Bushcraft - what?

[Davee]

Bush/field/street craft is being as one with the environment you are in. I am comfortable in the bush and field, and hate being on a Johannesburg/London/Sydney street. This is acquired from experience and mentor-ship, over time. Survival skills is the ability to overcome a disaster, a plane crash, sinking boat or being the hunted rather than the hunter. For the latter think of SAS or SBS type of training. Neither of these can be learnt on a week-end course. Try waving a piece of paper at a charging Lion whilst hunting, or the Amazon Jungle after a plane crash, if you survive rather use it to clean up! It is also a state of mind.
Try getting through Airport security with all those 'survival' gizmos in your pockets.
TV survival programs are a farce, as there is always a back-up plan, but they sell, as do the w/e courses, and many erroneously believe in them. The Pace brothers Into the Wilderness films are more realistic, but that is bushcraft not survival.

 

[Dovebob]

Bushcraft describes carrying out any countryside activity whilst wearing clothes and using equipment which is predominantly green.

For example, a person might go for a walk in the woods with their binoculars and a little stove to make a brew. If that person is wearing a blue waterproof coat and carrying a black rucksack they are rambling, birdwatching and perhaps mushroom picking.

The same person doing the same thing, but wearing a green coat and carrying a green rucksack, is doing Bushcraft.

 

[Pedro]

Bushcraft is knowing which direction to take a whizz in when the wind is blowing.

Obviously means different things to different people.

 

[User00035]

Survival is staying alive in the wilderness when you're in trouble. Bushcraft is how to exist in the wilderness without getting into trouble in the first place. Though we haven't got any wilderness in the UK, certainly none that your likely to have to yourself for more than five minutes.

I'm afraid the whole thing makes me cringe a bit these days. I like the idea of wild self-sufficiency but its such an industry, so many wannabes, overgrown boy scouts and urban escapists jumping on a very lucrative bandwagon. And a hell of a lot of very average gear at extraordinary prices.

 

[Cootmeurer]

I liked Pedro's summation "countryside equivalent of street smarts" or something close to that.

I would add, it is looking at the countryside in a positive light, not as something scary, but like an old familiar place that brings comfort. A place where you can read the signs as simply as many folks read a menu in a restaurant. And also a place that is full of wonder and amazement, even when you already know most things.

I can still remember seeing that wonder and amazement in a bunch of military cadets I took out for survival training on a rainy night. None would quit, but some were miserable and counting the hours till it was over while others were absolutely giddy with excitement when successfully got a fire going in a solid downpour. For those few, they crossed a bridge and began to see the woods as place of wonder.

 

[mchughcb]

I love this guy. Check out how many squirrels required to feed yourself and your family.

 

[mchughcb]

Okay so lets have a look at real bushcraft.

 

[Moray Outfitting]

One of the highest read threads we've done for a while. Love it or loathe - it's striking some kind of resonance with people.

Some great, pithy and concise summations of my own views, some a bit 'giddy', a fair amount of ' disregards the question, this is my view' and the ( literal ) odd tin foil hat brigade. All interesting - its a talking point and its staying polite.

Stereotyping is coming through a fair amount - and I rase it not perjoratively against SD members, but in slight humour because I see Bushcraft forums display the same stereotyping aganist 'shooters'. More in common than separates?

Interesting that at the same time as elevating the positives of Bushcraft to a wider audience - with an oft stated and I believe genuine intent of education and through that getting folk to value the wilder places etc - this has also led to commercialisation/ sensationalism that is at the root of a lot of the negative perceptions.

Too that survival and bushcraft are oft perceived as one and the same as opposed to one being possibly an element of the other.

Keep it up guys - interesting reading.

 

[Hornet]

I too find it a slightly cringe worthy term,it smacks of townies dressed in expensive kit carrying equally expensive kit like "bushcraft knives" and "bushcraft axes" and carrying a couple of pounds of that old essential paracord, and being relieved of their cash by a "bushcraft instructor" at the weekend in a rather controlled environment, but hey its their money and time I guess, and there are worse things for people to do at the weekend for sure, when I was a lad, we just called it going down the woods, or out with the air rifles, you just learned as you went along, but it makes people money nowadays.

