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Wanting to experience surviving in the wilderness, these eight Danish men spent several days in the bush near Quadeville, building shelters (one is behind them) and foraging for food with only one or two tools. By the end of the week, even the tools are removed. The trek was organized by David Arama.

Surviving in the wilderness

Heather Kendall


Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 15:00

Community - You’ve spent the day hiking in the bush, but just as you decide to call it a day, you realize that you don’t know where you are. You are lost. What do you do?

David Arama, who operates WSC Survival School Inc. out of Kitchener, says the first thing to do is admit that you are lost, and then “STOP” – sit, think, observe and plan.

“The right decision is usually to stay put and look after your priorities,” he says. “Build a shelter, start a fire, get water, signal for help and find food.”

Most people would place finding food and water at the top of their list, but Arama explains that the average person can survive weeks without food and days without water; however without shelter, the person runs the risk of developing hypothermia or hyperthermia (depending on the season), which can kill in hours.

Arama has found that about 90 per cent of outdoorsmen do not take basic survival equipment, like a compass, map, or flashlight with them when they go into the bush.

“They think, ‘I’m just going out for the day, so I don’t need to be prepared,’” he says. “Then something does happen and they aren’t prepared.”

Arama’s love of the outdoors developed when he went to camp while in his teens. He earned a Bachelor degree in Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, then acquired an Outdoor Education Certificate at Humber College. He saw an opportunity to fill a void in survival training and opened his survival school (www.wscsurvivalschool.com). He has been coming up to this area for several years, and three years ago he purchased over 300 acres near Quadeville. He brings up small groups of people and teaches them survival techniques. He also offers courses through colleges, universities and school boards.

“Hundreds of people become lost every year in Ontario,” he says. “People can get turned around and sometimes they don’t come back out.”

Last week a group of eight men from Denmark arrived at Kargus Lake near Quadeville to learn survival skills, but they also wanted to take the experience further – spend several days in the bush, testing their skills with minimal equipment. It’s the first “extreme” program Arama has organized, but he found the men to be very disciplined and very determined. Dan, Allan, Jan, Johnny, Michael, Henry, Mickey and Benjamin are in their 30s and 40s. Back in Denmark they work in a variety of jobs, from computers to mechanics to construction to civil service. This is their first visit to Canada and they chose the wildnerness survival program to challenge themselves.

They spent the first couple of days at a rustic cabin, learning and practising new skills. They then hiked into the bush, taking only a couple of tarps, knives, flint sticks, tin pails and some flour with them. They cut saplings and boughs and built two large shelters and spent their days foraging for food, keeping a fire going, boiling water, and maintaining the shelter.

Arama led me in to their campsite last Wednesday. Two were out hunting, and Arama used a wolf call to bring them back. They carried club-like sticks with them, which they’d hoped to use on a grouse, but were unsuccessful. The men admitted that they were hungry all the time and some had lost weight. They were using the flour to mix with water and make bannock. They’d set out traps, but hadn’t yet caught anything in them, but did kill a snake and a few frogs and ate them. The lack of food was making them lethargic and they said it was harder and harder to find the energy to go out and forage.

“It will get worse after today,” one said. That’s because they were taking the program one step further that night – they would be divided into pairs, and would go deeper into the bush, but without their pails, knives, flints or tarps.

“They’ll have to start fires with sticks and make baskets to hold water,” said Arama. The final test will have each man go off on his own for the last night.

“They call it a vision quest, but I call it lunacy,” said one man. “That old cabin is looking pretty good now.”

While a couple of the guys said they would go through the experience again, most said once was enough. They were glad to learn about wilderness survival, but said that future trips to Canada would be more civilized – campgrounds with equipment and facilities, or checking out urban communities, especially Niagara Falls.

What did they miss most while in the bush? Coffee, they exclaimed, closely followed by family members and girlfriends. For many, the worst part of the experience was dealing with the cold at night; for others it was how slowly the hours seemed to pass. They all agreed that the first thing they want to do when they leave the bush is take a shower and eat a meal (and perhaps beat up Arama, they teased).

As Arama led me back out of the area, he acknowledge that the Danish experience is an extreme version of survival training, but says it does show how important it is to be prepared for the unexpected. He recommends leaving a trip plan behind any time you go out in the bush, whether it’s hunting or fishing, hiking, snowmobiling or ATVing, so that if you’re not back by a certain time, Search and Rescue will have some idea of your whereabouts. He also recommends taking along a survival kit which includes matches or flint sticks, water, a tin can, a knife or collapsible saw, a first aid kit, some food supplies, Gatorade powder, a compass and a topographical map. A Global Positioning System (GPS) is great, he says, but because it is electronic, things can go wrong – dead batteries, loss of signal, or chip failure.

In a followup telephone conversation on the weekend, Arama says that five men survived their experience, while three asked to be pulled out early. When the five came out of the bush, they “made a beeline” for Kauffeldt’s General Store in Quadeville to pick up some snacks. Arama then took them to Mapleton’s for pancakes, which went over very well. On Friday night each one ordered a large pizza.

“They weren’t feeling too well after that,” says Arama. “You’re stomach shrinks, and it takes a couple of days to get back to normal.”

When Arama called, he and the Danes were touring around Niagara Falls. Later that day, Arama was taking them to the airport in Toronto to catch their plane back to Denmark.

“All of them said it was a good experience,” Arama says. “They say the way they look at life will never be the same again – they will never take it for granted again.”