Just Asking. What’s Up With Everything “Bushcraft” Nowadays?

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Bushcraft is a word people use to describe a certain type of recreation/skills practice. Some people take it too seriously and are elitist about it, but most people will tell you a cheap Mora will suffice for the activity. A lot of people get mad because there are other names for the same activities and bushcraft is just what the millennials are calling it.

IMO it's a valid form of recreation just like any other hobby. It seems like bushcrafting peaked in popularity maybe five years ago and has been losing popularity since.
 
scdub said:
This book was written in the late 1980s. It’s been popular before and it’ll be popular again if we can keep the nukes in their little nuke silos. 🤞

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I'll see your Mors Kochanski and I raise you an Ellsworth Jaeger 😁

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I really don't care what people think the "right" name for it is. I enjoy it.
 
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Drop bear said:
Bushcraft seems to be the ultimate use of a knife. And bushcrafters seem to be the most knowledgeable knife guys. And so becomes the gold standard for knifing.
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If you talk with many "bushcrafters" about knife steel, you would quickly find out this is not the case.

Knowledgable on how to use a knife, yes. About the specifics of a knife, not necessarily. Same as a good chef. Very proficient with the tool, not always the most knowledgable about the tool itself.
 
My co worker always brags that his kid plays “select” baseball. It can’t just be baseball. It’s the same with .. tactical and Bushcraft.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I think bushcraft is a fairly benign branch of knife use/collecting. I see it as the younger brother of the Prepper movement that saw how bat-spit his sibling was and least stayed in school. It's at least maybe useful in some regard.

Let's face it: in the second decade of the 21st century a cutting tool is rarely NEEDED. Yes, we all have stories of our knives "saving" the day via delicious irony when we open a package for a coworker who had asked us why we needed to carry a knife. Still, handy as they are, most of us have a hundred more than we probably NEED to use ;)

Bushcraft is a way to actually use the knives we buy with a specific goal. I mean you can buy a SD sticker or TEOTWAWKI tank of a blade for zombie survival, but they aren't going to get much real use. A bushcraft knife will do what you set out to do, survive in your backyard using old knowledge and primitive tricks. It's a good excuse to practice something that while mostly impractical is at least harmless.

Now where I take issue is when people lean so heavily on Bushcraft uses that everything else is garbage. Those folks are just as insufferable as the tactical guys feeling the need to carry 8 magazines and 8 knives that are designed to inflict maximum damage on the gang of rabid meth ninjas they are surely stalking the streets of suburbia. Bushcrafters who can't see how ANY knife put in a survival situation would at least perform SOME function and would most likely outlast the person trying to survive are eye-rollingly irritating. That goes double for the ding dongs who feel that any folder worth it's salt should be able to handle batonning and spine whacking lest they be eaten by a grizzly bear or something. The become zealots of the cult of the tool itself and not the knowledge that wields it.

In short, Bushcraft is a great excuse to do something primitive for the sake of doing it. Knowing how to think your way out of a tight spot isn't a bad thing. Knowing how to at least stay alive when turned around on a trail is not useless knowledge. At the end of the day though, it's mostly an excuse to use the tools we buy when there is a 98.999% chance we will never NEED to use them in such a way.
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I hate to say it but this is absolutely true. A simple utility blade or SAK is really all you would need (bar specialty cases) in 2023.
 
scdub said:
This book was written in the late 1980s. It’s been popular before and it’ll be popular again if we can keep the nukes in their little nuke silos. 🤞
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Exactly! 'Bushcraft' has been going 'in and out' of being trendy ever since the 1980s - it's cyclical.
 
Fumetsu said:
I could beg to differ, but I guess I won't.
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Then please differ. I enjoy hearing all sides of an argument. I gladly change my mind if you give me data points I didn't consider.

