we all look to the mountain men, forgetting that they were often merely employees with company supplied materials, up to and including weapons and the men themselves had no real skills beyonds what any early 19th century man would have had. these men, by our starbucks drinking definition were rough men. they went into wilderness, ripped some kind of living from the land and most returned to civilization. they were really no different from any other men of the times so to say they were some kind of ultimate survivor is absurd.
the peoples living in north america when english europeans came were doing ok but if the mass die off had not happened way back in the early 1600's then they eventually would have been throwing pretty good sized wars as they were just about filling the areas where survival was possible with their types of lifestyles. there was, of course, extensive cultivation of crops being performed by some cultures before europeans came and they often fought wars with each other and also with nomadic peoples who, for whatever reason, impinged upon their territory.
what was about to happen in north america was what had happened in europe/asia for a long , long time.
whoever was strongest ruled the roost.
now, we look at a few little set aside areas and call them the wilderness.
to a european descended man of the 17th century in north america there was a point where there were no more european villages, no more european cultivation and out there was THE wilderness. no one even knew how huge it was until the lewis and clark voyage of discovery.
the spaniards wandered around west of the great plains, through the rockies and the southwest and they never really had an idea how vast this continent is.
the british made a good run in the pacific northwest and later across canada but at the time they didnt understand how vast the continent is.
some of the best posts i make on here wind up getting erased when i realize i am so far off topic is has become kind of silly. lets see if this one stays.
to go completely off grid to survive with a group means the group would have to have at least one member who is skilled at the expert level in primitive weapons, primitive crop growing techniques, primitive pre-metal tool experts. all would have to understand and 24/7 practice stealth and camoflauge. no drugs, no alcohol, no tobacco, no dissention.
one sighting by hikers, one sighting by helicoptor or low flying plane, one hotspot on a sattelite image, leaving any sign at a kill, having any crops discovered, having a stream test out with too high e-coli way downstream... a thousand things would give the group away.
when i was in my teens and even sometimes into my 20s i would shoulder a pack and walk off into the woods. id say gone for as long as two weeks, poking along, fishing in ranchers ponds , the river and creeks, shooting squirrels and rabbits with a 22 or wrist rocket. i would make fire with my flint and steel, build shelters for the nights and just generally thought i was some kind of expert mountian man.
i didnt know shit.
if it had been real i would not have lasted two months and that is being generous to myself.
i always had enough food in the form of rice and potatos and canned meats to last however long i planned on being out and gathering and killing critters just prolonged those supplies.
just putting out a call and gathering a group to go off into the wilderness will not end well.
hell, in four years i havnt even found ONE person i feel i could trust to be on my land to be a caretaker.
ok, guess ive rambled enough, thank you for your reading time.
..... anyways, i might be interested in ur proposal... as long as theres room for my cub...
