Last!, Places ever to be Adversely Affected by any Current or Upcoming World Water Crisis!

Hurricane Force Winds can and Do Often Blow!, Up on West Coast Locales such as the Cliffs of Moher! Cliffs and Ridges of course often have a Way of being Like That!

A Freak, North Swinging Hurricane!, by the way, is Thot to have Struck and Swepted Across Ireland, Only about a Decade Before the Potato Famine Hit! (No Connection Implied) They Call it something like "The Night of the Big Wind"! For a Hurricane, however, -It Puzzles me Why it occurred in January!, -Well Outside of Hurricane Season!

The Angry Atlantic and the Prevailing Westerlies Bring that Wind and Rain!

The Warm Gulf Stream, Moderates Things up at this reasonably Northern Locale, a Good Bit!

A certain Mitigating and Cancelling Effect, Occurs so between the Two! Between the Cold Northern Latitudes!, and the Warm Watered South!

It Doesn't Really Ever get Cold up here! (Except of course, Higher Up on Irish Mountains! -Ireland Does have Low, but a Beautiful and Definite!, Island Ringing, Set of Mountains!)

But it also Never gets anywhere near Hot up here!, either!

She is COOL Right Down the Middle! -If also Immensely and Inordinately Wet! Thanks Due to that Moderating Gulf Stream!, a Foremost World Warm Ocean Current! It Enmildens Things!, in this Irish, and Many Other, Necks of the "North Atlantic Woods"!

It just so Happens, that She is Too Far Ocean Warmed and Too Far South, to be within the Grips of the North Atlantic COLD! Yet also Far Enuf North and Within, to Ever be Hot!

As Such, Ireland is a COOL One!

It's One of the World's Few Non-Continental Members, of Such COOL Club! New Zealand, Tasmania, Japan's Hokkaido, Denmark's North Atlantic Faroes Islands, Scotland and Wales as a Part of the Great British Island, and Some of the East Canadian Maritimes, -are the Only Others. These Select, Few, Sizable, Well Placed, COOL World Islands, -Seems to Break Man's General, Prevailing Rule!, as in the Last Several Hundred or More of Years, that has Come About! Continental Development just Hasn't Reached them yet! And May it for at least the Very Most Part!, -Never So Come About!

Ireland, however, Skirts and Flirts Right on the Fence Edge of This! It just Begins to Straddle this Fence so! Much More so than any of it's COOL Island Mates! Being so Close to Britain and Europe as it is!, -It has More than a Little Development, in Many Areas. Even if a Lot of that, is "Only" Age Old Pasture and Farms. Much Forest has been Cut Down over the Centuries. But at least Many Forest Areas Still Stand!, as Well! And Reforestation Programs Do take Place. A Good Bit of now Longstanding Development. Still, Even So!, It's Well Entrenched in the Still Yet Wild Camp! And Promises to be So, for a Long Long Time yet to Come!

Once you Get just a Little Outside of Dublin!, -You've Arrived into it's Cool, Country Wilds! Even Dublin is Very Much so Itself! It's Nearly Alone, as an Irish City of any typically Urban Size! Even there in the Dub, You Havn't got Far to Go!, Before you're in the Irish Wild Country!

I Can't say that Ireland is Sparsely Settled, -But I Can't say that it is Heavily Populated either!

Ireland Well Makes it in!, to Earth's Wildest Places. Scotland, Wales, and Honshu Japan, -even with their Great Subsets of Wilds!, -Do Not.

(Vast Continental COOL and Temperate Areas of course also Exist!, thruout our World. But They as a Vast and General Rule, -are All Too Often Well Populated and Developed!, and as Such are No Longer All Round Wild! Europe, the Eastern U.S., Some of European Rusha, Developed Southeastern and Southern Brazil, and so on. As such, They will Not be Covered here under Earth's Wildest Places. But it Must be Honorably Mentioned, that They Often Have some Very Great Wild Areas entwined Within!)

This is Ireland's Great, COOL, Wet, Wild Outdoors!

Now How would you Go About Surviving there!, if you Had To!?

First of All, It's Settled Enuf, that it Wouldn't be Long Before you Found some Friendly, if a Bit Guarded, Helpful Irish Country Folk! You'd Soon Reach Farmhouses, Small Towns, and Settlements and Such! Andor Authorities of some sort. Though in some Really Wild, Rocky Western Areas, -You might have to First Walk a Dozen or Two's Miles, Before Coming Across Someone so. You wouldn't have to Really Full Out Survive, for very Long, in Ireland. You'd Soon be on your Way Back to the World! Irish SAR and Such, Shud be OK to Good, and maybe even Great. You're in the Developed First World, and an English Speaking Area, as well! Those are Good Survival Helps!

Food, -Plentiful! Also, Avail yourself of their Ubiquitious Potatos! And Plant some of your Own! Though you probably Won't have to Survive, for asd Long as it Takes them to Grow! Do Similarly regarding Other Crops and Garden Vegetables!

Fresh Water via the Lakes, Streams, Rivers, and Rain!, -of course Plentiful!

Fish, both Freshwater and Ocean, -Plentiful! Fish in either the Interior Waters!, andor Along the Seacoast! Gather Other Beach Life and Seafood!, as well! Beware though!, of the Rocky Coast!, Ruff, Cold, Salty, Hypothermic Waters!, Outgoing Currents, Rips, and Undertows. And Any Adverse and Dangerous Combinations of the Preceeding!

