Many different people survive in different ways. Surviving depends on facing your fears or problems and overcoming them. A survivor is a person who survives by remaining in existence, continues to exist, or continues to function. A survivor is also a person who survives physically or emotionally. Sometimes a person or character must also adapt to survive. A few ways to survive is to have knowledge of your environment or natural resources or knowing what the problem or fear is before it occurs. If the person or character was unable to overcome his or her fear or life-threatening problem they would not survive. Different people in difficult situations survive in different ways by either using knowledge of the environment or natural resources, being informed of your problem or fear before it occurs, being able to adapt when things change, or by just not being able to overcome your fears or problems and not surviving.
The two boys in the novel Lost in the Barrens, by Farley Mowat, survived by using their knowledge of the environment and natural resources. The two boy's names were Jamie Macnair and Awasin Meewasin. The boys survived in the cold and bare Barrens of northern Canada. Awasin was part of a Woodland Cree tribe and Jamie moved in with his uncle, Angus Macnair, at the age of nine, when his parents died. Both boys grew up close to the outdoors so they both knew a lot about their environment. Little did they know that this knowledge would help them later in life. Jamie and Awasin went with the Chipeweyans to help them get food, but on the way their canoe smashed on a rock and sank and stranded them in the Barrens. When the canoe sank all they had was a rifle, "a hatchet, the tea-billy, a frying pan, blankets, some deerskin robes, a fishline, part of a fish net, and other oddments of camp equipment."(Mowat 48) The first major problem the boys had to overcome was their need for heat and fire.