:You_Rock_ Hi, I've been on this site a while now, I have had an intrest in bushcraft for as long as i can remember. I think it all started when i used to go walking with my father, around the local area ( The Cynon valley.) we used to walk for hours, just walking and looking around us,he used to work on local farms many years ago, before all the housing estates where built, so he had a basic know how of buhcraft, this all help make these walks some of my happiest memories. Now I have two young children i think its a good way for them to learn more about life, nature, and the effect we have on everything around us including other people. I wa just interested in other views on why people do the bushcaft thing? and is there anyone in my area who would like to chat about bushcraft? thanks for looking, Geraint
why bushcraft?
- Thread starter Geraint
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SimonM
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I've always enjoyed being outdoors relaxing. Joined Cubs at the tender age of 8 and went right through to Venture Scouts than a Leader and got the bug I suppose - camping, walking, archery, shooting, cooking skills, fire skills, knife and axe were all skills taught.
Strangely I still partake in all of the above and have recently, (2 years ago) got back involved with Scouts as a volunteer, passing on the things that I enjoy.
Bushcraft for me is just a generic term for the things I enjoy doing, that other folk understand. Try telling your work colleagues that you are spending a weekend in November under a tarp, sleeping in a hammock, cooking over an open fire and see how they look at you. Then say its "bushcraft" and they understand!
Simon
Strangely I still partake in all of the above and have recently, (2 years ago) got back involved with Scouts as a volunteer, passing on the things that I enjoy.
Bushcraft for me is just a generic term for the things I enjoy doing, that other folk understand. Try telling your work colleagues that you are spending a weekend in November under a tarp, sleeping in a hammock, cooking over an open fire and see how they look at you. Then say its "bushcraft" and they understand!
Simon
i've always found life in the "real world" to be utterly beyond me, i live most of my life feeling pretty on edge. people, work, cars, roads, concrete, flashy lights, family, they all make nervous to a lesser or greater degree. bushcraft, on the other hand, makes me feel confident. i can walk out of my front door with my rucksack on my back, walk half an hour into the peak district and feel completely safe, utterly confident in my own ability to look after myself. all the responsibilities fall from my shoulders and i sleep well at night. without that i think i'd properly go mad.
bushcraft keeps me sane. simple as that
stuart
bushcraft keeps me sane. simple as that
stuart
I know what you mean!
"Real" world Bad, Bushcraft good!
I use the outdoors to retain a hold on reality.
I worked as a computer programmer once. Lasted a year. Got in to outdoor education. Been in that around 29 years!
I'm sick of the rat race. Getting outdoors is the escape I need, I fear I would have lost what little of my sanity remains if I couldn't do my thing each weekend. Once that lottery win comes my way, it'll be off to wherever I want whenever I want!
Lots of me's and I's in there, but I've had a poo day and am feeling incredibly selfish at the moment! I will sort that out by going up to my local farmers' house and repairing the leaking radiator I found last night when I was sorting his boiler out. A bit of soldering before tea time will hopefully make me feel a little better! I'm still pee'd off that i am missing the archery with Jim this weekend!
Lots of me's and I's in there, but I've had a poo day and am feeling incredibly selfish at the moment! I will sort that out by going up to my local farmers' house and repairing the leaking radiator I found last night when I was sorting his boiler out. A bit of soldering before tea time will hopefully make me feel a little better! I'm still pee'd off that i am missing the archery with Jim this weekend!
I too find it relaxing to be away from all the work responsibilities. Life becomes so much more simple and rewarding. I also have kids and am getting them interested in the outdoors.
Take all of the above and add a bit of "survival" in there.
I'm not a nutjob who is outfitting a bunker in a backwater somewhere and keeping a 4x4 fuelled and equipped to leave at a moment's notice - but I do like the feeling that I'd be able to look after myself "if the smelly brown mess hit the fan".
We had a blackout around here recently (Manchester - not exactly remote) and most people were either on edge or looking out at the blackness in some wierd state - sort of like a lamped rabbit. On the whole they didn't know what to do.
I just got on with things, job 1 was looking for candles for the old lady across the road so she'd feel better - once the power came back on I put a little blackout kit together for her. Simple stuff she could rely on until someone could go over to help her.
Truth be told I was a bit disapointed the power came back on as quickly as it did - I'd have loved a few days without. Haha.
EDIT
Actually come to think about it - the first thing that happened when the power went down - everyone opend their front doors and went outside. I quite like that. It's almost like the natural instinct was for people to get outdoors as soon as the lights went off and the TVs went dark.
Faith in humanity +1
I'm not a nutjob who is outfitting a bunker in a backwater somewhere and keeping a 4x4 fuelled and equipped to leave at a moment's notice - but I do like the feeling that I'd be able to look after myself "if the smelly brown mess hit the fan".
We had a blackout around here recently (Manchester - not exactly remote) and most people were either on edge or looking out at the blackness in some wierd state - sort of like a lamped rabbit. On the whole they didn't know what to do.
I just got on with things, job 1 was looking for candles for the old lady across the road so she'd feel better - once the power came back on I put a little blackout kit together for her. Simple stuff she could rely on until someone could go over to help her.
