Depending upon modern technology

[HoosierJed]

All outdoor enthusiasts face an element of risk when they step into the wild...matches get wet, batteries go dead and vehicles break down. Mostly these are annoyances, but they can be dangerous. The more people depend on technology while in the outdoors, the higher the personal risk if the technology fails. The early bushcrafter was a survival expert by necessity, and many of the methods are as applicable today as they were 150 years ago. How much do you depend upon modern technology?


HoosierJed

 

[Great Pebble]

Reliance on anything can get you into trouble, "modern" or not.

The situation is one of "swings & roundabouts", there were doubtless many very skilled bushmen of yesteryear whose graves are unmarked who may have lived to adventure another day if they'd been able to use a cell phone to call for help.

 

[torjusg]

Reliance on anything can get you into trouble, "modern" or not.

The situation is one of "swings & roundabouts", there were doubtless many very skilled bushmen of yesteryear whose graves are unmarked who may have lived to adventure another day if they'd been able to use a cell phone to call for help.

You are very right, I wouldn't last a day in a desert. I rely on my knowledge of the boreal forest to survive. And I don't think I would be able to make a working fire starting with only sticks and stones. (I am very little proficient with fire by friction).

Torjus Gaaren

 

[Kirruth]

Well, it could be argued its all technology. If you have a steel knife and a firesteel, you are far better provided for technology-wise than a Roman or Greek would have been, and those chaps were a long way distant from hunter gatherers.
Add a notepad, a pencil, and some waterproof clothing, and you are virutally crackling with technology.

But GPS and mobile phones are teh debil.

 

[Wayland]

There is an old expression about belt and braces.

I use new technology but I like to know how to do without as well.

 

[Abbe Osram]

Depending is not a good thing but I like my new gps a lot and have a mobil phone with me. With the mobil phone you cant be sure to get contact most of the time you will not. My batteries I have to warm up all the time with my body heat. If all my technical toys are failing I will still get out. ..... I hope....

cheers
Abbe

 

[C_Claycomb]

The early bushcrafter was a survival expert by necessity, and many of the methods are as applicable today as they were 150 years ago. How much do you depend upon modern technology?

Interesting question. One you could come at from all sorts of angles.

As Kirruth points out, everything that we carry and wear is a form of technology, and unless you go back to basic wool, cotton and leather, its all pretty modern. However, I am far from convinced that if you went back say 100 years, that many of the people venturing into the wilds would be significantly more savvy in bushcraft techniques than they are now.

There have been very few travellers in the last few hundred years that have not relied on the modern technology of their day. Whether that is a sil-nylon shelter and Gore-tex coat, or a canvas tarp and woolen blankets. Even Lewis and Clark carried a huge amount of gear with them.

I wonder whether there might be more in people's expectations than there is in looking at the kit they carry? Today people expect comfort and convenience. They don't tend to have a lot of risk in their lives, beyond the morning drive to work. Modern equipment (whatever the era) has attempted to make the comfort of home portable enough to take into the wilds. 100-200 years ago the comfort of home relied on a good deal of work, manual work, and by today's standards it wasn't all that comfortable. However, nature hasn't changed all that much in that time. If you lose your gear today you aren't in much worse a spot than you would have been a century ago, actually better today because people are more likely to look for you and find you. But, there is a bigger gap between having lost your gear and your normal comfort zone than there once was. Maybe?

Anyway. I am not ashamed to say that I rely heavily on modern technology. From head to toe I am clad in garments made of fabric that is totally modern, or, if natural, then its been processed in ways that would have been impossible 100 years ago. My knife, though entirely hand made by me, looks nothing like the knives I have seen that were made 100 years ago. I carry a plastic compass, and modern maps, my water bottle is plastic or aluminum. Even if I lost my pack in the wilds, I would still be relying on all the modern technology about my person to get me out.

