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I’ve heard the terms bushcraft and wilderness survival used interchangably, and defined by those who base their understanding on what they saw on a tv show. Needless to say I disagree with most of the common definitions floating around these days. The terms are not the same thing, although one is contained within the other.

Wilderness Survival is living through an adverse situation in the wilderness. We run a variety of wilderness survival courses, the aim of which is to provide sufficient training so that if you find yourself in the wilderness and something bad happens, you’ll live to tell the tale. Survival isn’t complicated; it’s knowing what it takes to keep the body alive and functioning. What you need to know can be learned in a short time. What you need to do to accomplish this can take much longer.

Bushcraft is a much larger discipline. Wilderness survival knowledge is a component, but so are a wide variety of other topics. It’s the active component of our interaction with nature. Both art and science, bushcraft is doing, making, crafting, traveling, building and living in the natural world using simple, low-tech tools. Static knowledge, such as how to care for tools, etc., is a small percentage of the discipline. The vast majority is active, dynamic and hands-on.

But bushcraft is just a part of Bush Lore, a larger discipline still. It consists of the combination of bushcraft and nature knowledge. Nature knowledge is an understanding of the natural world, including plants, fungi, lichens, animals, birds, fish, mollusks, insects, amphibians, reptiles, rocks, minerals, soil, water, ice, weather, celestial bodies and ecology, the dynamic interaction of each with the whole. It can be learned but, in most cases, not directly taught. Observation and study are the keys and it’s a lifetime endeavor.

Hopefully this helps to clear up any misconceptions on how we use these terms.

Something we discuss in great detail in our courses is the difference between minimum impact camping and displaced impact camping. Modern camping practices are far from minimum impact; things such as rare metals and petroleum products put a huge burden on our planet. But since the effects of their processing and production aren’t usually visible where people recreate, modern hi-tech camping gear is seen, and marketed as “minimum impact”. But step back and view the world with a larger perspective and it’s simple to see that this isn’t the case. There is a huge impact, but it’s displaced – meaning the impact is visible but not in the area where the gear is used.
Paul Sveum, an ESSP graduate and assistant instructor, is a student at Northland College in Wisconsin and recently sent me the following paper he wrote on the topic.

“A Hole in the Woods vs. A Hole in the Earth” by Paul Sveum

When I was in my backpacking stage of life, before canoeing spoiled me to real camp food, wool, and canvas, I was the model of the leave no trace ideology. I used an ultra-light stove, aluminum cook pots, and plastic forks and spoons. (actually only half a fork and half a spoon to cut down on weight) At night I used a plastic and nylon tent and slept in a synthetic mummy bag. I would go to sleep in my synthetic cocoon reading Abbey or Thoreau by the light of my led headlamp. After packing up in the morning, I could barely tell where I had been that night, and felt good slogging down the trail knowing the next campers would only see a patch of matted down grass. But did I really leave no trace?

At first survey, we would say yes, the environment was left as it was found, but if we pull back our field of vision to the global level, a new picture is shown. It’s a global picture of oil fields and refineries, open bauxite mines and aluminum smelting facilities, industrial rubber plantations, and of toxic living and working conditions created by these industries. On top of the negative global environmental effects of Leave No Trace ideology comes the isolation of viewing nature with a look but don’t touch policy.

To get us all on the same page, leave no trace camping was developed in reaction to a growing number of people recreating in our national parks and other public lands in order to preserve the integrity of the land for future visitors. There are seven main points: plan ahead, travel on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what you find, minimize campfire effects, respect wildlife, and be considerate to other visitors. All of these are good examples of conscientious backcountry behavior, and I want to express that I don’t think LNT is wrong by any means, it is a useful tool; especially when teaching young kids how to act in a wilderness setting. But when these ideas are followed as gospel is when problems arise.

First, it is impossible to go anywhere without leaving a trace. As active participants in life on earth, we humans cannot exist without affecting that which lives around us, either for good or bad. The idea that it is possible to travel through a wilderness area and leave no trace encourages a futile effort; let me explain. Dan Tryon, owner of Purcell Trench, a camping gear manufacturer out of Washington tells this story: “I was hiking in the beautiful granite high country of California, stopped near an exquisite lake and noticed that the large stone in front of me had been a camping spot for hikers the night before. They had done a consummate job of Leaving No Trace. I found cut fir boughs back in the brush. The boughs were used to sweep the entire area. On close inspection, it was clear significant damage had been inflicted on the lichens living on the large flat stone…” The only way to truly leave no trace in the backcountry is to stay home.

