The Best Wilderness Survival Books of 2022
For the average Rugged Man, a lot of us have grown up with good old fashioned country boy grit and know-how.
We have fished, hunted, explored, built, and prepared for many years. Some of us more than others and to varying degrees.
Some of us have been fortunate enough to have had the guidance of older men in our lives telling stories, instilling morals, teaching skills, and showing us how to grow into good men.
We’re resilient and tough. We work hard and we know how to provide. We’re Rugged!
However, when it comes to true wilderness survival, most of us don’t carry around that kind of grit and knowledge, not to mention the mental fortitude. For all of our good graces, we couldn’t make it a week or two.
I know at the very moment of reading this, a lot of you guys are chuckling to yourselves, quite sure of your ability to survive the wild. I also know quite a few fellas very well who believe they could survive in the wilderness, indefinitely, if things were to go sour.
Out of all of them, I personally only know one who has made this happen and he did it twice for 30 days at a time with only a knife. He is not eager to do that again and he is one of the best wilderness survival instructors on the planet.
"We don't rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training."
— Archilochus
All of the men who I have heard boasting about how they could survive in the wilderness would be lucky to last a few days. Not necessarily because they are not capable, but because they have little to no training in the field and honestly rarely even make it to a nature trail for a stroll.
They all underestimate what it would mean to truly have to survive in the wilderness. Too much television, not enough time in the woods.
I think we are at a point in time and in such a sorry state of the world that we men had better step up, sharpen our skills, and pay attention. We have been shown that life as we know it can be altered any time and the only thing we can do about it is to take care of ourselves and our loved ones.
We’re certainly living in some unprecedented and uncertain times. There are things going on in the world right now that I either thought I would never see or at least not quite yet.
This brings me to the meat of our post today. We need guidance. We need to learn from professionals. However, we can’t just read books, we must get out and practice these skills with our own bare hands, or we will freeze when it comes time to perform.
What is the Best Wilderness Survival Guide?
I believe the best survival guide is the one that you make yourself from the reading of multiple books that will cover the all of the bases of survival.
Our list today of The Best Wilderness Survival Books of 2021 is a collection of books that I believe cover the most important aspects of survival.
This is not a collection of all of the most famous survivalists of our time and they are not all branded as “wilderness survival” books. However, with these books combined, this is a powerful collection of knowledge on the subject of survival.
So, let’s get started with my personal selections of The Best Wilderness Survival Books of 2021!
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The Best Wilderness Survival Books of 2022
MIND-SET, SKILLS, TACTICS, GEAR
Extreme Wilderness Survival:
Essential Knowledge to Survive Any Outdoor Situation Short-Term or Long-Term, With or Without Gear, and Alone or With Others
This is my top choice and the “best all round” wilderness survival book on our list today because it covers SOOO much! This book is for beginners AND experienced outdoor folk.
Each of the 17 chapters begins with a REAL WORLD event, in which people had struggles or perished in a wilderness. This is followed by a breakdown of the steps to be taken to insure this does not happen to you.
Finally, there is incredibly detailed information checklists on what you can do to prepare yourself for outdoor travel, hunting, preparedness and adventure.
Craig Caudill is the chief instructor and founder of Nature Reliance School. He has trained military groups through the Department of Defense, as well as federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
Craig has written for American Frontiersman, Self Reliance Illustrated, Backwoodsman, and Wilderness Way. He is an educator, author, podcaster, and master naturalist.
Extreme Wilderness Survival has what every outdoorsman needs to stay safe in the woods: the right mind-set, skills, advanced tactics, and gear choices based on real-life experiences.
Craig has spent over 40 years gathering expertise in outdoor survival, including two 30-day solo sabbaticals in the remote wilderness with only a knife!
This is a great book to take into the field with you and practice your skills!
I have had the pleasure of attending some of Craig Caudill’s training courses and I would suggest heading on over to Nature Reliance School to see when/if courses are going to be in your area.