 

[bambodoggy]

Like everybody else I certainly use modern gear.....but I'm trying to be better

As the saying goes, carry less by knowing more. Knowledge is eternal and cannot be lost, it also weights nothing. No matter whether I am carrying modern or primative gear I always like to know how I can do without it if needs be.

Interesting point about perseption of comfort Chris, I think you're pretty close to the mark there

Bam.

 

[elma]

It's a very interesting question which reminded me of an incident I came across last summer, I was on my way home from a shooting trip at Sennybridge and stopped at the storey arms in the brecon beacons for a cuppa and a burger, visability was low and it was a damp cold evening, a group came in, ill prepared for the hill and nothing to guide them but a gps, one bloke said what would I do with a map and compass, what would he do if his gps failed

Ian

 

[Great Pebble]

what would he do if his gps failed

He'd get lost.

As would you or I if we lost our compasses & maps.

On balance of probabilities his GPS is unlikely to fail, and if it does he can likely 'phone, e-mail or SMS the mountain rescue team to come and find him quoting his last known position.

If you try and see the bigger picture, "Mr. Unprepared" with GPS, Mobile Phone, Fondue Set, Cuddly Toy and a Pacamac is probably taking a more responsible attitude to his equipment and behaviour than someone who sets off into the hills dressed in skins and carrying a "possibles pouch" that's an exact copy of an early 19th century explorer's....

 

[pierre girard]

He'd get lost.

If you try and see the bigger picture, "Mr. Unprepared" with GPS, Mobile Phone, Fondue Set, Cuddly Toy and a Pacamac is probably taking a more responsible attitude to his equipment and behaviour than someone who sets off into the hills dressed in skins and carrying a "possibles pouch" that's an exact copy of an early 19th century explorer's....

Depends on what Mr "skins and possibles" has in his head. I know a few people who would have no trouble - but just a few. And as has been said before, being lost is a state of mind.

"The woods are my home. How can you be lost when you're home?" (Jack Morris)

"I've never been lost, but I was once mighty confused for three weeks" (Daniel Boone)

PG

 

[Great Pebble]

And as has been said before, being lost is a state of mind.

For the "lost" individual... Probably. Anyone who has to go looking for him may not agree

There's no denying that the more knowledge you have the better off you are.
It's equally futile to argue that you're somehow better off ignoring the best inventions of the era and society that you live in.

 

[Carcajou Garou]

Love my steel axe, my steel knives, my rifle, my sleeping bag, my folding compass and even my SS mess kit. Love my hands, my legs and boots to walk in and what brains Creator gave me to understand the difference between comfort/ease and true knowledge of life's nessessities. Modern techs compliment time/work spent in the "wilds" but does not replace basic knowledge and practise.
CG :yo:

 

[HoosierJed]

The most important item for any bushcrafter is not a knife, box of matches, string or whistle. The most important item is self-reliance. Without it, hunters and backpackers have died needlessly, with the technological means for survival within easy grasp. The men and women who challenged the frontiers of the wilderness were short on technology, but they had plenty of self-reliance. Their survival skills came from an attitude and an understanding of nature. Both the attitude and the understanding are as worthwhile and necessary today as they were then.

HoosierJed

 

[Great Pebble]

Certainly as worthwhile, but as necessary?

Being realistic that can hardly be said to be true.

 

[RovingArcher]

All else being equal, the lucky man will always come out ahead of the game.

 

[Ogri the trog]

Without the technology of this web-site, I would be considerably less well prepared than I otherwise might be. Even though it could be argued that without any technology, we as a species, would be unlikely to have forgotten the ancient ways of keeping onesself comfortable in the first place (reference to C Claycomb,s post on "percieved" level of comfort).
When technology comes along, we tend to use it, but only when we forget the older methods, do we become reliant and hence get into trouble when the latest is no longer available.

Ogri the trog

 

[C_Claycomb]

I have read that survival, whether in a violent confrontation, war, wilderness or business, can have less to do with how many facts you have, or how experienced you are normally, and be more dependent on how quickly you recognise a change in the situation and adapt to it. This is a mind-set thing and can be completely independent of how many times you have been up the mountain, down the river, or through the boonies.