Fire Fuel, -Plentiful!, at least in Peat and Other Non Woody Plant Forms, Dependeing on your specific Local Area. More Woody Firewood Fuel can be more Problematical, Though also Plentiful in Many Areas!

Shelter Materials, -both Plant Based and Rock and Soil Based, -Plentiful! When it Comes to Dwellings and Shelter, The Irish Use their Abundant Grassy Plant Material, for Roof Thatching. And Have been Doing so for Ages. You Do so Too!

Sun Sightings, -Very Much *Not* Plentiful!

You Have Most of your Survival Needs in Abundance! You'd just Have to be Working in the Wet Ground and Rain!, to *Do* a Lot of That in! Prepare and Assure Yourself of Rain Protection! And Keep Warm and Dry!

Working your Way to the Coast here, is Not so Critical as it can be in Other Parts of the World! But it can nevertheless be somewhat Advisable. Small and Waterways Rich a Country as it is!, -It Shud Not Take you Long to Get to one of it's Coasts!, in any event.

In the Event you for a While nevertheless Did Have to Survive there!, Ireland and Irish Survival would basically Come Down to;-

-Cool Temperate, Moorland, Swamp, Forest, Mountain, Grassland, Rainland, and Ocean Seacoast!, -Types of Survival.

This is the Great, Wild, Cool, Irish Outdoors! And This is the General Survival Imperatives within Such.

You might be One who just Likes to Stay! Unless you're Someone hoo Loves!, and Doesn't Want to Dispense with the Sun! If you Don't Mind Not Having that!, You might just be Someone who'd Like to Stay! In a Living, as Oppossed to a Pure Survival, Role. In Cool, Wild Ireland, as perhaps your First or Second Home! These are the Great, Cool, Wild, Irish Countryside and Outdoors!

I for one Will Take!, and Not Dispense with the Sun! This is Where we Shall now Next Go!, in our Surveytour of the World's Greatest Wild Places! Put your Arctic and Rain Gear Aside now! Fill up your Canteen with some of that so Abundant Irish Water! For it's Off to the World's Searing, Sunny, Parched Dry!, of World Wild Places ARID And DESERT! The COOL COLD was Great! But Now it's Time to Warm Up Some!





SOME WORDS ON SCOTLAND And WALES - Scotland and Wales are Beloved Cool, Wild Places of Mine! Outdooresedly and Otherwise! Cool, Mountainous, Forested, Heathed, and Moored!

And though Much within them is Often Quite Pristine, Untouched, and Wild! -Complete with their Own sort of Survival Challenges and Imperatives too!, -They Overall are somewhat "Over the Developed Line"!, so to speak! Into Too Much of their Developed, Surrounding, British and European World! -To Really be Able to be considered within the World's Wild Places! And so They are Not Covered here.

They Too once Magnificently Were! Just Turn the Clock Back, Several Hundred or More Years! But in Today's Developed Here and Now?, No!, Unfortunately Not!

Being a "Internally Wild" as Much of They Are!, however, -I will Not Fail to Give Them their Deserved and Due Honorable Mention!

Cheers!, Scotland and Wales! -To You and All your Great Remaining Areas of Outdoor Wilds!



SOME WORDS ON THE CANADIAN MARITIMES - These Too, are Great, Spando, Cool Wild Areas of the Canadian Outdoors! Their Non-Inclusion is Not Due to any Nearby Development Considerations. But Simply that they've Already been Covered under CANADA'S WILDS within COLD. If in Not too Much Attention or Words! With the Exception that Such Eastern, Canadian Maritime Provinces, are More COOL than COLD!

Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Anticosti, the Magdalens, France's St. Pierre et Miquelon, Prince Edward Island, Sable Island, Gaspe, the Grand Banks, and Quebec at the Mouth of the St. Lawrence! Also the Labrador Coast, though thats Starting to Get into the Cold! Let Them now Get the Honorable Mention they Deserve!, as a World's Great, COOL, Wild Place! My Hat's Off to Them!, as Much as earlier to Scotland and Wales!



A WORD ON THE FAROES - This is a Small, COOL to COLD, Ruff Weathered aqnd Sead, Rocky Island Group, a Good Bit Northwest of Scotland, Off Tord Iceland's Direction. They had Not been Gotten to so Far, This right here's their Intended Place.

They are Sparsely Populated by a Hardy, Scandanavian, Fishing and Sheepraising Group. They are a Possession of Denmark, but They very Much are Set Up to Run their Own Affairs. It's Capital is at the Small Fishing Town of Torshavn.

Survival and Conditions are essentially the Same as with Other such Lone and Lonely, Cold, Ruff, Rugged, Rocky, Wind and Sea Lashed, Non-Forested, Etc,Etc,Etc, High Latitude Islands as we've already mentioned. Much like Jan Mayen!, Minus Jan's Volcanos!, and being More South, perhaps somewhat Warmer!, but Not Neccessarily by Much! It's still in the High Latitudes!, though Below the Arctic Circle.

This is Another of the Few Isolated World Islands being Spoken on Outside of ISOLATED WORLD ISLANDS.

The Faroes make for a Good Little "Rough Rock",and Sea Survival Challenge! After All, we're talking about the Angry North Atlantic!, and Quite High, Arctic Approaching Latitudes!, again.



AFTERWORD -Now It's Out of This COOL COLD!, And Into the Expanses of Our ARID DESERTS! Let's Both now Get into a New, Desert Frame of Mind! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]ScottRezaLogan[/email]