Bushcraft / Survival knife skill training questions

T

tuffluv

Joined
Feb 24, 2015
Messages
77
I'd like to begin to learn bushcraft and survival skills. I haven't attempted these skills before.

I'm looking for advice on good books, articles, or websites that teach the basic skills.

Thanks in advance.
 
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bushcraft

in particular, my favorite videographers are these guys. There are a few more but these are at the top of my list:


[video=youtube;SAlFy67h-0k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAlFy67h-0k[/video]

[video=youtube;e_rGc2dgn7s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_rGc2dgn7s[/video]

[video=youtube;QTzRMUyCIYU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTzRMUyCIYU[/video]

[3 video limit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th6EOlLK0DA&list=PLaKRT_3-fl_ny2QPsBeIQ0wWcLajdPh4F
 
The videographers posted above are great and I watch them as well. I might also add Sigma 3....

[video=youtube;T4altDO4tOs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4altDO4tOs[/video]


However, to me, nothing beats a good book and these are the three I have learned the most from....

books_zpsuiji1msr.jpg


If you are interested in the Army FM 21-76 you must make sure you buy the JUNE 1992 version as this is the big thick version with the best and most information in it. Unfortunately, they are becoming increasingly hard to find.
 
Might want to tell us where you're from. Southern States requires different skills than Canada, for instance, so you may as well begin learning with a focus on your area. That way you'll internalize more relevant things as you go along.
 
Last edited:
The best way to learn what you need is to get out in the trees and Learn what you need to take next time and what you'll leave behind until you find a style that suits you and Learn techniques that fit around that style. We all adapt ahs change as time goes one, what's best for one may not be best for another.
 
What are the traditional skills? Most are not terribly difficult to learn beyond common sense.

Fire making and fire construction.
Cooking over an open fire. Using a dutch oven.
Finding water and treating it for drinking.
Cutting poles and stakes for tarps, tents, and shelters.
Building a shelter. Never done this and doubt I ever will. But I don't believe it would be too difficult as long as there are materials handy and you have the time.
Bear proofing food supplies.
Learning to tie a few useful knots.
Basic first aid.
 
Thanks for the addition. Yeah..... I just whipped off a quick list without thinking it all the way through.

Guess I would add hunting and fishing to this as well.
 
walk 100 yards in to some woods
take a knife matches newspaper and a pot with some water and some instant coffee
make a fire
use newspaper to start it
make a cup of coffee
do that ten times
then don't use newspaper
read in a book what else to use
cotton and Vaseline
then natural material
see how long it takes to make a cup of coffee at first
then ten times later
 
Here's a nice, simple primer written by Marty Simon, who owns and runs the Wilderness Learning Center in update NY Near the Canadian border. He is one of the finest wilderness instructors in the business:


 
Brian, didn't Marty Simon retire? And if not, where can he be seen now? He used to post quite a bit right here.

Doc
 
From current Hood's Woods site:

Marty Simons Wilderness Learning Center is located in New York State. Marty is one of those guys who has spent his life learning his craft and the same amount of time teaching it. He’s actually older than me!

Maybe it’s our age, or experience or our friendship but I’m not telling any fibs when I say.. This is one instructor and school you MUST take advantage of if you live in the East. Marty is skilled in every aspect of wilderness survival and wilderness lore. A fact he would modestly try to refute if you told him I said so. Just so you know, Marty is one of the guys I look up to as a superior teacher. His qualities... experience, wit, knowledge, staff, terrain, program variation and a whole lot more.

The Wilderness Learning Center is a full time outdoor education school. They cover all aspects of wilderness survival, both primitive & modern skills, with a strong emphasis on wild plants. Marty Simon is owner & Director with over 35 years both living & teaching survival skills. The school is located on their own 537 acres preserve which is ideally suited for survival training. Marty is also a licensed New York State Guide, member of Vermont Guides Association and a Certified Wilderness First Aid Instructor.
Click to expand...
 
Brian Jones said:
Here's a nice, simple primer written by Marty Simon, who owns and runs the Wilderness Learning Center in update NY Near the Canadian border. He is one of the finest wilderness instructors in the business:


Click to expand...

Pretty good but does not even mention the most important thing, proper clothing. Survival necessities are based upon a triad of times you can survive the three main environmental pressures: 'Four hours without shelter, four days without water, four weeks without food.' You do not need a knife or fire equipment unless you are out of water, not properly dressed, or have had an accident. If you are properly dressed with the appropriate extra clothes in your pack then you will survive for four days at least. A knife will not allow you to live four days as easily as clothing will.

Shelter skills are very important to learn, but before that it is necessary to understand clothing. What does it matter to be able to build a quality shelter if you get wet or you do not have an extra pair of clothes? Or if your clothing is insufficient for winter conditions? Once you feel the symptoms of a problem it may already be too late.

Your clothes are your primary shelter, and what we build beyond that is a secondary shelter. The environment around is is already a secondary shelter and clothes should be chosen to most effectively use the natural shelter around us without having to build it. The primary shelter we take with us, and the secondary shelter is built over a course of hours or days in the event of required additional protection or comfort. This is important to remember as proper clothing allows you the opportunity to always be advanced; at the second and third stages of survival - so long as weather and your situation permits. In other words, if you wear the proper clothing then you are always four hours ahead and can then begin chipping away at your water and food requirements. This is the most efficient method of keeping the survival pressures of thirst and hunger at bay. Understanding this, it becomes clear that a wise choice of clothing for different situations is the most important knowledge there is, and this becomes ever more apparent in adverse conditions.

