The 10 C’s Of Survival
What Are The 10 C’s Of Survival?
David Canterbury, author of the Bushcraft 101 and Advanced Bushcraft books, rationalised the elements of survivability into a handy list of 10 items beginning with the letter C:
Cutting tool
Combustion device
Container
Cover
Cordage
Canvas needle
Candling
Cotton material
Cargo tape
Compass
They are intended to be the backbone of any survival kit or home prepper setup, in a handy list you can tick off when building one. One thing to bear in mind is that they have a significant bias towards Bushcraft in the woods so we created our own elements of survival which also takes into account modern / urban needs such as power.
Cutting tool
There are a few basic survival tasks you can accomplish easily with a cutting tool:
Cutting small branches for firewood
Creating a firestick to use for fire lighting
Cutting meat or vegetables for food
Sharpening two small sticks to use as chopsticks
Turning a Coke can into a small stove / alcohol stove / lamp
Repairing clothing, shoes or your bag in the field
Cutting a car seatbelt after a crash if it’s jammed shut
Various common tasks you need to work on when fishing or camping
Almost all of these survival tasks can be performed with just a small knife but cutting small branches for firewood is much easier with a small saw. Victorinox offer some excellent UK everyday carry (EDC) options but in other countries you may find you have far more choice.
Your choice of cutting tool will largely depend on the rules in your country, so read up on them before looking for one!
Combustion device
According to the Rule of Three you can only survive three days without water to drink. While there are many modern fancy ways of filtering and purifying water, using a container and fire to bring it to a rolling boil for a few minutes will get the job done.
Fire is also essential for keeping your core body temperature stable, cooking food, smoking food, drying wet clothes, signalling and keeping the local wildlife away in a survival situation.
The main ways you can start a fire:
Bic lighter
Stormproof matches
Ferrocerium rod (ferro rod)
Fresnel lens / magnifying glass
Flint and steel
Electrical spark
Chemical reaction
Battery + Aluminium foil / wire wool
Fire piston
Bow drill / hand drill
Fire plough
Following the “two is one & one is none” rule, because fire is such an important element of survival, it’s a good idea to have a quick / easy primary method of combustion and a backup in case the primary fails.
Of course it isn’t always that simple. It depends what sort of fuel you have available, whether you have the right tinder, how the fire is built, how cold it is and how wet it is. Read the ultimate fire starting guide for more info.
Container
In a survival setting containers might have to meet different criteria to be useful:
Withstand the heat from a natural gas hob, wood fire or charcoal / BBQ fire
Keep water in or out
Keep air in or out
Keep Infrared Radiation (IR) in or out
Let sunlight pass through
Lightweight and can fold down to a really small size
If you can only include four containers in your bag we recommend a Steel or lighter Titanium water bottle, a contractor trash bag, an Altoids tin and a 1 litre Ziplock bag:
Metal water bottle / canteen: Hold water, fire proof, boil water, cook food
Contractor trash bag: Collect items, hold water, mini tarp, debris bed, poncho, bag rain cover, flotation device to cross a body of water
Altoids tin: Hold small items, char material, mirror, hot plate
Ziplock bag: Hold water, UV purify water, keep air in /out, improvised fire starting lens
Most kits are built around a metal 32oz / 946ml single skin water bottle however there are almost infinite variations of the themes behind the choices above. Read the ultimate guide to survival containers.
Cover
“Cover” embodies a few core concepts:
Clothes you are wearing e.g. a hoodie
Clothes you have easy access to e.g. waterproof in your bag
Existing shelter around you e.g. a stone wall, building or a tree
Shelter you can make from items in your bag e.g. a tent, tarp, contractor bag or emergency “space” blanket
Shelter you can make from your surrounding e.g. a temporary shelter from trees or cardboard you have found
All of these help to protect you from aspects of your environment which are detrimental:
Extreme cold and heat
Rain / sleet / snow
Wind e.g. storms
Noise e.g. very high levels of industrial noise
Airborne particles e.g. smoke, dust in the air, viruses
On top of what you would normally wear it’s handy to have a spare layer for warmth and a spare layer to keep off the wind / rain, plus protection for:
Eyes e.g. sunglasses
Ears e.g. earplugs
Head e.g. baseball cap / beanie
Hands: e.g. gloves
Neck e.g. scarf, buff, Shemargh
Mouth e.g. N95 facemask, buff, Shemargh
In addition to your clothes, the first line of defence, it’s handy to have a emergency “space” blanket. These are made from a plastic sheet with a metallic coating to make one side super shiny. It’s often called a “space blanket” because it was invented by NASA.
