FEATURED AUTHOR
REID KINCAID

Having grown up in a military family, I continued the tradition of being chronically mobile even as an adult. Even before we were married, my wife, Lori, and I were both big adventurers. We actually got engaged after a climb up Mount St. Helens in Washington state in 1987, just before heading to Alaska, where we traveled the state and lived in our tent for the summer months. Invariably, we have chosen to travel in the least comfortable but most inspiring way--by backpack and on the cheap, camping where we could and carrying everything we owned. This has taken us many places both remote and distant from home, and it has given me a firsthand idea of what one needs to get by on limited resources and in tenuous situations.

Over the course of our extensive travels, we spent 18 months living in Poland, traveled throughout Eastern Europe, bicycled around the coast of England, and explored much of the United States, including a 7,000-mile trip from Washington state to Virginia via California and Texas.

Our first house was a 28-foot sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay. After spending some time in the northern bush of Alaska, we moved to Metlakatla, a community of 2,000 Tsimsian Indians on a remote island at the very tip of the southeast panhandle of Alaska that is accessible only by floatplane or boat. This move to Annette Island in 1997 was the thirtieth move of my life (I was 29 at the time). Since then our travels have frequently taken us to remote and isolated areas – such as the Round Island Walrus Sanctuary at the foot of the Aleutian chain, the Anan Bear Observatory, and Denali National Park – where contact with the outside world is many hours or days away, even by emergency flight.

In the lower 48 states, it is much easier to forget the risks of travel and adventure than it is in Alaska, where we are yearly reminded of the dangers of the world around us by the deaths of people we know from accident and environment. Here in southeastern Alaska, everyone knows someone who has died either of exposure or in a hunting or snowmobile accident, drowning, or plane crash; survival situations are not abstract ideas but rather a reality of daily life. But even in Alaska, where those outside the cities have little trouble acknowledging the risk, most people have no experience or training to guide them in a survival situation. Survival experience is one of those things that invariably only comes once, and then the skills learned are never needed again. The best training for survival, then, is knowledge accessible on the ground, in the actual situation. It was with this idea in mind that I set out to write The Extreme Survival Almanac. I conceived it as a hands-on survival tool for the majority of people at risk for becoming stranded in the wild: the inexperienced.

My first exposure to survival literature came when I started a technical writing project in the mid-1980s. I wanted to write a concise guide to local edible plant life around Pullman, Washington. As I read more and more research material, I noticed two problems. There was a tremendous gap between the practical skills used and learned (often by trial and error) by actual survivors as described in their accounts of their experiences and the guidebooks that were supposed to help them get through such experiences. The other thing I noticed was the incredibly large amounts of eclectic or useless information included in survival texts. I recall one book that included three chapters on physical education, introduced by the declaration that if you followed the prescribed regimen, you would be in good enough physical shape to make it through any survival situation that might arise. A second book dedicated 60 pages to the building of bamboo camp furniture (which, while it might make for a fine camping trip, has no place in a survival situation as it wastes precious caloric outlay)! I recall thinking that while these two books would be great for losing weight and decorating my backyard, I sure would hate to have them as my only resources if I were really stuck in a survival situation. (What could be more depressing than cracking open a survival guide as you sit freezing to death on a mountaintop and being told that had you only been exercising you might actually make it home to see your kids again?)

The Extreme Survival Almanac actually began to take shape at Washington State University in 1986, where I studied English and technical writing. A form of translation work, technical writing involves presenting technical information and jargon in more commonly understood terms. I wanted to apply these skills to survival literature, since my research had convinced me that the genre had failed to address the majority of people who would benefit from knowledge of survival skills and techniques. In conceptualizing the book, I had a few rules in mind:

• The book would assume that the reader is in the survival situation when reading the book.
• The book would assume that the reader is reading the book for the first time while in the survival situation.
• The book would guide the reader to the basic principles of maximizing survival opportunity and minimizing risk by selecting only those techniques that maximize energy efficiency and minimize work.
• The book would utilize known learning and memory techniques to minimize reading time and maximize retention.
• The book would be well referenced for rapid and simple information finding.

