Hobbies And Interests
Hunting and Food Gathering
Food and water are critical to survival; ensure you have these and you might just survive the elements. In extreme circumstances, hunting for food can become essential and, aside from simply using a knife to directly catch prey, fashioning hunting tools provides other -- often more successful -- techniques to capture prey. You can carve spears and make slings or bows and arrows, assuming you have some sort of fishing line. You can make fish hooks, leads and even trapping devices out of sticks. The animals and fish you catch can be skinned and butchered with a good survival knife as well.
Fire Building
Simply rubbing two sticks together to create a fire just isn't going to cut it. On the other hand, a knife and a magnesium flint stick may just be the answer to building a full-fledged fire. Scraping a magnesium flint stick with a knife creates sparks. Surrounding these sparks with dry leaves and a pile of wood can be one of the best ways to start a fire when you don't have matches or a lighter handy.
Protection
Knives offer a variety of protection methods. They can fashion shelters out of basic branches and twigs. You can circumvent attacks from wild animals by constructing traps or larger weapons using a knife. A common, but often forgotten, trick with knives is using them for their reflective abilities. A polished knife can be used to reflect the sun, potentially signaling someone far away.
First Aid
A knife covers the most basic element of a first aid kit. If a knife is readily available, you can cut strips of cloth for use as tourniquets or home-made splints. Gathering medicinal herbs and plants -- assuming you have a prior knowledge of these things -- requires a reliable knife to cut through bark and stems. If you're lucky enough to have a very versatile survival knife -- such as a Swiss Army Knife -- then you may have an assortment of extra tools, such as a saw, scissors, tweezers, and compass.