How do you carry it all?
- Thread starter jimford
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The thing is, when Ray does his TV programmes he is tied to the camera crew and all their kit and demands. When Ray takes himself off, on holiday, to Canada for example, which he does every year, all he takes is his own bag. He spends a couple or three weeks paddling on the lakes/rivers whatever, with only what he can carry. In his head, he still carries the knowledge, the bushcraft, whether his audience is just a camera crew, 60,000 Dave viewers or just a million midges.
If and when I get to a local meet, Ill take a lot more than I would camping on my own. For one thing, Ill have to carry wood enough to last, as chances are that by the time I get there anything even vaguely wood like will have vanished and be burnt over night on the bonfire. When I go on my own I dont take any wood as I know I can find more than enough wood for my small cooking fire, I dont need to burn half a ton a night When you see people at the meets/moot, the chances are that its not their normal bushcraft style.
Im not a bushcrafter, I do my own thing. Im as happy carving spoons as I am reading a book, or listening to the wind in the trees. In my opinion I think that rigidly defining something, is not productive, helpful and in the long term valid.
I look at the knife makers on this site and BB and I dont think theyre not real knife makers because they dont I marvel at their amazing skills, just because modern leather workers dont use a Bristle, it doesnt make them less skilled than those in the past that did.
When it comes down to it, skills are what were here to learn. Bushcraft is a skill, as is leather working or knife making. Its not a thing you do its a knowledge you have.
Anyway Jim , Yes it is possable to to use minimal kit and some do and some dont , but do sometimes .....
hope it helps
Twodogs
hope it helps
Twodogs
And knowledge is light to carry!
This sums it up for me!
It ain't the gear you carry or how you carry it it is the skills you practice with that gear that is Bushcraft in my understanding..
Example (and I am not trying to attack anyone just clarify what I understand of things)
Someone who travels very light weight with 100% modern gear (synthetic fibre clothing, bic lighters, multi fuel stove etc) to get into wilder places to enjoy the empty, wild nature of the place is "doing" a form of Bushcraft. - Nessmuk was using the state of the art kit in his day....Someone sitting in their backyard or 100 yards from their landrover in woods that are within earshot of the M25 practicing food prep using wild plants, animals they shot themselves, carving yet another spoon or just enjoying the - relative - peace quiet and birdsong that they do not get in their day to day life is also "doing" a form of Bushcraft...the craftsman in his workshop, (be the workshop in the middle of a town or the middle of the woods), crafting his own textiles/basket/knife/bowls using traditional tools and traditional skills to transmute objects from nature into practical works of art that keep those skills alive in these days of mass produced tat...he too is "doing a form of bushcraft.....the lone soul hunkered over his RM videos and DVDs in his attic full of woodshavings from whittling off-cuts of wood from Focus into tentpegs, figure 4 deadfalls and...spoons...while longing to get out and wear his blanket "swanni clone", that he knocked up on his Aunties sewing machine, in this place miles from the city flat he occupies, called "the woods" is also "doing" a form of Bushcraft.
Circumstances often dictate where and when you can practice your skills (is a one-legged expert in all sort of bushy skills less the expert because they cannot walk into the wilds but takes a landy to the wildest spot they can reach?) - it is the skills persued, practiced and honed that are Bushcraft to me, what you use, how you carry it and where you go are secondary.
The "uniform" of the bushcrafter could be reduded to a pair of specs - to help observe, research and look in wonder at all there is around us that can be called Bushcraft, from the crafty night out under canvas in the woods to get away from the pressure of an IT job, to trekking into the wilderness with no more than a home made flint knife and a "pot" made from a red deers rumen...
Well - thats what I think anyway!
Now that is a flipping good idea. I'd watch it. Ray, if you do read this forum, give Australia a rest and follow Firecrest's advice.
I think Firecrest was also correct about highlighting the original poster's snide and sarky phrasing in the question.
Anyway.
I must also say, I find this whole conversation a bit of a non-starter. Surely you take what you feel comfortable with, given the task at hand. To make a blanket statement about what/how one carries is more or less pointless. If you like taking minimal kit - then good for you. If you have to have everything including the kitchen sink - well, it's on your back. Who cares? Really, I mean it - who really gives a flying ****?
I just don't see how the question can be answered given the narrow parameters set by the question. And I think the original questioner (and all those who've answered it so far) knew the answer anyway - you take what you feel comfortable carrying. Was that not obvious?
its not just that. When your a beginner you have to assume things wont work, so you take the proper alternatives too. If you're taking a friend or partner that you dont want to be scared of camping for life you may take more kit, or if your going places where bad weather can mean serious problem you might take safety gear.
