Who Are Your Inspirations ?

My appreciation for the out of doors: My Grandmother (Fathers side.), for the great piece of land I would visit every so often. My parents for taking me to my Grandmothers.

Survival is more of a what than a who, but I'll touch on both.

The whats: The Cold "War", The Vietnam War, "Rambo: First Blood Park II", "Red Dawn", and my local Army/Navy store. I think the Cub Scouts had a bit to do with it too.

As for who rekindled my interest in survivalism: Les Stroud when Survivorman premiered on The Science Channel.

The following is a combination of Bushcraft & survivalism.

The others: Ray Mears, Ron Hood, several people across several different forums, MacGyver, & Captain James T. Kirk. (Was that a "What the heck?" I just heard somewhere?? I'll explain the last one with the following picture.)

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Just like MacGyver, it's a tv show, but when I was a kid that particular episode of Star Trek struck a chord in me. In case you are not a Trekkie, the episode is titled "Arena".
 
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My dad is propably the most important inspiration for me. He lived at the countryside as a kid, right after the war, in pretty rough conditions. When I was a kid, the same place was our summer cottage, so I got to spend a lot of time running around the same woods.

Other than that, my sources of inspiration have been mostly fictional characters and stories. Sure I like Ray Mears, Mors Kochanski, Dick Proenneke etc, but I only heard of these guys a few years ago. As a kid, when we got our first Betamax video player, I watched the Adventures of Robin Hood propably a few hundred times (we only had like a dozen films alltogether). So, I suppose this guy had some influence:

errol_flynn_robin_hood.jpg


Luckily I have not felt any urge to wear green spandex, but I do love bowshooting :D

Another movie that had a big influence on me, was Dances with Wolves. And... whattahell, I might as well admit, that a certain mr. J. Rambo might have had an effect also :D
 
Nobody. My family doesn't hike, or camp, or fish, or anything outdoorsy. I grew up near a wonderful stretch of woods in western MA, and found it a soothing alternative to the teenage social scene. I've been a misanthropic woods-bum (now desert-bum) ever since:D
 
My father made me an outdoors man:). Hunting and fishing trough the youth and also an occational trip now and then (we live about 1000km apart now:() have been a great inspiration:thumbup:.

Tor
 
Don't really have any in the “guru” department, in fact I have little time for that. By popular “gurus” I'm thinking of Ray “there's no bore like a knife bore” Mears, or Mors Kochanski .etc. I like just finding out facts about things. Most of the guru / disciple stuff is just hilarious to me, what with much of it being little soundbites for the tyro to run along with and regurgitate later. Take a Kochanski bit on knives:

Proscription - “...should have a blade as long as the width of the palm, although blades half or twice this length are within acceptable limits...”

Great little soundbite of “Mors says...”. But on examination it is like an advert. Here is X, but it could be 100% different in either direction and still within acceptable parameters. Yes, I know he was speaking of a range of knives up to and including heavy work, but then what's the point of the 'palm' thing. Simply put, he could have said a range from size small to size big, and given definitions in cm, but with a little Mors[ism] he picked something completely arbitrary and then need to qualify it. Not picking on him particularly, but it is one of those little 'isms' designed to promote the self.

Sticking with Mors again though and we can see that clinging to gurus can make one dogmatic, but people do.

“The blade should be of a good quality carbon steel... The Mora stainless steels however, are every bit as good as their carbon steels.”

Interesting perspective. I wonder how Mora stainless [that is every bit as good as their carbon] stacks up against 440C, AUS 8, AUS 10, let alone some of the recent stuff. Isn't it down the 440A / AUS 6 end? Curious.

I could go on about others too but I won't. Save to say that gurus and soundbites from experts do little to thrill me. I just like gaining facts and then seeing what works. That system worked for me long before I knew those celebrities even existed. The only popular celebrity exception is John 'Lofty' Wiseman. That is uniquely because his sense of humour is dark, dry as a bone, and he delivers at breakneck speed.
 
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