Bushcraft vs. Survival.

I can define bushcraft with one sentence. Bushcraft is going outside and purposely making every task and activity more difficult, labor intensive, and time-consuming than it needs to be.
LOL this is a perfect description of 90% of bushcraft activity.

One example is people out there striking rocks and iron or a custom bow drill setup they carried in a backpack to the woods to make fire. Yeah, it’s an awesome skill to learn. But why the fuck work so hard when you are just going to grill a steak under a tarp? Lol
 
LOL this is a perfect description of 90% of bushcraft activity.

One example is people out there striking rocks and iron or a custom bow drill setup they carried in a backpack to the woods to make fire. Yeah, it’s an awesome skill to learn. But why the fuck work so hard when you are just going to grill a steak under a tarp? Lol
I’m confused. What’s hard about starting a fire with a bow drill?
Or are you referring to carrying so much unnecessary gear?
Granted I wouldn’t carry one to the woods, and would use a ferocium rod if I had it.
 
I can define bushcraft with one sentence. Bushcraft is going outside and purposely making every task and activity more difficult, labor intensive, and time-consuming than it needs to be.
If we get right down to it, "What bushcraft gear do you need?"
The answer is "None", because you don't need to bushcraft.

It's a hobby, you do it because you want to and use the gear you want to use.

Bushcraft is not subsistence living or long-term (possibly lifetime) primitive living.
 
A good knife is awesome to have, hatchet is okay, but if someone is really surviving a little folding wood saw is better than a hatchet, or large knife as it’s much quieter and less apt to cause a bad cut if one makes a mistake.
Our ancestors lived for centuries without those things.
Except our ancestors did have axes, from stone to copper to bronze to iron to steel. It's tens of thousands of years old.
People also tended to only have one knife, which started out rather large and through breakage and sharpening got smaller with time.
 
Except our ancestors did have axes, from stone to copper to bronze to iron to steel. It's tens of thousands of years old.
People also tended to only have one knife, which started out rather large and through breakage and sharpening got smaller with time.
Most ancient ancestors didn’t use stone axes to cut trees per se.’ They mostly used fire.
Stone “axes” were most often nothing more than something to crush.
One good whack with a sharp stone ax on a hardwood tree gonna destroy the edge.
 
I’m confused. What’s hard about starting a fire with a bow drill?
Or are you referring to carrying so much unnecessary gear?
Granted I wouldn’t carry one to the woods, and would use a ferocium rod if I had it.
You kind of answered your own question. Why would you carry a bow brill set up when their are better options.

I guess for practice. But then wouldn’t you want to practice creating the Bow, drill and fire board. I get that.

Another thing I see is people carrying a huge wooded mug or bowl to drink pine needle tea. Lol
 
I’m confused. What’s hard about starting a fire with a bow drill?
Or are you referring to carrying so much unnecessary gear?
Granted I wouldn’t carry one to the woods, and would use a ferocium rod if I had it.

Yeah! Friction fire is so easy . . . that's why no one ever fails at it. Ever. Not once. :rolleyes:
 
You kind of answered your own question. Why would you carry a bow brill set up when their are better options.

I guess for practice. But then wouldn’t you want to practice creating the Bow, drill and fire board. I get that.

Another thing I see is people carrying a huge wooded mug or bowl to drink pine needle tea. Lol
I really think it's for the practice, but then, they also need to practice proper wood selection and making one each time, not taking their "custom bowdrill set" as you say.

As for kuksas and such, I mean if they went through the trouble of making it, why not use it?
 
Yeah! Friction fire is so easy . . . that's why no one ever fails at it. Ever. Not once. :rolleyes:
Even though I can with a hand or bow drill I’ll use a lighter or ferocium rod if I had it.
Way I look at it if someone to the point they need to then they done lost all their gear so that custom set up gonna be gone too.
Sure it’s fun to practice, but without the requisite knowledge to build one from scratch 🤷🏼‍♂️
Guess it is fun to play though.

One example is people out there striking rocks and iron
I’d probably fail miserably with that.
I’ll stick with ferocium rod. 😂
 
I can define bushcraft with one sentence. Bushcraft is going outside and purposely making every task and activity more difficult, labor intensive, and time-consuming than it needs to be.
You may say this in jest, but in case anyone takes this seriously, this is both the opposite of a key element of bushcraft and could be said of anything people do for recreation.

Efficiency is very important in the application of wilderness skills. Efficiency can come from practicing skills rather than circumventing them.

Hunting/fishing, ridiculously labor intensive way to put meat in the freezer.
Hiking/cycling/climbing, lot of unnecessary effort to get from point A to point B.
Cooking from scratch, naw…buy sauce in jars…or just eat out.

People enjoy doing things because they are a challenge. How much of a challenge a person takes on is very individual. Also, just because an individual (or many), cycles because they enjoy it does not mean the the use of a bicycle is just/only/exclusively recreational.