Either way, the amount of gear people take is totally changable. The only time i have a problem is when people go up ben nevis wearing shorts in march, like they did when we we're coming down recently.
edit: also, i usually take more than i need. I partly do it for exercise, so the quicker i can get tired, the better... and more comfort at the end, bonus !
Either way, the amount of gear people take is totally changable. The only time i have a problem is when people go up ben nevis wearing shorts in march, like they did when we we're coming down recently.
edit: also, i usually take more than i need. I partly do it for exercise, so the quicker i can get tired, the better... and more comfort at the end, bonus !
I think the reason Jim asked the question, and correct me if I am wrong, is that some people have an image of a “bushcrafter” as a person who relies entirely on bushcraft skills to make it in the woods. I must admit that until this thread, I though that most of the guys on this site fell into that category. Such a person, at least in my mind is someone who would go into the woods for 2, 3, 7 days and live there, relying not on modern equipment, but his knowledge of the environment. I think that it is this image that prompted the question.
The practice of individual bushcraft skills on the other hand is a completely different story. It can be done anywhere-backyard, at home, or in a very elaborate camp a ten minute walk from the truck. There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact it is a necessary part of the learning process.
However, can we call someone who is practicing a bushcraft related skill in a comfortable camp setting a “bushcrafter”? I would say “No”. We need to have a way of distinguishing between that and someone like RM or Tom Brown Jr. If there is no difference between a camper and a bushcrafter, then the term loses any meaning. We can then rename the site “CampingUK”.
I am in no way a “bushcrafter”, so don’t read into my comments that I am looking down on people who are not. I carry all the modern equipment. All the gear I have fits into my pack, but it’s all modern stuff. I even carry a lighter.
At the risk of inflaming the conversation however, I must say that on some level it bothers me when people get bushcraft fashionable. By that I mean, spending twice as much on a leather pouch made by someone else than you would for a synthetic one, etc. If you actually went into the bush with your knife, killed a rabbit, skinned it and made the pouch so you can gather your other recourses, then more power to you. However, pulling out your “authentic” bushcraft gear and setting it up next to your truck just seems silly to me.
The practice of individual bushcraft skills on the other hand is a completely different story. It can be done anywhere-backyard, at home, or in a very elaborate camp a ten minute walk from the truck. There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact it is a necessary part of the learning process.
However, can we call someone who is practicing a bushcraft related skill in a comfortable camp setting a “bushcrafter”? I would say “No”. We need to have a way of distinguishing between that and someone like RM or Tom Brown Jr. If there is no difference between a camper and a bushcrafter, then the term loses any meaning. We can then rename the site “CampingUK”.
I am in no way a “bushcrafter”, so don’t read into my comments that I am looking down on people who are not. I carry all the modern equipment. All the gear I have fits into my pack, but it’s all modern stuff. I even carry a lighter.
At the risk of inflaming the conversation however, I must say that on some level it bothers me when people get bushcraft fashionable. By that I mean, spending twice as much on a leather pouch made by someone else than you would for a synthetic one, etc. If you actually went into the bush with your knife, killed a rabbit, skinned it and made the pouch so you can gather your other recourses, then more power to you. However, pulling out your “authentic” bushcraft gear and setting it up next to your truck just seems silly to me.
You would? I'd rather not have to tell people I practising my bush(craft) might give them the wrong IdeaYep,
But I like to be labelled a 'Bushcrafter' rather than 'camp(er)'
forestwalker
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I'll hopefully never will be like Tom Brown Jr. I mean, who wants to live a lie?
I think you'll find that there is basically no one in the northern hemisphere who is a bushcrafter by your defintion. Not if you mean "as a normal every day way of wilderness travel". I've done the week/10 days with just the clothes on my back, and it is quite doable, I'll even try to get som more hides tanned and do an "Ötzi" hike next summer, just because.
Other than that -- and a forthnights starvation isn't fatal, just hard on your body -- I find it quite easy (food is the hard bit, the land and the laws have changed). But come winter or a desire to have a bit more comfort I will bring kit, so would my ancestors 3-10 millenia ago. And I'm pretty certain that RM does to. For the simple reason that it takes time; 1-2 hours (or more) to build a shelter each night, pitcooking food rather than using a pot will add hours as well, etc. In some climate regions, with sufficient disregard for hunting and fishing regulations one can do this kind of travel and come out ahead (less kit gives faster travel, at the price of more camp-time, which is a net gain if the lost time in camp is less than you gain by faster travel) (see Graham 2002 for an example). Let me bring food, or get me a "break-the-law-with-no-penalty" card, then I can get past even that limitation.
Do I have to do it in the taiga in winter (-30 C) as well? In late October (the most difficult weather)?
