What we discuss on here (most of the time anyway) is BUSHCRAFT, so that fits in with what we see Ray doing, what BG serves up (on a sensationalist platter) is SURVIVAL. Anyone will tell you that survival is 90% about deciding that you are going to survive...
I guess this is right about where I lose the whole argument of bushcraft V survival. There are so many parallels that they are almost impossible to separate (IMHO).
Look both ways before you cross the road - that's a survival technique, but it's such an everyday thing that nobody usually recognises it as such.
Too many folks assume that survival either means reacting to some sort of unexpected circumstance or in the paramilitary sense.
Primitive cultures practised survival - by using what many people refer to as bushcraft skills they ensured their continued survival and even prosperity.
I think a lot of folks hang far too much weight off the back of a particular word as a means to somehow separate or differentiate the two.
Map and compass reading - survival skill to some, bushcraft skill to others, or what every scout and guide would have been taught by default without worrying about what to call it.
Light a fire by entirely natural means, or forage for food and water, or build a shelter (with or without the aid of any kit), or...
How would the above activities be defined ?
Survival ?
Bushcraft ?
I think that in the vast majority of cases the only thing that can possibly separate the two are the particular circumstances you find yourself in or a determination, or to somehow achieve separation because it best fits a particular or more socially acceptable perspective.
The vast majority of what we call 'bushcraft' skills are, by definition, survival skills, often carried over from our ancestors earliest history. I have no idea how anyone manages to hive them off as separate to one another.
In BG's case, or Ray's or Les Stroud's, if something he did or said helped someone then that's a good thing. On the flip side, they can't possibly be held responsible if someone chooses to try end emulate them.
In every episode of BG's show that I have ever seen he has always willingly made decisions that go directly against the entire notion of continuing one's ongoing survival and safety by jumping off stuff he didn't need to jump off of or some other such nonsense.
Good luck to him - but I still have to tip my hat at his success, and the fact that he managed to get his message across into the typically thick skull of your average teenager who, in turn, managed to put it all together in a far-from-normal situation.
I wonder how many lives have been saved by the great Les Hidden's shows, and the information he supplied which is published on the backs of the regional maps you buy in Australia regarding local edibles and whatnot ?
Bushcraft and survival are two words that all too often mean exactly the same thing.
My favourite bushcraft book which, coincidentally is also about the best I've ever read on the subject is Richard Graves "Bushcraft: A serious guide to survival and camping". Everyone should read this book if they get the chance - the irony of a book that details real bushcraft skills intended for survival and camping...
I'll get my coat.
