

How To: Build & Hide a Campfire from Your Enemies — The Dakota Fire Pit
Fire. It’s everywhere— always has been. From the Ordovician Period where the first fossil record of fire appears to the present day everyday uses of the Holocene. Today, we abundantly create flames (intentionally or unintentionally) in power plants, extractive metallurgy, incendiary bombs, combustion engines, controlled burns, wildfires, fireplaces, campfires, grills, candles, gas stoves and ovens, matches, cigarettes, and the list goes on... Yet with our societies' prodigal use of fire, t...

How To: Make a Fire by Rubbing Two Sticks Together!
Here's a survival technique for making a fire with the most basic of resources—assuming you can find two sticks to rub together!

How To: Tie a single-strand ringbolt hitch
JD of Tying it all together, is the instructor. He has many instructional knot tying videos. This particular video is focused on tying a single strand ringbolt hitch, A.K.A. Coxcombing. This was a common knot used by sailors to decorate items and parts of their ship. However, actually creating this tie is much easier said than done.

How To: Purify Urine for Drinking with an Emergency Solar Still
It’s called Urophagia—the art of consuming urine. There could be any number of reasons for having the desire to drink your own urine (or somebody else’s). There’s the so-called term “urine therapy,” which uses human urine as an alternative medicine. In urine therapy, or uropathy, it’s used therapeutically for various health, healing, and cosmetic purposes. There’s also those people who drink urine as sexual stimulation, where they want to share every part of each other. And then there’s the o...

How To: Eat & extract water from a cactus
John Campbell demonstrates how to eat and extract water from a cactus. You can eat a cactus from the hedgehog plant family. First, cut off the top of the cactus and skin down the sides, cutting off the cactus spines. Cutting the cactus will not hurt it because it can heal itself. The cactus meat will be like a sticky cucumber. Try to avoid the central core because it is stringy but you can eat the cactus meat. Wrap the meat in a bandana, squish it and wring it out to extract the water from th...

How To: Make a fire with binoculars
Colhane teaches us to prepare a pair of binoculars to make fire. If you prepare in advance it is much easier.

How To: Make a coiled basket to carry water in
Making a coiled basket can have be used for a variety or reasons, including the ability to carry much needed water. This four part tutorial teaches you how to make a coiled basket using the wilderness around you.

How To: Light a match without a matchbook cover
When your matchbook cover is shot, you can still get a light from a match. Learn how to light a match on the bottom of a coffee mug. Fun survival skills when you have a match and no cover - the ceramic of the mug provides the friction necessary to light a match.

How To: Build a Homemade Portable Water Heater for Your Outdoor Camping Adventures
Warm water is an essential part of life that we sometimes tend to take for granted. Over one billion people, or roughly one-seventh of the world's population, have no access to hot water.

How To: Start a fire with the "fire saw" friction method
This video illustrate us how to start a fire with the "fire saw" friction method. Here are the following steps:

How To: Finish of the end of a rope with back braiding
Back braiding, as demonstrated in this how-to video, is used instead of a whipping to hold the strands at the end of a rope together. Back braiding is the simple process of braiding the loose strands of a piece of rope. Watch this video tutorial and learn how to back braid a rope.

How To: How the Headrest in Your Vehicle Can Potentially Save Your Life One Day
If you ever find yourself in a car that's submerged under water, your first instinct should be to try and open either the window or the door in the first few seconds of touching water. Unfortunately, if you wait any longer than that, the lopsided ambient water pressure subjected to the car will make it impossible to open the car door, and the now ubiquitous power windows will likely short out. Sure, you could wait until the pressure has equalized on both sides of the car, but this usually hap...

How To: Use the Universal Edibility Test to Identify Safe Plants to Eat Anywhere
You're lost. You're cold, thirsty— you're hungry. What if you're not much of a hunter? Maybe you're a gatherer. So, then you'll eat plants. But what if you eat something poisonous? What if you're allergic to it?