The advice from the LNT viewpoint is to use modern camping gear, and seeing how there are approximately, last time I counted, 3.5- 3.6 trillion gadgets, gizmos, and articles of outdoor gear, it appears this is the most popular choice. Dartmouth College’s LNT web site agrees, “Select appropriate equipment. Lightweight stoves, free standing tents, and collapsible water containers.” The fact is that most of the products used to allow us to camp at that pristine campsite and leave no trace came from somewhere, and that somewhere, or someone is not always following the same LNT ethics as you are.

Plastic, aluminum, nylon, and rubber are the main materials used in modern camping gear, and except for a few eco-responsible companies, all have disastrous effects on local and global ecosystems. While the outdoor gear industry represents a relatively small piece of the global market, consuming and polluting far less than major players like the automotive or defense industries, the nature of the product demands high environmental standards.

Aluminum comes from bauxite which is mined from the ground, leaving craters in the Earth and local drinking water contaminated. When the bauxite is smelted into aluminum, an enormous amount of energy is consumed and an equally large amount of man made greenhouse gasses are produced, about 1 percent of the total global amount of greenhouse gasses. Industrial rubber plantations first require large amount of usually equatorial rainforest to be leveled. Then the plantations slowly deplete the ground of nutrients, which leads to the loss in quality of the primary ecosystem. Finally, the oil industry has a long and sketchy environmental history, with accidents ranging from the Exxon Valdez spill to the drilling in the much opposed Arctic Wildlife Refuge drilling. Obviously these materials that are used in camping gear are not in agreement with the environmental ethics of most campers, so why do we continue to use them?

There is nothing appealing to me anymore about crawling into a plastic smelling, dank, dirty plastic tent at night after a long day out in the fresh air. We go to the woods for many reasons, but one of the most important is so that we as humans can feel again what life is like on Earth without the sensoral deadening of our modern society. So why is it then that we insist on wrapping ourselves in plastic and nylon at night? Even though we may stay dry or keep ourselves away form the creepy-crawlies, we are effectively cutting ourselves off from the wild at that point, well I guess except from a hungry bear to which a tent would only prove to be a wrapper.

So what do we do then if we should be responsible backcountry travelers without the plastic and metal gear? We can reuse material or make our own gear from old materials. There is an abundant supply of canvass and wool at second hand store and army surplus stores. With a little creativity and a little perseverance, just about anything can be made in your own home. I have made backpacks from used canvass duffle bags that mimic Duluth style packs, stoves from old coffee cans, and tents from pieces of plastic and tarp from construction sites. As campers, we need to realize that we don’t need the top of the line products in order to have fun and be safe in the backcountry.

Also we can use natural, local materials like aspen saplings, fir boughs, and buckskin to provide ourselves with the necessary gear for camping and outdoor life. As anyone who lives in Northern Wisconsin can attest to, there is no shortage of aspen, alder, or birch saplings in the area, which all represent good materials for a number of projects. They represent good local, renewable resources, not only because of their abundance, but also because of their growth pattern. A large amount of saplings, anywhere form 2 to twenty, will shoot up from one root cluster, but as they age, all but one or two will die off naturally because they are all shade intolerant, which means if we trim them when they are young, we are merely taking out trees that will die soon anyway.

There are alternatives to using natural materials or making our own gear, such as buying organic cotton clothes and products using “green” nylon, but such materials are limited in what they are used in and often times expensive and hard to find.

The answer lies somewhere between the two, using some processed products, say if we want to carry a tarp or piece of canvass to keep dry, but instead of aluminum poles using local, natural materials like saplings to hold it up. It is up to us to take responsibility for our actions, if we want to camp and spend time in our pristine wilderness areas, let the price for such behavior not be the destruction of an ecosystem on the other side of the earth, let it be paid from our local lands.

The underlying theme to all of this is common sense. If you are going to use modern gear, be aware of where it is coming from, and if you don’t like it, find something better. If you are going into the wild to connect with the land, don’t take anything that is going to separate you from it, and plan on using what you can find along the way. Remember that knowledge is lighter than gear.

Now when I am camping it looks more like this: A fire is burning the dead, dry wood I gathered, yes using an axe. No longer am I eating cold oozy camp food, but fresh sourdough biscuits and soup, cooked over the open fire, which I eat with a whole fork and spoon. I carry a tarp, I know it is not globally responsible, but I do like to stay dry, but instead of tent poles I use green saplings. In conjunction with the fire, I use a wool blanket to stay warm, even on the coldest nights negating the need for a sleeping bag. You still may catch me nodding off to Edward Abbey, no longer to the piercing light of a headlamp, but now to the soft glow of a beeswax candle.

There are endless discussions as to what makes a good knife. Everyone has their opinion, and some people seem to be willing to defend theirs for hours. I’ve found that knives are kind of like dogs – everyone thinks that their dog is the greatest, and no matter how bad or poorly behaved it is they take offense if you tell them what you think about it.