Clothing is also the most underrated skill and the skill people know the least about, as we have become more and more reliant on oil-based clothes which are marketed as superior. How many people can make a split-wood fire compared to those who can make a pair of mukluks, or even realise the importance of such clothing? At least 100 to 1 in my estimation. Most of the clothes we have access to now are either hyped, of low-quality, or downright dangerous. The shortcomings of current clothing systems come down to oil-based clothing being extremely weak in regards to fire and brush, while all cotton besides cotton canvas shells can be life threatening in cold conditions if you get wet (you can most easily become hypothermic if wearing wet cotton in the cold). It is a complex subject but those are the basics you should know.

Given this, I would suggest learning what clothes would work best in your area and for the activities you will pursue. The knife is the most overrated bushcraft and survival item (I know, heresy on a knife forum). That is not to take away from its potential, but in a hierarchy of survival skill significance we can see the knife fall back down into the woods from the heavens; it should come after clothing, knowledge of shelter building/materials, a container suitable for carrying and if necessary boiling water, fire lighting equipment, and an axe or saw (a knife could be in this position depending on the season and duration of the trip; don't get too upset with me over the formulation as I too had to consider the reality of my muse, I'm an axe guy foremost but I still rate clothing at the top). I realise that clothing is not as exciting as a blade, it lacks the romanticism, but in reality it is much more important, and this will be realised depending on the effort you put into living in the woods (time spent, dangerous situations endured, trekking, lumbering, hunting/fishing). Knives have become for men in bushcraft what clothes have become for women of status, symbols of power lacking practicality which act to accentuate nudity. Clothing is essentially a form of confidence for humans, they are interdependent things and we should keep them practical and real, along with the knives.

I suppose what I am saying is that the knife has come to act as something of a fig leaf covering up the nakedness of the bushcrafter and survivalist. "The Emperoror's New Clothes" could be rewritten as "The Bushcrafter's New Knife".

Other than that it is a good list for you to follow.
 
Last edited:
I like the notion that clothing is a subset of shelter, but both are a subset of 98.6.

Surely, the situation dictates the order of priority of needs to survive.

The World is wide. Not everyone is in an area that gets cold, which is why Mors qualifies his expertise and advice when he specifies your hierarchy. In some areas, a day without water can be fatal and shelter is never needed.
 
Yes, but Cody Lundin and others who are experts in environments quite opposed to the boreal are students of Kochanski. Who isn't, really? Most people follow Ray Mears, but most of what Ray Mears did was just an English reading of Kochanski, that's where he got all his information from "Northern Bushcraft". And I suspect his proper English attitude is the reason for the shift towards gear and status displays in the forest (along with the reality tv philosophy of internet bushcrafting).

The problem with hard science and numbers is that they are not real. Insisting that they are real ensures that the fluidity of life becomes lost and the human ability to interpret myth, parable, and metaphor becomes like the person trying to survive alone in the woods. 98.6 is not real, our temperature is always changing and we must achieve a balance, that is the lesson. The rule of 3s or 4s is better taken as a sort of survival law in the historical tradition of myth. Likely it is best to drink every few hours, but the rule remains that as an average you can live 3-4 days without water.

I qualified that with a proper understanding of clothing and how it allows you to move ahead with getting water and food. No matter where you are you must understand clothing. In the boreal you may require wool and a cotton canvas anorak. In the desert you may require light cotton clothing that protects the skin while keeping you cool; along with a pack containing extra clothes if it gets cold at night. In the jungle you need rain protection that will not rot and the ability to protect yourself from poisonous critters. I don't really know these latter areas as I don't travel, but I can see clearly that the principles remain the same.

In the desert you lack the secondary shelter of the forest cover present in the boreal, this would mean no cover from the sun or wind so an adaptation would be required to maintain the rules of water maintenance. This may mean walking at night and sleeping in the shade during the day, using any means of cooling the bloodflow of the neck with a damp scarf, carrying some sort of shade like a large umbrella, or locating areas where the landscape acts much like the trees. Again, I don't really know the ways of the desert, but what I have written above basically explains how others have adapted Kochanski's triad to other regions. I have had to adapt as well because I live in the Acadian Forest and there are hardly any books about this region, no manuals at all. It is a cross between the Eastern Woodlands and the Boreal with moisture and storm elements similar to the Pacific Northwest.

What this means is that my daytime winter clothing may be a whole other class to my night clothing as the temperature shifts abruptly from wet-cold to dry-cold, and back again in the morning. Then I must layer appropriately or carry an extra type of clothing to keep heat and moisture management within that four day range. The less time I have to worry about fire and shelter the more time I can spend keeping water running and working towards other tasks.

The situation really isn't as different as you suggest as dehydration is actually just as much a concern in the boreal winter as it is in the desert. The dry cold of winter sucks the moisture out of your body the same as a dry heat with wind in the desert. The only difference is negative or positive variance from core temperature. And actually Mors Kochanski did study how people survived in desert locations, as things can always be adapted to your location. That takes a significant amount of knowledge and reasoning capability though. And that is why I qualified what I said and suggested that as a beginner he should learn based on his area.

Given that, I suppose it is best to think of three types of shelters: primary as clothing, secondary as natural environment, and tertiary as what you adapt in the environment.
 
I should have mentioned that this is a handout he uses, as part of a larger curriculum, which most certainly starts with the survival priorities. This is just a small subset, and because the OP asked about skills specifically, I chose to share this part with him as a sort of checklist.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top