Would it be different if that kit was paleolithical tech level? Read up on the Kootenai River project, and pay attention to the kit lists. What is the fuctional difference? I personally find that there is a significant difference between primitive tech/paleo life/travel and bushcraft, in that in the former all kit has to be paleolithical, while in the latter the idea is to reduce the kit to a fuctional minimum, while avoiding unnessesary dependance on modern hi tech.
To each his (or more seldom: her) own. If I make a wool shirt, can I buy the fabric, or must I start with a few sheep? Can I get the deerhides (and a rabbitskin pouch is rather useless for most things, so deerhides it is) from hunters with rifles, or must I kill them with a handmade flatbow? Can I trade for my flint axe the way my ancestors did, or must I make it myself? Can I buy reindeer skin from a Sami craftsman, and use it? Do I have to sew the pouch using sinew?
Some references regarding primtive living and travel worth reading:
Matt Graham. Primitive travel kit Bulletin of Primitive Technology 24, 2002
Matt McMahon. Primitive travel gear. In Davis Wescott (ed) Ancestral skills Gibbs-Smith Publisher, 2001
Diedrik Pomstra. Tame hunter/gatherer and wild food Bulletin of Primitive Technology 31, 2006
Lynx Shepard. The Kootenai River stone age living project Bulletin of Primitive Technology 23, 2002
Alice Tulloch, The Yaak River hunting project. Bulletin of Primitive Technology 27, 2004
Alice Tulloch. Going wild: Organizing a primtive living experiment Bulletin of Primitive Technology 34, 2006
I would challenge this. The "bushcrafters" most often cited from northern boreal areas (i.e. not bushmen or aboriginals) wouldn't stay out in the wild for a week , we're talking months (if not years). Like the Mountain Men or the Voyageurs.
But the old style Mountain Men didn't carry stuff on their backs... they used two or more horses to lug their gear around; Nessmuk chucked it all into a canoe, and Thoreau built an entire house to live in.
Scandinavian tribes use reindeer and dogs to transport their gear - not much different to a 4x4 really.
So not sure where this idea of "bushcraft" being what you can carry on your back and nothing more comes from...? Travels with canoe or pack horse mean you can take a dutch oven, and a couple of change of clothes (essential if you are out for months on end and crossing seasons from summer to winter).
As part of your life you might take several days excursion from your base to prospect or hunt, which then would mean a minimal kit list, but most of the time you'd either be in base camp or you'd load up the horses and make tracks. Obviously being away from civilisation for a long time means being self-sufficient in food, but you have time to build eel traps, or set snares etc, to supplement the rations you've packed in on your horse.
Anyway, if "bushcraft" means using what nature provides to make life easier in the wild, then roping in a horse to take the strain, or using a beech tree to make a canoe, seems to fit right into it!
I think that the idea that youre not a real bushcrafter unless you carry it all on your back , comes from survivalist and people who seem to think that the way they do it, it the only way and the right way.
xylaria
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Don't you think one of the many skills you learn from bringing your children with you when you camp is that when you can go on own your pack is alot better than it was when you went out before you had children. I do think ultra liters have the ultimate luxury of only having to think of themselves, where family campers are the ones that are really forced to cut down to the necessaries.
as long as you enjoy the outdoors with respect to nature who gives a flying dogs f%%%k%%% danglies what you do and how you do it thats my opinion and please tell me if i am wrong but thats what i thought bcuk was all about and the sharing of such things and that is what i thought a bushcrafter was some one who enjoyed the outdoors
The stuff I can take (in my car) for myself, when I take my little girl is roughly half what I would take when I used to camp (not bushcraft camping but camping camping) I spent 6 months living from a 45ltr external framed Regatta rucksack, walking from Blackgang to Poole in Dorset, and carried more personal gear than I now carry when I take the family camping from the back of my car.
forestwalker
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
The old style prospectors/fur trappers. A year or two was the normal time. Normally with a canoe or a dogsled, even if some very hardy and minimalistic souls apparently went off with only a backpack (and actually survived). Not usual, though, the normal outfit was quite larger than that.
I think the closest I can think of to the ideal expoused is the Great Basin cultures. Quite marginal land, very little kit, semi-nomadic (Margret M. Wheat "Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes" University of Nevada Press, 1967 is a good source). I guess some jungle tribes could do it. Basically only possible in a narrow set of climatic conditions (semi-desert and tropical jungle).
I'd say the African continents' Bushmen and Australian Aborigines would be about as minimal as it gets. Carry a spear and a spear thrower and a knife and yet create a home, harvest food and live in relaitive harmony with your surroundings? Nor possible in UK. As soon as you start wandering around in a loin cloth, you'll get knicked for indecent exposure! Either that, or you'll be in hospital suffering from exposure!
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