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What does survival really mean? Extreme weather outerwear specialist Canada Goose invited adventurers and wilderness experts MEGAN HINE and ALDO KANE to Portugal’s Azores archipelago to find out. ZANETA CHENG lived to tell the tale
"IT’S NOT ENOUGH to survive,” they say, “one has to thrive.” This maxim has always struck me as a bit bogus but I hadn’t quite been able to put my finger on why exactly – until I got the chance to sit down with Megan Hine and Aldo Kane, whose careers are living proof that survival is pretty damn impressive in and of itself. Between them, they’ve scaled the Himalayas, paraglided off cliffs in parts of the world I can only hope to visit, run away from hostile militia and braved the Amazon jungle, where, as Hine puts it, “everything wants to eat you or scratch you or bite you”. Kane has even managed to get himself out of an active volcano just as CO2 levels were beginning to get the better of him.
At a fundamental level, survival comprises food, water and shelter. “Get some fire going and find some water. Boil the water and eat. Essentially, if you can do that for one day, you could do that for 50. So, at the age of 13 or 14, knowing that I had to protect myself from the elements, build a shelter, [ get water] – we can go three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food,” says Kane of the basic skills the Boy Scouts taught him before he went on to join the British Marines and subsequently embark on his career as an explorer and expedition leader.
“For me it was much more about getting the skills that allowed me to go a bit further. If you know two or three different ways to achieve food, shelter and water, then you have the confidence that if something goes wrong, you can survive a bit longer,” Kane explains.
In the few days we’re grouped together on São Miguel, a volcanic island in the Azores that perhaps bears a slight resemblance to the wilds of Jurassic Park and where Canada Goose shot its spring/ summer 2023 campaign, Hine and Kane have been teaching us some of the basics. Take fire, for example. Fires can be started in the wild from the soft cottony material found under tree bark. If in a pinch, use tampons to start that flame. Or cotton wool.
Remember to always carry a lighter with you, Hine and Kane remind us. Vaseline is excellent for holding onto a fire, giving more time for the flame to catch and build. For the science geeks among us, metal wool and an alkaline battery create an instant flame when put in contact with one another.
“I think the advent of technology has made it easier for people to get outside but also easier for people to become stuck,” Kane explains. “My phone can have all the maps, but if the battery goes down then we all do. One of the basics to living in the open, though – and it’s not a tagline for me because I live in the open, that’s where I work – is to understand the environment and the seasons. Remember when I asked you all which way was north?