Thanks everyone for your collective input.
I am not trying to define eras within bushcraft, but rather this is a somewhat vague attempt to identify which historical eras hold a particular bushcraft related appeal to forum members.
Basically it would be fair to say that all we are doing now is what folks were doing hundreds and even thousands of years ago - we are operating within and up to our technological limitations with many of our skills rooted in the dim and distant past.
That fine on its own, but it doesn't stop us from being particularly interested in the fur trade era, for example, and for whatever reasons are personally relevant.
So this is not an exercise in defining and separating bushcraft into neat little slices which is more or less impossible. Ultimately throughout history there are loads of skills that could be relevant, with some being a lot more obvious than others. I am genuinely interested in what captures the imagination of others who are into bushcraft.
I am not naive or purist, although I do prefer to challenge myself with a more primitive approach for most of the time. That said, I have no problem (within reason) if you want to light a fire with a pocket flame thrower, provided you offer the same respect in return if I choose to use a fire plough, hand drill or natural flint and the driest, most carefully prepared tinder I can manage to process to try and catch those tiny sparks and coax something from them.
Sometimes the extra challenge is a good thing - if nothing else it is a great leveller in terms of demonstrating certain harsh realities. Sometimes it isn't the best approach by a country mile but it is almost always my own preferred method of reaching the same or similar goal state that you might be heading for with different kit and methods.
I can try to summarise as follows: I use longbows when I bowhunt because of the additional challenges involved and because I prefer making and shooting them to any other bow. I understand their comparative limitations versus more modern equipment, but the additional skill required is all the incentive I need and the thought of going back to a recurve or compound bow makes me cross-eyed
That said, I have absolutely nothing against anyone who hunts or leisure shoots with a recurve or compound - ultimately we are all doing our own take on what suits us in the archery world.
OK, in more open country I could use a high powered rifle and telescopic sights from a stand and simply snipe the game (a gross oversimplification and NOT intended as a slur towards riflemen - I was one for a lot of years) but you really feel your heart's blood pumping through your veins when you get the sneak on an Elk after a long and difficult stalk, and you are about to draw and loose from only a dozen or so yards away.
I know quite a lot of folks who choose to black-powder hunt for broadly similar reasons, or just to maintain a link to their historical past.
Birch bark or cedar and canvas canoes hark back to different times than today's predominantly synthetic hulls, but a lot of folks prefer them by a very large margin. Not necessarily because they are better, but because they offer more (to the individual concerned) than any modern claptrap ever could.
This isn't a right/wrong discussion or an attempt to compartmentalise people - I guess I'm just interested in what the underlying passions are that drive us all down our respective and slightly different paths. The irony is that many of us will end up at the same (or at very similar) destinations, but how we choose to get there and why is what makes at least some of the difference.
I'll get my coat.
