Survivalist Anthologies Volume 1 Read online

  Services can be traded for goods as well, so if you have any skills that are useful for sustainability, such as carpentry, metallurgy, gardening, mechanics, ammunition loading, etc., they can become a valuable asset. Learn as many of the skills that are required for self-sufficiency as possible. Not only for the sake of trade, but also for your own independence. The more that you can provide for yourself, the less reliant you will be on others.

  Learn to live with less... How much of the stuff that you own is really essential to your survival? That wide-screen plasma TV, or expensive car might be nice items to have, but they won’t do anybody any good after the collapse. If you’re really serious about survival, you should consider selling off some of your big-ticket toys while you can still find buyers for them, and reinvest the money in something useful.

  It’s no longer a question of if there’s going to be an economic collapse; it’s a question of when. This economic model was doomed for failure ever since we went off the gold standard in 1971, and the Obama administration has done more to speed up the process than any other president in history (all the while blaming Bush and spinning the numbers). Buying gold and silver is not going to be the key to your survival. Necessary goods and services will be the only true currency in the post-collapse world.

  Surviving in the Free State

  by Kirk McNeil

  In my experience, survivalists generally fall into two camps. There are those who strive to be completely self-contained, self-sufficient, and self-isolating. The other camp strives to improve the odds of survival by creating a network that enhances individual skills and teaches supporting ones. The Free State Project in New Hampshire offers us an interesting look at the second model -- a networked survival community. If you’d like an example of the hermit-style survivalist, there’s a guy in the White Mountains named Bob -- but this is not his story.

  The idea of the Free State Project (FSP from here on out) is to encourage liberty-loving individuals to gather in the state of New Hampshire. New Hampshire was selected because of its accessible and very locally based representative government, its well-known devotion to individual freedom, a relatively low level of taxation, and - just as importantly -- a low level of acceptance of Federal funds (which means avoiding all of the inherent strings attached to such "gifts"). FSP isn’t a political organization, nor does it endorse all of the activities participants might engage in. However, the net result has been to create a network-based self-reliant community that deals with almost every imaginable facet of survivalist culture.

  While most people find the FSP online or through the Free Talk Live radio program, the first boots-on-the-ground exposure many people have to the movement is through the Porcupine Freedom Festival held every summer. At Porc Fest a casual visitor can hear a variety of speakers address subjects such as reducing your tax footprint, why more government (or sometimes any government) can never be the solution, how to influence the legislative process, a return to constitutional government, or discussions of how to remove one’s self from the system and join the growing agorist (or market anarchist) movement.

  Porc Fest also plays host to shooting and firearms safety seminars, discussions of citizen journalism, screenings of independently produced, liberty-oriented films, and martial arts classes. There are vendor booths offering specie monetary options, liberty- and survival-oriented clothing and jewelry, leather goods, and a glorious belly-busting selection of food.

  Most participants, however, will tell you that the best thing about Porc Fest is the people. It is a place where political activists, anarchists, constitutionalists, incrementalists, and agorists can gather and share ideas and strategies. This network is the heart of the success of the FSP because whatever individual differences these people may have, they tend strongly towards agreement that they are in a struggle for survival, the survival of individual liberty and freedom in this nation and in the world.

  Of course, Porc Fest is a single long weekend. The participants in the Free State Project continue to work and build their network throughout the year. There are no weekend warriors in this group. In general, the farther north into New Hampshire that you travel the more people you will find practicing self-reliance in an off-the-grid setting. In settings of this kind we’re reminded of the value of learning the art of barter and trade in a modern world.

  In deference to the privacy of participants, I will only mention those communities which have public websites. At Agorist Acres, you’ll find a group of Free Staters living almost entirely off the grid. The community includes carpenters, electricians, people with backgrounds in marketing, and journalists.

  Over at Bardo Farm (www.bardoproject.com), you can find a group of Free Staters raising pigs, emus, chickens, vegetables, and harvesting maple syrup off the land. It is a place that offers not only exceptional foodstuffs, but also a wealth of knowledge about how to provide these things for yourself. Bardo also operates off the electrical and gas grids, and offers to teach others how to do the same thing.

  For the most part, Concord and Manchester host the more politically involved Free State participants. This geographical concentration makes sense because those two cities constitute the population and political center of New Hampshire. Just to mention a couple of specific examples: Within this area you will find State Representative Jenn Coffey, who is not just an elected official, but an EMT. In NH State Representatives have to keep their day jobs, as the legislative position only pays a couple hundred dollars a year. There are few professional politicians at this level in New Hampshire for obvious reasons. Jenn is active with the Second Amendment Sisters and was the driving force behind bringing knife rights to the forefront of the most recent legislative session.

  As an EMT, Coffey saw no reason that the laws of the state should ban certain types of blades rather than the bad behavior often associated with them and she submitted a bill in the New Hampshire legislature to remove the ban on automatic and double-edged knives. It passed successfully and was the first recorded step back into liberty in this area.

