Article Assignment #4

What to do when water runs out

Craig Macartney

Rating: ***

Imagine if you went out on a camping trip without enough water and didn’t know where the closest body of water is. What would you do?

                

This article talks about the variety of methods that you are able to collect water without having to find a body of water. All these methods are be able to be performed with little to none equipment in the middle of the woods or while you are enjoying your hike through the forest. The four methods are solar stills, plastic bags, mobile plastic bags and dew collection. Solar stills would be the most complicated of the four but does give you the most water. By digging a trench 1 meter wide by 1 meter deep, you are able to place your container in the bottom of the trench, place a plastic sheet over top of the hole and let the small space condense the water molecules and evaporate into your container. The second is plastic bags and mobile plastic bags. It is essentially the same thing except one is done stationary and one is done on the move. You take a bunch of no poisonous leaves and place them into a bag then tie the bag. One the bag is placed in the sun, it will evaporate the condensed water from the leaves and onto the bag every few hours or so you should have a sustainable amount of water to drink. And lastly dew collection. Dew collection can be done with clothes or a cloth. When temperatures drop overnight, the grass in the outdoors collects a substantial amount of dew which is already purified water. Take your clothes and soak up as much water as possible then suck out as much moisture as possible. Repeat this process until satisfied with the amount of water taken in. All of these methods are very self-sufficient and very simple.

                

This article showed me that if one day I do run out of water not knowing where the next big water source is while hiking, I will know how to find water quickly and efficiently. This is such an important thing to know because water is key to our survival. This has made me think about all the people that don’t know about these techniques and all the people that encounter these situations not knowing what to do and, if only they read a bit more they would know what to do and potentially save their own lives as well as others. I learnt about 4 unique (well more like 3) ways to accumulate substantial amounts of water very efficiently without having to be near a big water supply. This article is a true inspiration for my next hiking/camping trip, this will be vital to my safety if I will not be able to locate a body of water or even a small stream. This will make me now change my behavior in a sense that I will be more relaxed knowing that I will potentially never run out of water having me not worry of about dehydration and possible death of because of dehydration.

In conclusion, water is the most important element to our survival and now having these unique techniques to collect water, our survival rates have strongly shot through the roof without a question. I hope this article not only educates me but as well as everyone in the outdoor community.

Josh Thomas

Macartney, Craig. “Ottawa Outdoors Spring 2013.” ISSUU. N.p, n.d. Web. 31 May 2014. <http://issuu.com/ottawaoutdoors/docs/digitalissue-ottawaoutdoorsmagazine/16>