How To: Make a "hobo" stove
In this tutorial, learn how to make a lightweight stove for camping and survival. You will learn how to make an ultra lightweight alcohol stove. This stove weighs only one ounce and has no moving parts. It only takes a few short minutes to make and will outlast most conventional stoves. This video will show you everything you need to know to get up and running with this mini stove. The stove boils in under five minutes and the fuel is super cheap. This is the perfect stove for hiking, backpac...

How To: Safely use a knife, saw and ax as a Boy Scout
Second Class Boy Scouts work on building their outdoor survival and camping skills. Compass work, nature observation, camp tools, and swimming are areas where new skills are mastered and demonstrated. A second class scout, having completed all the requirements, should be able to lead a hike, care for his own equipment, set up a campsite, and perform basic first aid.

How To: Identify flint and other types of sparking rocks to light a fire
If you're going to start a fire in the wild, you're going to need the right kind of rock. This great little video helps you identify the kind of rock you'll need to successfully light a fire in the wild. You'll need some high carbon steel for striking your sparking rock, then you'll be ready to make sparks.

How To: Get rescued from a deserted island
Whether your plane made a crash landing or your ship got lost on a three-hour tour, now you're stranded on a remote island. Here's how to get help.

How To: Build a fire in the desert with fire by friction trick
Watch Ray Mears from the BBC give you a how-to guide for making fire in the desert. (You don't even have to carry matches!) Put on your gloves to handle the fauna for cutting wood. Make a notch in the wood--good luck trying to make fire by friction!

How To: The End of the World Survival Guide: Staying Alive During the Zombie Apocalypse
Will the predicted apocalyptic date—December 21st, 2012—really be the end of the world? In this ongoing five-part series, we examine what would happen if zombies, nuclear weapons, cyber wars, earthquakes, or aliens actually destroyed our planet—and how you might survive.

How To: Tie a round brocade or six-flower knot
In this handy knot-tying tutorial from JD of Tying It All Together, we learn how to tie a round brocade or "six-petal" knot. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, and to get started tying round brocade knots yourself, watch this video guide.

How To: Make your own compass
Matt Preye shows you how to make your own emergency compass. Here are two ways of making your own compass: If you have a sewing needle and a magnet you can magnetize the needle by running it down the magnet a few times. Find some stagnant water and set a leaf in it. Now set the pin down on the leaf, and the leaf will swing just like a compass. If you don't have anything other than the sun, you can do the following: Put a stick in the ground and then add more sticks at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 2pm and ...

How To: Escape from zip ties tied behind your back
You're being held prisoner, and your hands are tied behind your back with zip ties. You're helpless to escape… Or you would be, if you hadn't watched this tutorial. The helpful folks at ITS Tactical explain how you can quickly escape from zip ties tied behind your back.

How To: Heat Your Home in an Emergency Without Gas Using Flower Pots & Candles
Not having power can make everyday tasks really difficult if you're unprepared. You have to find new ways to do things like cook dinner and charge your devices, and if it happens during the winter, you also have to figure out how to heat your home.

How To: Complete an orienteering course as a Boy Scout
As a Boy Scout, when the First Class rank is attained, a scout has learned all the basic camping and outdoors skills of a scout. He can fend for himself in the wild, lead others on a hike or campout, set up a camp site, plan and properly prepare meals, and provide first aid for most situations he may encounter. A First Class scout is prepared.

How To: Tie a double fisherman's knot or double overhand knot
The double fishermen's knot, as demonstrated in this how-to video, is a safe knot to secure to separate lengths of rope together, forming high-strength loops of cord. This makes it useful in rock-climbing and in search and rescue, especially as a backup for other knots. Check out this video survival training tutorial and learn how to tie a double fisherman's knot or double overhand knot.

How To: Eat thistles
Learn from Green Deane how to identify and prepare thistles, which are spring time greens from around the world.

How To: The End of the World Survival Guide: Staying Alive During an Alien Invasion
Will the predicted apocalyptic date—December 21st, 2012—really be the end of the world? In this ongoing five-part series, we examine what would happen if zombies, nuclear weapons, cyber wars, earthquakes, or aliens actually destroyed our planet—and how you might survive.


