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- Feb 28, 2007
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My title is a bit in jest and I know I'm walking the line on what could be a potential controversial topic. So in the true spirit of debate I wanted to pose the this thread as a civil exploration of the topic and divide often stated between 'Survival' and 'Bushcraft'.
Personally, I tend to think of myself more along the lines of the 'Survival' camp. I do not find myself completely alienated from civilization, my job, my wife, my family. I love going out in the wilderness, but I also understand that what constitutes a trip to commune with nature is largely a temporary exercise. In a matter of that afternoon, a day or a week I will be back living my life in my suburban home, working at the job that I love and trying to engage in the society I live in and help turn it towards a better direction.
I understand the romanticism of the 'bushcraft' mentality. The idea of going off to live fully in nature with little baggage from civilization. I know there are many folks who frequent W&SS who sincerely would like to pursue that, that fantasize about SHTF situations and think of engaging in bushcraft as a means of escapism.
So here is the topic. The term bushcraft often gets imbued with a sort of spiritualism to it. Nature is posed in a favorable light, nature the provider and man in harmony with it. The term survivalism often gets imbued with a sort of aggressive antagonism. Man versus wild, hmm where have I heard that catch phrase before?
I'd like to explore, are they really different from one another. We can look at technicalities, some talk about survivalism being lasting 2 or 4 days to get back to civilization while bushcraft being long term living. However, I firmly don't believe that bushcraft is necessarily any more harmonious or peaceful living. Yes, more skills can be had and one requires those skills, but the person living long term in the bush is not living an easy life either. They are struggling against the elements, struggling for nutrition just like the survival person is.
Then lets get at the issue of what I view as false perceptions about 'nature's bounty'. How sustainable are many parts of the wilds? There was a nice document put up not long ago, a CBC piece on traditional aboriginal families living in Quebec using what now became part of the James Bay reservoir. Anyhow, the documentary detailed how the family lived off the land, several hundred acres, by hunting and gathering practices. What struck me was that part of the practice was to let the land go fallow after a couple of years to regenerate game. There was a recognition of lack of sustainability on a given, even large one, plot of land with continuous hunting and gathering activities. This concept of resource use, sustainability is rarely counterbalanced with the mindset of 'nature will provide' or 'nature will provide indefinitely'.
In the end, I sometimes get tired of the labels sometimes thrown out at survivalists. As though they are unskilled or moderately skilled and somehow not in tuned with nature. I see the survivalist and the bushcrafters as a more similar mindset while others clearly attempt to delineate them.
What are your thoughts?
Personally, I tend to think of myself more along the lines of the 'Survival' camp. I do not find myself completely alienated from civilization, my job, my wife, my family. I love going out in the wilderness, but I also understand that what constitutes a trip to commune with nature is largely a temporary exercise. In a matter of that afternoon, a day or a week I will be back living my life in my suburban home, working at the job that I love and trying to engage in the society I live in and help turn it towards a better direction.
I understand the romanticism of the 'bushcraft' mentality. The idea of going off to live fully in nature with little baggage from civilization. I know there are many folks who frequent W&SS who sincerely would like to pursue that, that fantasize about SHTF situations and think of engaging in bushcraft as a means of escapism.
So here is the topic. The term bushcraft often gets imbued with a sort of spiritualism to it. Nature is posed in a favorable light, nature the provider and man in harmony with it. The term survivalism often gets imbued with a sort of aggressive antagonism. Man versus wild, hmm where have I heard that catch phrase before?
I'd like to explore, are they really different from one another. We can look at technicalities, some talk about survivalism being lasting 2 or 4 days to get back to civilization while bushcraft being long term living. However, I firmly don't believe that bushcraft is necessarily any more harmonious or peaceful living. Yes, more skills can be had and one requires those skills, but the person living long term in the bush is not living an easy life either. They are struggling against the elements, struggling for nutrition just like the survival person is.
Then lets get at the issue of what I view as false perceptions about 'nature's bounty'. How sustainable are many parts of the wilds? There was a nice document put up not long ago, a CBC piece on traditional aboriginal families living in Quebec using what now became part of the James Bay reservoir. Anyhow, the documentary detailed how the family lived off the land, several hundred acres, by hunting and gathering practices. What struck me was that part of the practice was to let the land go fallow after a couple of years to regenerate game. There was a recognition of lack of sustainability on a given, even large one, plot of land with continuous hunting and gathering activities. This concept of resource use, sustainability is rarely counterbalanced with the mindset of 'nature will provide' or 'nature will provide indefinitely'.
In the end, I sometimes get tired of the labels sometimes thrown out at survivalists. As though they are unskilled or moderately skilled and somehow not in tuned with nature. I see the survivalist and the bushcrafters as a more similar mindset while others clearly attempt to delineate them.
What are your thoughts?
