Bushcraft / Primitive Living Skills with Anthonio Akkermans - Pic Heavy

loz.

Settler
Sep 12, 2006
646
3
52
Dublin,Ireland
www.craobhcuigdeag.org
HI All,

Well this weekend i attended the Bushcraft / Primitive Living Skills course with Anthonio Akkermans.
This course was run down in Co Wicklow at Carriag Dulra, as opposed to Anthonios base up in the north of Ireland.

We started the day with the meet, greet and intros, and then Anthonio gave the Health and Safety brief
followed by some knife handling and safe use of such. We then set to task in carving the required for Friction Firelighting ( bowdrill method ) .

Anthionio showed us the required elemtnes, the spindle, bow, hearth board, an bearing block, and direction on carving, and best woods selection.
We then set to work.

When most had completed we then got a very detailed demo of positioning the spindle,
and securing the same between hearth and bearing, to get perfect motion from the bow,
while we started to drill into our boards.
We then were show how to measure and cut the perfect notch for ember development.

Most of the group had success down to Anthonios direction and advice.

Following this we moved to an area where some traps had been setup, figure 4 deadfall and figure 4 with toggle string deadfall.
Both explained in great details, along with explanations of bait, concealment, masking of scent, and location of setting,
and we setoff in groups to replicate with varying success.

Anthoinio later gathered up the course, along with other site attendees ( many other courses were being run ) ,
for a hunt for tinder and other fire materials, then the "firemakers" under no pressure were set to start the fire.
I was delighted to provide the lit tinder bundle for the campfire round which the night party started !

Day 2 started with awareness, with teqniques and excercises for observation, which would be usefull for what followed, tracking.
We spent a lot of time on track, and I personally learnt a lot,
being shown how to read tracks to determine, species, direction, pace, size, dominant side and even the sex of some animals.
We also were shown to see other signs of life, as we investigated several rabbit holes,
such as scratches, depression, caught animal hair, and location, and patterns of excrement.

We then moved on to shelter, and were guided in the building of a semicircular debris shelter.
this we a lot more demanding on time and energy that i expected,
and something that would be in my mind should i ever need to recreate.
The fat we were in a quite artificial Stickta Spuce forest, rather than a nice Deciduous forest meant that
available debris was scarce making the build quite deifficult. However we persevered,
and completed a quite nice area, and when test proved to be oth warm and quite rain proof.

We finished up with cordage, collecting spruce root and prepping for use by heating and removing the bark.
We also were shown and tried for ourselves methods for rolling fibres to create twisted cordage.

An excellent 2 days in all. Anthnio is my opinion ( im not being paid to say ) is an excellent instructor,
with creat explanation, and demonstrations, great patience and humor,
and i would recommend highly anyone to attend his courses. I shall be doing more myself.

The site we were on as explained above was also hosting some other courses,
including samba drummiong, and wood carving ( relief ).
The owners of the land Mike and Suzie were very generous and excellent hosts to the
attendees camped over the area. Great organic foods, and constant tea and coffee
were provided by some lovely Canadian volunteers, and the warmth and humor of
everyone made each nights fireside great fun.


Thanks for reading !

Loz


Some self promotional, I can do fire !! pics below.

Me Bowing

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Ember grows

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Coax it along !

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Anthonio Advises

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Tinder alight !

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My Delight

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Our Debris Shelter

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Not Course related pics,

Yurt erection.


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JonnyP

Full Member
Oct 17, 2005
3,833
29
Cornwall...
Nice one Loz, thanks for sharing, looks like you had a good time there. Why did you heat and debark the spruce roots, I thought they could be used straight out the ground...
Btw, I couldnt read all of your post there as a lot of it on the right hand side was missing, but I got the jist...
 

loz.

Settler
Sep 12, 2006
646
3
52
Dublin,Ireland
www.craobhcuigdeag.org
Hi John,

That would be to use the cordage for a bowdrill. The bark would abrade against itself and lead to radid deteriation. Cleaning the bark off leaves a smoother finish and longer lasting bow cord.

Regards

Loz
 

seany boy

Nomad
Mar 21, 2006
261
1
57
Lincolnshire
Hi Loz,
looks like you had a great time thanks for posting :You_Rock_

Had the same problem with the text Jon, try blocking the text and pasting it to a word document. Bit of a pain but at least you can read it all then.
 

Mikey P

Full Member
Nov 22, 2003
2,257
12
53
Glasgow, Scotland
This is pretty timely as Anthonio's just released a book ( "Bushcraft Skills and How to Survive in the Wild: A Step-by-step Practical Guide") and, I have to say, I was really impressed. I hadn't heard much about him before but his writing style and photographs have actually cleared up a lot of issues for me.

It sounds like he also has the practical skills to back it all up and he has another, more detailed book coming out in November. If it's as good as the one I mentioned above, it should be a worthwhile addition to anyone's library.

By the way, normal disclaimer - as I have never met him and I don't work for his publisher!
 

Raptor

Tenderfoot
Hi Loz,

I saw the publicity for this course during the summer, was seriously thinking about going. Family hols got in the way.

Excellent photos, certainly looks like it was great craic.

I know the course was held up in Wicklow, what was the site like, was there any decent woodland around ?

Frank
 

loz.

Settler
Sep 12, 2006
646
3
52
Dublin,Ireland
www.craobhcuigdeag.org
Hi Frank,

The site was good, as explained its privately owned owned by a couple Mike and Suzie, developing the land into a viable environmentally friendly off grid home/escape and they are lovely people.

There is another course in Jan - Anthonio in Wicklow - Jan

That link also give lots of details about Mike and Suzie's progress, and logic to what they are trying to achieve.

As i said above - the local woodland, is mainly commercially grown stickta spruce, but for the course content was fine.

Regs

Loz
 

loz.

Settler
Sep 12, 2006
646
3
52
Dublin,Ireland
www.craobhcuigdeag.org
Just to follow up,

Andi and I camped on the land on Saturday, and visited the shelter we had started on my course. Subsequent courses have finished into a complete round, with chimney hole and fire pit,

As modeled by Andi.

Regs

Loz

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