Arizona Bushman - The Complete Color Survival in the Southwest: Guide to Desert Survival

The Complete Survival in the Southwest

A Guide to Desert Survival

By Arizona Bushman

Introduction

I have been involved in survival since the age of eight living on a small farm in Oklahoma. Many times throughout the year, the calm trickling creeks turned into raging torrents leaving us trapped at home. My parents included me in all activities to procure food and water to keep us going for the weeks ahead. Dad hunted and fished while my mother cleaned and prepared the bounty. We also had a garden, raised catfish in a pond, ducks, chickens, rabbits, sheep and goats; all of these had their part in our subsistence. In spring, we prepared the garden for planting and the fall our harvest was canned and stored away for future use. We always had enough meat, fruits, and veggies from the farm and the wilderness to get through trying times. I looking back it was a great lesson in life and a great experience that not a lot of people get to enjoy.

I joined the boy scouts at the age of ten and I loved every minute of it. I sat and read the Boy Scout handbook for hours. On outings, we learned basic survival skills like shelter building, fire making, finding and purifying water, edible plants, and trapping. I never could get enough of the outdoors; it has always been like a second home to me.

In junior high, we moved into town so my parents could be closer to work. On the weekends, my friends and I went camping on a nearby hill. There we practiced our survival skills. Some of my friends were Native Americans, whom showed me many ancestral skills intriguing me even further. At the age of twelve, I received a copy of The U.S. Armed Forces Survival Manual for Christmas. I did not realize at the time, but it had become a huge part of who I am today. I began to build a library of survival related literature. I went on to read books from such authors as Tom Brown and Oliver Perry Medsger.

Growing up with the friends I had really made it possible for these skills to blossom and grow into what they are today. I went camping with two good friends just before my senior year of high school. We turned the camping trip into a tracking and hunting experience. We walked a wooded area with a lot of tall grass looking for game trails. We found a good sign, fresh at a few hours old made by a raccoon. I began scouting the trail and looking for more sign. We found fresh droppings and a lot more tracks. The trail took us down to a creek were we found sign of the critters sitting and washing their food. According to their droppings, they were fating up on crayfish. We stopped and filled our canteens and disinfected the water with iodine before moving on to follow more sign. We came to a downed tree that was leaning against another in a small clearing. There were more fresh droppings that were only hours old lying on the tree trunk. This is where the trail stopped. We looked for more sign with no results. As we looked in the trees, I noticed a large hole in the trunk of an adjacent tree not more than a few yards away. I studied the possible routes to that tree; I found that from the downed tree it was an easy route from branch to branch. I approached the tree and climbed slowly up onto a stump to peer inside. Sleeping inside was a huge raccoon. At the time, we just looked at the beautiful creature, but with this practice and actually getting the dirt time we became much better hunters.

I was young and wet behind the ears knowing nothing about the world outside of Oklahoma. Something changed inside of me and could never quite put my finger on it until I moved to Arizona. I participated in Cody Lundins Aboriginal Living Skills School at Yavapai College in Prescott. That single class changed my life. From that moment on, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. From then on, I began seeing the world more differently than I ever had. I spent a lot of time in the desert and found that when I am out there I feel at peace. It changes me into a different person, all my worries and everything that gets to me in society disappears.

At one time, I taught small survival classes in Arizona. I have been to schools and libraries to speak to students about primitive skills. I enjoy seeing the confidence build in the students as they learn. Seeing the look on a students face when they start a fire using primitive methods for the first time is the greatest gift I could ever receive.

My feelings about Western Society will come out at times in this book. I only hope that it does not offend anyone, which is not my intention. I write this book to pass important lifesaving skills to the reader. In no way do I expect you to adopt my thoughts and beliefs. I am merely using it to shed light on the subject of survival. I hope to educate you on the importance of staying alive in the wilderness. We are all different; we all believe and think differently. This is what truly makes us diverse.

This book has a wealth of information on a vast subject. There are so many tools and skills to learn I cannot possibly include everything on the subject of survival. I can however supply you with basic knowledge to teach you how to survive in one of the most unforgiving environments in our country. I hope this book does not scare you away from enjoying Mother Nature, but instead gives you the knowledge to love and respect our Earth and all she has to offer.

My goal is to make this book as easy as possible to follow and understand. There are many pictures in this book, this is to help the reader better understand how to do these skills. Realize there are several differing opinions on the subject of survival and some hard-core beliefs that are set in stone to some. In my learning experience, there is one thing that has made it easier to learn these skills. This is the realization that there really is more than one way to accomplish a task. If you are one that is serious about survival and devote a lot of time, love, care, and patience to the craft I hope you find this a good read. Enjoy this book and practice these skills with caution. We all have the same goal, to live.

Through the course of writing these books, some wonderful adventures have crossed my path. I have met some of the greatest people in the field. All of which have given me some amazing words of encouragement along the way. One person in particular was Ron Hood. I had the honor of participating in a reality television show that was to air on the History channel. I was a contestant on the show and Ron was a judge. We were to complete several times survival challenges. Challenges like building a shelter, building a fire, rock boiling water, trapping, and signaling. I was up against some tough competition. One trained by the covert ops in the U.S. military and one other trained by the National Outdoor Leadership School or NOLS. This is a world-renowned wilderness school. I was a little intimidated and all my training was from a young age growing up in Oklahoma. Codys class helped me put some desert training into perspective and taught me how to think. That is all the credentials I brought to the table.

The first challenge we had was to build a shelter. Sounds simple enough, but when you have a producer like Adam Brials running the show there will be some interesting twists thrown injust to catch you off guard. We were in rocky terrain and they made us were surgical support boots to keep our ankles from moving. I ended up taking a knee however, I was lucky and found out later I only strained it. The good thing was the relief of being able to take them off after the first night. I was the only one to get some food. I had the pleasure of clubbing a lizard for dinner. I had eaten them before and they are really quite tasty. As far as fire and boiling the water, I was the only one to succeed in completing those as well. To make a long story short I came home with the prize money and the trophy. I had never felt more confident in my skills until that moment. It truly was what I needed to take that final leap into knowing that my skills are viable. I gained a lot of confidence not only as a survivalist but also as an instructor. For that, I truly thank the legend Dr. Ron Hood.