my crazy cracker ass does this, but i'm bipolar as fvck, so it's all good, bitches
my crazy cracker ass does this, but i'm bipolar as fvck, so it's all good, bitches
Interesting fact, Christopher Knight also played middle son Peter Brady on the Brady Bunch. On the surface, he was not tormented by middle child syndrome like his TV sister Jan, but apparently 30 years in the Maine bush would indicate something was not right with that boy.
TAA wrote:
Sure it's possible. Plenty of people have done it in much worse climate. Look up Richard Proenneke. Genuine bada$$.
Christopher Knight was a guy that lived alone in the woods of Maine for almost 30 years. Though he survived by committing a bunch of robberies.
Cliff MF Clavin wrote:
Interesting fact, Christopher Knight also played middle son Peter Brady on the Brady Bunch. On the surface, he was not tormented by middle child syndrome like his TV sister Jan, but apparently 30 years in the Maine bush would indicate something was not right with that boy.
TAA wrote:Sure it's possible. Plenty of people have done it in much worse climate. Look up Richard Proenneke. Genuine bada$$.
Christopher Knight was a guy that lived alone in the woods of Maine for almost 30 years. Though he survived by committing a bunch of robberies.
You're drunk, Cliff.
Acorns can be eaten if you boil them 5 times.
In 2011 or 2012 a Black woman stood up and asked a question of Obama ... she said that her husband was fired from his job. She said he can't find work. The writing was on the wall with ObamaCare ACA fines. So companies started letting people go. They couldn't pay 157 million dollars in fines and keep people employed.
The Black woman said:
"We are eating beans and franks, is this the new normal?"
Can someone please contact this woman and tell her to forage for food like a squirrel?
I know a White woman, educated with a Bachelor's degree, smart, communicates very well, would show up dressed professionally daily and she has not worked since 2014 or so, maybe since 2013.
Vote Trump 2016
Men_be_men wrote:
Acorns can be eaten if you boil them 5 times.
^ You can't live on vegetables alone without benefit of agriculture. It's impossible. They are mostly low-calorie and too hard for humans to digest. Apes can do it but they have a much bigger hindgut, and they supplement their diet with small animals (insects, grubs etc) which is meat just as larger game is. Tropical people often do the same in addition to taking larger game.
You can survive just by foraging and hunting/trapping. I guess you can get away with just eating bugs instead of bigger critters, but I hope you're not prejudiced against bugs just because they're little.
Flounder wrote:
I agree that a knowledgeable, strong and healthy person could survive in Alaska if they prepare themselves prior to winter. I remember watching a documentary about a guy who did that. Google: Dick Proenneke.
The OP specifically said that his friend was going to forage rather than farm. I took that to mean that he wasn't going to prepare anything to provide for his future sustenance. To me, forage implies pretty much living day to day, but I could be mistaken.
The thing is, what the OP is asking about is pretty much illegal. It's squatting on public lands. You can't live on public lands year-round without paying fees, and you'd have to get permits for hunting and gathering of food. So you need a base and something as a start up. That said, I know of a Japanese guy who lived in the arctic for many years on his own. He'd build a tunnel shelter in the river banks, scrounge around for food on the tundra or in the towns, and got around by walking. Did this for several years, and for all I know is still at it.
Primitive hunter-gatherers spend a lifetime learning how to survive in the wilderness. They inherit a huge amount of knowledge from their tribes, and the rest they learn by doing--all day, every day. Even people who are really into "bushcraft" and spending time in the wilderness don't know jack compared to actual hunter-gatherers. This isn't knowledge that a typical modern human can pick up just by doing a little reading.
Typical modern humans who try this either (1) die, (2) run back to civilization when things get tough, or (3) cheat, by using a lot of modern technology and/or supplemental food.
Les Stroud, aka "Survivorman" had a series on Discovery channel, seems legit. Makes it clear how tough things are generally. Best bet is probably n a beach in a sub-tropical area.
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/survivorman/videos/survivormans-top-ten/
800 dude wrote:
Primitive hunter-gatherers spend a lifetime learning how to survive in the wilderness. They inherit a huge amount of knowledge from their tribes, and the rest they learn by doing--all day, every day. Even people who are really into "bushcraft" and spending time in the wilderness don't know jack compared to actual hunter-gatherers. This isn't knowledge that a typical modern human can pick up just by doing a little reading.
