I recently read a book on human “rewilding,” the idea that modern, first-world peoples should learn ancestral survival skills, such as foraging for food, making friction fires, hunting and breaking down animals to make use of meat, bones, skin, building shelter, etc. I’m not going to name the book or the author because I don’t want to seem like I am pointing fingers at anyone in particular, but as a disabled person I came away with a lot of concerns.
A major theme of the book is that climate change is coming, and it may very well be devastating to modern culture. We will need to have these survival skills, otherwise the human race may not carry on very well. It also argues that the kind of survivalism that’s popular now, the bushcraft in which a solo person, usually a white able-bodied man, treks out into the wilderness on their own and survives for some length of time, isn’t sustainable for human culture.
Most people can’t do everything needed to survive: build structures, hunt and forage, cook food, make and repair clothing, etc., especially if they’re alone and become ill or injured. Humans have traditionally lived in groups or small villages, where everyone worked together to keep their community afloat. Don’t get me wrong; I have spent hours watching dudes on YouTube dig and build their own shelters in the woods, and part of me wishes I could do that, too. But it’s not a strategy for long-term success as a species.
But let me go back to the book for a moment. The author briefly mentions that learning and using early-human survival skills might not be available or accessible to everyone, particularly the ill or disabled. They touch on it, but quickly move on. So where does that leave the many of us who rely on daily medications, treatments and regular access to healthcare?
Let’s say we go through a climate apocalypse. Absolutely, there are plant medicines that can treat a wide range of illnesses and chronic conditions, but even they can only go so far. What will humankind do to help people who need dialysis, insulin, respirators, cancer treatment, or other life-maintaining medical care?
Lamar Johnson as Henry and Keivonn Woodard as Sam in HBO’s “The Last of Us.”
I know HBO’s “The Last of Us” is fiction, but I can’t help thinking about the brothers, Henry and Sam, and how Henry became an informant to the federal police in exchange for leukemia treatment for Sam. Maybe our future won’t be so dystopian, but I do wonder if my life, post-climate catastrophe, will involve hoarding meds or taking desiccated pig thyroid and berberine which, I guess, is available in a wide range of plants. And will I have to take care of that on my own, or will the larger culture be willing to provide for its disabled and ill?
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, disabled and chronically ill folks led the way in terms of masking, socializing online, and mutual aid. Even before most lockdowns started, disability activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha put together a guide called “Half Assed Disabled Prepper Tips for Preparing for a Coronavirus Quarantine,” which covered how to store two weeks’ worth of water; how to stock up on shelf-stable foods; power and fuel; sanitation and medical supplies; and much more. Piepzna-Samarasinha released their book “The Future is Disabled” in October 2022, asserting that the future is going to have disabled people in it, no matter what that future looks like. And indeed, after three and a half years of Covid-19 and Long Covid, more people are disabled now on this side of the pandemic. For most people, particularly as we age, disability is an inevitability.
Disabled and chronically ill people have a variety of survival skills in their tool boxes that non-disabled, non-ill people largely don’t have. So it’s frustrating to see a book on rewilding and survival written with almost no consideration for those perspectives, especially a book written during a global pandemic that disabled 1 in 13 of those who contracted Covid-19.
Regular readers know that I often return to the intersection of disability and access to nature. I wrote about it after I read Robert Macfarlane’s “The Old Ways” early last year. I returned to it, internally, when reading Sharon Blackie’s “If Women Rose Rooted,” in which she describes leaving cities and the corporate world behind in favor of a series of remote homesteads that, while peaceful and restorative, required a lot of physical labor to survive in, and a lot of travel to connect with things only available in urban centers.
It’s great to talk and write about the ways in which rural life or nature trekking is healing to the human body and mind, but you have to think about who might actually benefit most from having such opportunities — and the many barriers keeping those people, in particular, from accessing such a life. I often wonder if I’d be less chronically ill if I could live in a more remote, woodsy or “natural” environment, but it’d be a gamble finding out.
Another YouTuber I enjoy a lot is Kalle Flodin, who lives in a cabin in a Swedish forest. He gets his water from a pond on his property (though he has to break the ice in winter), and he’s lucky to be able to grocery-shop nearby and have neighbors who help him with large-scale projects. But his is clearly a physically arduous life of building and maintaining structures, dragging heavy objects up his long driveway when delivery people won’t drive up it, etc. His videos are idyllic and calm, but a recent one asked, “What if More People Lived Like This?”
Images courtesy Kalle Flodin.
I commented that his lifestyle isn’t available to all of us. One commenter replied to me, “I live with numerous chronic illnesses alone in the forest.” But when I asked them how, they just said “healthy living,” adding that they didn’t need to see doctors very often. They said, “I find that worrying about health makes health worse — so I don't. It simply is what it is. I recommend that approach.” I replied, “Many of us would die if we followed that advice.” And then they said, “If you need a doctor every week, simply live close to one,” which pretty much proved my point.
The conversation in my mind is joined by other books, including “The Hidden Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben. In the book, he writes about the complex ways in which trees communicate with one another, including through underground mycelial networks and chemicals released into the air. The air in forests benefits humans, too; it’s richer in oxygen and it’s cleaner, because the trees act as huge air filters. Some trees release phytoncides, which kill germs in the air and soil.
It seems as though all humans could benefit from more time among trees, particularly forests or even small, naturally formed woodland areas (trees planted in forestry contexts often can’t communicate with or look out for each other). But I wonder whether natural, wooded environments wouldn’t be especially beneficial to people whose nervous and immune systems are off the rails, whether through trauma/oppression or illness or both. In other words, could disabled and chronically ill people benefit even more from living closer to the land? And if so, how do we open up conversations and skill-building around survivalism and rewilding to include these considerations?
Is there a way to create rural, nature-filled communities where people can live off the land, not have to trek for miles on aching legs to secure food or water, maintain access to life-sustaining medications and treatments, and meet with a range of medical experts who can diagnose hard-to-pin-down chronic ailments? Is there a way to make the world of rewilding and climate-survivalism truly accessible — and also welcoming to people with different abilities and needs?
I don’t know the answer. Some ancient humans sacrificed disabled community members — and others with certain medical conditions, or even simple infections, wouldn’t have survived before the advent of antibiotics and other modern treatments. I don’t think we have to go back to that. But I also hope that it won’t just be up to disabled and chronically ill people to determine how we will survive in the future.