What is Bushcraft?
My humble opinion on what bushcraft means to me!
I’m not entirely certain but the first time I heard someone mention the term ”bushcraft” I didn’t quite know what it meant. When I then got it explained to me, it sounded somewhat like what I already was doing when out in the field.
The term ”bushcraft” means, to me, that you’re out in the forest, mountains, among lakes, or at any other place and you feel comfortable being there. It’s not a race for survival, even though you actually are surviving of the land. To be able to be comfortable you need to have the right gear with you. Some gear, not all of your gear, mind you. Just a couple of tried and tested items that work well for you in a variety of situations. To be able to cut your gear down to a smaller number of items you need knowledge of your gear, how to use them and what other gear you can craft with this small set of tools at your disposal.
Being out bushcrafting is pretty much being out surviving in the wild while being comfortable. Instead of focusing on getting back to civilization as soon as possible, you build a small shelter with all the comforts you need, camp fire, a seating area, a small bed and protection from the weather. There is, however, a simplicity you’d like to maintain in your camp. You don’t want to build a new civilization just because you have the tools for it and are well versed with them!
When I play Minecraft with my children, the most fun part is at the absolute beginning of the game, when you start with nothing but your hands and build your way through dirt shelter, wooden shack, larger wooden house, mantion, and castle. The problem, for me, when I get to a certain point is that it’s not about living well, exploring, facing threats, and building structures because I need them. It becomes about upholding these structures, be it harvesting large achres of crops or mining for the last 5000 blocks for the new part of the mansion.
It’s the same with civilisation. In our normal lives we live mostly to uphold the structures that hold civilization and all our comforts that comes with it. It’s never about just doing something because you need it, because truth is, you never really need anything in civilization.
So, when out in nature doing bushcraft I want to create and build things. But only the things that are immediately useful for my continued survival and minimum comforts. Some bushcrafters go way past this point and create small new societies within nature, and while that is extremely cool and I’ve enjoyed watching a lot of videos of people doing this, it’s something going past bushcrafting, in my opinion.
Bushcraft, to me, is about being out in nature, addressing your needs in a way that make your time in the wild comfortable enough.
In Sweden, we have ”Allemansrätten” meaning every man’s right to be in nature and use it moderately. You cannot fell trees or take things from live or standing trees and plants, only branches and things that’ve fallen down. If you choose to camp out in the wild, you need to restore the campsite to make it look like you were never there.
And, with this in mind, you know from what perspective I will continue writing about bushcraft.