The line has become too blurred

For me- Survival might mean getting my butt out of the area and to a road, or making myself seen so I can get help out- or hunkering down and knowing I have to stay warm and hydrated until helps finds me(and making myself easier to find). Depends on area, weather and if I or partner is hurt.

90% of the time, building a fire means a bic and hand gathered tinder- but since circumstances might be difficult when the time comes, I carry a small fire kits with tinder and 3 ways to start fire. In Winter, I carry a road flare. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

One excess I carry is- a folding saw and 100' of paracord, 20 rapelling rope/simple harness- not for survival but emergency rescue and transport of injured. I hike in areas with lots of large boulders and the potential for fall is there.

I do agree- "survival" means just that- basic need to stay alive. The gray area is what that might take and for how long.

Bill
 
Bushcraft is "smoothing it", out in the woods. If you are skilled in bushcraft, and are lost in the woods, you could just live out there indefinitely and probably not care if they find you or you find your own way out.

"Survival" is when you panic because you are worried you may never get home to your luxuries and miss the new episode of Walking dead and not get that promotion at work. :D

But seriously, learning bushcraft skills is going to make any survival situation easier, and make the big dark woods and the thought of maybe being lost for multiple nights much less daunting. No harm in gaining knowledge of all kinds.
 
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jimh0220 said:
(The line has become too blurred). It used to be when people wanted to know about survival, they meant how to get the hell back to civilization without being dead. Now, the line between primitive living and true survival skills. When someone asks for a survival knowledge, people tell them all about 'buscraft' skills. When they need a survival knive, it must be a bushcraft knife. Survival advice includes cooking skills and how to build a cabin instead of just keeping warm enough. My personal survival kit fits comfortabl in a fanny pack. Yet people reccomend full sized packs and enough to live for a year to put in it.

Am I the only one that has noticed this? It's frightening that people are thinking that they are the same.
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Why does there need to be a line at all? Perhaps we need a new term to describe wilderness survival plus primitive skills? In my mind, they have always been pretty much the same thing, anyway. If all you are concerned about is keeping your butt safe for 72 hours, as mentioned by Cody Lundin, you wouldn't need to learn wild foods, poisonous plants, utility plants, traps and snares, bow and arrow making, etc. Where would the fun be in that?

Doc
 
To make sense of 'survival' you need Risk Accessement and then Emergency Preparedness.
This defines what the senario might be, and what reponse you have prepared

It knocks out all the gobbledy gook of run away imaginations.
 
I think Doc Canada hit the nail on the head. We just need to go back in time some and listen to the older folks called it
Learning outdoor skills . That is all it is, becomming a woodsman. It that not what we all are wanting to learn?
Once you start you are in for a life time of learning them.
One you learn them for your area then it is time to start learning them for other areas if you can.

Bryan
 
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DOC-CANADA said:
Why does there need to be a line at all? Perhaps we need a new term to describe wilderness survival plus primitive skills? In my mind, they have always been pretty much the same thing, anyway. If all you are concerned about is keeping your butt safe for 72 hours, as mentioned by Cody Lundin, you wouldn't need to learn wild foods, poisonous plants, utility plants, traps and snares, bow and arrow making, etc. Where would the fun be in that?

Doc
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sicily02 said:
I think Doc Canada hit the nail on the head. We just need to go back in time some and listen to the older folks called it
Learning outdoor skills . That is all it is, becomming a woodsman. It that not what we all are wanting to learn?
Once you start you are in for a life time of learning them.
One you learn them for your area then it is time to start learning them for other areas if you can.

Bryan
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When is comes to survival, there needs to be a line in my opinion. As an example, if your goal is to learn what to do to get out of the backcountry alive when becoming compromised in an activity, and you're trying to educate yourself and/or receive professional instruction, you want to learn the priorities. Realistically, wild edibles as an example, should have virtually nothing to do with modern survival, or at least be put into perspective. Many books and instructors blur the lines on where to focus your survival training by trying to be a one-stop shop.