The Extreme Survival Almanac evolved over the 10-year period during which Lori and I traveled to more than 20 countries and my own knowledge of survival techniques increased through both study and experience. My training as a physician assistant, which I received at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia after we returned from living and teaching in Poland, allowed me to complete the extensive Emergency Medical section of the book. Of course, I did so with an eye toward relevance to a survival experience rather than the traditional focus on wilderness medicine.

In writing this book, I tried to combine my professional skills with my personal experience traveling in remote areas to create something more than an academic report on survival knowledge or an exploration of the topic for the casual reader. Designed to maximize survival potential and minimize the risk of injury or death with or without the aid of a survival kit, The Extreme Survival Almanac was intended to be an actual survival tool. Specifically, it was written as the survival tool I would like to have had in my car, boat, plane as we traveled to the many remote and isolated destinations we did. And it's the one I would now want in my possession, as well as in the hands of my family and friends, in any survival situation.

Q&A

Paladin: Have you been involved in a survival situation or otherwise had to utilize the skills presented in The Extreme Survival Almanac in the wilderness?
Kincaid: The book doesn't make survival any less of an ordeal; many of the techniques outlined in it are uncomfortable and, in terms of food, inhumane. I have never used at least half of the techniques described, and I hope I won't ever find myself in a survival situation where I would need to use them. But there are many techniques in the book that I have used, just in the course of traveling outdoors or overseas, hiking, skiing, and boating. Even when flying from the island where I live or traveling by fishing trawler when the weather is bad, I carry a small survival kit with matches, a couple space blankets, and fire starter. The water is incredibly cold in Alaska, even in the summer. If I'm lucky enough to get to shore alive after an accident, I'll be damned if I'm going to freeze to death waiting for the rescue boat! But the fact is, I travel and hike and seek adventure because I love the outdoors and enjoy the challenge of traveling without room service, not because I get some thrill out of cheating death. The book was designed for the majority of us who don't go out and practice starting fires with a mirror or eating grubs we find under rotten logs. Let's be honest, eating grubs is not what excites most people about the outdoors, which is why most people stranded in the wilderness lack the knowledge required to maximize their chances of getting out. I don't need to know that grubs are edible to enjoy my camping trip; I just need to have access to that information should I need it, which is where The Extreme Survival Almanac comes in.

Paladin: What are a few of your favorite survival stories?
Kincaid: I think my all time favorite survival story is Steven Callahan's Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea. It's an absolutely epic story of a man who really should not be alive today, and who demonstrated that lots of luck with a good dose of information and a refusal to give in can make that happen. I often remember the episode in that book where this starving man throws a can of meat out into the water because he fears it has gone bad. Survival is about little decisions like that, every minute making that difficult decision to go on or go without, improving your odds of survival by constantly recalculating them. A second favorite of mine is Death and Deliverance: The True Story of an Airplane Crash at the North Pole. This survival scenario, which involved the known crash of a military aircraft flying into a remote arctic base, is much more common than that experienced by Steven Callahan. The remoteness of the crash site coupled with a large storm left the surviving passengers, many severely injured, stranded for several days in subzero temperatures awaiting rescue. Reading books like these gives you an opportunity to identify points in the survival experience where a lack of knowledge, skill, or equipment means missed opportunity and, in some cases, death. Steven Callahan survived as much because he was experienced as because he was lucky. A number of the passengers in Death and Deliverance died because they lacked experience and had no access to information that might have made up for that deficit.

Paladin: Are there certain items that you carry with you when you travel – things you consider essential should you find yourself in a survival situation?
Kincaid: As the book explains, the nature of the "best" survival kit depends on who you are and the type of traveling you are doing. As a physician assistant, I kept a completely stocked trauma kit on my sailboat. I could have amputated a limb in the middle of the Arctic with that kit. Most people won't need such kits simply because they could not reasonably make use of the resources. As I mentioned earlier, I do try to keep on hand a minimum of items based on the possible dangers associated with the type of traveling I'm doing. In third world countries, I take an excellent selection of antibiotics and wound management supplies but seldom need food acquisition or storage equipment. When camping in remote parts of Alaska within contact distance of rescue, I take a very few antibiotics (a double course of a broad-spectrum antibiotic), then add basic temperature control equipment such as a white gas stove, multiple space blankets for each person, and navigation and orientation information. For remote areas with no contact options for assistance, I take the full kit outlined in the book. The full kit is also what I store in my vehicles, including my boat. So if you happen to forget everything in planning your trip, you have the pack accessible in your vehicle should you need it.