Typical modern humans who try this either (1) die, (2) run back to civilization when things get tough, or (3) cheat, by using a lot of modern technology and/or supplemental food.
What you said is certainly true in some cases, however I don't know if it's worth it to get into a purist mindset. You gotta start somewhere. I started as a suburban kid reading guide books and romanticizing mainstream survival movies, and today I'm still excited for how much there is to learn. For some of us the common route on life is just too boring. Make your own adventure about it right? Break pointless laws, make mistakes, post about natural living on internet running message boards from the stupid phone you decided to get because you can email customers better and make enough money now to do more of what you want to do, but try something that might be great to you, on your own terms. Go on now.
Poll master wrote:
Flounder wrote:I agree that a knowledgeable, strong and healthy person could survive in Alaska if they prepare themselves prior to winter. I remember watching a documentary about a guy who did that. Google: Dick Proenneke.
The OP specifically said that his friend was going to forage rather than farm. I took that to mean that he wasn't going to prepare anything to provide for his future sustenance. To me, forage implies pretty much living day to day, but I could be mistaken.
The thing is, what the OP is asking about is pretty much illegal. It's squatting on public lands. You can't live on public lands year-round without paying fees, and you'd have to get permits for hunting and gathering of food. So you need a base and something as a start up. That said, I know of a Japanese guy who lived in the arctic for many years on his own. He'd build a tunnel shelter in the river banks, scrounge around for food on the tundra or in the towns, and got around by walking. Did this for several years, and for all I know is still at it.
I routinely squat on public lands. Have yet to be charged a fee. But, that's cause I'm fast and I also squat quickly. Don't like to lose fitness when nature calls.
Subaru Forager wrote:
This guy I knew from high school cross country recently added me on Facebook and as we were catching up, he mentioned that he hopes to eventually live a money-free lifestyle. I asked what I thought were some pretty basic questions, about where he would live and what he would survive on. Apparently, his plan is to live in a tent in public spaces/forests and to forage for food. I asked him to clarify what he meant by forage, because I thought maybe he meant dumpster diving, but his response was "no, like a squirrel". I was tempted to ask if he had tested out any acorns to see what they tasted like but I thought better of it.
This seems like a very bad idea to me. I had a friend who lived in a tent during a semester of university when he couldn't find a place to rent, but even that guy had a job and got food from an organic farm he worked at. I've never heard of someone living money free and eating simply by foraging! To me, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Are there any good horror or success stories about a foraging lifestyle? Can this guy pull it off? He had a 5k PB of 16:23 in high school.
It is possible (but not for your friend).
People lived like this for a long time before we moved into farming and setttled. Some isolated tribes still live like this. If they live in small groups they will spend almost 100% of their waking hours foraging and hunting. If there is a particularly harsh winter or dry summer they might die. This is not a fun life.
Poll Master wrote:
Indiana D00d wrote:There's an old bus he can live in along the Stampede trail, near the Sushana River in Alaska.
Isn't it the Teklanika River?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teklanika_RiverEven though the climate is harsh in Alaska, it's probably one of the few places in the US that you could actually pull this off (legally), and people have done this successfully. It would be rough but doable, without much start up money. Get some land and build a cabin near a major river, put up a fish wheel and gather your salmon, get a hunting permit for moose and caribou, grow a vegetable garden (lots of light in the summer), and have a cellar in the permafrost so you can store your food.
Here's how you do it, even without a dollar to your name today:
Get a job in the fishing industry over the summer for a couple years; work at a ski area in the winter and save your money.
Purchase the land and go for it as described above.
Well if you have a cabin and tools and guns and a crank-generator ... doesn't seem all that difficult.
I think it's a healthy bet that you'd come across some sort of big game within 2-3 weeks of walking around searching for it in a place like Alaska. Should be able to shoot something by then to last you a while. Can probably make a makeshift fridge using plastic bags in an ice cold river. In case the stored food attracts any large predators, just camp out in a tree and shoot them, or rig the area with flares/explosives/bear traps.
Shoot one bear or moose and that lasts you basically the whole winter. Same for summer, but you'd probably have to get creative and dry/smoke some of it.
disgraceful_admin wrote:
Poll Master wrote:Isn't it the Teklanika River?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teklanika_RiverEven though the climate is harsh in Alaska, it's probably one of the few places in the US that you could actually pull this off (legally), and people have done this successfully. It would be rough but doable, without much start up money. Get some land and build a cabin near a major river, put up a fish wheel and gather your salmon, get a hunting permit for moose and caribou, grow a vegetable garden (lots of light in the summer), and have a cellar in the permafrost so you can store your food.
