Hi Guys,
On saturday i returned home from my second bushcraft course at woodlore, this time it was camp craft. The course focuses on the correct and safe use of the axe and its capabilities, giving us the opportunity to work with wood on a larger and more efficient scale.
Compared to the fundamental course, camp craft has a much slower pace. It allows you to adjust to using the axe vigorously everyday, so that you do not become tired and therefore compromise your ability to use it. We covered many different activities in which you can use the axe, felling, limbing and splitting were perhaps the most demanding though the most satisfying and enjoyable of the activities.
As the name of the course suggests, we focused a lot on the improvement of our camp. Making it more comfortable and convenient, learning how to make more advanced shelters with tarps, learning various new types of pot hangers and learning to carve with the axe to make crafts like chopping boards, stools, kuksa cups and bowls.
Unlike the Fundamental course, this one was self-catered. I admit this certainly does seem like a very daunting task, especially for those like myself who were travelling by plane to get to the course site, meaning what you carried was limited. In spite of this, food supply and cooking was fine throughout the week. Myself and my friend Rogelio, with whom i was travelling and attending the course, brought cool bags and put our shopping in them for the week. This kept things relatively fresh, although we did have to make sure we planned meals with perishable food at the start of the week and tinned food for later in the week. Simply put, if you organise your meals for each day and bring a cool bag, you will be fine. As for the actual cooking, it did take a bit of time out of our day, but nothing very significant, the instructors left us ample to time to cook and eat each meal. I mainly cooked on my honey stove which worked a treat, with plenty of dry dead-standing sticks around it was easy to keep lit and cooked food very quickly. One recommendation I would make is to bring plenty of snacking food, biscuits and things like that, its easy to underestimate how much energy your body gets through, especially when you're doing heavy axe work most days, something to give you a quick boost of energy and keep you going, it keeps your spirits up as well.
On the first night we slept under tarps supplied to us by woodlore, those who didnt know the basic knots were taught them and those who were a bit rusty (like myself) were reminded of them. On the second day we learnt to make larger two man shelters by clipping two of the tarps together and spreading them over a basic frame that gave a ridge line and the edges were pegged to the ground. These shelters were surprisingly spacious and we slept under them for the rest of the week with two people to each shelter.
Throughout the week we had the opportunity to use the entire range of gransfors bruks axes, from the pocket hatchet to the double bit axe and i must say i now have a hankering to get my hands on a swedish carving axe again. As far as maintenance goes, we were all taught how to sharpen our axes and the various measures that you may need to take to bring an edge back from heavy damage, concepts that I had always struggled to grasp.
With me on the course were 7 other people with varying bushcraft experience, for some this was their first course and for others like myself this was my second, infact i already knew two of the other students from the fundamental course last year.
And just like the fundamental, the instructors were top notch, Tom, who assisted on the fundamental, took the lead on this course and was incredibly proficient with an axe and could convey his skill and knowledge very well. The other two instructors who were assisting, Keith and Sarah, were only too happy to help everyone out in what they were doing and answer any questions.
Each night we gathered under the communal parachute tarp to oil and buff our axe handles, a routine exercise that i am missing already. It was a great way to get to know everyone on the course, both student and instructor, sitting under the parachute, oiling the handles by head-torch light and chatting with everyone around you.
I was very sad to leave on the last day, having accustomed myself to the rhythms and routines of the forest I felt like I could have stayed for months.
Thankfully I took some pictures on this course, unlike the last one. Hopefully they'll work on this thread:
An example of one of the two man shelters which we slept in (I had just taken my bivi bag out for packing)
This is the parachute tarp where we met each night to oil the axe handles and where most of us cooked our meals
Here's a pic of some of the students carving away, this would have been on the fifth day when we started into making our crafts:
Here are a few pics of some of my crafts, now back home in Northern Ireland in one piece thankfully, although i still have plenty of work to do on them.
Sorry these pics are so massive but i dont know how to make them any smaller.
Lastly the Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe that was issued to me on the course, as our course leader Tom said "by the end of this week your axe will be your new best friend with the amount of time you will have put into it" And i have to say he wasnt far wrong. The first thing i did when I got home was get my axe out of my bag to make sure it was okay! Thankfully it was okay but the axe mask didnt get away unscathed, unfortunately it got stretched and the axe cut through it so I am considering using that as an excuse to start into leatherwork. Otherwise an axe I am very proud of, I love the grain patterns on it.
Overall It was a wonderful course and I would recommend it to anyone who would like to become proficient with an axe and have a great time in the woods.
