I wanna live in the wild. The film Castaway – that’s my ideal life. On an island with nothing, surviving, building shit. All you have to do all day is find food and improve your shelter.

I recently watched a TV show called Alone In The Wild where some guy did just that. They dropped him in the wild to survive on his own for 3 months. Except he didn’t. He hung around for a month, then he cried for a month, then he quit. He came to the conclusion that he could have survived – if he was allowed to shoot the moose. To me that isn’t really surviving – unless he’s got an ammo factory on the island with him – his ammo would run out and then he’d starve.

He ate 3 things. Fish – which he caught with a rod, porkupine – which he shot, and plants. And he lost a ton of weight on that diet. I don’t get how when you’ve got all day to catch food and eat you could starve – I’m not suggesting it’s easy – but if you’re going out with a fishing rod every day for a week and not getting enough food you should be thinking “maybe I’ll try a net” or “maybe there aren’t any fish here”.

So. In the ideal you’d get dropped on a desert island with a shipping container full of things you need to start surviving. What’s in your container? In mine I have:

• Lots of tinned food – just to keep me going until I establish a decent food supply
• Seeds
• Binoculars
• Tools, axes, saws
• Tool maintenance, sharpening wheels etc
• Tarpaulin 
• Survival books
• .. And obvious stuff like medical supplies, boots, porn, sheets, etc etc

First thing I’d do is establish camp. If the shipping container is there that’s probably become my home. If not I’d try to build a log cabin over the time I was there. I’d make it bigger, and the walls thicker, over time. 

Then while I was doing that I’d start a farm using my seeds. Maybe over time I try to get some animals breeding and farming those too. I’d be looking into routine water from a river or something by my camp.

Then I’d be set, just chilling out on my desert island for the rest of my life.