Bushcraft Survivor
For people looking for extreme adventure or already with experience in nature survival.
What is Bushcraft?
Bushcraft is the use and practice of skills, thereby acquiring and developing knowledge and understanding, to survive and thrive in a natural environment. Bushcraft skills provide for the fundamental physiological necessities for human life: food, water sourcing and purification, shelter-building, and fire craft.
What is the difference between bushcraft and survival?
Survival methods are about unexpected emergencies, keeping yourself alive, and getting back to the safety of civilization. Bushcraft is about using nature to sustain yourself for protracted periods in the wild.
Bushcraft camping is a skill, not an innate ability. That means you can practice and get better at it. There’s also more than one way to be “good” at it.
Bushcraft Skills
There are basic skills that everyone should know, but after those, you’ll find there’s a lot of variety.
The first four skills are essential to know before going bushcraft camping. You’ll find the other two to be extremely helpful as well.
1. Water Sourcing
Being able to find and purify water is the most critical skill involved. To purify water, the most obvious method is boiling.
If boiling isn’t an option, here are five methods to purify river water.
The average person can only go three days without water, and that’s in mild conditions. You start to feel dehydrated after only spending one hour in extreme heat.
2. Fire Making
You need a fire to stay warm, cook food, purify water, and ward off predators. If you were in an extreme survival situation and needed someone to rescue you, a fire is also a great way to signal.
For help, check out our guide to starting a fire: 6 Easy Ways to Build the Perfect Fire.
3. Food Acquisition
You can find food through hunting, trapping, fishing, or foraging. You may prefer one method, but knowing various forms is useful.
You can’t predict what situation you may get into. There may not always be water to fish in or animals to hunt.
4. Shelter Building
Being able to build a shelter is vital to bushcraft camping. The idea behind bushcraft camping is to use the resources available to survive. That means you don’t take a tent with you. At most, you can take a tarp. There are many different ways to build shelters.
5. Navigation
Navigation is valuable, especially if you don’t want to carry a compass. However, learning to use a compass and read a map are navigational skills. There are excellent ways to navigate, too, like reading the stars.
6. First Aid
Knowing first aid is as important as the first four skills.
You don’t have to become a certified medic to start bushcraft camping, but knowing basic first aid could save your skin.
7. Knot Tying Skills
A basic knowledge of tying knots is essential for a successful trip.