Chris
 
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What so many get wrong is they are taking some skills or ideas and putting them in a little box and labelling the box “Bushcraft“. They seem to want to be definite and to pigeon hole. From what I have seen, almost invariably when someone says “Bushcraft is….” followed by a tidy, concise description, they are wrong. Wrong as in, their personal box has left out too much that is in others’ boxes, or that doesn’t package well.

Perhaps they don’t understand what that Venn diagram was doing? Inclusion vs exclusion.
 
You may say this in jest, but in case anyone takes this seriously, this is both the opposite of a key element of bushcraft and could be said of anything people do for recreation.

Efficiency is very important in the application of wilderness skills. Efficiency can come from practicing skills rather than circumventing them.

Hunting/fishing, ridiculously labor intensive way to put meat in the freezer.
Hiking/cycling/climbing, lot of unnecessary effort to get from point A to point B.
Cooking from scratch, naw…buy sauce in jars…or just eat out.

People enjoy doing things because they are a challenge. How much of a challenge a person takes on is very individual. Also, just because an individual (or many), cycles because they enjoy it does not mean the the use of a bicycle is just/only/exclusively recreational.

Chris

It was a joke, but it has elements of truth based on my experience. You're welcome to disagree!

Example: spend hours practicing making a one stick fire with a knife and a ferro rod to get the charcoal grill started vs. squirting the charcoal with lighter fluid and clicking the lighter. Fun? Yes. Rewarding? Yes. Potentially valuable skill that transfers to most aspects of building fires? Yes. More difficult, labor-intensive, and time-consuming than it needs to be? Yes.
 
It was a joke, but it has elements of truth based on my experience. You're welcome to disagree!

Example: spend hours practicing making a one stick fire with a knife and a ferro rod to get the charcoal grill started vs. squirting the charcoal with lighter fluid and clicking the lighter. Fun? Yes. Rewarding? Yes. Potentially valuable skill that transfers to most aspects of building fires? Yes. More difficult, labor-intensive, and time-consuming than it needs to be? Yes.
Darned internet....hard to know how much folk are joking. :) Honestly, I am not sure whether I disagree or not. I could agree with each thing you say above, but I disagree with the conclusion you draw, that this is a way to define "bushcraft". Spending hours practicing how to make a one stick fire is practice, its an exercise. Like going to the gym or running with a weight pack. An example of an exercise isn't a good way to categorise a nebulous concept made up of countless often subtle skills.

I will agree that when people take stuff that was developed for minimal kit wilderness situations then do it at home when they have all the modern conveniences on hand, it can appear ridiculous. I have certainly been guilty here.

People who have observed others "doing bushcraft" are often mislead to define "bushcraft" as what they see those people doing. I am interested in bushcraft, but I do not consider that I do bushcraft, nor do I go "bushcrafting". As far as I am concerned, it is like someone saying they are interested in health and wellbeing then saying they do health or goes out healthing on the weekend. Then someone else sees them jogging and concludes that they can define this "health" concept as just jogging.

My experience has been that people who demonstrate real bushcraft skills in the bush often do it all but invisibly, its subtle and often appears effortless.

ATB

Chris
 
bushcraft is a survival skill. So is knowing how to manage your finances.

Your second sentence deserves the quote to repeat it. Too many people think that survival is only about building shelter, building fire, etc. and fail to recognize that one of the ever present dangers in all of our lives is a major disruption in income or having some kind of disastrous event affect our savings and investments. Being prepared to survive (and thrive) also entails minimizing debt and having sufficient financial resources (both in terms of quantity and diversity) to weather bad times that don't happen in the wilderness or involve zombies coming through your windows. Long term unemployment can be devastating, even if you do have reasonable savings, and we all need to be prepared for those things.
 
It was someone on these forums that observed that the guys posting with enthusiasm about survival, bugging out, and gear to survive a catastrophe probably didn’t have all their heavy furniture screwed to the wall and non-slip mats in the shower.
 
it's like hardness vs toughness wrt knife steel. You need to be hard, but not so hard that you catastrophically fail. You need to be tough but not so tough that you can't keep your edge.
 
What bushcraft can do is make you realize when you have it good and how to soak that in. I was camping recently essentially recreational but somewhat for work as I was traveling. No wind no bugs, 65 degrees and about 45 at night. Perfect conditions, had an amazing fire since I got lucky and found some massive hackberry chunks recently cut real close by. I had it made except the food was a little lacking (my fault of course)

Having spent a lot of nights out in crappy conditions and having to do a lot of work to get that kind of wood, being bit up or having a cold wind etc. it was the best camping I’ve ever had. If it wasn’t for some previous adversity I wouldn’t know that feeling. Hense why some planned adversity is good for the soul.
 
Several people mentioned what Elite British Military units might carry in terms of knives. We had 4 men from B Squadron, 22nd SAS come to our Company for an Exercise in Montana. One man had a Puma White Hunter, the other 3 men all had EKA Super Swedes. At the British Army Jungle Warfare School in Brunei, the resident instructor from the SAS carried a local made Parang, ideally suited for the terrain he was working in. John
 
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