Bushcraft links, thoughts and discussion...

[gusstrand]

So, I agree. New topic in the house!

[Ernest]

Making fire.

One of my junior high schoolmates was crazy for trout fishing, and he and I camped overnight the first weekend of the trout season each of several years. We were too young to drive. We'd be dropped off on a dirt road, and the driver, usually my dad or his mom, would say they'd try to remember to pick us up in a few days. We would walk a mile or so from the road to the stream. We didn't have a tent. We were in the woods. Once we camped in a snowbank. Once it rained all night and all of two days. We were cold and miserable.

The rainy weekend was the worst. Daryl found enough dry duff under a fallen tree to coax a small fire. The only dry kindling we could find we split out of the trunk of a fallen cedar. It took an hour and a lot of damp matches, but he got the fire going without resorting to flint and steel. Even a smoky sputtering campfire is good for morale when you're cold and wet and the rain starts to turn to snow.

That guy could fish, too. He always caught fish. He was good at it, and I think he loved it. After college he moved to Alaska to be a school teacher, and the last I heard, he'd retired from teaching and is a fishing guide in his adopted state.

[adam]

Water.

Fire.

Shelter.

Food.


You can go a long time without eating, you can't without water.

I was not impressed by the titanium piston for fire. I am impressed with a BIC lighter, hurricane matches, a flint and scraper...

An oven bag, you can do a lot with re: water.

Snare, know how to.

Know where North is.

Know what will hurt you.

Knowing is just important as having...

[JB in SC]

Fire starting....not much cheers a soul like a fire.

Bic, matches, Firesteel. The basic stuff is so light now, there is no reason not to carry a jacket or a sil tarp, a stove, a pot if you think you might be out overnight.

Be able to read a map, use a compass or a GPS.