Camping with Dad - camping survival story

by Charlene
(Elkhart, IN, USA)

My father and I went camping several years ago in a forest area outside of Albion, Indiana. We took only very few items with us. While on this camping trip, we survived on natural resources such as the local food supply and plant life.

We fished and hunted for food using minimal things from modern life. I learned about what plants which were safe to eat and how to identify them such as wild onions, the many uses of acorns, and wild berries. When we fished, my dad taught me how to view the contents of their stomachs to figure out what was best to use for bait.

We used every part of each animal or fish that we ate for other provisions. An example is turtles. We used the meat to make a soup and the shells for bowls. We made acorn pancakes by pounding them into powder, mixing it with fresh water, and then cooking them on the bottom of a coffee can we had found in a field.

I learned so much about surviving in the wilderness that trip that I could live in the forest for a long time without the aide of man-made provisions.

the ice pick

by Bob Crawford
(Ontario, OH, USA)

I remember a campground I used to stay at on the Savannah Highway outside North Charleston, SC. It was a beautiful campground with all these majestic live oaks with beards of green gray Spanish moss.



I was tent camping one night when I came upright to the sensation of someone stabbing a white-hot ice pick into my right eyeball. I rubbed at my eyelid and felt a bit of crud and then another lance of pain. I was still groggy from sleep, but I rubbed more furiously at my eyelid and felt a small insect body disintegrate under my friction.

I finally realized that a fire ant had strayed into my tent and stung me twice. It hurt, but being manly I toughed it out. In the morning I awoke and realized something was seriously amiss. I couldn’t focus my eyes and my depth perception was shot.

I seemed to stagger a bit and trip over ant lion pits. It wasn’t till I got to the restroom that I realized I didn’t have brain damage, only some swelling on my left eyelid which caused it to droop over the pupil.

I bought a trailer right after that.