  All told there are about 25 Liberty candidates in or running for the state legislature this year. In a political sense these races are about working for survival of the natural rights of human beings in the political arena. There are many ways to resist tyranny. We can agree or disagree on the efficacy of the political process, but these individuals are fighting a survivalist’s fight for individual liberty; whether it is for tax freedom, homeschooling, or personal protection.

  This geographic area is also home to the Informal University (www.informalu.org), which is a community education program located in Hooksett, NH that teaches everything from sword play to home defense to container gardening to computer programming to poker to map reading skills to home brewing. The driving force behind the IU is a desire to share skills that help people become more self-reliant and to encourage them to unplug from mass media and engage their brains. The founders also hope that the IU serves as a place where like-minded people can meet each other and gain from that experience.

  Keene, New Hampshire is the home of Free Talk Live (www.freetalklive.com), which is arguably the most effective information and recruiting medium for the Free State Project. FTL is broadcast over both terrestrial and internet radio that reaches all over the globe. It is a talk radio station that gives listeners direct access to the broadcasters and the ability to direct the course of conversation. Communication across distance is one of the key components to any successful grassroots movement and Free Talk Live fits that description to the proverbial T.

  Keene is also home to Free Keene (www.freekeene.com), a network for resistance to the random and arbitrary rules of state and federal control over personal and economic freedom. Another home to the growing agorist survival movement, the Keeniacs work both in and outside the system to promote liberty and personal responsibility.

  Of course, many Free Staters don’t actively participate in any of these groups. One overarching trait of these survivalists is
that they have no leader or governing body. Most do gather on a regular basis to share knowledge, trade, enjoy time at the range or over a deck of cards, roast the occasional sausage, and offer each other the support of a community dedicated to the survival of individual liberty in the face of a world that seems to be moving at great pace to specialization and government control. Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it these days. Use your favorite search engine and check my facts; be an individual, and survive!

  Kirk McNeil is a resident of New Hampshire where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He has worked as a technology consultant for the past 17 years and has recently begun applying his experience to the fields of alternative energy and non-state education. He enjoys shooting and camping with his family and writing articles just past a deadline.

  Down to Nothing: Finding Food When You’re Desperate

  by John Milandred

  Starvation is just as unpleasant as most people would expect. After just a few hours of deprivation, the body becomes auto-cannibalistic. Any carbohydrates in the system are devoured first. The fats follow. This might not be disagreeable, inasmuch as weight-loss diets seek to accomplish pretty much the same result.

  But then proteins from muscles and tendons are consumed to maintain the body’s dwindling strength, which have grave and ever-worsening consequences.

  No reasonable nourishment should, therefore, be overlooked if one needs food. Furthermore, if you are ever been stranded and hungry in the wilderness, be sure, while your strength is near its maximum, not to pass up any promising sources of sustenance.

  Practices ordinarily contrary to both game regulations and good sportsmanship are justified in extreme emergencies by the more ancient law of survival. Some of those methods inspire repugnance and, if used successfully, would not produce a sense of triumph apart from satisfying the instinct to stay alive.

  Overcoming food prejudices is your main concern. Few will disagree -- at least not when the moment of decision is at hand -- that there is a point at which luxuries become relatively unimportant. One of the luxuries valued most highly in times of plenty is the freedom to indulge taste prejudices. These taste prejudices are commonly based on two factors.

  First, there is a human tendency to look down upon certain foods that are considered beneath one’s social station.

  Individuals in the United States and Canada have their wheat. The Mexican has his corn, the Asian his rice. Americans and Canadians like those other grains as well, but it would seem to them a hardship to have to eat them every day. One’s fastidiousness, too, is sometimes repelled by the idea of the Scandinavians eating raw fish, although at the moment the offended party may be twirling a raw oyster in grated horseradish. The Eskimo enjoys fish mellowed by age. Many farther south regard as choice some particularly moldy, odoriferous cheeses.

  Insects are Yummy!

  Grasshoppers are edible when the hard portions such as wings and legs have been removed. So are cicadas, termites, locusts, and crickets. Some natives have capitalized on ants’ acidity by mashing them in water sweetened with berries or sap to make a sort of lemonade. The eggs and the young of the ant are eaten also.

  Both snakes and lizards are not only digestible, but often are considered delicacies for which some willingly pay many times the amount they expend for a similar weight of prime beef. The only time a snake’s meat may be poisonous is when it has suffered a venomous bite, perhaps from its own fangs. This also holds true with lizards; the only poisonous ones in North America are the Southwest’s Gila monster and Mexico’s beaded lizard. To prepare the reptiles, behead, skin, remove the entrails, and cook like chicken to whose white meat the somewhat fibrous flesh is often is compared.

  An ancient method of securing already cooked insects, reptiles, and small animals is to set fire to large tracts of grasslands and then to comb them for whatever many have been roasted.