As far as the terms being thrown around these days, I like Outdoor Living Skills too. I have seen, and participated, in some of the debates going around the internet. I too believe one of the catalysts of these debates is age, or timing. "Bushcraft" becoming a popular term in North America within the last 5 years or so, many of those starting in this timeframe vigorously defend the term as that is what THEY are doing... whereas the old-timers are scratching their head as they have been doing this for decades and asking "what exactly is bushcraft?" And I believe there is a distinction between the broad-term, "bushcraft," now being used versus the long-used term of "(northern) bushcraft" by our Canadian brothers.

More here on the subject under Arts & Sciences. Feedback welcomed.
 
Scouts in the 60s

The Scouting Handbook called it Woodcraft
And it was the whole gambit, from tracking, trapping, pioneering, and cooking
Learning how to use axes and saws, and how to make fires
A camping pen knife with a bail, and a 5" sheath knife with a stag handle

Been using these skills ever since
 
Maybe there is a "line".. Maybe there are different specialties, or forms of survival skills/training/practioners? Bushcrafters, survivalists, mall-ninjas, scouts, etc. Yes, there are some whom believe you need a 70lb pack full of goodies, plus 30 pounds of body gear. There are those whom believe you need an entire basement decked out or a vehicle. There is nothing wrong with any of that, it is preference, I believe. Although, all those of us whom practice bush-skills, have different skill-sets. :-) Personally, I think we all just like swag and goodies and the outdoors.
 
I still stand by what I said, once you start on this path you are learning survival
skills till the end which is what we all do die in the end. We are surviving untill then.

Horace Kephart called it woodcraft too, and it ment all of it.
The more knowledge and skill you gain is just that more skills and knowledge.


Personaly I never call myself a survival guy. I am woodsman in training.
whether I learn something from others or learn something myself.
I am still a woodsman in training.


I know more now than 10 years ago and Iwill know more than I know now in 10 years.
some of the skills are just plain life time learning skills. Plants for one.
I have built many shelters, I know what I will do if I need too.
I do not need to build a shelter every time I go into the woods,
but there are plants I am still learning, and will till I die.

Take care all,

Bryan
 
Am I the only one that has noticed this? It's frightening that people are thinking that they are the same.
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I am tired of the post and questions like "what's the best survival backpack, knife, etc." When all they really want is something for camping. :(

You do not plan on a survival situation it just happens and then you have to use what's on you and your skills to get out of it. Most of us will never experience survival thanks god.
 
Survival classes would only be a better choice for those in the military or people traveling to countries that might require escape and evasion knowledge/training. Outside of that bush craft skills, tools, and methods are a far better choice. If one learns to be happy, health, and wise in the outdoors there is no need to survive. You’re simply doing what you enjoy doing even though it was unplanned. :)
 
panzertroop said:
I am tired of the post and questions like "what's the best survival backpack, knife, etc." When all they really want is something for camping. :(

You do not plan on a survival situation it just happens and then you have to use what's on you and your skills to get out of it. Most of us will never experience survival thanks god.
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A good illustration of my point that most of us have a different definition of "survival". I have experienced "survival situations" many times in the past fifty years. So far, I have succeeded in surviving. If I hadn't, you would never have heard of Codger. Sometimes I survived by sheer luck of the draw. Other times by skills and knowledge and making good decisions. Only a few times because I had a "XYZ" with me.

As for posts and questions containing terms like "survival knife" or "Survival backpack", just avoid them like I do the ones about zombies. ;)

zpstl321 said:
Survival classes would only be a better choice for those in the military or people traveling to countries that might require escape and evasion knowledge/training. Outside of that bush craft skills, tools, and methods are a far better choice. If one learns to be happy, health, and wise in the outdoors there is no need to survive. You’re simply doing what you enjoy doing even though it was unplanned. :)
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Another excellent illustration of my point. Thankyou. :)
 
Panzertroop,
I am not disagreeing with you per se but since, as you said- "You do not plan on a survival situation it just happens and then you have to use what's on you and your skills to get out of it" Is that not a good reason to make sure your normal hiking/camoping gear is good enough that it would also serve for emergency survival?

