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Does anybody have a recommendation to a good book about how to survive in the Norwegian woods and similar?

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  • I have always wondered how people manage to learn non-theoretical concepts from books - survival, martial arts, etc. Why not just grab a knife and a warm shirt and go to the woods for several days? Summer's excellent for that.
    – Vorac
    Commented Jul 10, 2012 at 10:05
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    Well, if you don't know the theory, it isn't easy to learn the practical bit without help!
    – Friend of Kim
    Commented Jul 10, 2012 at 15:40
  • While I like the intent and also some of the answers, I think this question basically boils down to a shopping question, which isn't supported well on SE.
    – fgysin
    Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 8:21

7 Answers 7

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Check out the SAS Survival Handbook. It's clear, concise, to the point, and contains a lot of good survival information.

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Cody Lundin's 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive! is a good introduction. It deals more with the psychological and physiological issues of survival than specific techniques.

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This book, How to stay alive in the Woods, is an older book but contains lots of valuable information on how to keep from getting hungry, and other useful things, while away from civilization.

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    Awesome, going to have to get this one.
    – Russell Steen
    Commented May 9, 2012 at 2:56
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As chd mentioned 98.6 Degrees is an excellent book. It is mainly focused on practical things you can do to survive and like chd on the physiological aspect of it.

If you are looking to read about the psychology of survival and the mental attitude that promotes it I highly recommend Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.

And of course, as always Freedom of the Hills (aka The Bible) has an entire part dedicated to "Emergency Prevention and Response" with chapters on Leadership, Safety, First Aid, and Alpine Search and Rescue.

If you are serious about learning about survival, I also highly suggest taking some first aid courses offered by organizations like SOLO. There are Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness First Responder, and Wilderness EMT certification levels with 2, 7, and 20 day courses, respectively.

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    Excellent, canonical answer. Deep Survival is really good on decision-making, which can be much more important than technical skills.
    – user2169
    Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 16:50
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I really liked this book, mainly because it's on real experiment, but it's in French:

Le Surviethon: Vingt-cinq ans plus tard: Récit du Surviethon • Analyse critique • Techniques de survie (French) Paperback

It's base on two person who decided to test their ability to survive for 30 days with almost nothing.

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I like Les Stroud's(survivorman) book called "Survive!". Just like in his tv show, he outlines survival in all different climates and locales. It's very specific and sounds like something that would interest you. There's a great(and short) list of survival books here. Another of my favorites is "Wildwood Wisdom" which isn't locale specific but focuses on fundamental survival skills - those which I would call "evergreen". Good luck!

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The Pocket Survival Guide. by J. Wayne Fears

Accurate, concise, to the point.

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