With this book, you’ll learn how to:
Strengthen your mental fortitude
Heighten awareness to avoid danger
Hunt, fish, and forage for food
Make gear from scratch
Use tactics and self-defense to fight off predators
Track animals and other people
Choose the right gear to help you get home safe, ALWAYS!
Work with nature, not against it
Stay safe and survive!
“Craig has written one of the most densely-packed manuals of survival common sense I've ever read. Clearly cultivated from countless hours in the field, this information can save your life. Read it. Memorize it. Use it!”
— Creek Stewart: Survival Instructor, Author and TV Host
Other books by Craig that would make for important additions to our list today are:
Ultimate Wilderness Gear: Everything You Need to Know to Choose and Use the Best Outdoor Equipment
You may or may not have a firearm or a bow in a survival situation. Ideally, you would, but things don’t always end up ideal.
If you don’t have one of these tools, then you are going to have to rely on a different set of skills and knowledge.
That’s where knowing how to recognize animal tracks and signs, and how to master a variety of wood and steel traps, snares, deadfalls, and pens will come in real handy, even if you just have a decent amount of paracord and a knife.
The Trapper’s Bible is a collection of tips, tactics, and anecdotes from the finest trappers the United States has ever seen and is an essential reference guide for hunters and trappers.
Taken directly from some of the utmost authorities on the trapping profession, hundreds of photos and illustrations adorn this fascinating compendium.
Broken up into sections, this volume details a wide variety of different traps and contains an extensive section outlining the behavior and nature of a long list of animals commonly hunted and trapped.
From a complete listing of steel traps to constructing a variety of deadfalls, pens, traps, triggers, and snares, these collected sources take you through the ins and outs of trapping, including practical how-to instructions as well as personal stories and letters from real trappers.
FORAGING & GATHERING
Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants
In Wild (and Not So Wild) Places
Having the ability to forage wild edibles in a survival situation is paramount. Having the ability to know the difference between what plants will feed you and what plants will kill you is potentially a matter of life and death.
Combine a solid skillset of hunting and trapping with foraging wild edibles, you may just have a chance out there.
Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places, shows readers how to find and prepare more than five hundred different plants for nutrition and better health.
It includes information on common plants such as mullein (a tea made from the leaves and flowers suppresses a cough), stinging nettle (steam the leaves and you have a tasty dish rich in iron), cattail (cooked stalks taste similar to corn and are rich in protein), and wild apricots (an infusion made with the leaves is good for stomach aches and digestive disorders).
More than 260 detailed line drawings help readers identify a wide range of plants, many of which are suited for cooking by following the more than thirty recipes included in this book.
There are literally hundreds of plants readily available underfoot waiting to be harvested and used either as food or as a potential therapeutic.
This book is both a field guide to nature's bounty and a source of intriguing information about the plants that surround us.
Study this book, make notes, take it to the field and test it all out. Whether you end up in a catastrophe or not, you’ll be glad you did.
Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification
An Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families of North America
Looking for a faster, easier, and engaging way to identify plants? Botany in a Day is changing the way people learn about edible and non-edible plants.
Related plants have similar characteristics, and they often have similar uses. Rather than learning new plants one-at-a-time, it is possible to learn them by the hundreds, based on plant family patterns.
Each family of related plants has unique patterns for identification. Learn to recognize these patterns, and discover them again and again in the plants you encounter.
It is possible to instantly recognize a plant never before seen, and in many cases, to know its edible or medicinal properties on the spot, even before you have identified it down to the species!
A one-day tutorial introduces eight of the world's most common plant families, applicable to more than 45,000 species of plants.
Master these eight patterns and have the skills to recognize an astonishing number of plants on any continent. Add to your repertoire by keying out entirely unknown plants and learning additional family patterns.
Botany in a Day is principally written for North America and is widely used in nature programs and promoted in national parks.
Again, not every book on this powerful list today would be considered strictly a “wilderness” book.
