What does Bushcraft mean to you?

[Janne]

My family group (and many others) we live in the bush, or what you call forest. It is for the most part a place we call home. We rarely ever visit towns or cities. We come to the settlements only for buying stuff such as things we like to eat special, clothing, equipment & to sell furs. We live there and get a lot of our food from hunting. Before I came to England I did not know what you meant by bushcraft (we have no word for this in Cree).

For us it is the simple act of knowing and being in the forest without too much trouble. But much of what we do, people from outside don't know or understand why we do things the way we do, but we've learned from our fathers & mothers how to make the forest home with what we have. For us hunters bushcraft is not separate from knowing the way of animals, birds,insects and plants.

For us knowing only one without the other would be no sense and this puzzled me when I saw some people in England practice what they called bushcraft but could not identify birds or animals or even identify common trees and their uses. For us, bushcraft is much wider set of skills without which we would not be able to live in the forests for long or comfortably.

Enjou namiste

This. I am not part of the Swedish indigenous people ( the Same people) but I worked very intimately with them while in the army.
My dad tought me what he knew, which is a lot, but the Same tought me the real stuff.
I feel the same when it comes to the Brits, even people interested in bushcraft do not know that much. Nothing to be ashamed of, as raw, wild nature does not exist in UK.
I did one course with Mears' people, and was pretty disappointed in them.

I hope you Brits do not get too upset, sorry about that!

 

[Dark Horse Dave]

Blimey, I haven't seen a "what is bushcraft?" discussion for ages! All good people.

Sent from my E2003 using Tapatalk

 

[Janne]

Something I am hugely impressed on this forum is the huge amount of knowledge in the Old Skills. Most of them I would not slot into Bushcraft, but certainly in Experimental / Practical Archeology and ditto Pre-WW1 living.

I watched the Georgian Farm on TV and laughed most of the time. Those Archologists had not a clue about the old ways compared to people on this forum.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Good question. Personally I prefer not to call myself a bushcrafter. For me it's most certainly a hobby and a pressure release. My first passion is camping and enjoying the outdoors. Regardless of whether it's wild camping in a woodland or 'glamping' on a managed campsite. I take great pleasure from being outside and removing myself from the predominantly technological burdens of modern life.

After camping comes wildlife and watching nature do its thing. I could happily sit for hours watching a group of birds busy themselves in my local woodland or see the buzzards circle over head. Learning about bushcraft is enabling me to enhance my outdoor experience. I now understand more about where I can gather tinder material and which woods are better than others for burning. I can identify different trees and understand which trees and shrubs are preferred by certain types of wildlife.

I've learnt more about knots and cordage and I've learnt woodcraft techniques that has enabled me to recreate things using the materials that nature provides and thereby reduce my dependance on certain items of kit that I'd otherwise carry.

Fundamentally learning about Bushcraft means that I am able to enhance my experience and has taught me more about respecting our environment and enjoying our surroundings while out on my camping adventures.

 

[RonW]

Now let's see.....
At first bushcraft was a means to get away from modern day life, as I suspect it is for many of us. Away from the concrete and into the green. Then it became a way of life, away from hitech, resource guzzling, drowned in debt society into a much more modest set, manual and financially less dependent way of living.
And then it became a journey away from modern life and cities onto the land and countryside, where I am busy building up a homestead.
That is what matters to me; being near the land, living off, through and with it. Having both plant and animal near to sustain me and mine and to treat the land and its inhabitants with respect and care.
Being in the woods still is great, but it doesn't nourish and sustain me both physically and mentally. Not enough anyway.
Many of the skills needed I learned though bushcraft and that includes the mindset.

 

[HillBill]

Its simple for me. It's practical working knowledge of the natural environment.

I don't feel theres anything else other than that really.