 

[User00035]

You know what the airsoft sections are like at Gamefairs? Walts wondering about in full camo gear? Add a bandana and you've got the urban "bushcraft" enthusiast.
Who knew you needed a hydration pack to walk across a couple of fields?

 

[Moray Outfitting]

Qed?

 

[bowji john]

I had no idea my profession was viewed in such a jaundiced manner

I'm not surprised though as there are too many wallys with very limited knowledge selling 'boy scouty' skills to kids and the naive

There is however a very rich knowledge base to explore within this field so don't be too quick to dismiss it

Likewise - those that think that they grew up in the country and can learn nothing new......

I too thought like that. African bred I thought the Brits were a bunch of pussies that had no idea what the great outdoors was all about

Turned out I was wrong - I have learned more about nature from you lot than I ever learned in Africa

However it takes effort ....

You can no more learn about nature and the oudoors simply by living in it than you can get an education by just sitting in the school classroom

You have to seek knowledge out

It is easy to think you know it all until you start actually learning about what others have to offer

 

[mchughcb]

Say good sir, are you a bushman?

 

[JohnT]

I will admit that during my Outdoor Education days that I was guilty of delivering what I believe to be "pseudo bushsurvivalsortofstuff" to impressionable young persons. Simply because I was told what to teach by the Authority paying the bills. I did always manage to include (to a greater or lesser degree) some topics that seemed to engage their interest.

My personal interest stemmed from a fascination and involvement in ancient technology, if you will, how our ancestors got by. I do consider that a goodly proportion of those making money from this industry are only involved for the profit and of a Walter Mitty persuasion.

True ancient technology is, at one and the same time, both absorbing and truly amazing, even more so when one considers that this technology was once the everyday common knowledge that allowed our forebears to exist in order to produce modern society. That is the type of "bushcraft" or "survival skills" that is worth studying. It is also the knowledge that, as BJ says, must be learned as it can't be taught.

 

[bowji john]

Say good sir, are you a bushman?

No - but I'd sure like to spend a few months with one

 

[bowji john]

I will admit that during my Outdoor Education days that I was guilty of delivering what I believe to be "pseudo bushsurvivalsortofstuff" to impressionable young persons. Simply because I was told what to teach by the Authority paying the bills. I did always manage to include (to a greater or lesser degree) some topics that seemed to engage their interest.

My personal interest stemmed from a fascination and involvement in ancient technology, if you will, how our ancestors got by. I do consider that a goodly proportion of those making money from this industry are only involved for the profit and of a Walter Mitty persuasion.

True ancient technology is, at one and the same time, both absorbing and truly amazing, even more so when one considers that this technology was once the everyday common knowledge that allowed our forebears to exist in order to produce modern society. That is the type of "bushcraft" or "survival skills" that is worth studying. It is also the knowledge that, as BJ says, must be learned as it can't be taught.

Yeh I'm in awe of the skills and artistry some people have brought to the field of ancient technology. I lack the talent for it but a couple of my colleagues have taken leather work, carving and bow making to almost high art.

One guy in particular who was a professional restorer of Stubbs, Rembrant and the like for the Brit museum has now turned his hand to carving - his work is extraordinary.

I'm lucky if I can carve a decent spoon

Below are examples of his carvings..... (the gloves from a single block of wood)

 

[JohnT]

Don't sell yourself short. You, also, have skills of which some would be in awe.

(My last longbow I traded for a course of six sessions with a personal trainer at the gym for SWMBO. I still don't know who was most impressed).

 

[bowji john]

Don't sell yourself short. You, also, have skills of which some would be in awe.

(My last longbow I traded for a course of six sessions with a personal trainer at the gym for SWMBO. I still don't know who was most impressed).

Good one - all mine snap !!

 

[JohnT]

not a bit of it!

Despite her age she is still quite bendy

 

[bowji john]

What do you use ash, red oak ?

I have a couple of ash long bows that still shoot out to 200 m even after several years

My favourite one I was in too much of a hurry to demonstrate one christmas and didn't warm it up (with obvious consequences).

Everyone took the **** all holiday