How To: Assemble a 72-hour load-bearing equipment (LBE) survival kit
If you find yourself in a wilderness survival situation that demands a high degree of mobility, you're better off with a load-bearing equipment (LBE) system than a traditional survival backpack. This video will teach you how to assemble an LBE that will allow you to survive on the move for 1-3 days until you can find a more permanent solution.

How To: Start a fire with a "flint on marcasite" method
In this Disaster Preparation video tutorial you will learn how to start a fire with a "flint on marcasite" method. Mal Stephens, head instructor of Maine Primitive Skill School presents this video. Marcasite is a form of iron pyrite and you can get friction fire from fine grained iron pyrites. For the flint, you can use any hard stone. For the burning material, find some tinder fungus. Now hold the marcasite immediately above the tinder fungus and strike it with the flint. The sparks from the...


How To: Make a wooden spear from scratch
Making a wooden spear requires a between medium and small thick stick, a rectangular piece of board, a hatchet and a wood clipper. The branches off the stick is removed and thrown away. The stick is clipped at the smaller end. It is then placed on the board and the larger end is cut off with the hatchet, while the stick rotates in a circular motion on the board to remove the outer skin. Closer attention is paid the shaping and cutting of the point of that larger side to get it in formation. T...

How To: Tie a Plank Hitch bushcraft knot
The video is about creating a plank hitch making use of string and a couple of logs. The video begins with placing a piece of string in a particular pattern on the ground and then placing wood logs on top of it. The string is tied around the logs using a particular knot. The string is pulled tight around the logs and before tying the knot one piece of string is looped twice around the other piece. After the first knot the same process is repeated for the second knot. The video is extremely us...

How To: Build an emergency igloo with snow
Temperatures plummet... a shelter, an igloo, can be built out of nothing but snow. It has to be the right kind of snow, cut from a well packed snow drift. The best snow is laid down in one single storm, it's hard and compact.

How To: Construct an improved figure four deadfall trap
Learn how to construct an improved version of the figure four deadfall trap. Learn how to survive in the wild. You never know when you'll be stranded on a desert island, lost in the deep woods, or be a contender for Survival, the TV show. This series of videos, by Hedgehog Leatherworks, brings you the basics in outdoor survival. Wilderness survival skills include fire starting, deadfall traps, primitive fishing, making jerky, rope & cordage skills, and more. For the outdoor enthusiasts, enjoy...

How To: Tie the chain knot
This knot can be used to decorate a rope or shorten it. Just think, if you make it good enough, you can decorate your Christmas tree with rope.

How To: Terrorist Cheatsheet Explains How to Avoid a Drone Strike
The expanding U.S drone war in the Middle East has sparked controversy back at home, with many Americans protesting against the unmanned airstrikes. The attacks, which are carried out from a network of secret bases around the world, have been scrutinized for their lack of transparency with their "kill list" and ability to supersede the judicial system and assassinate any U.S. citizens that are involved with terrorist groups. To top it off, many are incensed with the accidental killings of civ...

How To: Make one meter of cordage from 2 leaves of Spiked Aloe plant
In a survival situation making cordage out of plants can enable you to construct apparatus you never would have been able to otherwise and save you life. This video will teach you how to make a meter of cordage out of 2 leaves from a Spiked Aloe plant.

How To: Pack a survival backpack or bug out bag (BOB)
Whether you call it a survival backpack, bug out bag, get home bag, or 72-hour kit, having a backpack full of survival gear is a must for anyone concerned about disaster survival. This video series will show you how to pack an ideal survival backpack that contains everything you need to survive for 72 hours or more in an emergency in a package you can carry on your back.

How To: Prepare a bug out bag for escaping a disaster
A bug out bag, or BOB, is a prepared bag, usually a backpack, designed to sustain you for up to 72 hours while your escape wherever you are in case of a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other catastrophe. This video will teach you everything you need to know to prepare an effective BOB that will help ensure your survival.