What're your reasons?

[Draven]

Howdy folks!
Just thought it might be interesting to see why everyone else got involved in Bushcraft! If this is in the wrong place, please move it, couldn't think where to post

Personally, I have a few reasons.
When I was six years old, we moved from the big city (well actually, the little suburbs - just outside Frederick, Maryland, USA - to the little island - Skye, north western Scottish Isle! Big change? I'll say... but I was a kid, and it was a fine adventure to be on! For the first time in my life I was able to explore & appreciate the great outdoors, and I had a pal who felt the same. We were always running around Glendale, Milovaig etc trying and continuously failing to hunt rabbits with bows... that was really the big start of the great outdoors side of it.

The next reason came later on, when we had, sadly, moved down to Portobello, Edinburgh. My mother was interested in Geneology; I wasn't. In fact, I hated it. I was sorta at the age of realisation (I was 9, btw) - realising how horrible history is, and how horrible people still can be. I felt that I had no reason at all to delve into our family history - my mother's side of the family went right back to some of the early Scottish settlers in America, and unfortunately, I was fully aware of the hell that Native Americans went through so that we could take their land...
I brought this up with my mother one day, and my jaw dropped as she told me that I was part Cherokee...
Cherokee didn't really mean much to me, I hadn't a clue what it meant or anything, the point was that I was part Native American, which gave me a feeling of pride, no matter how small the amount of Native American blood in my veins. So I got a really big desire to explore it further, through learning the skills that were once commonplace and hopefully passing them on someday.
Unfortunately, I didn't think that I had much chance learning it in the city, and I thought I was too young to do it by myself anyway, so it sorta lay dorment. That is, until a couple months ago
I often wondered whether she told a "white lie" to make me feel better. Still a possibility I suppose, but I did ask her numerous times as I got older and she remained ademant. And even if it ain't true - doesn't matter now, the fire's started and no amount of geneology can put it out!
I'm still keen on learning some of the traditional Native American bushcraft skills, and I'm glad I've started young - more time to learn

God, I should write a book

So c'mon folks, tell me why you're bushcrafters

 

[Ed]

So c'mon folks, tell me why you're bushcrafters

Because I enjoy it .... and have done since I was a child.... simple as that


Ed

 

[Marts]

I thought it was because you've got a lot to say

 

[jasons]

i just love being in the woods

 

[pierre girard]

Possibly like you, part geneology - part Ojibwe/Menominie/Huron - part French Voyageur - with some English 17th century colonial Ranger and Welsh Quaker thrown in for good measure.

Also, growing up in wilderness area with a lot of "round the campfire" stories by my mother and grandfather of life lived as semi-hunter/gatheres.

 

[Abbe Osram]

Henry David Thoreau words express it better than I could say it:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau

cheers
Abbe

 

[RovingArcher]

Like yourself and PG, I've got the ancestors blood flowing through my heart. I grew up with family and extended family that cultivated an already great love for Nature and an appreciation for the skills that kept our ancestors functioning and comfortable.

 

[sam_acw]

I've always wanted to be outdoors doing things and remember a lot of time spent at livestock markets when I was young. My mother says that I had an imaginary herd of pigs!
I never joined scouts though (despite, or possibly because my Dad was a fromer leader) but always had parental support. I was in Army Cadets but found the pace that we learnt things at to be infuriatingly slow so I got bored quickly.
School steered me away from outdoor type things as in their view that was only for people who got bad exam results but I got to spend a lot of time camping under canvas when I took up American civil war reenacting. This got too expensive whilst I was at university but the desire to do stuff was still there and I discovered sites like primitiveways which let me know there were others out there.
The promise of lots of countryside and unspoilt woodlands along with an absence of health and safetyism is one of the main reasons I decided to leave England for Poland.
Besides at 6'3" I can't stand upright indoors at home anyway

 

[leon-b]

well i have always been into the outdoors, i live in shotley which is a village in the countryside and there is two rivers about a 1 min walk from my house, alot of my mates like camping so me and a mate always go camping when we have the chance normally weekends, we used to use tents but but just recently i have bought a hammock and tarp so we now use this. i just enjoy being in the outdoors
leon

 

[Draven]

Henry David Thoreau words express it better than I could say it:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau

cheers
Abbe

Very nice, I like that quote


I've always thought it good to know how people became interested in something like Bushcraft, I find that it can help, both in understanding the people who practice the art, and of course the art itself

 

[Skippy]

Do we really need a reason, get out there and live.

