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How does one live off the land in today's day and age?

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Mesophilic:
This question is based on a thread in the Cave Man subforum.

Back in the late 80's, my stepbrother and I hatched a plan to spend a year living off the land.  Little did we know at the time that neither of us had the knowledge or skills to survive a few weeks let alone a year.  We scoured maps at the library and couldn't find 50 square miles in the lower 48 that wasn't criss crossed by asphalt, or a national monument/preserve that we felt would be a good location.  Needless to say we conveniently never got around to it.

So how does one live off the land in today's day and age?

I don't expect anyone to self incriminate on the internet, so let's just keep it hypothetical.

How does one do this and stay within the laws?

For example,  squatting on state, federal, or private land?  Or does one buy a plot of land?  And if so, wouldn't they need to be sufficiently wealthy to set up escrow for property taxes?

Does one take game when one sees it?  Or stay within hunting regs?  Not much game to feed a person year round in many states that can be taken without state permission.  Depending on the state, the lottery system means you may not even draw tags.  Could you survive on seasonal small game, birds, and fishing? 

How do you get by in the winter when foraging is nill?  Or do you migrate to warmer climates?  Do you plant in the growing season?  If you plant seeds not native to the area, are you still "living off the land"?

Maybe try your hand in Alaska?  But how do you do it there without modern products and supply lines?  All the shows on TV show these people using motorized vehicles of somesort...to check fish traps, snowmobiles for transportation and checking trap lines, modern rifles and ammo (need a supply line for bullets eventually).

Ultimately,  I just don't get how a truly "living off the land" scenario can play out legally and especially without a revenue source...and then is it still living off the land?

Russ:
now this is some my side of the mountain stuff! you go find your great, great, great, grandfathers land, and build yourself a house in a tree!  ::)

I know that there is land in Alaska where you dont need to own land but you can be there in a cabin for trapping, hunting and so forth.

GlisGlis:
In my opinion it is  impossible to live in a primitive way without crossing modern world rules
The more concessions you give to modern technology the more you are keeping apart from the true experience
there are simply too many humans and human artifacts and human influences to pretend to recreate a credible living off the land experience
on top of that there are maybe a handful of people that have all the skills needed to do it in a proper way
So many people underestimate the difficulties.
There are so many reports of true natives struggling and starving (Ishi and nanook to name a few) that should alarm every wannabe.

dylanholderman:
Honestly I feel the whole “living off the land all by myself” is a myth and always has been.
Yeah there where hunter gatherers (and there still is in some areas) but these where groups of 50-200 people, and even those groups didn’t live without contact from other groups.
How can a single person(or 2-3) have mastered every skill needed to survive long term?
Sure you could be pretty good at hunting/foraging but can you make clothes for every season from scratch?
What about tools that will last long term without breaking down?
How about knowing what plants are safe to eat and in what quantities?
How do you treat an injury alone in the bush with no medical knowledge?

One person living short term(1-2 years) off the land I can believe (there is more than enough examples in recent memory) but doing without any contact with the modern would be near impossible I think.

DC:
If you haven't watched "Alone" maybe take a look at their site. I think the longest anyone has lasted was about 85 days or so. The big things seems to be loneliness and starvation, in that order. Even in the one year when they had couples competing loneliness was a big factor. Hunting and trapping had poor results, fishing was marginally better. It's a very tough go although "Alone" is weighed against the competitor because they seem to start in the late fall which doesn't give you a chance to stock up on food for the winter. There was a British show where groups of people were sent out to survive and I think they did better but there was a lot of in fighting. That could have been reality show editing though.

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