Why do bushcraft and survival skills?

[Dannytsg]

Bushcraft for me is my way of meditating. It's a very insular thing for me to be alone in the woods focusing specifically on tasks I need to do to make my self comfortable whilst also being in the peace and serenity of nature and the world.

I also like bushcraft and learning other primitive/survival skills, as for me I feel it's a part of human nature, it's primal, primitive and ultimately natural. Everyone knows what it's like to be out, and get a fire going and just be in awe of 'natures TV'. That whole encompassing experience in bushcraft is ultimately why I do it, oh and it can be useful still in a day to day setting.

 

[Man of Tanith]

for me its part chill out, part learning,part faith/religious outlook enhancing,part paring it down, part testing myself
chill out-mates a good meal a couple of drinks always relaxs me more than pubs etc ever did
learning-whats this plant do what can I use for tinder what can I eat
faith/religious outlook enhancing-not for this forum but it definitely is.
paring it down-the essentials are essential the rest is not vital and differentiating between the two is always good.
testing myself-making do without stuff either on challenges ive set myself or on courses like the winter bushcraft challenge and later this yr when I do the hunter gatherer challenge is a great way to see how I fare and show myself that we all carry more than we really need

 

[nephilim]

I do it because it is practical. Also it is nice to get away from technology sometimes. When I buy a house, I am ensuring it has a garage, for the purpose of it being my workshop. I plan to add in lots of equipment, with nothing being electrical so it is all done in the old style. Including a lathe, possibly a forge and anvil, and a work bench.

 

[GGTBod]

I think Reverend Graham hit a golden nugget, it's all about dropping wild logs in the woods, can't beat squatting for a 'wildie'

 

[patmac]

I simply do it because Im too young and sensible to play golf................ I keep offering to take it up when i come home from weekends away and Swmbo just says no. Suits me!!!!!!

 

[Alreetmiowdmuka]

I think Reverend Graham hit a golden nugget, it's all about dropping wild logs in the woods, can't beat squatting for a 'wildie'

Ha can't knock a Lakeland steamer


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[trade axe]

Fear and interest. I have a bit of fear that something bitey\scratchy may deem my odiferous carcass as mildly edible. And tromping through the Boreal forest has been a spook now and then, like a moose crashing through the brush. And I am not enamoured of freezing\starving to death outdoors. Possibly due to my stupidity, and I have definitely made a few blunders out there over the years. Like walking through river brush at dusk....during deer season. A guy yelled out to me that he thought I was a deer, which leads me to conclude that he likely put me in his sites............ I find the outdoors to be multi faceted and endlessly interesting, mushroom picking, metal detecting, fishing, on and on. I'm not very fancy with all this bushcraft stuff, but this old dog has learned a few tricks. And I would consider it a privilege for all of you to enlighten me further.

 

[BlueTrain]

In spite of making occasional contribution to this forum, I don't consider myself a bushcrafter. I rather dislike labels anyway. Likewise, when I go to the woods, some of which are just outside my back door where the deer roam, I'm not going to commune with nature or be one with it (or her) but for other reasons. I nearly always see something new and interesting no matter where I go in the woods, be it 300 miles from home or just one mile. I also like going down a trail I haven't been down before, too, though I equally enjoy the familiar trails, too. Almost everything else associated with my trips out and about are merely to enable me to do those things. Life at home is difficult enough without trying to do the same things (cook, eat and sleep) in the woods, though I do so anyway. It certainly makes you appreciate the more ordinary things at home that much more and anyway, you don't have to worry about so much. For instance, there is almost no greater luxury in the woods than a flat, level place to sit something on. A picnic table is such a thing.

Survival skills, on the other hand, are something else. A walk in the woods, even if you're out for two or three months, is not necessarily a survival situation, assuming you aren't a fugitive. But one frequently finds one's self in what might reasonably called a survival situation. Fortunately, it's never the collapse of the central government (we have plenty of governments to take up the slack anyway), or an invasion of Martians or North Koreans, or anything like that. It's politically unacceptable in some circles to suggest that most people face what is essentially a survival situation with some frequency, if not regularity. Mostly they are acts of Mother Nature (God surely wouldn't do such things!). So we have two-foot snow storms, the river overflows, the power goes off and such like. There are worse things that happen but one has to be extremely unfortunate to have a fire in your house or to have a tree fall on your house. In neither of those cases can you just sit it out. In fact, you can't even stay in the house. As for "bugging out," think again.

 

[BlueTrain]

Standing around somewhere the other day, probably in the garage where I take my car to be prayed for, two men on the TV were discussing the topic, "are you prepared." I didn't hear much of what they said (sound too low) but I imagine being prepared is a warm topic now. When should you not be prepared? Yet I am kicked off forums for daring to suggest that the simple reason is not because western civilization is about to collapse (it never has so far) but rather because most everyone has been through some kind of survival situation and like it or not, the same thing will happen again. You just don't know when and how bad. Of course, it could be said that every thing could happen to you if you lived long enough.

A certain biographer in Alaska was in a bad accident when she was run down by a truck. The story was basically about how she managed in her community after the accident. One reviewer pointed out that most of us get run down by a truck in one sense or another at some point in your life and you need all the community that you can manage at such times.

 

[BlueTrain]

Ah, wilderness!

Is there any wilderness worth the name that any of us are likely to find ourselves in these days? I'm from West Virginia. I've lived in a log house where here was no indoor plumbing. One had to carry water and coal and firewood. Yet, it was a settled community, now roughly 175 years old (nothing by old country standards, true). That wasn't wilderness, though. It was, as my father called it, the "settlement." I don't know that there was any wilderness in West Virginia, though I speak for no other state. There were certainly places that were off the beaten track, to be sure, but it begs the question: what is wilderness? In the Bible, it was the Judean desert. Can one do bushcraft in the desert?

 

[wandering1]

To me BushCraft was common sense. I never really saw it as Bush craft. I've been hiking for 15 yrs lake district fells welsh glens Canada northern territories the rocky mountains etc

Being able to navigate
Light a fire with flints
Being able to make a paracord fishing net
Etc etc was to me common sense
And
I enjoy it. And the amazing photo opportunities it brings

 

[demographic]

Keeps me interested when I'm walking the dog.