Why Bush Crafting?

Imho, your list reads like that of a thru hiker. There is nothing wrong with that. That is how most of the hiking/outdoorsy world relates. I personally relate more to the pioneer / reenactor where the goal is more along the lines of living (or practicing the skills to be able to) in nature as opposed to walking through. Neither is wrong. Different strokes for different folks. I wouldn't consider it camping without a fire and fire craft. The absolute best camps for me usually involving hunting or foraging for food. Relying on myself provides a strong sense of being connected to something real and timeless.
Regards,
Josh
 
It's only another cluster of activities to absorbe into the borg. I don't consider myself a bushcrafter, a fisherman, photographer, cyclist, trapper, gardener, fence maker, tailor, potter, chef etc. I assimilate the essences of these things into my outdoor handiness. Occasionally the bushcraft scene has something to offer me. I wouldn't identify with it though, and I find the arbitrary boundaries of it a bit silly, heavy and inefficient. I know that I'd find doing only the neo-buchcraft stuff as dull as washing clothes in a river. I too would probably need to roll out of a 4WD, make a big ole bonfire and drink beer just to ginger it up a bit.
 
Why not?

I'm for just about anything that gets people in better touch with and learning from the outdoors.
 
There is a beauty in 'crafting', purposeful, ever expanding sets of skills, for me...it's been a long learning way between that first campout as a kid when we almost hypothermed out with a leaky old tent, wet sleeping bags and a 1rst gen space blanket of shivering! :)
Now my kids train to 'A' survive and 'B' thrive. And a stone axe made from junk granite and a flint edge scraper can serve up shelter, hot chow and get that horrible sliver too.

Craft.

:)
Mark
 
redsquid2 said:
I think the idea behind bush crafting is to get your basic needs met using a knife and a fire steel.
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Who told you that? That's sounds more like survivalist to me.

More people I know who practice bushcraft/woodscraft whatever you want to call it tend to take out multiple cutting tools.

A fixed blade, a folder, and a hatchet or saw.
 
if it pops up with the "advanced reply" screen, scroll down and check that your post isn't already there. Happens to me when my mouse decides to double click.
 
Bush Crafting is like a new term for me, and I like it. When I was growing up in the late 70s early 80s we built fires/shelters. We fished, cooked, occasionally slept under our tarp shelters. In the winter time we would build fires just to stay out in the woods even longer because none of us had good winter clothing.

We were all Bush Crafting back in the day and didn't even know it. A bunch of kids who loved being in the woods hunting, fishing and camping.
CD
 
Bushcrafting for most of us is a hobby. We enjoy the outdoors, learning new skills, and just relaxing. When I was much younger, I was enamored with the whole Rambo style survivalist mentality. I carried a Gerber BMF as that was the best out there at the time. Quarter inch thick monster blades for all things survival. Now I carry a 4-5 inch 1/8th thick blade and sometimes feel like that's too much. Now, a feather stick, some shavings, and a spark are to get my coffee going are what survival is about. Bushcrafting is different from the old Rambo mentality. It's not an aggressive mentality, it's for me a back to basics mentality. The smell of a fire on a cold morning with coffee brewing is like a little piece of heaven to me. And let's face it, for most of us the idea of hitting the woods with a knife and surviving for an extended period is grandiose bullcrap. I know that after 3 knee surgeries, diabetes, high blood pressure, couple of strokes and just getting old, survival takes place inside my home as much as anywhere! I was raised hunting and fishing, making fire from a bow drill, climbing up and down little river canyon in north Alabama, and learning to truly enjoy being outside. When my friends were going to the movies or the mall, I was in the woods. From Friday afternoon until Sunday night, I was somewhere in the woods, virtually every weekend. To me...That's what bushcraft is all about.
 
Krav said:
I just started to get into it. It interest me, learning the different skills, knots, traps, fire, shelter.

It's another learning process, challenge.
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It's only been a few years were I took this more seriously, or at least to a higher level. I would classify myself as a bush bumbler as opposed to a crafter. But I have great safe fun out there, and learn from this forum. :thumbup:
 
Interesting timing.

I just posted a few days ago, that I had never made a fire bow. Now that I think of it, I had never even seen one, IRL, until last Friday. That was when some friends and I were walking through the woods and came upon one in an empty campsite. It was raining hard, but all of the parts that needed to stay dry were tucked into a ziplock bag, with some kind of tinder, which looked kind of like lint.

We left it there just as we had found it. An impressively crafted tool.
 
redsquid2 said:
That makes sense. According to that definition, I am a bush crafter: a nylon and matches bush crafter. And have been since about 1973.

Lashing/hitches/knots: learned some as a Scout, but I forgot some of it. Could re-learn. As would be expected, the knots that I have remembered, have been the knots that I use most frequently. Repetitive learning.

Fire bow- never done it. However, I do understand the fun factor in learning this and other historical technologies.
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If you travel in groups that is most likely one reason why you see no use in bush- crafting. Another is according to your posts you've never been lost or perhaps never ventured past typical camping areas into the environs of the back- country. If you have it would be immediately evident that , that environment offers no mercy, changes often and in drastic measure without regard for anything or anyone.

Whoever stated "knowledge weighs nothing" was dead on the money. I would only add to his poetic prose by stating that :

"Knowledge weighs nothing, but the weight of it 's absence when needed is unbearable."

All it takes is being in the back country trying to get out as the sun fades, night falls and temperatures plummet. Then you'll know what bush-crafting really means.
 
How many of you would say you've got the hang of the hand drill method over bow drill?

Haven't seen anyone comment on flint knapping. Cordage production... anyone?
 
For me it goes hand and hand with hunting and just the desire to find a reason to be outside with a knife on my hip. I never feel better then when I am in an elk camp drinking water from a stream ( filtered or boiled) and just playing with knives and axes like god intended. Wish I could do it everyday.
 
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