Thanks for reading,
paddy
On saturday i returned home from my second bushcraft course at woodlore, this time it was camp craft. The course focuses on the correct and safe use of the axe and its capabilities, giving us the opportunity to work with wood on a larger and more efficient scale.
Compared to the fundamental course, camp craft has a much slower pace. It allows you to adjust to using the axe vigorously everyday, so that you do not become tired and therefore compromise your ability to use it. We covered many different activities in which you can use the axe, felling, limbing and splitting were perhaps the most demanding though the most satisfying and enjoyable of the activities.
As the name of the course suggests, we focused a lot on the improvement of our camp. Making it more comfortable and convenient, learning how to make more advanced shelters with tarps, learning various new types of pot hangers and learning to carve with the axe to make crafts like chopping boards, stools, kuksa cups and bowls.
Unlike the Fundamental course, this one was self-catered. I admit this certainly does seem like a very daunting task, especially for those like myself who were travelling by plane to get to the course site, meaning what you carried was limited. In spite of this, food supply and cooking was fine throughout the week. Myself and my friend Rogelio, with whom i was travelling and attending the course, brought cool bags and put our shopping in them for the week. This kept things relatively fresh, although we did have to make sure we planned meals with perishable food at the start of the week and tinned food for later in the week. Simply put, if you organise your meals for each day and bring a cool bag, you will be fine. As for the actual cooking, it did take a bit of time out of our day, but nothing very significant, the instructors left us ample to time to cook and eat each meal. I mainly cooked on my honey stove which worked a treat, with plenty of dry dead-standing sticks around it was easy to keep lit and cooked food very quickly. One recommendation I would make is to bring plenty of snacking food, biscuits and things like that, its easy to underestimate how much energy your body gets through, especially when you're doing heavy axe work most days, something to give you a quick boost of energy and keep you going, it keeps your spirits up as well.
On the first night we slept under tarps supplied to us by woodlore, those who didnt know the basic knots were taught them and those who were a bit rusty (like myself) were reminded of them. On the second day we learnt to make larger two man shelters by clipping two of the tarps together and spreading them over a basic frame that gave a ridge line and the edges were pegged to the ground. These shelters were surprisingly spacious and we slept under them for the rest of the week with two people to each shelter.
Throughout the week we had the opportunity to use the entire range of gransfors bruks axes, from the pocket hatchet to the double bit axe and i must say i now have a hankering to get my hands on a swedish carving axe again. As far as maintenance goes, we were all taught how to sharpen our axes and the various measures that you may need to take to bring an edge back from heavy damage, concepts that I had always struggled to grasp.
With me on the course were 7 other people with varying bushcraft experience, for some this was their first course and for others like myself this was my second, infact i already knew two of the other students from the fundamental course last year.
And just like the fundamental, the instructors were top notch, Tom, who assisted on the fundamental, took the lead on this course and was incredibly proficient with an axe and could convey his skill and knowledge very well. The other two instructors who were assisting, Keith and Sarah, were only too happy to help everyone out in what they were doing and answer any questions.
Each night we gathered under the communal parachute tarp to oil and buff our axe handles, a routine exercise that i am missing already. It was a great way to get to know everyone on the course, both student and instructor, sitting under the parachute, oiling the handles by head-torch light and chatting with everyone around you.
I was very sad to leave on the last day, having accustomed myself to the rhythms and routines of the forest I felt like I could have stayed for months.
Thankfully I took some pictures on this course, unlike the last one. Hopefully they'll work on this thread:
An example of one of the two man shelters which we slept in (I had just taken my bivi bag out for packing)
This is the parachute tarp where we met each night to oil the axe handles and where most of us cooked our meals
Here's a pic of some of the students carving away, this would have been on the fifth day when we started into making our crafts:
Here are a few pics of some of my crafts, now back home in Northern Ireland in one piece thankfully, although i still have plenty of work to do on them.
Sorry these pics are so massive but i dont know how to make them any smaller.
Lastly the Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe that was issued to me on the course, as our course leader Tom said "by the end of this week your axe will be your new best friend with the amount of time you will have put into it" And i have to say he wasnt far wrong. The first thing i did when I got home was get my axe out of my bag to make sure it was okay! Thankfully it was okay but the axe mask didnt get away unscathed, unfortunately it got stretched and the axe cut through it so I am considering using that as an excuse to start into leatherwork. Otherwise an axe I am very proud of, I love the grain patterns on it.
Overall It was a wonderful course and I would recommend it to anyone who would like to become proficient with an axe and have a great time in the woods.
Thanks for reading,
paddy
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