It is hard to make people aware of the danger of being stranded in the wilderness because most people believe that it will never happen to them. Many also underrate how much there is to learn in these subjects areas. I cannot count how many people I have come across who carried compasses, but realty did not understand how to use them to travel. We are fighting complacency, a real lack of understanding of the subject matter, and a poor outdoor education system.

It is also very hard because as a society (actually two societies; USA & Canada) we underrate the teaching of wilderness training, survival training, and the need for wilderness navigation training. As a profession teaching these subjects pays quite poorly and are often ignored in curriculum development in our schools. Since there is no real system of standards and you learned very little about it in schools; maybe its not really important. TV seems to make to look easy or so dangerous that its is not worth trying.


It is a hard task to make someone aware of the chances and dangers of getting stranded in the wilderness. Everytime you travel into the wilderness however well prepared you are there is a chance of being stranded. It will happen eventually. When in doubt read Trina Jackson's Article and see how she fared when both trained and reasonably prepared.

Over the last 18 years of teaching wilderness survival and navigation my best students have always been the ones who have already been lost once. My best classes are ones that had one of these students in them, to pass on their real world experiences one on one to the other students.