Holistic Hike

Survivor!

Once again we are into yet another episode of Survivor!

I don't know about you, but as a Canadian who has experienced real survival situations just driving our highways in the winter, I would be grateful to have an opportunity to be surviving on a warm tropical beach!

My husband and I have maintained that the real survivor story should be told in the true Canadian North in mid January! Of course this prompted us to really question this whole concept of survival. We have been working as guides for many years, have taught survival concepts, taken survival courses and have even experienced some times when survival was either an issue or came close to it! We have recently watched a Survivalist on Discovery Channel and were fascinated by the big difference between one man in the Northern Canadian Boreal Forest and sixteen "Castaways" in the Marquesas!

Mr. Stroud has no team mates on which to rely for food, warmth, shelter, comfort and all the other luxuries the castaways don't realize they have. He does not have a TV show host to bail him out if things go bad, he has to wait the full seven days. Seven days not so bad you say? Well consider that -40°C is not something we desire to spend seven minutes in, let alone seven days! However, 49 days in the tropics, when you know there is a bail out option at any time and the potential for one million in the bank? I think the choice would be pretty obvious for me!

Well my husband and I maintain we have the skills necessary to be real survivors, or at least most of them. What is not clear are the psychological challenges that await the real survivor. We have basic needs as laid down by psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. In a survival situation we are only concerned with our basic survival needs: Food, shelter, water, warmth etc. But when those needs are met then there is the fear factor; "What if an animal gets me?", "What if I run out of food?", "What if no one finds me?" The other things that come into play are loneliness, boredom, worry and many other factors that can mean the difference between life and death.

So what on earth do you do if you are in this type of a situation? The only advice I can really give is to remember that the first key to survival is prevention! Remember that you have many choices before things go bad, and that a survival situation can mean driving pretty much anywhere in Canada during a nasty blizzard. It is not always a case of being stranded out in the mountains during a back country trip, nor is it always due to a light aircraft crash or the many other romantic notions we have of survival! So be prepared, keep in mind that winter can and often will throw everything it has at you!

The next consideration is in being educated, before you embark on that back country ski trip, or get on that plane to Inuvik, make sure you are prepared, and that you are educated for the particular trip you are making. What type of terrain are you going into? What is the weather usually like? What provisions do you need? What provisions do you have? Can you build a snow shelter if you need to? These are just a very few questions you need to answer.

One of the most important considerations I feel in being prepared and educated is in what type of response you might have psychologically. If you give into the fear, loneliness and boredom etc, then there is a greater chance of things going wrong, and you making potentially dangerous mistakes and incorrect decisions. Do you have known fears that you may have to deal with? Are you claustrophobic? Are you afraid of animals, the dark or anything else? These are things you need to be prepared for and know how to deal with.

As a clinical hypnotherapist, this type of psychological challenge intrigues me, and I have decided that I will do my Ph.D. Thesis on this very subject. I have already found several "volunteers" to help me with my project and I would like to set out some experiments on how to deal with the psychological issue of survival. I will endeavor to determine what can be done to overcome these fears and other issues, and I hope to have my research paper published through the American Pacific University in a few years, I'll keep you posted!

*This guideline is not intended to teach the individual on wilderness survival or any type of survival, it is strongly recommended by the author that the reader take survival courses from a recognized source, of which I can provide.

By Brenda Holder