FIELDCRAFT SURVIVAL

FAR FROM TYPICAL SURVIVAL TRAINING, THIS OUTFIT HAS EVERYTHING YOU NEED.

Reuben Bolieu

"Fieldcraft" is an all-encompassing term for different outdoor skills pertaining to navigation, personal camouflage and concealment, first aid, combat casualty care and various survival aspects. Fieldcraft goes beyond that and includes mobility, firearms skills, effective observation, and escape and evasion techniques.

FIELDCRAFT SURVIVAL

Mike Glover is the owner and CEO of Fieldcraft Survival, located in Heber City, Utah. Reflecting the description of fieldcraft, Glover developed a training school that includes basic and specialized training on various types of self-defense, medical, fitness, mobility and wilderness survival. Fieldcraft Survival also offers videos on family preparedness, pistol/carbine and fitness programs on the digital option side of training.

Glover described Fieldcraft Survival as being a minority, 100 percent service-disabled, SOF, veteran-owned business. He started Fieldcraft Survival after his extensive military experience in the U.S. Army, specifically the Green Berets and Special Forces. He has a lot of experience working in austere environments. He earned a bachelor's degree in homeland security and surrounds himself with a very capable team that comprises Fieldcraft Survival staff.

"The company is composed of individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds in the military, survival, medical and overlanding communities," said Kevin Estela, Fieldcraft Survival's director of training.

It's definitely not a typical survival training school. There's also a "Fieldcraft Survival" podcast hosted by Glover that features the guys from Fieldcraft Survival speaking freely on survival, tactics, defense, gear, fitness, overlanding, military and more. All things regarding preparedness and survival from this podcast can be found on iTunes and Spotify.

SURVIVAL TRAINING

Why do we train? Do you know how to treat and care for wounds? Can you navigate beyond using only a GPS device? Can you properly protect yourself from the elements and provide cover, heat, hydration? Are you physically and mentally fit? Survival depends a great deal on a person's ability to withstand stress in emergency situations. Your brain is, without a doubt, your best survival tool. However, it, too, needs to be trained.

Estela is joined by regular assistant instructors, as well as guest instructors from common backgrounds. I've known Kevin for several years, and his rise to this position seems perfectly befitting. He heads the survival training portion for Fieldcraft Survival as a longtime instructor of wilderness education.

“As director of training, my job is to build the survival curriculum, as well as on-board and train survival instructors in the Fieldcraft way, coordinate with regional training facilities and build out the survival training program with new courses and more training opportunities," he explained.

What should you expect when you're thinking of taking a class with Fieldcraft Survival? Its website is easy to navigate. Simply clicking on the "Training” heading on the site takes you to various choices: All Training, Firearms, Survival, Medical, Mobility, Self-Defense, Events and Digital Options. Various titles pertaining to the current date appear. Selecting any title will take you to a page displaying the class title, date, price, SKU number, location and a simple “add to cart" button.

Under that is a brief class description. Required minimum equipment, a course time and location are clearly noted, as is contact information for any additional questions pertaining to the event. If you need to bring your own food, drinks and snacks, it's duly noted on the website.

A few classes I found to be totally unique and outside the box" started out with the Lost Proofing class, which highlights the art of knowing where you are at any given moment. This means that before you go into the wilderness, you've already researched the land/terrain you're about to face. This one-day land navigation class will teach you the skills you need to navigate in a wilderness with a map, compass and GPS and will include terrain features, map-reading, measuring distance and pace-counting.

Fieldcraft Survival's Wilderness Survival course will take your preparedness to the next step. It starts in the classroom and then moves to the woods, where students will put into practice the skills they learned. Heavy emphasis is placed on knife use and fire, all under the instructor's watchful eyes.

This strikes me as a standout course that covers survival mindset, building your survival kit, knot-tying, environmental conditions, constructing a shelter, building a fire, food and water procurement, prioritization of needs, packing a bugout bag and addressing austere medical considerations. Minimal gear is required for this class (a water bottle and metal cup to serve as a container for boiling water, 50 feet of paracord, a ferrocerium rod/lighter and a small, fixed-blade knife).