Guess that pretty much ties in with what HoosierJed was saying about self reliance.

If you really want to see where technology is replacing skill, you only have to look at hunting in the US. When we talk about technology in the field of camping its hard to stretch much further than mobile phones, GPS, water filters and ever improved boots, clothes, tents and packs. In the US you can't walk into a Walmart, or pick up a copy of Field and Stream, without seeing examples of massive commercially driven technology being offered as a substitute for skills. Two way radios, laser range finders, scent supressing charcoal impregnated clothing, IR game finders and cameras, sprays to make blood trails glow, pop-up tent hides, MP3 game calls, electrically actuated decoys, pheremone attractor scents, bottled cover scents and little bottles of powder to tell you which way the wind is blowing!

I am sure someone mentioned that it was human nature to seize upon the best kit they could get their hands on. I can't read this thread withough thinking of the Bushcraft episode with Ray in the Amazon with the Yekuana and them having become reliant on matches/lighters. Or Stuart's meeting with the Penan in Borneo, a group that could well have invented the fire piston, but who had lost and forgotten the idea and now used matches and lighters. Or something I read about pygmies in the Congo who for a generation or more had not let the embers of a fire go out and so had forgotten the skills to make fire from scratch.
Technology is an insideous thing hey

I would like to throw a question in of my own. How much is it possible to know?

What I mean is this. The examples of woodsmanship that we like to use as role models, did they do anything else, were they able to lead successful lives in a town/city and still retain their level of knowledge of the wilds? To use myself as an example, I work as an aerospace engineer, I am stuck in an office for much of 5 days each week, I have to retain information about material properties, process cababilities, tollerance interactions, supplier lead times and customer deadlines, and remember how to operate our CAD systems. In my off time I am learning about steel metallurgy and thinking about knife design in addition to several other interests that keep me out of the woods. Whenever I choose, or have, to pay more attention on one of these other interests, or to work, I have less time and capacity to learn bushcraft.

In the modern world, how possible is it to be truely expert in wilderness skills, and not sacrifice your modern life?

How many areas of expertise do you juggle with your bushcraft? Sorry if this is

 

[elma]

As I see it, it all boils bown to this. Your either a modern bushcrafter with all the bells and wistles or your a traditional old time primitave skills bushcrafter.
It does'nt matter so long as we enjoy what we do.
Do it in a safe responsible manner and encourage others to do the same.

Ian

 

[Wayland]

He'd get lost.

As would you or I if we lost our compasses & maps.

On balance of probabilities his GPS is unlikely to fail, and if it does he can likely 'phone, e-mail or SMS the mountain rescue team to come and find him quoting his last known position.

If you try and see the bigger picture, "Mr. Unprepared" with GPS, Mobile Phone, Fondue Set, Cuddly Toy and a Pacamac is probably taking a more responsible attitude to his equipment and behaviour than someone who sets off into the hills dressed in skins and carrying a "possibles pouch" that's an exact copy of an early 19th century explorer's....

I used to walk the hills of Westmorland when I was a lad in an old anorak (not waterproof), jeans and shoes. I didn't own a compass, I had an old Bartholomew half inch series map and some Kendal mint cake.

I still rarely use a compass though I carry one, and my GPS is just used for finding features not shown on the map.

I learnt to navigate by looking at the land and the sky, knowing where I was, where I had come from and where I was going.

Sometimes I think this "head up, brain on" approach is becoming lost amidst the responsible, safety first brigade.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying safety isn't important but I have met many people on the hills that have no clue as to where they really are!

They can point to a map and say "we're on this path" (Often they're nowhere near it.) but if you ask them where they are going in the landscape or where they crossed the horizon they have no idea.

All I can say is it's a good job most hills are covered with paths and other walkers to follow because half of these people are lost even bofore they start out.