FieldCraft Survival

Mobility
isn’t just about four-wheel drive. It’s about removing obstacles that stop you from getting where you need to go.

Over the last year alone, I’ve had to clear downed trees from roads at least three different times. None of these were deep in the backcountry. They were on normal roads after storms and high winds. One time I didn’t have a chainsaw with me, and what should have taken a few minutes turned into a much longer recovery using only a winch.

That experience changed how I think about mobility.

A chainsaw isn’t about cutting firewood. It’s about keeping routes open, reaching your family, getting home, evacuating when necessary, or helping someone else who’s stranded behind a fallen tree.

The question isn’t whether you’ll use one every weekend. The question is whether you’ll wish you had one the day your only route is blocked.

I’m not a chainsaw expert, which is exactly why I want to learn from people who are.

What are you running?
• Gas or battery?
• What brand has earned your trust?
• What size bar do you recommend for a vehicle recovery kit?
• If you could only own one saw for preparedness and mobility, what would it be?

I’d like to put together a series of real-world reviews on the Fieldcraft Outpost YouTube channel and test the saws you recommend in practical mobility scenarios.

Drop your recommendations below. I want to know what actually works—not what the marketing says.

“If you think people need a gun to go to the grocery store, this country is broken.”

I’d argue the opposite.

The country is broken when people pretend violence only happens somewhere else.

Some facts:

• The FBI documented 223 active shooter incidents in the United States from 2020 through 2024.

• Those attacks occurred everywhere: grocery stores, gas stations, shopping centers, restaurants, churches, schools, offices, and other places people considered “safe.”

• In 2024 alone, the FBI documented 24 active shooter incidents across 19 states, including attacks in commercial businesses.

• More than 15,000 Americans were victims of firearm homicides in 2024.

Preparedness isn’t about living in fear.

It’s about accepting reality.

I wear a seatbelt because crashes happen.
I carry a tourniquet because accidents happen.
I have a fire extinguisher because fires happen.

And if I’m legally trained and licensed to carry a firearm, that’s simply another layer of preparedness.

The goal isn’t to carry a gun.

The goal is to go home to your family.

Hope is not a security plan.

Preparation is.

Ernest Shackleton set out in 1914 to do what no one had ever done: cross Antarctica on foot.

He never made it.

His ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice, crushed, and eventually sank into the Weddell Sea.

Stranded in one of the most unforgiving environments on earth, Shackleton and his 27 men drifted on ice floes for months before making a desperate escape in lifeboats to a barren rock called Elephant Island.

Then came the impossible part.

With five men, Shackleton sailed an 800-mile open-boat journey across the Southern Ocean, navigating hurricane-force seas, freezing temperatures, and some of the roughest water on the planet. After reaching South Georgia Island, he still had to cross unmapped mountains and glaciers on foot to reach help.

Months later, he returned.

Every single member of his expedition survived.

Not because they had the best gear.

Not because conditions improved.

Not because the plan worked.

Because when everything fell apart, they refused to quit.

Preparedness isn’t about avoiding hardship. It’s about having the mindset to endure it.

The Endurance was lost.

The mission failed.

The men survived.

Sometimes survival isn’t accomplishing the mission. Sometimes survival is simply staying in the fight long enough to make it home.

Island Survival
In 1944, a group of Japanese soldiers and civilians were stranded on Anatahan Island, a tiny volcanic island in the Pacific. The war raged on around them, but they were completely cut off from the outside world.

After Japan surrendered in 1945, they never got the message.

For years, American aircraft dropped leaflets telling them the war was over. The castaways believed it was enemy propaganda and ignored it.

At one point, roughly 30 men and one woman remained on the island.

Her name was Kazuko Higa.

What happened next turned the island into one of the strangest survival stories ever recorded.

The group survived by fishing, farming, hunting wild pigs, and salvaging equipment from crashed American aircraft. They had food, water, shelter, and no immediate survival crisis.

But isolation began taking its toll.

Kazuko became the center of intense competition among the men. Relationships formed and broke apart. Rivalries grew. Suspicion spread. Men began disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Some died in confrontations. Others were found dead with no clear explanation. By the time the ordeal ended, several men had lost their lives.

The environment wasn’t killing them.

The social dynamics were.

By 1951, after seven years stranded on the island, the remaining survivors finally accepted that the war had ended and surrendered to a Japanese recovery team.

The lesson from Anatahan isn’t about bushcraft.

It’s about human behavior.

Most people think survival is food, water, shelter, and fire.

Those matter.

But once the basics are covered, leadership, purpose, discipline, trust, and relationships become just as important. Anatahan is a reminder that you can have everything you need to stay alive and still watch a group fall apart from the inside.

The island didn’t break them.

Isolation and human nature did.

OLD VS. NEW

Maybe I’m just getting old.

But I prefer a truck that starts with a key, not a facial scan.

I grew up believing a vehicle represented freedom. You bought it. You owned it. You drove it.

Now you’ve got companies like Ford filing patents involving driver monitoring and facial recognition technology. At the same time, more and more vehicles are becoming connected, monitored, updated, and controlled through software.

Some people see progress.

I see a future where technology sits between me and my own vehicle.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ll take my old Land Cruiser or my old ’85 4Runner any day of the week. No subscriptions. No facial recognition. No software deciding whether I can drive.

Just a machine, the open road, and the freedom to go where I want.

Less tracking.

Less technology.

More self-reliance.

Maybe old isn’t outdated.

Maybe old is freedom.

Mobile Adventure
Before social media made every journey a performance, adventure was something you lived, not something you posted.

In 1957, wildlife artist Robert Bateman and naturalist Bristol Foster left the United Kingdom in a hand-painted Land Rover and drove into the unknown.

Over 14 months, they crossed four continents, traveled through 19 countries, and covered more than 37k miles. No GPS. No satellite communications. No content strategy. No sponsorship deals.

Just curiosity, resilience, and a willingness to see what was beyond the next horizon.

Today, an adventure like this would probably go viral.

Back then, they simply pointed the vehicle toward the horizon and went.

Live more ANALOG.