They are lightweight, fold down into a very small package and the shiny side can reflect back over 90% of lost body heat. They are typically carried by ambulance crews, given to runners after a race, carried by hikers and included in survival kits.
You can wrap yourself in one to stay warm in a survival situation and the military use them for one side of a shelter to reflect the heat from a fire back into the shelter.
The best options are usually bright orange on the non shiny side. While this is useless from a stealth perspective, it does work as an excellent signalling device on the ground and can be easy to spot from the air. In a survival situation it is far more likely that you want to be found by rescuers than hide from everyone.
Cordage
Cordage, or lengths of cord / string, usually breaks down into these categories:
Rope e.g. 550 paracord (250kg / 550lbs breaking strength)
String e.g. #36 bank line (154kg / 340lbs breaking strength), Kevlar braided line (90kg / 200lbs breaking strength)
Fishing line e.g. Nylon monofilament (3.6kg / 8lbs breaking strength)
Thread e.g. cotton sewing thread (1kg / 2lbs breaking strength)
So what can you do with cordage? As it turns out, quite a lot!
Bushcraft: tying logs to make a shelter / Swedish torch / trapping game
Camping: securing a tarp / tent to create a shelter, lift items off the floor
Fishing: create a rod and line, landing net, gillnet
Day to day: spare shoelaces, fix clothing, fix a tarp, tie down a car boot, secure plants to poles
Medical: secure a broken arm with a sling, stitch up a wound with your needle
Check out the ultimate guide to survival cordage to find out more about it.
Canvas needle
So what is a canvas needle? Imagine a standard sewing needle, but much larger and longer. It allows the use of stronger and wider cordage to fix tarps, clothes and even bags in the field.
It can also be used to:
Create holes in things, for example a Coke can being turned into an alcohol stove
As a makeshift compass once the pointy end is magnetised by rubbing a metal object along it
To remove splinters, thorns and stings
Candling
Candling refers to a method of generating hands-free light, so you can see your surroundings in the dark and what you are working on with your hands. Having a candle in your kit is super handy, but is mostly used for extended burn time when fire lighting or to easily move fire from one location to another.
The most useful lighting option to carry is a good headlamp. It keeps your hands free, lights up the ground beneath you and makes it easy to see what your hands are currently working on.
As a backup a good torch is also handy, especially if it has a clip which allows easy mounting on a baseball cap. A torch offers directional light and makes a good backup headlight.
Cotton material
A good piece of cotton material has many uses:
A hat / scarf to keep heat in, bugs out or to create shade from the sun
A sweatband for your head
A sling
Something to sit on if the ground is hard / cold
A hobo style bag on a stick
A leaf / grass filled pillow
Charcloth made using a tin and fire to create easy to light fire starters
A pre-filter when collecting water from natural sources
An oven glove to pick up a hot pot from a fire
A tourniquet using a stick
It can easily be process down into smaller widths - anything from a bandage, to a makeshift sanitary pad or emergency toilet paper
The list really is endless and that’s why having a good sized piece of cotton material is so essential to survival. So what can you buy to tick this box?
The humble handkerchief is a good start, but a bandana is even better. It still fits in your pocket but offers more material and options.
For your bag a Shemargh is an excellent choice. Also known as a Keffiyeh, it is most associated with men of the Middle East, who wear it as a headdress. What you probably didn’t know is that the special forces love it, for all the reasons above.
It protects the head, neck, mouth, ears and nose from wind, sand and sun in extreme environments. It can flexibly be a hat, scarf, facemask or ear protection to suite the environment you find yourself in.
Cargo tape
Known as Duct Tape in the UK, this isn’t just tape. It’s basically a multitool in its own right. It’s also known as 100mph tape in the US military because it was used to repair helicopter rotor blades in the Vietnam War and could withstand winds up to 100mph.
Uses for Duct Tape are limitless but include:
Fixing tears in clothing, a tarp or a tent
Fixing leaks in liquid carrying containers
Bundling together small items
Makeshift bandaids using some cotton material or a splint using sticks
Creating a highly flammable tinder bundle
Processing it down into cordage
Making an improvised cup or sling strap for a bag
A comfy handle on tools made using Bushcraft
Creating a message on a rock / tree for others
Compass
A compass on its own is useful but ideally it should be accompanied by an OS map of your local area, a pen / pencil and at least some map reading skills.
They help you figure out where you are from local landmarks, navigate from point to point on foot and provide somewhere to mark waypoints:
Where you are and where you have been
Where you want to end up + steps en route
Useful or dangerous places you have discovered on the way
It’s recommend to choose a good quality compass with a built in mirror for signalling using sunlight.
The magnifying glass on the compass can also be used to focus sunlight for lighting fires, although this only works if it’s daytime and the sun is shining.