What is ‘Bushcraft’?

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Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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S. Lanarkshire
Oh, and the obligatory Shinies photo

meet2.jpg
 
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Jul 24, 2017
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I think I just go camping, if I'm out hiking and scrambling tor's etc, the last thing I want to do is forage for wood and food and there are lots of place's I've been you would struggle to find ether, the times I've lived more by nature there was still current tools in use, so I feel I was still kind of camping, just more frontier style, even my first nation step father would say "lets go camping" but and maybe this is where the term bushcraft comes in we would take very little because he knew how to get more from nature than most, so its not just improvising but its skills that let you get a lot from nature over prolonged periods of time and covers all seasons, so I guess its more a skill set that in my thinking means you can live, but and you may consider me an bottom but I still say its just camping, it just means your very good at it!:p:D
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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:D
No, mine are among the tiddlers on the buckskin.

The rest, the woodlores, etc., are on the bark tanned leather :rolleyes:
Back then I could get leather really cheaply, but I'm pretty sure that lot came with Eric Methven. I know I took sealskins along to one meet to be used up though.

I miss those crafts based type meets.

M
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Go camping. Take a text book with the deliberate intention of learning some paleo skill and practicing others.
Bowdrill fire making kit. Wood carving.
Ellsworth Jaeger = Wildwood Wisdom (1945 & reprinted) is full of original work that's been warmed over for TV.
Just remember that your birchbark is no match for what you see done in the book.
Plus, entire birch trees are harvested, no vandalistic bark stripping.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
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Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
Bushcraft, as you call it, starts with very simple actions.
How to move in bad terrain without breaking a leg, or putting out an eye.
How to judge the weather, terrain, your state of fitness.

Stuff like that. Being able to carve a Russian Babushka with a flint shard is quite low on the Essential Knowledge list.

Less people would die if they learned the basics.

Make a friend with somebody that knows and learn from him/her.
Or join a group, watch, observe, learn.

Do not watch Youtube or tv.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Pretty funny. I wrote my above #52 p.ost then went out front. S breeze was bringing alder smoke to me.
Paleo stuff still gets done here and now to this very day. Dudes down the street were smoking venison out back of their place.

You all lost a lot of the Neolithic paleo stuff, millenia ago. In theory, Canada jumped from paleo to european iron in a few decades.
But the paleo here never stopped. I used to assume it was like this, everywhere. Wrong.
Now I live in a place where it really is convenient to come home to the house every night. I gave away my big tent.
If I drove 600 miles up from the coast, of course not!
 

Laurentius

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 13, 2009
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Bushcraft can mean many things, and what is a hobby for some is survival for others, and for yet another group commerce and industry.

I see it as traditional and low technology pursuits by which you can both survive and prosper, but then gardening could come under that definition as well.
Raises the next question however as to what is traditional, you could well argue that a box of matches has been around long enough to be traditional, but that the handy and much used ferro rod is hi tech, so it looks like I can't even win an argument with myself on this one.
 
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Wayland

Hárbarðr

Gosh there are a good few faces I recognise there...

This question does the rounds quite regularly along with what's the difference between "Survival" and "Bushcraft"

I saw the latter question polished off once with:

Survival = Not dying. . . Bushcraft = Living

As for what bushcraft is, I think it is a mindset that sees solutions in the outdoors rather than problems.
 
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