Make Fire

Identify and safely gather edible and useful wild plants. Covers safety rules and deadly plant recognition, habitat reading, multi-feature identification methodology, the universal edibility test, sustainable harvesting practices, preparation methods, reaction monitoring, and building knowledge with beginner-friendly universal species. Use when supplementing food supply in a wilderness or survival setting, needing medicinal or utility plants, identifying plants around camp for safety, or in long-term scenarios where foraging extends available rations.

Purify water from wild sources using boiling, filtration, and chemical methods. Covers source assessment and priority ranking, sediment pre-filtering, method selection (boiling, chemical, UV, filter), altitude-adjusted boiling procedure, chemical treatment dosages, and safe storage practices. Use when needing drinking water in a wilderness setting, when available water sources are of unknown quality, in an emergency survival situation where dehydration is a risk, or when making water safe for cooking or wound cleaning.

Sharpen and maintain knives using whetstones, field stones, and improvised abrasives. Covers blade anatomy, bevel assessment, whetstone technique (coarse to fine progression), stropping, sharpness testing, field sharpening methods, and ongoing edge maintenance. Use when a knife fails the fingernail test, when cutting tasks require excessive pressure, before a trip where a sharp blade is essential, after heavy use, or when a blade has visible nicks or a rolled edge. Applicable to bushcraft blades, folding knives, and garden cutting tools.