Bill


Codger,
You just ignore zombies because they cannot swin out to the canoe ;)
 
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lmalterna said:
Codger,
You just ignore zombies because they cannot swim out to the canoe ;)
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I heard somewhere that they can walk on the bottom under the water. Such silliness. Bigfoot will take care of them. Let's see them walk anywhere with a log crammed down their throats or up their wazoo.
 
!!!!!!!!!!!! I still have not recovered from Jason springing up out of Crystal Lake and grabbing the girl in the canoe....... ;)

Many, but not all, of the skills used in bushcraft will assist people thrust into survival mode. The trick is to assess the area a person frequents to determine the real threats. For most of us, navigation if we are lost, maybe emergency first aid, and hydration/warmth and signaling are our real needs.

Bill
 
Situational awareness is a prime skill in avoiding dangerous events no matter where you are. A cool head and ability to "McGuyver" are important attributes as well. There are many more that a lot of people don't think of as "survival skills" until after they have come into play in a real life situation.
 
zpstl321 said:
Survival classes would only be a better choice for those in the military or people traveling to countries that might require escape and evasion knowledge/training. Outside of that bush craft skills, tools, and methods are a far better choice. If one learns to be happy, health, and wise in the outdoors there is no need to survive. You’re simply doing what you enjoy doing even though it was unplanned. :)
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You're thinking of SERE type classes and I would agree with you on that. However, a good civilian survival school teaches WAY more than just skills and it's something you cannot get from learning bushcraft. Prioritizing, the psychological aspects as well as how to keep yourself OUT of a survival situation being the important things. To me bushcraft compliments survival training but survival training should be something any avid outdoors person should have. Survival training will keep your butt alive, bushcraft skills in addition to that will elevate you to keeping your butt alive in (relative)comfort.
 
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I've seen this thread go from survival to bushcraft and after that definitions between bushcraft and woodcraft as well as all that it entails.

Wouldn't it be easier to define survival as anything where your life is on the line and you need a certain set of skills just to survive, whether it be in a tropic, urban, arctic or barren environment? Should you be the victim of a catastrophe in a city you'd need many different skills compared to in the woods but making a fire, leaving signs and things like basic medical care are still important regardless of the scenario.
 
This is an interesting thread :-) Lol so many differing opinions. My grandfather often talked about wilderness skills, being a woodsman or a mountain man. He was an intresting man, and one tough old fart. He taught me to throw an axe, handle a bolt-rifle, taught me plants--which were good to eat, which were poisonous, which could be made into other things, he taught me to anticipate weather, how to build shelters, taught me to fish and track as well as other things. He even pushed me to learn self-defense. My grandfather was one tough old fart, I tell you. He even kept gardens so big, he was featured in the city's paper. My grandfather made me to train hard and methodically, and it still serves me well to this day. I agree with Breeden, there is always more to learn, no matter how skilled you are--wether a professional or just starting out. I've been at it since I could walk and talk, and I'm still learning. Because of my grandfather, I have a job--swinging an axe and working with chainsaws..learned both through his teaching me to be a Woodsman. :-)

Although, I will say this, the term "Survivalist" for the majority of the world's populace DOES seem to generate mental images of hoarded gear and Rambo-esque characters.
Lol....I doubt any of us are quite that muscular. :-P
 
Spend lots of time up in the rockies with just a knife, hatchet, whatever food I decide to bring, means to start a fire. Perfectly comfortable living up there, finding my way around indefinetly with nothing else, except what I can make with what nature provides. With that said, If ever faced with a true survival situation, will activate my personal locater beacon, and be pretty confidant that I will be rescued within a day or two at the most.A survival situation is one where there is imminent risk to life. The rest of it is all fun.
 
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