Every timeline in the biome chapters is written as if it all began today. But the day you found yourself alone shapes your task more than the biome does. The same forest in May and in November is two different guides: in May you are setting up a routine, in November you are counting the days to the frosts.
The year as a circleeach season has one main task
Spring — the most deceptive season
It looks easy: warmth, greenery, water everywhere. In truth spring is more dangerous than autumn.
What it givesThe first greens: nettle, dandelion, young shoots. Birch sap from a cut in the bark — once the sap starts running, before the leaves appear. Birds' eggs. Fish spawning.
What makes it dangerousSpring flooding — rivers rise within hours, and a camp on the floodplain is washed away. Thin ice — spring ice looks deceptively solid. Ticks — its most active period. Night frosts after a warm day.
The main taskGet through to settled warmth without losing your feet and without getting wet. Last year's stores are finished and this year's have not grown yet — this is the hungriest time of the year, not winter.
What not to doDo not camp right beside the water. Do not cross rivers or ice. Do not count on greenery before it has actually appeared.
Summer — the time to build, not to rest
What it givesMaximum light: 16–18 working hours a day. Warmth in which a mistake does not cost your life. Food becomes predictable.
What makes it dangerousHeat and dehydration. Insects — mosquitoes and midges wear you down more than you would expect. Thunderstorms. Forest and grass fires. Meat and fish spoil within hours.
The main taskEverything permanent gets built now: shelter, stove, traps, containers, tools. In summer you are buying your winter — and that is the only currency you have.
What not to doDo not live day to day. "There is plenty of food" in summer is not a measure but a trap: it is in a well-fed summer that February's hunger is decided.
Autumn — the season that decides everything
If this guide had to name one month it was all written for, it would be September. In autumn nature hands over a whole year's harvest, and then closes down for six months.
FoodNuts, acorns (they must be leached or boiled — otherwise they are bitter and harmful), roots, late berries. Animals have put on fat, and this is the best time to hunt.
PreservingDrying, smoking, salting. A cold pit or a cellar in the shade of a north-facing slope. Everything you put by has to be dry and hung up — otherwise the mice and the mould get it.
FirewoodLaid in during autumn, not in winter. The rule of thumb is three times more than seems necessary, and next to the shelter, not half an hour's walk away through snow.
InsulatingGaps, bedding, a second wall, a stock of conifer boughs. The jobs that look optional in summer turn out in December to have been the only ones that mattered.
The autumn rule. Assume that after the first settled frosts you will gather nothing and build nothing — you will only spend. Anything not done before that day does not get done in winter. That is exactly why "Weeks 2–4" in the biome chapters look unhurried: they are unhurried only if you have a summer ahead of you.
Winter — not a season of gathering but of spending
What it givesAnimal trails show in the snow and are predictable, so traps work better than in summer. Meat does not spoil. Water is plentiful. There are no insects and no snakes.
What makes it dangerousFive to seven hours of daylight. Every job costs twice as much in strength and in food. Wet clothing becomes lethal. There is no plant food at all.
The main taskNot to spend more than you stored, and not to get wet. In winter it is not the active one who wins but the sparing one: an extra journey, an extra trip out, extra sweat — all of it a straight loss.
RhythmWork in daylight, sleep long. A long sleep in winter is not laziness but a way of burning fewer calories. This is the one case where doing nothing is useful.
If it all began in late autumn or in winter
The honest scenario, and it is a hard one: there is nothing to store and no time to store it, and warmth is months away. The order of priorities changes.
What to do if you started at the wrong end of the year
Warmth and shelter instead of everything else. Not traps, not containers, not tools — a warm place and a stock of firewood. All the rest waits until February.
Move while you still can. If there is any chance at all of reaching people or moving to a gentler biome, winter is the case where "stay put" stops being automatically best. Decide in the first few days, while you still have the strength.
Protein and fat. There will be no plant food. Set traps on the trails, look for fish under the ice, and do not throw away fat or bone marrow.
Count the daylight. Anything that has to be done is done before dark. Working in the dark in winter means sweat, injuries and lost belongings.
No heroics. In winter the price of a single mistake is not discomfort but frostbite. Slowly, in several goes, with rests.
Where there are not four seasons
The tropics: instead of winter and summer there is a dry season and a wet one. The wet season (the monsoon) means daily downpours, risen rivers, no way to dry out and a surge in disease; the dry season is the time to build, dry and store. The logic is the same as with autumn: everything permanent is done in the dry season.
The desert: here the season is the day itself. By day you hide, by night you work and travel. On the other hand the desert turns milder in winter, and the nights become genuinely cold, down to frost.
The Arctic: polar day and polar night replace the seasons entirely. Through the polar day people work almost round the clock; through the polar night they keep to an artificial routine (see "Your mind").
The southern hemisphere: everything is shifted by six months — January there is high summer, July is winter. If you are looking at the map on the front page and planning a move across the equator, keep that in mind.