This book is not about "surviving," rather it's about "thriving" in a wilderness situation. The McPhersons have written the best and easiest to read book you can find anywhere.

We liked this book so much we made it the book of the month at RFS Online for August 1999.


Excellent Beginners Guide to Wilderness Survival   December 21, 2000
 115 out of 116 found this review helpful

This book is an excellent beginners guide for the inexperienced outdoorsman.

The book contains 10 well developed chapters that will get you well on your way to being able to "live off the land." The topics covered in this book are as follows: tanning deer skins, making fire, cordage, making a bow and arrows, making traps, meat preservation, primitive cooking methods, field dressing and butchering a deer, container making (baskets and pottery), making tools, and making shelters.

Most of these topics are covered in amazing detail with plenty of photographs. The McPhersons do an excellent job of explaining the topics so that even people with no outdoor experience could perform the task almost immediately. The only exception I found was the chapter on making baskets. Even though I read the chapter several times, I do not feel I could not weave a basket (in all do fairness, it may be easier when I actually attempt the task).

I can not stress enough how easy this book makes a seemingly impossible task for people who lack the basic knowledge of wilderness survival skills. The McPhersons don't just give you the instructions, they also explain the physics or logic behind what they are writing about. I recommend this book to anyone who needs/wants a firm foundation in basic survival skills.


One of the best out there.   April 26, 2006
 50 out of 51 found this review helpful

I've studied, practiced, and taught wilderness survival on and off for around ten years, now. I've read an enormous amount of material on the subject of survival; some of it is quite good (Brown Jr., Wiseman, Davenport, among others), some of it is at best mediocre (e.g., FM 21-76).

However, this work by the McPhersons is in a class all by itself; it's simply outstanding. Unlike the majority of other books on survival, this book is filled with actual photographs, rather than drawings and illustrations. For instance, John Wiseman's "SAS Survival Handbook" is filled with an extraordinary amount of good information, but without actual photographs, the reader is never really "connected" to the skills being communicated. Of course, one must actually have real, hands-on experience in order to *truly* connect to the skills and practices being communicated, but the fact remains that good photographs are vastly superior to the average drawings found in survival handbooks, and as such will better prepare the reader for the actual event.

Although the information is not as far reaching in the same sense as something like Wiseman's Survival Handbook, it is far superior in the way it covers the limited amount of subjects that it does tackle. And those subjects are absolutely essential - thus they deserve the high degree of focus they receive to the exclusion of other lesser important skills. This book shows you the basic skills necessary to survive and to thrive - and it shows those skills with remarkable clarity. Sure, the grammar in this book is terrible, and the McPhersons are obviously not cultured in the traditional sense, but they know *this* subject, and that's what's important here.

I might complain at this point about a previous reviewer. J. Fusco's April 8th (single star) review is quite off base. He writes: "If this is your first survival book and you are looking to learn the basics of survival then I feel this is not the book."

I beg to differ. If I knew that the dearest person to me in all the world was about to get dropped into the middle of a North American wilderness, this is the FIRST book I would give to her. I've never seen its equal as far as explaining the basics of survival.

There are a few things I would have liked to see in this book that were not covered, yet are quite important. For instance, collection and treatment of water is a very important skill (think giardiasis), yet it received no attention here. In all fairness, though, this is by no means an insurmountable exclusion to anyone with half a brain. Almost everyone knows that boiling water renders it safe for drinking, so if one merely applies the skills learned from the sections on fire-making and various containers, the problem becomes a virtual non-issue (with a few rare exceptions, granted).

Also, the section on shelters, while good as far as it goes, leaves something to be desired. I would have liked to see a simpler, cold-weather type shelter that could be put up in a very short amount of time while still providing maximum protection from the elements. For example, Tom Brown Jr.'s "Debris Hut" (Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival, p. 30ff.) is excellent in this regard. I have personally survived sub-freezing temperatures in such a shelter with very little insulation except that provided in nature. The McPherson's book would have benefited greatly by including a shelter like the debris hut.

All in all, the small scruples I have with this book in no way detract from my estimation of its greatness, and my five-star rating is given without hesitation. Highly Recommended.


This is the best all around book on the subject   December 14, 1998
 34 out of 35 found this review helpful

If I could carry only one book with me, knowing that my plane was going to crash in the wilderness, this would be the book. Let me qualify this statement. I am a pilot and have been practicing primitive survival living skills for seventeen years. My library on survival contains at least thirty books. This book is easy to understand and has multiple, detailed photographs. It should be noted that the section which discusses "eating mice for food" should be disregarded because the risk of contracting Hanta Virus is greater than the nutritional value of the mouse.


Great book, Great step by step, Great buy   August 11, 1999
 21 out of 25 found this review helpful

Being a female hunting and fishing guide, I come across alot of wannabes in the field.. this book is exceptional. Good pictures.. and as it states.. originally each chapter was original written as a book itself.. very detailed.. and the pictures are actual footage.. Very well done.