Manu Tranquard is a professor at the Outdoor Intervention Teaching Unit at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (Quebec, Canada) and Director of the Outdoor Research and Expertise Laboratory (OREL). His main research work concerns survival in the boreal forest and advanced autonomy in remote areas.
Manu is also a professional guide in adventure tourism (CQRHT) and guide-interpreter for more than 20 years, wilderness survival instructor, wildlife management technician, marine kayak instructor and outdoor ethics instructor.
After studying literature, history and law up to the doctorate, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Outdoor and Adventure Tourism, then a PhD in Ecotourism Project Engineering in 2013. Currently a doctoral student in Anthropology, Manu is also an entrepreneur and acts as a consultant and expert for audiovisual productions and projects related to survival, bushcraft and the outdoors.
At OREL, Manu’s credo is to develop a science of survival. The main objective of his research projects is to study the management of critical situations in remote areas using a rigorous scientific approach; and using this approach to develop methodological and technical tools to increase the autonomy of users of Canada’s natural territory.
He has been working for many years now to address the essential questions relating to survival in the boreal forest (human resistance, technical know-how, accident dynamics, decision-making mechanisms in high criticality situations, etc.) according to a scientific methodology and a systematic approach, using analytical tools from the fields of human physiology, psychology, ethnography, sociology, and outdoor intervention.
His latest research projects concern:
- Evaluation of the effectiveness of makeshift techniques for obtaining fire in a survival situation
- Technical evaluation of the thermal efficiency of the Canadian Armed Forces survival shelters
- Fire optimization in survival situations: cross-analysis of the effectiveness of existing technologies and available wood species in the boreal forest
- Inventory of edible plants of the boreal forest and multi-criteria analysis of its actual utility potential in survival situations
- Wilderness survival: analysis of essential tools and equipment recommended by North American professionals
- Principles of selection, use and maintenance of outdoor equipment
- Co-development of a survival decision-making protocol (SERA model)
- Development of a diagnostic self-assessment tool for individual survival potential in the forest (PSF tool)
Having first met Manu at the Global Bushcraft Symposium in 2019, we are very much looking forward to hearing more from him at the GBS in 2022.