CORRECT DRINKS

[Buck Conner1]

CORRECT DRINKS​

Care with what your drinking.

As for water, I carry as much as I can also. I have had the bug to get rid of and it wasn't fun. As for foods, I too carry the ones you mention and more. What I was getting at is you can't have fresh meat all the time, even tho we usually take some smoked or salted meats(pork) when on our week long canoe trips. As for cold weather, the Brothers here in Colorado always camp on President's Day weekend, in the mountains at 9 or 10,000 feet and it is cold. We usually get by ok because we do this type of camping quite a bit. But, others may not get the chance to do it like we do. What I was trying to say is this: I and my Brothers try to do it as correct as we can. We don't use down bags or take other short cuts if we can help it. For water and medicines I AM saying compromise is OK. As screwed up as this planet's condition is, there simply is no other way.

There are several good articles in BOB series on period trail foods. One can haul a lot of jerked meat, rice, corn meal, etc. with a very few spices to get you by for quit a long time. There are wild edibles that can be learned to give a bit of variety. Generally your diet is gone a be monotonous for a while and we usually hit the first greasy spoon we come to on the way home. Many of us try to trek where and when we can hunt or fish. But it surely isn't necessary to kill a cow every day to do quit well. (I 'm sure that is not what you meant). Medicines - I really can't see someone leaving his insulin at home for a week just to be more authentic.

A friend has carried his insulin in a little leather box for years so he can "shoot up" each morning. I have a small tin of pills that keep me going.

Having sold dairy feed for a number of years and been around dairy farmer's I can tell you with certainty that there are water born diseases which can very easily be transmitted from cattle to humans through the water. The one that comes to mind is LEPTO.
 
There are many different strains of this disease and they are nasty. Also if you are in a area where there is runoff from other ag operations, be aware that there could be chemicals in the water that could have an accumulative effect. There are chemicals that the farmers have had available for 30 or 40 years, that were being sold and used and were supposed to be perfectly safe. Most of what was being used before then was and has since been found to be unsafe and banned for sale. Some of these chemicals are still in the ground and can leach out from time to time.
I just wanted to share a few thoughts on drinking wild water without purifiers, boiling or the like, but straight from the stream...... I've been drinking creek water almost exclusively for the past 11 years, whether at home or traveling in the woods. I'm definitely concious of what and where I'm drinking but if it seems like a reasonably clean mtn stream, I drink up.....and I've never had any problems except an occasional runny crap. My understanding is that some people are far more or less susceptible to giardia and such...and I think I'm on the less side. I know a lot of folks like me who continue to drink wild water despite all the warnings...and don't have any problems. Most of us seem to agree that being careful not to drink chlorinated water is crucial. Chlorinated water kills your beneficial bacteria that help you defend against giardia and other contaminants. I always try to drink upstream from beaver (though am sometimes surprised to find them above), and don't worry much about free range cattle (even though they do spread giardia), though given the choice I choose a spring in I'm in cattle country. Always go for the smallest creek or spring around, and don't drink from rivers. If you are worried about it, I'd encourage you to continue using filters or hauling in water, giardia really sucks as far as I can tell. If you do go for it, ease your way in. Drink creek water from a known to be good creek for a while to help build up your beneficial bacteria.....and work your way in from there.

As far as water goes you can do as many of us have and still do, carry it in. We have carried in gourds and water containers, canteens on foot and horseback, or 5 gal. oak kegs in canoe and other types of water craft. On an extended canoe trip of 1260 river miles, with no support for the 5 members we carried three 5 gal. oak kegs and several canteens a piece, when nearing a town the smaller canoe would look for a park or home near the river. Once found we would bargain and sometimes beg with the natives for refills. Usually most people are just excited to see and ask questions, the refill were never a problem. Granted one needs to use common sense with the condition of our waterways today, but for an example we washed ourselves, our clothes and our cooking items in the river water whether it was the Platte, Missouri or the Mississippi, (we would heat the cooking items over the fire in hopes of killing anything harmful) I guess we were lucky in what is read now. None of the members got sick, no poops - if anything we had more of a problem in having one with period correct foods for 28 days. Damn the wild rice, buffalo and foraged edibles, we were use to greasy Big Mac's and the like, good food just stuck with us and all the paddling at hand (on the water at day break and getting off at dust, making an average of 35-40 river miles a day, left little time for anything but paddling). Just remember to do your research, but you common sense so you don't get in trouble, health wise, law wise, or any other wise.