Let’s Unpack the Pack: Breaking Down the Ideas Behind Pack-Mentality and the 10 C’s by Dave Canterbury

So to begin this, I followed Dave Canterbury’s 10 C’s of survivability. Which are:

1. Cutting tool
2. Cover Element
3. Combustion devices
4. Containers
5. Cordage

Now these 5 above are known as The 5 C’s or First 5 C’s of Survivability. These items as Dave says in his book Bush Craft 101,

“Within these five base elements are all the tools and knowledge you need to be prepared for emergencies as well as to become independent of the trappings of the urban jungle. These items are the hardest to reproduce from natural materials, take the largest amount of skill to reproduce, and control the conditions that most directly affect your body’s core temperature.” 

Page 19 of Bush Craft 101 by Dave Canterbury

Now as I understand it’s the first five are the most important item to survival, and the next are the most important items to being rescued or returning back home.

The Second set of The 5 C’s are:

6. Candle
7. Cotton
8. Compass
9. Cargo Tape
10. Canvas Needle.

These items in the second group are considered needed for an extent stay in the woods. I keep them in my pack anyway, just because they don’t take up much room.

Something that needs to be said is that not all the items on this list are literal. Cutting tool could be a knife, machete, hatchet, axe, saw, or even all of them. Cover element could be as simple as an emergency blanket or as complex as a tent and hammock system. Or even both. Some in cases like the Candle, just means a light source. For my candle I have a candle, a flashlight, and a head lamp. In a lot of Dave’s videos he is quoted with saying, “Two is one and one is none.” Meaning always have one backup or more in case one is broken or misplaced. Also familiarize yourself with a natural way to do these tasks in case EVERYTHING is lost.

There is a YouTube channel called, Primitive Technology, I’m pretty sure they also have a WordPress page, but anyway, in the first video this guy makes an entire dwelling with nothing but a pair of shorts on. He uses a rock and makes it a stone hand axe and away he goes. What I want you to take away here is Dave’s “pack-mentality”: stay with the 5 or 10 C’s and practice your skill with them, but also practice what Primitive Technology teaches us. Practice using yourself as your only tool, because someday it might just be.

Now, with the first 5 C’s and the Last 5 C’s your pack should be fairly complete. Other items I like to add are the following:

• Snares
• MREs
• Hunting wool clothes
• Aluminum foil
• Sharpening devices
• Med Kit
• Journal
• Binoculars
• Fishing kit
• Animal calls
• Water purification tablets or drops.
• Folding bow with some arrows
• Shotgun with a 209 primer and shot and caps
• Spice Kit
• Work gloves
• Small balloon pump

 Now, of course not every last item between all of these are in my pack at one time. Some I don’t even own yet. But the general idea when making a pack by the 10 C’s is every item must serve 3 or more purposes or it is a luxury item. This isn’t a bad thing to have some of these items, sometimes because of money or availability we just can’t get the perfect items. I definitely don’t have a perfect pack and I’d doubt Dave Canterbury would even say he has a perfect pack. What matters is that you can cover the basics as best as you can, because something is better than nothing.

I have noticed something about how my pack is made. The better I am at a skill or the more I understand a concept, the less I pack for it, ergo I have a hatchet, a 6 inch blade, and a folding saw for processing wood. A skill I do very well in. However, when it comes to sharpening my knives, I pack a puck stone, a 4 inch Walmart stone, 4-in-1 file and rasp, a smith dual, coarse and fine sharpener, a 9 inch sharping stone, an orange handled carbide sharpener with guard, Camillus sharpener that does so much I can’t even describe it all. This skill still eludes. I don’t think packing your bag with extra stuff you don’t understand is a bad thing, especially at first, but as you grow as a bushcrafter and gain more experiences. You will learn what you want and what you need. Next week’s blog will be about my actually pack and the items in that pertain to the first 5 C’s. As always feel free to comment, share this blog, and check back next week for a new one. Follow me on Facebook: @BPackBushcraft and on Twitter @BPackBushCraft. Until next time, keep those fires burning and put another log on for me.