Summary

In Chapter 3: "Things That Hurt," Paulsen references his book Hatchet by detailing Brian’s struggle with insects. Before getting into the bulk of the chapter, Paulsen explains that it is possible to die in the wild, on land or at sea, and that people die all the time. Paulsen also explains that knowledge is more often secondhand than personally experienced, and that people seek to ignore the truth for the purposes of drama.

When younger, Paulsen saw a young buck strike a small child to death with his hooves at a petting zoo when the child pulled a mint away from the buck not far from a sign warning people not to feed the deer. Paulsen learned later the most deadly creature to man was the mosquito, even as only the female of the species bites. In Hatchet, Brian had to deal with mosquitoes...