There are many a number of pocket guides out there to assist you in your pursuit of outdoor knowledge. Recognizing the stars, edible plants, trapping setups, tree id, and much, much more. We love these guides as a method to assist people in getting knowledge BEFORE they NEED it. If you you have ever spent time in our Online Outdoor School webinars or in our hands on outdoor classes, you will know how much I recommend small pockets guides for beginners, I love those things. There are a number of guides out there and the two that I recommend most are the Pocket Nature Study Guides or the Waterford Press fold out guides.
However, what I have problems with is the pocket survival guides, land navigation guides etc that come with gear. The fact that they come with the gear is not the issue. The issue is that it encourages people to put them away and pull them out when they are needed. I am sorry but if you wait until you are in a stressed out survival situation to read a guide, chances are you are not going to make it. I say that from a statistical understanding. Literally the volume of people who have no skills before they go out and then get into trouble outweighs those that have skills by a large margin. You can pick up Lost Person Behavior, to get a statistical understanding of how this plays out.
Our recommendation is to take these guides and practice them immediately upon receiving them. We do not pretend to have the only answers. So take any guide you have and practice your skills with it. If something in it works well for you, then continue practicing until you own the skills. If not then you can always use it as I suggest in the following videoe.
Come on, join in, let’s learn together!
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