I recently purchased The Ultimate Survival Manual, Canadian Edition at a local discount store, and I have to say that I sincerely hope I never have to rely on this book to get myself out of a jam.
Most of the info in it is either about prep work (important, but not always possible) such as filling a discarded coffee cup with paraffin and cotton balls to start fires, and non-survival issues such as finding medical attention if you are injured. No smurf. Really?
I mean, I am all for finding proper medical help when injured, but then I am also about going to the grocery store when I am hungry, or turning up the thermostat if I get chilly. These aren't exactly survival things. Imagine for example that you are several day's hike from any kind of help, yo have no cell service and you broke your Personal Locator Beacon in the same fall that you gashed open your leg in, and, feeling confident because you brought this book, you open it up to see what you should do and it says "wash wound with soap and water then seek professional medical attention."
In that case, these become your problems:
problem #1, you don't have any soap,
problem #2, any water sources are just as likely to contain harmful bacteria as the thing that cut you,
problem #3 is you probably aren't carrying enough water to waste on the cut because you are bleeding badly and hydration is that much more important now
problem #4, if medical attention was readily available you wouldn't need this book
problem #5, if you don't do something soon, the blood will start to attract animals you don't want to attract
problem #6, gangreen is developing as you flip through the book, looking for answers....
So much more wrong with it, but you get the idea. Other things I found amusing were "How to deal with a lion attack" which to totally something that you need to include in every Canadian Edition survival manual, since there are lions everywhere here, and you really don't want to be caught unaware!
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