Category: Survival Knives

This is the first of a two-part series with survival expert Creek Stewart.  Tomorrow, Creek will be sharing his tips on picking out the perfect survival knife.  We’ll also be giving away a BlackBird SK5 — Creek’s primary survival knife — to one lucky reader along with two copies of his book.  Scroll to the bottom of the article to learn how to enter.

“I like to live what I preach,” said 36-year-old survival instructor Creek Stewart across a cafeteria table at the Cobb Galleria during the 2013 Blade Show. “I don’t just put survival instructor on my resume.”

A few minutes of conversation with Stewart, who founded and operates Willow Haven Outdoor survival school in Indiana, quells any doubts about his survival chops.

The former Boy Scout turned survival guru and bestselling author rarely goes anywhere without his “Get Home Bag,” a pack full of items ranging from energy bars to a Leatherman that ensures he’ll get home safely if disaster strikes.

At the Blade Show, he was wearing a BlackBird SK5 in a leather sheath on his hip and also had a Leatherman and a Spyderco knife in tow.

But what makes Stewart stand out from the pack isn’t his gear, but his survival philosophy. It’s a blended approach, which he calls “prima-modern,” that utilizes both modern tools and primal survival skills to meet the four core basic needs: shelter, water, fire and food.

A Passion for the Outdoors

An Eagle Scout at 14, Stewart grew up on a farm and developed a strong appreciation for both nature and self-reliance skills at an early age.  When he was in college, he wrote and self-published a guide on survival that he sold to the Boy Scouts.  He began teaching survival courses at 21, but without a full time facility was limited to mostly one day courses in his area.

Then about 4 years ago, he purchased Willow Haven Outdoor, a 21-acre survival school replete with a 10,000 square foot lodge.  Stewart now hosts 1-day and 3-day courses every year from May until November and said he serves a huge range of attendees, from 10-year-olds to 80-year-olds.  The approach at Willow Haven is somewhere in the middle in terms of intensity and Stewart said he’s developing a niche for instructing families.

“There’s one extreme where people come to a survival course and expect to strip down to a leather thong and only take their knife into the woods with them for seven days and starve, then there’s the classroom survival stuff — we’re perfectly in the middle,” he said.

In a typical class, students will receive hands on instruction to learn between three to five survival skills from each of the core four survival areas.

In addition to teaching, Stewart has also taken his survival skills to the literary world.  He recently published the Unofficial Hunger Games Wilderness Survival Guide, which provides step-by-step instructions on how to perform many of the survival skills utilized by characters in the “Hunger Games.”

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The Cutting Edge recently spoke with Leon Pantenburg, who runs the fantastic site Survival Common Sense and teaches survival courses, on what makes a good survival knife. To learn more indispensable survival skills, check out his site.

1. What are the traits of a good survival knife?

It depends on the person and where you are. In the wilderness I would want a non-folder, fixed-blade knife with a good sheath and want the blade to be between 4 to 6 inches long. I don’t want a serrated edge, I don’t want a gut hook, and I don’t want a handle that’s going to be slippery because this knife will be called upon to do a myriad of things.

Also, it’s critical that it’s lightweight and compact because otherwise it won’t be carried. It doesn’t matter how good of a piece of equipment it is. If it’s back in the car because it’s too heavy, then it does you no good.

2. Do you think a straight edge, serrated or partially serrated blade is best?

I don’t like serrated for a number of reasons. One, their value is limited. They’re good for sawing ropes and that’s pretty much it. Two, once they get dull, most people can’t sharpen them without special equipment. Three, the serrated edge takes away a good chunk of your knife’s usefulness because you can’t really slice with a serrated edge. Generally, I don’t see any value that warrants taking an inch or two from your blade to have serrations on it. I must point out that most of these survival knives are designed by people who work in cubicles and don’t use the equipment.

3. For those who might not know, is there a difference between a survival knife and a combat or tactical knife?

This whole tactical thing is a joke. They take a knife, blacken the blade and call it a tactical knife. In reality, a tactical knife with a blackened blade is only useful if you’re sneaking up behind someone in the dark or some fantastic situation that’ll never happen. If you look at World War II knives that were actually tactical, they weren’t all camoed up. If you look at a Marine KA-BAR knife, which was a standard tactical or combat knife, it looked like a normal knife. I never heard of anyone getting shot because someone saw their knife.

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Movies provide us with a variety of long-lasting cultural tidbits, from famous quotes to iconic costumes. However, some movies have knives that transcend the fantasy of the big screen and enter the commercial market because of their overall impressiveness. That’s why I’ve decided to create a top 5 list of most memorable movie knives.

While there are many notable knives that appear on the big screen, I’ve decided to make this list only include knives (swords will get their own list) that have become so iconic that they are now commercially available. If you think other knives deserve to be on the list, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section. Here we go.

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When I arrived in Thailand last month, I only received a 30-day tourist visa. It expired this week and in order to renew it, I had two options: either trek 14 hours to Laos and hit up the Thai embassy for a 60-day visa or take a 3-hour jaunt to the Burma border, walk across for 30 minutes and be granted an automatic 15-day extension upon my return.

I chose the latter.

The border connects the Thai village of Mae Sai with the Burmese town of Myawaddy, which has a lively market that is occasionally jolted by bombs set off by Burmese rebel groups.

It’s a good place to buy  DVDS, watches, clothes, electronics and pretty much everything under the sun for a fraction of the price it would cost you in the West. While stumbling through the myriad stalls, I came across a woman selling knives.

She had a little selection of tactical knives, most of which seemed outrageously cheap.  I ended up buying a Dark Ops Stratofighter Stilleto, which retails for $250 for 500 baht ($15).

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