I didn't mean to hit a nerve, but ask yourself the pure multitude of just the roughly 300,000,000 people in the US if 1% of them were put in a situation where you NEED bushcraft skills that would equate about 3,000,000 people needing to know how to set a deadfall, snare, or how to collect condensated water. I'm not talking about getting lost on a gravel trail for an hour. I mean actually needing survival skills to not die. I don't see that on the nightly news much, but I'm an elderly millennial/tail Gen Xer and don't watch much live TV. YOUR circumstances may be different. Maybe you walk out the door at 5:30am with nothing but a small day pack, sun dial and a compass. I dunno, but for the average 21st century human belonging to a 1st world society bushcraft skills are a fun and useful but not needed skillset when most folks need nothing more than "Siri, where is the closest Starbucks?" to survive.

Whether that is a smart survival strategy is up for debate. Once again, no harm meant. Just doing the numbers.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
Then please differ. I enjoy hearing all sides of an argument. I gladly change my mind if you give me data points I didn't consider.

I didn't mean to hit a nerve, but ask yourself the pure multitude of just the roughly 300,000,000 people in the US if 1% of them were put in a situation where you NEED bushcraft skills that would equate about 3,000,000 people needing to know how to set a deadfall, snare, or how to collect condensated water. I'm not talking about getting lost on a gravel trail for an hour. I mean actually needing survival skills to not die. I don't see that on the nightly news much, but I'm an elderly millennial/tail Gen Xer and don't watch much live TV. YOUR circumstances may be different. Maybe you walk out the door at 5:30am with nothing but a small day pack, sun dial and a compass. I dunno, but for the average 21st century human belonging to a 1st world society bushcraft skills are a fun and useful but not needed skillset when most folks need nothing more than "Siri, where is the closest Starbucks?" to survive.

Whether that is a smart survival strategy is up for debate. Once again, no harm meant. Just doing the numbers.
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I'm going to attempt to be very polite, as you've really done nothing wrong. However I strongly disagree with both your worldview and opinion. If you look at the world, and the word "Stable", "Safe", "Secure", or "Unbreakable" come to mind, you're probably not looking at things correctly. The United States is teetering on the brink of collapse, as are a lot of other developed countries. Even if the economy doesn't implode, (it will) other factors play a part, as well. I'm sure you've read about the situation in Ohio? You do realize a lot of food is grown/prepared there? What about all of the fires on food production facilities, and shipment centers? You do realize it's been over 120+ facilities destroyed/shut down/burned up in just under 3 years? What will people eat when the grocery store is empty? You've mentioned bands of roving meth-heads in Suburbia. Over here in California, that's actually a real thing. My overarching point being that everyone's situations are different and your percentage of 99.998% of people is utterly ridiculous. Time will prove me correct. I suppose we're all entitled to an opinion, however yours seems very callous and naive. If your situation allows you to be so carefree and innocent, good on you mate, but that reality doesn't and won't ever exist for a lot of folks. And if what I'm seeing is any indicator? That situation won't exist for you, for long, either.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I hadn't really wanted to get into it. But your comment really rubbed me the wrong way. It's this complacency that's gotten us in this mess in the first place.
I've said my piece, and you yours. I have no desire to continue this conversation, as I know where it will lead.
I genuinely wish you the best, as you appear to need it.
 
I used to love bushcraft very much. I use a lot of the skills I learned there - knots, tree and plant ID, knife and axe skills, tracking, etm. - throughout my life and I enjoy learning new things about different cultures that still have a practical use for those things. All the spoons in my kitchen I've carved myself, I've made my own mocassins and assorted camping gear, I'm comfortable with a tarp and guyline out camping. It's been commodified, sure, but so has the New Testament, along with everything else in a late-stage-capitalist paradigm. Doesn't change the import of the actual message.

A lot of that message, for me, is that skills and experience will trump fancy gear and spending. We've all seen the guy with a thousand dollars worth of gear that sets his camp up in a gully and gets soaked by a night rainstorm. We all know the guy who has a $300 bushcraft knife but can't make a featherstick or a fire. There was a time when I would sneer at those people, but now I just move on, or if the situation calls for it, offer to help a bit.
I moved into a more urbane (as opposed to urban) setting recently and it's astounding how few people carry a knife. I do not think to them as "sheeple" nor do think of myself as superior because those poor sods haven't dropped six hundred dollars on a knife where a thirty-dollar SAK will do, but I am very curious about how that culture gets things done. More observation required.
 
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