That is a really interesting thought. I'm always saying that developments in materials science have made a huge difference to so many sports - outdoor / wilderness ones as much as any others, and you have given so many examples re: bushcraft. In other pursuits things have become accessible to weekend amateurs like me that were only possible for the elite - personally I'm thinking about (easy) grade 3 rapids in an open canoe thanks to Royalex canoes and dry suits...
Isn't it interesting, too, how there is lots of interest in traditional crafts carried out partly in the woods, and partly in our centrally heated and electrically lit houses.
Even more lovely as an irony - we are discussing the application of technology to bushcraft through a medium which requires the pinnacle of modern technology - the internet.
"Bushcraft is about being confident and comfortable in the natural environment" as the front page of this site says, and I don't think many of us would swap our modern lives to become hunter gatherers (tell me I'm wrong...) yet we love to get out there into wild places and just "be" for a while. I'm fairly new to bushcraft, but I've taken my main annual holiday camping almost every year for a long time precisely because it gets me away from the screens (TV, computer, ...) that I enjoy so much the rest of the year, and generally hate to be without.
Random reflections, as ever, but I guess that this makes me feel that whatever helps me "get out there" is fair game (within reason - perhaps dynamite fishing wouldn't be a top choice) without taking up snobbish "that isn't proper" positions - if people want to take different levels of kit with them then whatever they feel comfortable with should be fine for them?
To look at it another way - why is lighting a fire with a firesteel so much more satisfying than using a match, yet I don't feel a burning desire (pun intended
) to create fire by friction every time I want a brew...
(Oh, and by the way, I'd love to have a go at fire by friction sometime...)
Thanks for a stimulating thought!
Ben