Here's how you do it, even without a dollar to your name today:
Get a job in the fishing industry over the summer for a couple years; work at a ski area in the winter and save your money.
Purchase the land and go for it as described above.
Well if you have a cabin and tools and guns and a crank-generator ... doesn't seem all that difficult.
I think it's a healthy bet that you'd come across some sort of big game within 2-3 weeks of walking around searching for it in a place like Alaska. Should be able to shoot something by then to last you a while. Can probably make a makeshift fridge using plastic bags in an ice cold river. In case the stored food attracts any large predators, just camp out in a tree and shoot them, or rig the area with flares/explosives/bear traps.
Shoot one bear or moose and that lasts you basically the whole winter. Same for summer, but you'd probably have to get creative and dry/smoke some of it.
For vegetables/fruits/berries/roots/seeds, try to find a wolverine or black bear to sneakily follow around. You can learn much from what they do. And if they eat all the berries, just shoot them on the spot and roast the stomach, it's like stuffed pig.
disgraceful_admin wrote:
disgraceful_admin wrote:Well if you have a cabin and tools and guns and a crank-generator ... doesn't seem all that difficult.
I think it's a healthy bet that you'd come across some sort of big game within 2-3 weeks of walking around searching for it in a place like Alaska. Should be able to shoot something by then to last you a while. Can probably make a makeshift fridge using plastic bags in an ice cold river. In case the stored food attracts any large predators, just camp out in a tree and shoot them, or rig the area with flares/explosives/bear traps.
Shoot one bear or moose and that lasts you basically the whole winter. Same for summer, but you'd probably have to get creative and dry/smoke some of it.
For vegetables/fruits/berries/roots/seeds, try to find a wolverine or black bear to sneakily follow around. You can learn much from what they do. And if they eat all the berries, just shoot them on the spot and roast the stomach, it's like stuffed pig.
If you're in your 20s or so and have some decent looking hipster clothes, just hang out around some university in a city. There's multiple seminars every day giving out free food. If that's not an option, there's probably upwards of 5 grocery stores in your area that give out free samples of various food items. You can definitely rack up 2,000 calories of free samples if you spend a few hours doing it.
moran
ok typical humans who try this fail.
the OP's question is can a person survive as a forager, i.e., hunter-gather, today. the answer is obviously yes, and as you implicitly point out, to do it requires being atypical.
disgraceful_admin wrote:
disgraceful_admin wrote:For vegetables/fruits/berries/roots/seeds, try to find a wolverine or black bear to sneakily follow around. You can learn much from what they do. And if they eat all the berries, just shoot them on the spot and roast the stomach, it's like stuffed pig.
If you're in your 20s or so and have some decent looking hipster clothes, just hang out around some university in a city. There's multiple seminars every day giving out free food. If that's not an option, there's probably upwards of 5 grocery stores in your area that give out free samples of various food items. You can definitely rack up 2,000 calories of free samples if you spend a few hours doing it.
For fruits and snacks, just go to a couple grocery stores and eat the free samples.
Go to Starbucks and fill up on the condiments. You can probably take a dozen little packs of half-n-half, which will provide fats, some protein, and at least 400 calories. Mix them up with some cane sugar packs, ask for a cup of water, and that's a stomachable 650 calories.
If you start coming down with scurvy, you can go to Chipotle and grab some lemon slices.
Bakeries often give away small bread samples, and even whole old bread at the end of the day.
And I guess we're not considering community centers, churches, or homeless shelters but that's also an option, though you'd have some competition.
I think that the best area for foraging would be a tropical region with fruits and ocean access. As long as there is at least one fruit growing at any point in the year, this could serve as carbs. Ocean access would allow for fishing, which would probably be easier for obtaining protein than hunting.
kikKomen Soi sauce wrote:
I think that the best area for foraging would be a tropical region with fruits and ocean access. As long as there is at least one fruit growing at any point in the year, this could serve as carbs. Ocean access would allow for fishing, which would probably be easier for obtaining protein than hunting.
Oh I forgot, you can get free soy sauce packets at many grocery shops too.
i've survived for 36 years just foraging my mothers fridge