  Turtles and Fish

  Turtle fat, from which a clear, savory oil can be rendered through exposure to sunlight, is so nutritious that the reptile is an unusually valuable food source. Blood and juices are often used to relieve thirst. Occasionally it is possible to back-track a female to a fresh nest of eggs, generally buried in the sand or mud not far from water.

  An office worker undergoing very little physical exertion requires some 2,000 to 2,500 calories daily. It is reasonable to generalize that an individual living a rugged outdoor life needs at least twice as many of these energy units. Any not supplied directly by food will be taken from the body’s own carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

  A one-pound rainbow trout when caught contains only slightly more than 200 calories. So to eat 4,500 calories daily, you’d have to catch twenty such trout each day. You might be able to supplement the fish with sufficient other wild nutrients, or have the opportunity of catching salmon, which average closer to 900 calories per fresh raw pound.

  Fishing Methods

  Just because you do not happen to have a hook and line doesn’t mean you can’t catch fish. Unravel a bit of sweater, for example. Tie on a small strip of bright cloth, such as the corner of a handkerchief. When the fish closes its mouth over the cloth, give the line a tug. There is a reasonable chance, especially where fishing is virgin, that you’ll flip the fish out onto the bank. This doesn’t always work, of course. Fish won’t always take regular bait, either.

  You can devise almost any number of different types of hooks. A bent pin really works, as many youngsters have learned, the only trick being to maintain pressure so the fish won’t slip off. An open safety pin is a somewhat larger hook of the same variety. Bent nails have been used with considerable success.

  It follows, therefore, that hooks can be made out of practically any workable metal of sufficient rigidity. You can also cut hooks from wood, preferably wood that is hard and tough. Whittle the shank first. Lash one or more sharp slivers so they slant upward from the lower end. You can even add a barb by lashing another sliver even more acutely downward from the top. Thorns, if available, can be utilized. Fish bones, too, will furnish both serviceable point and barbs.

  One of the most primitive devices, still used successfully if not sportingly, is made by tying the line to the middle of a sharp piece of wood or bone that has been sharpened at both ends. Hidden in bait, this is swallowed by the fish, whereupon a jerk of the cord pulls it crossways.

  Fishing lines can be improvised in numerous ways. One method is to unravel a piece of fabric and to knot lengths of four or so threads together at frequent intervals. Another is to cut around and around a section of leather, forming a continuous lace.

  Line can be more scientifically made, after cutting or raveling any fabric or the fiber that may be available to procure a number of oblong strands. Take four of these threads and fasten them at one end. Hold two threads in each hand. Roll and twist each strand clockwise between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, while turning those in the right hand counter clockwise around those held in the left. This twisting and winding must be done tautly, so that when completed the line will not unravel.

  Depending on the lengths of thread, conclude each of the four strands about two inches apart to estimate the splicing on the new strands easier. About an inch before any thread stops, twist on a new strand to replace the one just ending. This procedure can be continued, as long as material holds out, to make a line of any length. The same operation that will provide a small cord for ordinary fishing can be employed with a dozen or more strands to manufacturing a fish line capable of landing the tuna or big lake trout.

  Gigging is the practice of catching fish by hooking them in the body. An Eskimo method is to dangle a long, smooth hook above which are suspended bits of bone that flutter and shine in the water. When a fish approaches to investigate, the line is suddenly jerked up the intervening two or three inches, with a good chance of being driven into the prey, which is at once hauled up before it has a chance to work loose. Gigging is often resorted to in waters where fish can be se
en but not readily induced to bite.

  Salmon and herring throng up streams in such numbers at certain times of the year that one can catch and throw them ashore in large numbers using nothing but bare hands. It’s also possible, on occasion, to secure by hand alone quantities of such fish as smelt, when schools come up on beaches to spawn in the surf. You also can find such fish as perch and trout wedged among rocks of fast little rivers.

  Spearing is another way of catching fish, perhaps by sharpening a long dry stick for the purpose and hardening the point over the embers of a campfire. It’s also possible to fashion the barbed spear point by dwindling (that is, whittling) the point at the joint of an inverted crotch, an inch or two of whose angle you have slivered into a sharply restraining projection. You also may test the efficiency of barbs and tips of bone, stone, or metal that you have made lashed into place.

  One procedure is to thrust the spear very slowly through the water toward the target, often to within inches of the fish before making the final jab. With the help of a light, perhaps a torch of flaming birch bark or a burning pine knot, you can, many times, spot a fish at night lying practically motionless and shallow water. By advancing the spear cautiously, aiming low to counteract destructive refraction, it becomes increasingly easy to pin a majority of such fish against the bottom.

  Other foods, such as kelp and all other seaweed, are good to eat. Sea Cucumbers are edible, as are Sea Urchin Eggs, Abalone, and all shellfish. Snails are also not only edible but are particularly relished by some people. So are scallops, oysters, and shrimp. Eels also are very much edible, highly nutritious, and in many localities regarded as superior to any other fish.