By combining the knowledge of these books put together, you’ll have a pretty good handle on most situations, wilderness or not.
The goal here is to study and have the knowledge in your mental rolodex BEFORE disaster strikes.
This unique medical book is meant to enable the average person to handle injuries and illness in situations in which modern medical facilities and professionals aren’t available due to a disaster.
The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide is written by America’s top medical preparedness experts: Joe Alton, MD, and Amy Alton, ARNP (affectionately know as Doc Bones & Nurse Amy).
Their mission: to put a medically prepared person in every family for when medical help is not on the way.
Using decades of medical experience, they address, in plain language, dozens of medical issues associated with surviving disasters and epidemics.
Doc Bones & Nurse Amy also discuss the medical supplies needed to become a medical asset to your family and community as well as alternative and natural strategies for when pharmaceuticals aren’t available.
Most medical books will send you to the doctor or hospital when an emergency happens. The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide assumes what might actually happen—that the average person could be left without medical help in a disaster.
With The Ultimate Survival Medicine Guide, you’ll have a head start on keeping your family healthy in times of trouble.
PSYCHOLOGY OF SURVIVAL
Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
True Stories of Miraculous Endurance & Sudden Death
Used by the Navy Seals as a learning tool, Deep Survival is the first “scientific” book on survival.
This book will not only captivate you, it will show you how to take control of stress, learn to assess risk, and make better decisions under pressure.
The principles of this book apply to just about any challenge that life may throw your way, from coping with financial crisis, fighting addiction & dealing with recovery, battling a life-threatening illness, or perhaps finding yourself lost or stranded in a vast wilderness trying to survive.
“After her plane crashes, a seventeen-year-old girl spends eleven days walking through the Peruvian jungle. Against all odds, with no food, shelter, or equipment, she gets out. A better-equipped group of adult survivors of the same crash sits down and dies. What makes the difference?”
At first glance, this may not seem a likely candidate for The Best Wilderness Survival Books of 2021, but when combined with the rest of the books on our list today, it’s part of the perfect storm of survival knowledge!
GEAR
Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag: Your 72-Hour Disaster Survival Kit
This list wouldn’t be complete without taking a realistic look at what gear you may ought to have on you or at your ready to take on a survival situation.
Creek Stewart is one of my favorite survival instructors. He approaches everything with a humble heart and turns out to be quite the bad-ass.
Creek regularly publishes articles relating to disaster preparedness in numerous magazines.
He owns and is Lead Instructor at Willow Haven Outdoor - a survival, preparedness and bushcraft school located in central Indiana.
Creek specializes in disaster preparedness and has consulted with individuals, corporations, non-profits and government agencies all over the United States about a myriad of preparedness-related subjects, projects and initiatives.
He has been featured on Fox & Friends and is host of Fat Guys in the Woods and S.O.S. How to Survive on the Weather Channel.
“Survival and survival training are two different things altogether. One is real life, the other is preparation for real life. During any survival-related event, stress will be the inevitable companion.”
— Craig Caudill “Extreme Wilderness Survival”
The way that I would suggest to a approach this list of The Best Wilderness Survival Books of 2021 is to study each of them thoroughly and make yourself a waterproof totable situation like a spiral notebook, Rite in the Rain notebook, or something similar.
Laminate it and keep it in your pack with all of the most pertinent information for you and your family.
These books make a powerful combination of information and tactics for survival. If you’ve got a good handle on each of these books, you’re chances of success in a survival situation are far greater. You may even find yourself thriving at times.
If I could only take one of these books to the field with me, it would hands-down be Extreme Wilderness Survival because it covers just about everything you need to know to get by out there and thoroughly covers mind-set, skills, tactics, and gear.
Learning all art and aspect of survival can be a lot of fun and is certainly satisfying once you get the confidence behind it. The more you know, the less you need. In the meantime, understand how to know what you need.
Tighten up, and stay Rugged!
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