Hello, everyone!
My name is Nikola and I'm from Croatia.
I'm afraid I'm not much of a bushcrafter (is that the correct term?) and my motivation for joining is not to learn to practice the art of bushcraft myself, but rather to teach it to a fictional character I'm trying to write a story about. Don't get me wrong, I love the outdoors and love getting lost in the "wild", though I don't think I'd have the skills to survive there for extended periods of time.
Which brings me back to why I'm here. I have a fictional character - a child of 7 years of age - who embarks on a very long journey through the wild with little more than some ragged clothes on his back, doesn't even have shoes on (he almost never wears them, so he does have thick soles and has that going for him), and I can put an optional item in his one remaining pocket (a small pocket knife of questionable quality is the leading pretender here).
Every so often he will encounter bits and pieces of civilization where he'll be able to find refreshment and pick up some additional items, and will meet some other characters who can help him out, but in the first chapters of the book I'd like to show him learn to live off the land he's moving through. At that time he'll be moving through woodlands, followed by grasslands. I know from my previous research into bushcraft that when in the wild one should first take care of the core four (shelter, water, fire and food), so I'm assuming the basic set of skills my character will need will include obtaining these four.
However, when on the move, making shelter each day is time consuming. My question here is - what kind of natural shelter - good enough for a night or a rainy day (or a rainy night?) - might one expect to find, or be able to build fairly quickly, in these environments?
When it comes to water, a brook or a pond might be nearby today, but not tomorrow. Is there a simple way to make a water container that's easy enough to carry (and big enough to last at least another day)?
What material in these environments would be good enough to build a fire? What kind of wild game or edible plants would be there?
Most importantly - since part of the subject of this book is learning and much of this learning will be by trial and error - if you have ever taught buschraft skills to a child, or have learned it as a child, what are the most common, or less common but funny mistakes they have made in the process (a good example is the mistake from the proverb about chasing two rabbits)?
Do you think that there are other things that should be covered in this specific scenario which I haven't asked about, but would make one's life traveling through the wild easier?
Now, I won't have the boy do everything all by himself - but I'd like to know what the options are in the wild, so I know to choose what he will make by himself, and what he'll get, find, trade, etc.
Hope it's OK I asked all this in my introduction. I'm usually a straight-to-business kind of guy, but I can move my questions to another forum if required.
Cheers!
My name is Nikola and I'm from Croatia.
I'm afraid I'm not much of a bushcrafter (is that the correct term?) and my motivation for joining is not to learn to practice the art of bushcraft myself, but rather to teach it to a fictional character I'm trying to write a story about. Don't get me wrong, I love the outdoors and love getting lost in the "wild", though I don't think I'd have the skills to survive there for extended periods of time.
Which brings me back to why I'm here. I have a fictional character - a child of 7 years of age - who embarks on a very long journey through the wild with little more than some ragged clothes on his back, doesn't even have shoes on (he almost never wears them, so he does have thick soles and has that going for him), and I can put an optional item in his one remaining pocket (a small pocket knife of questionable quality is the leading pretender here).
Every so often he will encounter bits and pieces of civilization where he'll be able to find refreshment and pick up some additional items, and will meet some other characters who can help him out, but in the first chapters of the book I'd like to show him learn to live off the land he's moving through. At that time he'll be moving through woodlands, followed by grasslands. I know from my previous research into bushcraft that when in the wild one should first take care of the core four (shelter, water, fire and food), so I'm assuming the basic set of skills my character will need will include obtaining these four.
However, when on the move, making shelter each day is time consuming. My question here is - what kind of natural shelter - good enough for a night or a rainy day (or a rainy night?) - might one expect to find, or be able to build fairly quickly, in these environments?
When it comes to water, a brook or a pond might be nearby today, but not tomorrow. Is there a simple way to make a water container that's easy enough to carry (and big enough to last at least another day)?
What material in these environments would be good enough to build a fire? What kind of wild game or edible plants would be there?
Most importantly - since part of the subject of this book is learning and much of this learning will be by trial and error - if you have ever taught buschraft skills to a child, or have learned it as a child, what are the most common, or less common but funny mistakes they have made in the process (a good example is the mistake from the proverb about chasing two rabbits)?
Do you think that there are other things that should be covered in this specific scenario which I haven't asked about, but would make one's life traveling through the wild easier?
Now, I won't have the boy do everything all by himself - but I'd like to know what the options are in the wild, so I know to choose what he will make by himself, and what he'll get, find, trade, etc.
Hope it's OK I asked all this in my introduction. I'm usually a straight-to-business kind of guy, but I can move my questions to another forum if required.
Cheers!
