Living of the land permanently

[Mark F]

A few of the issues are things like:

1. What do you take with you from the 21st century to establish your hermitage? Tools, fabric, storage containers, cooking utensils ... ? All these require skill and time to replicate which limits time available to deal with the day to day problems of putting food in the mouth. Many options are just too time expensive, skill levels inadequate unless learned and practiced beforehand and the location may not provide the required resources. Do you hoard prepper stye? Or scavenge by living on the edge of society - Possum and many others?

2. You need to adapt to the availability of resources (especially food) over the annual cycle. This usually requires agricultural skills plus storage and preservation techniques or migration.

3. Ever tried keeping fauna, possums especially out of a veggie patch without netting/wire/electric fence?

[Gadgetgeek]

Another large aspect that one must consider in any research attempt is that you must keep survivorship bias in mind. We know how Daniel Boone and Jeremiah Johnson survived, this Possum guy as well as Christopher Knight (27 years, futility closet podcast recently) survived, and how guys like McCandless died, but there are innumerable others who made the same attempt and didn't get through the first week. how many prospectors have died in every gold-rush trying to do the same thing, but with different reason? Even now there are a number of folks who go missing that maybe don't get looked for because no one knows if they are trying to drop out in bush, or the concrete jungle? We just don't know how long these folks last, and what took them out. And who's to know how many set out with living in mind, and how many just took the longest road they could find to suicide?

[GPSGuided]

Here's a guess, how long do people think Bear Grylls can last if unsupported and stripped of all modern equipments? Can he do it? Some of these modern media hype give people an unrealistic expectation of their ability.

[Chunder fuzz]

Here's a guess, how long do people think Bear Grylls can last if unsupported and stripped of all modern equipments? Can he do it? Some of these modern media hype give people an unrealistic expectation of their ability.

Is this Bear Grylls doing his brand of TV survival or Bear Grylls doing his trained SAS type survival?

[GPSGuided]

Who know. Strip off all the Bear Grylls branded knives and other gears and see how long he can last out in the wild.

[Neo]

I think its doable or could be learned over time. In the indigenous sense of moving between the coast and the hills, finding places to camp and food in season. Years and years of learning!
Hardest part would be avoiding people and temptation of human made bits. You would need a knife and clothing at first, maybe a firesteel.
I'd pick FNQ.

[crollsurf]

After reading a book called "The Greatest Estate on Earth", it becomes apparent that aborigines were not hunters and gathers at all. They harvested and tendered their gardens and traps, and then moved on to do the same in another area. I would guess as an aborigine 300 years ago, with all that knowledge, going alone would still be a big ask. Partly because you would be stealing from the gardens and traps of others. Maybe family would tolerate you but I think you would have been hunted down pretty quickly otherwise.

Early settlers still had saws and other equipment to give them some chance of success.

Farmers live on the land permanently but if walking out into the wilderness and expecting to survive is what is being suggested, I think few few would survive long. The aboriginal gardens and traps are all but gone and the available land is fragmented at best.

I think if anyone could do it, it would be John Muir although even he would carry a gun and ammo
http://stand.uow.edu.au/jon-muir/

[slparker]

After reading a book called "The Greatest Estate on Earth", it becomes apparent that aborigines were not hunters and gathers at all. They harvested and tendered their gardens and traps, and then moved on to do the same in another area. I would guess as an aborigine 300 years ago, with all that knowledge, going alone would still be a big ask. Partly because you would be stealing from the gardens and traps of others. Maybe family would tolerate you but I think you would have been hunted down pretty quickly otherwise.

Early settlers still had saws and other equipment to give them some chance of success.

Farmers live on the land permanently but if walking out into the wilderness and expecting to survive is what is being suggested, I think few few would survive long. The aboriginal gardens and traps are all but gone and the available land is fragmented at best.

I think if anyone could do it, it would be John Muir although even he would carry a gun and ammo
http://stand.uow.edu.au/jon-muir/

good points, you cannot live on very lean meat. Literally, people in the depression became very sick trying to subsist on rabbits. You need the full gamut of foodstuffs to survive.

Aboriginal people in mainland Australia were widespread cultivators, as well as a bit of H&G - as you rightly point out. Bruce pascoe's book 'Dark emu' is a bit of a companion book to "greatest estate on earth' and the degree of cultivation and hydro-engineering (i.e fish farming) in Australia pre- european occupation was breathtaking.

Their appears to have been much less (if any) cultivation in Tasmania - it certainly wasn't recorded anywhere - but why would you bother keeping these skills going when food sources were abundant?

[cajun]

Let me Elaborate on the Possum story for the naysayers.
In 1929 a man By the name of Jim Jones immigrated from New Zealand ... . Borrow a copy of the book and read it! you will be glad you did.

I recently read this book, and it is a worthwhile read. Very interesting indeed.

[Sammy38]

This man is the Master!

Primitive Technology .



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JX ... lZyD3nQdBA