Sounds lovely, the "Jungle Camp" episode was on last night, very little was demonstrated in terms of bushcraft a lot of it was on appreciation of nature, for example there was a segment where they ascended into the canopy and discussed its relation to the forest ecology and how the plants which grew there served as pseudo-food storage devices for the ones on the forest floor as when they died they fell down and were consumed.
Mears used primarly a large knife similar to the martindale golok, but much larger (50% longer) and with a down curved handle like on the Valiants, the scabbard was the boxy wooden type. The natives used a collection of machetes, which still had the paper stickers on them and looked to have little if any wear from sharpening and heavy rust, including on the edge. There were a few types, most common was a heavy blade similar to the Martindale 227 with more of a triangular tip.
There were a few skills demonstrated including gathering dye, sap for rubber, hammocks out of bark, fishing using a vine for poison (which took a lot of work and generated just a handful of small fish, a few inches long - probably more of a show for Mear's than a serious trip), making a native fishing rod, traditional bread baking, and one of the locals chopped out a paddle with a machete with what looked like a few minutes, including using the blade as a scraper to provide a smooth finish.
Towards the end Mear's asked the locals to show him their method of firestarting and surprisingly they noted they just used matches/lighter. Friction methods were not common, they attempted hand drilling but didn't use a notch and their drill was really short (less than a foot). Mear's showed them how he did it and they took to it readily and spent most of the next day practicing.
Interesting commentary on how fast skills are lost considering this village had just over a hundred people and was 15 days away from modern supplies (that is how long it took them to obtain matches and such). The same is seen locally, just one generation ago this was a farming/fishing community but now the number of people who could do those basic tasks is reduced to a small percentage, and probably will be none in another generation.
-Cliff