 

[Singeblister]

I have always loved to be outside especially in the woods , I can remember cooking up some wild garlic in an old black frying pan when i was a kid , we didn't know what it was , just messing about but i can always remember the smell of it. After a long stint in Hospital and not being able to walk for many years I am finally getting back into being outside again , and although I cant walk miles anymore just a couple of miles in the woods is enough ,,,,, for now

 

[Ditch Monkey]

I lost me keys

 

[Moonraker]

Because I like pissing in the wind

I've been pissing in the wind
I chanced a foolish grin
And dribbled on my chin
Now the ground shifts beneath my feet
The faces that I greet never know my name

 

[SowthEfrikan]

Hmm, Draven, Americans took land that was largely empty and horrible things happened - on both sides.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008318 deals with white guilt. Written by a black man, btw.

Many claim a mixed heritage right now, but I have never yet in these seven years in the US come accross anyone claiming Comache or Apache blood.

I'm happy you are proud of your ancestry - so am I.

I, too, have the blood of my ancestors coursing through my veins, and I escape the western civilisation that they bought into being so that I can appreciate afresh how much that civilization has improved life for so very many.

All the while leaving no trace, of course.

 

[Draven]

I have always loved to be outside especially in the woods , I can remember cooking up some wild garlic in an old black frying pan when i was a kid , we didn't know what it was , just messing about but i can always remember the smell of it. After a long stint in Hospital and not being able to walk for many years I am finally getting back into being outside again , and although I cant walk miles anymore just a couple of miles in the woods is enough ,,,,, for now

Good to hear you're able to get out and about again

Do we really need a reason, get out there and live

I was awaiting that response! lol Good point, nobody needs a reason at all!

Moonraker/Ditch Monkey - both as good as a reason could be, I guess

Hmm, Draven, Americans took land that was largely empty and horrible things happened - on both sides.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/edito...ml?id=110008318 deals with white guilt. Written by a black man, btw.

Many claim a mixed heritage right now, but I have never yet in these seven years in the US come accross anyone claiming Comache or Apache blood.

I'm happy you are proud of your ancestry - so am I.

I, too, have the blood of my ancestors coursing through my veins, and I escape the western civilisation that they bought into being so that I can appreciate afresh how much that civilization has improved life for so very many.

All the while leaving no trace, of course.

I have indeed heard of white guilt... though I don't reckon I suffer from it not now, anyway, maybe when I was younger, but when I was younger if I could find away to get depressed about something, chances are I would

I also tend to think that what shocked me most was that such a beautiful way of life was often, for lack of a better word, stomped upon. I know that it didn't always go that way... but I guess through the eyes of a child, I saw it much more black and white: we were killing them and kicking them off their own land. I suppose that now I'm older and more mature, I understand that it was nowhere near that simple, and a good deal of white people did get on with the Native Americans... Although still, at the risk of sounding naive, I really wish we all could have been more polite about the whole deal... ach, off topic.. oh well

 

[gaz_miggy]

hey look dich monkeys back, iv always been out doors but its more a primitive thing i think and just being out in nature

 

[gaz_miggy]

dich monkey are you still living in the woods?

 

[kb31]

i say me dad .he used to take me to the lakes n woods before i could walk when was2-3 (he says i can't rememer) he go here look at this (a pine cone) and i run away saying no it's tat! he still crack's up about it and am 31! he got me mine first knife (i was at jr school) and first book (got sick of me asking stuff he did'it know) he's not a bushcrafter more a ray watcher now he used to work on farms and did dry stone walling n that so he knew his way about the lakes better than a gps it was all rambofido/sas when i started (maybe it was me being a kid ) clad it's not now ..karl

 

[seamonkey]

I've always been interested and at home out and about in the outdoors.

I grew up in north east scotland and to be honest there wasn't much else to do but explore with the dog and a air rifle .

used to love buggering off into the woods with my mates for a weekend taking only a can of beans building a bivi and a fire along with some stolen (from our dads) kestrel lager

Not much has changed!!

Cheers

Graham