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You're not going to survive on your own. At best you'll burn through your personal supplies REAL fast and have no way to really grow more in time. More likely you won't even survive the first cold night.
Similarly, people also underestimate just how easy it is to sneak up on people. Unless you plan to have a 24/7 watch AND understand how to keep on lookout at night (it is deceptively hard because of how quickly your pupils will re-constrict with even a bit of light), you just need one halfway competent person with a rifle to end your life and take all your shit.
Same with the idea that "my gun is going to deter people". How are they going to know who does and doesn't have a gun? The Bad People who salivate over this are going to assume EVERYONE is armed because guessing wrong means getting shot. Just play any Battle Royale/Extraction Shooter to see that in action. And unless you set up a giant perimeter to let everyone know where you are and that you are armed, it is going to be any other chance encounter as people likely follow the same thought process you did when you staked out your cabin in the woods. And if you DO have a giant perimeter... then they KNOW you are armed and probably have good stuff.
Like almost all things gun nut: it is all about fantasizing about some REALLY horrible shit if you break it down.
Like the other responder said ... I'm Indigenous Canadian and my parents were born and raised in the wilderness. I grew up learning how to hunt, trap and fish to live off the land. It doesn't mean I'll be comfortable or happy about it ... it just means I'll be more capable of surviving. My extreme 'end of the world' plan (which I do hope never happens) .. is to just pack up my truck, fill up with gas, food, equipment, tools and firearms and head north into the wilderness until the road ends and then just start from there. Then abandon the truck and the road and head further into the wilderness. I know how to live on my own out there to build and manage my own shelter using traditional methods and I doubt many or any people will end up anywhere near me in far northern Ontario.
"more capable" does not mean "capable"
Can you see the flaw with that plan?
Like I mentioned in the other branch: That is basically the only way that people in Global North communities CAN "live off the wilderness". There are so few people trying that the heavily depopulated forests and lack of farmable land matter less. And even then, most of those people tend to rely on going into town "every so often" for supplies.
But also? if we are actually in an apocalypse, you can bet that more than just you will think about those forests. And some of them will be as trained, if not moreso, than you and won't have abandoned all their supplies in a truck on the side of the road.
The guy you're replying to is a Native American. He grew up living off the land and knows how to survive, ~~no, thrive,~~ without the supports of agriculture. The only issue is actually finding any viable wilderness since pretty much all of it was destroyed long ago to feed people like you.
Whoa boy, not gonna touch the mysticism and Other bullshit with a ten foot pole.
But unless you already have a good chunk of farmland ready, you aren't going to survive the first winter. That is WHY communities (even the magical Native American ones) are so dependent on having ships and wagons FULL of supplies to survive that first winter because going from normal land to farmland is the better part of a year on its own.
That ALSO ignores that most farms are not actually self sufficient due to a mix of needing to cycle crops to keep the land fertile as well as needing alternative sources of food and energy (often livestock). The Magical Native Americans largely depended on animals like Buffalo and Deer to make up the latter and... yeah. And modern day "live off the land" folk tend to rely pretty heavily on odd jobs (or money from their parents) because actually surviving off foraging and wild animals just isn't feasible outside of VERY few regions. And even those mostly only work because it is one weirdo that the park rangers tend to look the other way for.
If OP has a community of like minded people? It is very doable. If OP is a lone gun nut hiding out in The Wilderness? Whatever level of fairly racist mystic fantasy you can think of won't help.
You are right on many of your points but the land we are talking about is the swamp lands of northern Ontario where my family were born and raised off of. My parents were born there in the wilderness and they learned to live on their own without much else. I was taught how to live there myself and I can be comfortable doing that again because I know how.
You are right about food scarcity. The land I'm talking about will only be sustainable to a small group of people that know how to live and follow the seasonal cycle of this part of the world. Extreme cold in the winter and clouds of biting insects in the summer. Food will be cyclical so one has to know how to prepare for every period of the year and how, when, where animals, fish and birds will be available and how to prepare and store them for times of shortages. My parents do have stories of being out there and having to live through famine when animals just disappeared from one reason or another.
All this doesn't guarantee my survival in this scenario ... it just means my chances would be higher than most other people.
Ah, well then. If it is your land then I am SURE that nobody else would think of trespassing on it After The Fall.
Which requires a lot more supplies to survive The First Winter. Like I said.
And it ALSO assumes nobody is going to come and fuck up your ecosystem during the summer/fall. Doesn't matter if THEY die that first winter, they already made sure you will too.
Higher doesn't mean successful.
And I would very much say, without any more info, that you are vastly overestimating your own chances on your own (especially since it sounds like your parents had a community or at least each other and you only learned how as part of a community with them) AND underestimating all the (I don't know the Canadian equivalent. Probably Canadian Tire since that is the everything store?) REI-chic folk who have been learning this as a hobby and will probably also make it pretty far into that first winter before, hopefully, making their way back to "society" in an attempt to scavenge there with the rest of people.
It's just a conversation and discussion at this point ... you are right, survival out there is very questionable as it is very difficult without the right knowledge.
But I grew up learning how to do it all from my father who was a life long hunter and trapper. When he was in his prime, in his 20s and 30s, as well as other men like him ... they were famous for leaving the community (or family group) with nothing but an axe, a knife and some basic warm clothing (meaning a jacket and a few layers or pants and shirts and coverings for the head, hands and feet) (you have to imagine them being dirt poor in the 1950s and 1960s). Dad would often comment to me about modern parkas and warm clothing - he never had anything like it when he was young and survived with nothing but a thin jacket and many layers of clothing, furs and hides. They would leave in the fall just before freeze up and the start of winter and be on their own. Then arrive mid winter back to main camp with a supply of furs and frozen food. Furs and hides they prepared themselves, food from the animals they killed, snowshoes they made themselves from trees from the land and sinew from animals, sleds they built themselves and then later in the summer birch bark canoes they built with nothing but what was available on the land.
Like I said .... none of this means surviving is guaranteed ... it just means that with knowledge, capability and plenty of hard work ... the chances are higher than for most.
And the keyword you neglected is
A community of like minded people, with sufficient supplies to make it through The First Winter, is potentially going to survive. A lone individual who figures "My dad survived out here in the 50s with just cardboard boxes for shoes when he was walking uphill, both ways, in the snow. The fuck you talking about 'climate change'?" is not.
All of which gets back to the idea that a gun is going to help at all in those scenarios which, once again, gets back to how easy it is to actually sneak up on people (within 200 meters is an easy shot with a rifle. especially if someone has an optic) or the simple logistics of keeping watch while doing all of this Survival.
Your comments are good but don't apply. No one would go foraging in the swamplands of northern Ontario. He knows how to survive where others wouldn't bother to look.