Truth be told I was a bit disapointed the power came back on as quickly as it did - I'd have loved a few days without. Haha.
EDIT
Actually come to think about it - the first thing that happened when the power went down - everyone opend their front doors and went outside. I quite like that. It's almost like the natural instinct was for people to get outdoors as soon as the lights went off and the TVs went dark.
Faith in humanity +1
That's a good question, Geraint. I've asked myself this quite a few times.
I think it's a response to social stimuli. So many aspects of modern life require one to be content with the empty pastiche that makes up our world. Bland, heterogeneous culture; high streets that are just clones of themselves; music and entertainment designed not to be enjoyed so much as not to offend. So much becomes shrink wrapped, corporate, vapid and anodyne.
And in response to that people will look for something more elemental, more sincere, more individual. I think the bushcraft 'movement' (and I stand to be corrected, but my gut instinct tells that it has been going through a resurgence the last few years, for all sorts of reasons) is just one in a long line of attempts for people to put some originality (I purposefully swerved away from saying 'meaning') back into a conceited world. It requires the hands and the mind - to think and provide for oneself rather than mindlessly consume.
For those moments we are out doing what we like doing it is a drug, a barbiturate, a panacea to all things humdrum and routine.
A chance to put some colour into a black and white world.
I think it's a response to social stimuli. So many aspects of modern life require one to be content with the empty pastiche that makes up our world. Bland, heterogeneous culture; high streets that are just clones of themselves; music and entertainment designed not to be enjoyed so much as not to offend. So much becomes shrink wrapped, corporate, vapid and anodyne.
And in response to that people will look for something more elemental, more sincere, more individual. I think the bushcraft 'movement' (and I stand to be corrected, but my gut instinct tells that it has been going through a resurgence the last few years, for all sorts of reasons) is just one in a long line of attempts for people to put some originality (I purposefully swerved away from saying 'meaning') back into a conceited world. It requires the hands and the mind - to think and provide for oneself rather than mindlessly consume.
For those moments we are out doing what we like doing it is a drug, a barbiturate, a panacea to all things humdrum and routine.
A chance to put some colour into a black and white world.
Geraint, if memory serves me there's a couple of active members over in Aberdare.
I'm sure rik_uk3 is from your neck of the woods.
J
Maybe its kind of like the birds - Nobody tells a bird what song to sing , it just grows up and does it. Blackbirds sing their blackbird songs and larks just open their mouths and sing theirs.
When I was a very small child I begun to sit in the garden for hours on end. I used to watch the swifts come home, then sit in the dusk until bats came out. I would stay in silence observing the wildlife. I rarely saw anything at all. I simply grew up loving wildlife and solitude for no apparent reason, nobody has to teach us to love it, its just who we are and what we do.
Im kind of sad actually that it never occurs to me to sit in the garden like that anymore. Id be conscious of the neighbors watching me, its sad what we lose as adults sometimes when we gain awareness of the "real" world
When I was a very small child I begun to sit in the garden for hours on end. I used to watch the swifts come home, then sit in the dusk until bats came out. I would stay in silence observing the wildlife. I rarely saw anything at all. I simply grew up loving wildlife and solitude for no apparent reason, nobody has to teach us to love it, its just who we are and what we do.
Im kind of sad actually that it never occurs to me to sit in the garden like that anymore. Id be conscious of the neighbors watching me, its sad what we lose as adults sometimes when we gain awareness of the "real" world
The above just about sums it up for me. A day or two in the wilds with good company and a brew-up, learning to make do with less kit and less complexity. If you could add Buxom Bushcraft Bikini Babes Bearing Beer & Burgers, my life would be complete, but nothing's perfect.
I don't suppose it's too simplistic a view for me to say "what are you waiting for?" is it?
Put some warm clobber on and head out tonight. Take beer, take food, do what you must but getting old doesn't mean growing up - things you enjoy as a kid, like sitting outside watching, don't have to stop just because we start shaving and get jobs.
Let us know how it goes.
Climbing trees seems much more daunting now though. I creek a little going up and when i jump down im not as bouncy as when i was a kid, its more of a thud....
I think the whole reason I got into it was because of Ray. Then I kept having these thoughts "life doesn't have to be as complicated as we make it" Humans survived just fine until tax, mortages, bills etc. Modern life is great I love it but I think it's important that we keep the skills that our ancestors HAD to know to survive!
Good question, like some of the other responses, I went from Cubs through to Venture Scouts, I left that to join the Army and stayed there for 22 years. I now long for that feeling of openess, the smell of woodsmoke, the warming Brew and the feeling of getting into a cold sleeping bag, knowing that it'll soon warm up
'Bushcraft' camping is the only style I know, its what I was taught in the Scouts 40+ years ago.
We fool ourselves that the "real world" is the house of cards we generally live and work in. If current predicaments should teach us anything it is just that. I think I enjoy bushcraft as i escape back to true reality.
Therein lies the crux of this illusion. I have been lucky enough to do many jobs over the years, including digging excrement out of blocked sewers by hand (ok with a shovel
).It's a very thin veneer that keeps this 'society' together and I despair when kids think spuds come from asda. The grass is starting to grow through the cracks
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