In the hands of an experienced user, most knives are good enough. An experienced person using a knife of questionable quality will accomplish more than an inexperienced person with a $1000 custom knife made of the best steel.

An analogy would be to put a poorly-made hockey stick in the hands of an NHL player and they’ll still be able to do amazing things with it. They might not be able to break 100 MPH with a slap shot unless the stick is sturdy, but they’ll still be able to pass, stick handle and take wrist shots that are world class. Put the best stick in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use it and they’ll still not know how to use it. The stick is important, but it’s the skill of the person using it that makes it effective.

Outfit yourself with a good knife. To do so don’t listen to the advice of knife collectors or people trying to sell you knives, but rather see what people who use them on a daily basis use and get something similar. Don’t look for the “best” knife, just get one that is good enough – this way you’ll avoid countless excruciatingly dull hours of heated discussions with opinionated people. After you’ve acquired a knife don’t focus on it. Instead focus on your skill with the knife. Gain experience using it. Soon you’ll be carving feather sticks and netting needles like you’ve been doing it for decades.

Becoming competent at lighting fires with a hand drill or bow drill takes time, sweat and blisters. But it can be done. There’s a difference between trying to get a coal and trying to master the techniques. Decide what your goals are before you proceed. If you want to get a coal, then drill until you can’t drill anymore and hope for the best. Do this enough times and your endurance will increase to the point where you’ll get coals. If you want to master the skill then consider this advice I give to our semester program students.

1. Learn how to do it correctly. In the early stages, focus on technique and form. Build good habits, even if it seems like it’s taking longer to do it this way. It will pay off in the long run.

2. When your form is good and you’re not wasting energy, work on it every day for 4-5 minutes. Make it part of your daily routine. Don’t worry about getting coals yet, focus on learning the motions and having them become fluid to the point where it starts to feel good.

3. Don’t ignore the fact that it takes muscular force to achieve the critical temperatures necessary to generate a coal. It’s a workout. Treat it like one and don’t work your muscles too hard without resting them.

4. After you’ve worked on it for a few days or weeks, when you’re to the point that you’re comfortable with the motions and your form is excellent, you should be getting coals regularly. If not, don’t worry about it. Sometimes the fire gods make you work incredibly hard for that first coal. Try drilling as fast as you can while maintaining control over your form. Stick with it.

5. When you’ve gotten to the point where you can consistently get a coal, stop the daily 4-5 minute practice. Instead, work on it just long enough to get one coal per day. Do this for at least a month. As you progress, the time needed to get a coal will decrease greatly.

6. Don’t get cocky. Keep track of the number of coals you get.

0 to 25 Coals – Beginner Level
26 to 100 Coals – Student Level
101 to 999 Coals – Journeyman Level
1000 or more Coals – Master Level

If you work as a guide or teach wilderness survival for any length of time, someone, or more often lots of people, are going to ask your opinion of those individuals who have elevated themselves to celebrity status in this type of work. I duck these questions and avoid these types of conversations, if only because over the years I’ve never seen anything positive come out of them.

A few years ago a friend and fellow Maine Guide told me his thoughts on this while we were on a remote riverbank waiting for sourdough biscuits to cook in a reflector oven. He had figured out a theory as to why these people (and there are a few of them) are able to capture the attention of the public. He found what he believed to be a common thread running through the stories of many of them. He then explained it to me as a series of steps I should take if I wanted to become an outdoor guru and get rich.

The steps he defined are as follows:

1. Apprentice, study, or learn from an experienced practitioner in the field who is getting on in years. If their ethnicity is other than yours, all the better.

2. Upon their passing, write a book about their profound effect on you as your mentor, as well as how they passed their wisdom, which has become lost in the modern world, onto you.

3. Position yourself as the only way for the public to access that lost knowledge.

Through reading the book that you write about your experiences with the guru, the public will be hungry for the type of lost knowledge they can now only get through you. As a result you’ve defined yourself as an expert in the field, or more appropriately, the expert, because you’re an expert in that lost knowledge.

After thinking about it for a while he seems to be onto something bigger than he realizes. It isn’t a complicated formula, but it does take time. Those without the time necessary have simply invented their guru in their writings, either in physical or spiritual form. But it doesn’t stop there. The “guru express” can be ridden third and even fourth-hand these days, as people are busy promoting themselves as having studied with the person who studied with the guru. It will be interesting to see how far down the line it goes.

Of course, if all of this is too complicated, you can always star in your own TV show. Then you’ll be an instant guru.

In the end it doesn’t matter who you’ve studied with or what they’ve done. It matters what you’ve done.