Paladin: What are some of the better true-life survival books that people can read and learn from?
Kincaid: Again, Adrift is a great one. Callahan's a good writer, and he describes the details of his decision-making processes and actions so that you can visualize exactly what he did to address the daily challenge of staying alive. Another top-notch book is Staying Alive by the Bailey family, which is not quite as good as a survival reference but still an excellent primary source of survival information. The advantage of these sources is that they do more than just list techniques and information, they demonstrate the atmosphere of a survival situation and show how real people coped with them. I'm not convinced that we learn more from those who survive such experiences than we would from those who don't, but just knowing that someone can actually survive 100 days at sea without knowing how to swim should give us all hope.

Paladin: Of the major survival skill areas (fire building, shelter making, water procurement, etc.), which do you think would be most beneficial for the average person to acquaint him or herself with prior to landing in a survival situation?
Kincaid: If you're not a camper or a hiker and don't pick up bits of survival skill just by adventuring, I would say that a concerted concentration in shelter building would be most likely to keep you alive. If you can quickly construct a shelter, no matter how rudimentary, from the elements, then you will have time to sit down and figure out how to get water, food, and how to get rescued. Since most survival experiences are short-lived, building a shelter may be the only survival skill you will need before you're rescued, and lack of an adequate shelter will kill you long before a lack of water or food. Fortunately, some very basic shelters are easy to build and quite adequate for survival, as discussed in the book. A brief introduction to shelter building could easily mean the difference between life and death in a dangerous survival situation, as it allows you to protect yourself while you concentrate on the other issues that you must address to stay alive. This is also the advantage of a space blanket, which is absolutely the single most important survival item on the market in my opinion. It is an instant shelter and can also keep you warm while you build a larger and more usable shelter. If you look at the impact of the various skills on your likelihood of survival, some are more important in the short term (temperature control and shelter) than others (food and water). Having some basic knowledge of those skills most important in the short term will increase your chances of needing the longer-term skills at all.

Paladin: What do you consider the biggest danger in a survival situation (i.e., the greatest obstacle to making it out alive)?
Kincaid: Time is by far the greatest obstacle to getting out alive. As time passes, so do your opportunities and strengths. Few people exit a survival situation stronger than they entered it. The survival process degrades the very tools you have to stay alive (hope, physical and mental stamina, health), and most rescue efforts are suspended within four weeks of the time a person is reported missing, so maximizing this window of opportunity is part of the survival process discussed in the book. This involves mobilization of resources and creation of a systematic approach to your own survival early on in the survival situation, when you are most capable of surviving errors and impacting the ultimate outcome of your decisions.

Paladin: What are the top three considerations in a survival situation?
Kincaid: What resources do I have? How long must they last? And how can I maximize their effectiveness? These three considerations will govern your every act and interaction after entering a survival situation, including the use of people, who are both your biggest asset and your biggest liability. The actual rescue is really little of your concern unless you happen to have a working cell phone. Your job, so to speak, is to plan, organize, and implement your survival experience, not your rescue. Part of that process is maximizing your opportunities for rescue, but that is usually a smaller part of your survival experience. Staying alive governs most daily interaction in a survival experience, and this comes down primarily to resource management.

Paladin: What is the most important rule of survival?
Kincaid: The most important rule of survival is to commit. I talk about this is the introduction, but it is probably more important than 90 percent of the information elsewhere in the book. Someone once said that "On the plains of hesitation lie the blackened bones of millions, who, at the dawn of victory, sat down to rest, and resting, died." Nowhere is this more relevant than in a survival situation. Every second you remain alive is another opportunity to be rescued or reach safety. The most important choice you can make in a survival situation is the decision to stay alive when death would be surer, faster, easier, or less frightening. Survival is at its most basic a battle between resignation and commitment. One of the primary goals of the book is to give survivors some tools that will help them keep hope, and therefore be able to commit. You may die even if you do commit, but if you cannot commit to getting out alive then you assuredly will not.

THE EXTREME SURVIVAL ALMANAC
Everything You Need to Know to Live Through a Shipwreck, Plane Crash, or Any Outdoor Crisis Imaginable