Sure, there seems to be some definition of it if you search on the Internet. But those only tells me, how and where the Bushcraft came to nowadays’ existence. At least, for me it does not tell much about what actually is a Bushcraft.
By looking at the activities we all bushcrafters do, we do somewhat closer to what “survivalists” do, yet it is different. We do things that are based on primitive skills and mountain / forest man’s skills, but that’s not all.
So are we doing all of those and calling it a Bushcraft? That kind of sounds closer, but I feel still missing the core of thing.
I cannot find the answer… so, I gave up! And start to think of what I think and what it is for me.
I think, what I do in Bushcraft is to strip down the thing we have for granted to pieces and back track to how and where it came from. The food, water, house, heat/fire all the things that aid our day-to-day living. Understanding how it’s made and try to recreate it with my own hands.
Yes, it does sound like “reinventing the wheel”, but if I learn the most basic technology / skills, which made us possible to progress our lives to get here, then it is totally worth doing it.
Now, I have said it like this way, it all sounds “BIG WORDS”… but doing this is not that difficult. It is as easy as making pizza from scratch instead of heating up the boxed frozen one. All this knowledge and skills were found and practiced by everyone on the earth throughout the history. We just start to forget it sice we start to live in the modern society. Now, it is just need to find the information and try them out to relearn.
So, why do I do this??? I am not going to start to say, “it gives me more opportunity of connecting to the nature”. Perhaps it is, but to be honest, I do not think I am there yet.
One most simple reason come to my mind is that “It is fun and I enjoy doing it”. Also to understand and learn the most basic skills like making fire, finding food, making tools needed in wildness will gives me more flexibility and possibility on daily life. In fact, all those skills were totally alive and used daily when my grandfather was young.
Because of this reason, I practice my Bushcraft by more simple tools, prefer natural material, reducing the equipments I carry.
So am I really a bushcrafter? Humm... not sure... but I would say; I do not care if you or I go in to woods with loads of modern equipments or just bare naked, as long as having the mindset of "Bushcraft", I think we are bushcrafter.
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Thank you for reading this long post. I might have said something totally off the idea of bushcraft, or you might agree or disagree. This is just what I have thought about and at this moment it makes sense to me.
So, I would like to hear your comments and thought on this. It will be great help on my quest of finding out “What is Bushcraft?”
