Growing up I lived on the edge of a forest and spent almost every evening after school there. I spent a little time in scouts growing up, but the thing that gave me my addiction to learning survival skills was an elective I took in 9th grade. We learned about survival/outdoor skills and actually got to try out what we learned. I remember trying to get a fire going on the front lawn of our junior high building and taking a day trip to someone's land in the middle of winter to try our skills out.

After high school, I didn't do much with practicing or learning about survival/primitive skills. The only time I came close was when I went camping or hiking, but by then it had become all about the gear and gadgets.

A couple of years ago, when survival TV was just starting, I saw a show called SurvivorMan starring Les Stroud. Alone in the wilderness with very limited modern equipment! I was hooked on gaining survival/primitive skills again. After SurvivorMan, there was Dual Survival starring Dave Canterbury and Cody Lundin. That show was just fuel for the survival fire I had found again.

After that, I watched every episode of every survival show I could find and a ton of YouTube videos on the subject. I found out that Dave Canterbury from Dual Survival had a school where he taught survival skills, and it was only a six hour drive! I attended some classes at Dave's Pathfinder School. I learned a lot from those classes, especially the first one. While I felt pretty confident in my outdoor skills, the basic class showed me ways to do the things I already knew how to do, but ten times better and easier.

Since then, I've started my own YouTube channel and did a few demonstrations for a couple of local youth organizations.

I'm always looking to learn new things, try new ways of doing things and practicing the skills I've learned. I doubt the addiction to survival/primitive skills will ever leave me. At least I hope not!