Take Real Survival Training this Fall

The Fall Mountain Survival Course (FMSC) is a world-class professionally taught Modern Wilderness Survival Course designed to give you the knowledge you need if stranded in the Mountains of Canada. This survival course gives you the skills and confidence you need for survival anywhere in the Canadian mountains. To register for this 5-day course, you need to complete the Online Survival Core Seminar first and have read Canadian Wilderness Survival.

We will begin the course on a 250-plus acre training site at our base camp located in the Columbia Mountains near Boswell, B.C. We spend the next three days learning mountain survival skills. The Temperate Rainforest in Fall is a wet, moisture-filled environment with a limited chance of snow. It provides a unique training environment in Canada with; cedar, fir, larch, hemlock, birch, willow and pine. We will spend some of our time exploring this wonderful forest, collecting firewood, and harvesting saplings and other useful plants in this forest.

"…talks about the task, then does the task, then gives you the time to complete the task…" — Former Student.

We will concentrate during these three days on teaching the fundamental survival skills you need to learn; safe tool use, fire lighting, cooking over a fire, shelter building and water purification. During this time, you will live in a rustic camp. Each participant will build and live in various single and double person shelter with a shared fire. Fire management and cooperation with the individual on the other side of the fire are essential skills you will be practicing.

We will then leave our base camp and move as a group by vehicle and foot to a higher elevation area to live a night in another location. In this new area, we will see the differences in the forest due to elevation and slope. Here we will ensure you can survive and thrive if stranded by building a quick improvised shelter and fire. We will also have a chance to see and understand northerly and southerly facing slopes and the changes caused by higher elevation. Along the way, we will take a walkabout in another Forest of the Columbian Mountains.

The course finishes off with a wrap-up and debriefing at our base camp. On Graduation each successful participant receives the BWI's Survival Certificate.

Field Training Skills Covered

Knifecraft

Safely using a Survival Knife
Basic Knife Handling
Wood Splitting with a Survival Knife
Sharpening Board & Knife Sharpening

Using Survival Tools

Build & Use a Baton
Notches & Try Sticks
Useful Knots
Using a Bow Saw
Build an Improvised Sawhorse
Safe Falling of Deadfall Trees
Natural Cordage & Binding
Making Cedar Cordage

The Food Challenge

Legal Fishing & Hunting Discussion
Bush Scavenging in the Mountains
Improvised Fishing in the Mountains
Improvised Hunting in the Mountains

Fire Lighting

Using Artificial and Natural Tinder
Finding Natural Fire Lighting Aids
Fire Lighting with a Striker
Standard and Survival Twig Bundles
Getting a Fire Started
Keeping a Fire Burning
Overnight Fire Management Skills
Selection of Proper Fire Wood
No-Evergreen Fire Lighting
Building Cooking Cranes
Cooking over a Fire
Cooking with a Stick Burner
Building a Signal Fire
No-Trace Cooking Fires

Water Purification

Purifying Water
Safe Collecting of Water

Shelter Building

Single & Double Super Shelters
Various Lean-to Shelters
4-Finger Rainforest Bough Bed
Collecting & Using Natural Shelter Material
Build various Survival Shelters
Build various Rain Shelters
Build various Improvised Shelters

Montane & Forest Environment

Trees of the Montane Forest
Trees of the Interior Temperate Rainforest Forest
Useful plants of the Montane Forest
Useful plants of the Interior Temperate Rainforest
Use and Identification of Aspect/Slope
Safe Camp Locations in the Mountains
Safe Summer & Fall Mountain Travel
Safe Water Crossings
Dealing with Bears, Cougars and other Wildlife
Keeping Gear Safe & Dry in the Bush
Camp Reclamation