Bushcraft 101 by Dave Canterbury I had never read any of Dave’s stuff. I’ve got a pretty solid background in bushcraft type stuff. I started reading old school stuff like Nessmuk and Kephart in my pre-teen days, and practicing it in the woods surrounding my childhood home, where I would disappear for days at a time. As an adult, I read Cody Lundin’s stuff, and Mors Kochianski, and others. I’ve done hundreds of bowdrill fires, and for about fifteen years, refused to carry any sort of fire ignition device in the woods other than an old flint-and-steel kit. I’ve built brush debris huts, and sapling lean-tos. I’ve trapped and snared with improvised snares, etc. All that having been said….while I still carry a flint-and-steel kit, I’ve also got ferro rods and tinder packets hanging off every key chain, I keep a small ferro rod around my neck, and a couple of tinder bundles in my wallet. I keep a match safe with hurricane matches in my trouser pocket. I use a silnylon tarp, a Gore-Tex bivy bag, or a USGI ripstop nylon poncho for backcountry shelter. I carry a dozen wire snares in my rucksacks. The most important lesson I learned about bushcraft was….”modern” tools help, a lot. So, I didn’t spend much time reading bushcraft stuff anymore, and I’d never read even an article from Canterbury for some reason. Then, a close friend sent me a link to one of Dave’s videos to get my thoughts on it. I watched it, and went, “huh….this dude has some interesting ideas. I need to check some more out. So, I went on a spree, for about a week, watching Canterbury videos, which led me to buying these two books. I learned a couple of cool tricks, which disproves the old lie about old dogs. I recommend both books, even if you consider your bushcraft skillset pretty solid. Worst case scenario, you learn one new thing. Advanced Bushcraft by Dave Canterbury (see note above) Balanced and Barefoot by Angela Hanscom Unlike the vast majority—apparently—of modern American parents, we insist on our children spending a lot of time outdoors. I give each child their first pocket knife, a Swiss Army knife, on their fifth birthday. They receive it, along with the admonition, “If you cut yourself with this, even accidentally, I take it away for a week. If you cut anyone else, even accidentally, I throw it in the pond, and you don’t get another chance until you turn ten.” Oldest child, “The Morale Officer,” cut her finger with hers a week after her fifth birthday. She subsequently lost it for a week, and has never repeated the error. At the age of seven, they get their first fixed blade knife, and a compass, and other basic survival gear. Last year, at a local reenactment, on a visit to the Sutler’s tent, I picked up a Civil War-era repro canvas haversack for each of the kids. The seven year old currently has hers loaded down with a Mora Eldris and a Mora Companion (and she spends a LOT of time, sitting outside just whittling on twigs, which, in my experience, is the single best way to learn the realities of safe knife handling), her SAK, a ferro rod and tinder kit (and yes, she knows how to build and start a fire with it), a compass, some cordage, an emergency bivy bag, and a copy of Wildwood Wisdom, by Ellsworth Jaeger (and now, a copy of Tracks and Trailcraft, by the same author, that I gifted the kids this morning. They were exceedingly excited, and promptly sat down beside the woodstove to start looking at pictures of tracks.) That bag goes EVERYWHERE with her, and not at my direction. My instructions were, “when you play outside, if you’re leaving the yard, this goes with you.” It has subsequently gone with her on sleepovers at friends, to grandma’s house, and pretty much every other place we go (it’s like she noticed dad putting an AR and gear in the truck when we leave the house, and decided that was a clue…). Recently, the weather was in the 40s one Sunday. I was doing chores, and realized I hadn’t heard the kids in a while, so I stopped and looked around to see what they were up to. I spotted them, through the trees, playing in the overflow ditch from one of our ponds….butt naked… Now, admittedly, when they came in a couple hours later, thoroughly caked in mud from asshole to eyeball, their mother was less than enthusiastic, but she got over it in a moment. The kids had been outside, naked, in the water, in 40 degree water….and they were happy. The point of that is not that my children are neglected or abused. They are not, despite the concerns of the Nanny State. Instead, what they are is children. The book in question, is written by a pediatric occupational therapist. Her thesis is—so far—that the epidemics of childhood obesity, Attention Deficit Disorder, and a host of other apparent childhood ailments, both physical and psychological, could be greatly alleviated, if not cured, by kids spending more time outdoors, “unsupervised.” (I suspect she doesn’t mean literally unsupervised, but with some freedom to make non-life-threatening mistakes in judgment. That’s the path I choose to follow anyway. Pain educates.) If you have children, or grandchildren, and they spend more time on electronic devices than they do outdoors, you need to read this. If you have children you care about, but are not responsible for, you need to have their parents read this…then get the kids outside so they can learn to be self-reliant. Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller by Burke Davis Occasionally, while perusing the shelves of used bookstores, I will come across a title I read in childhood, and haven’t re-read since. Occasionally, I will grab the copy and re-read the book. Typically, I find that my childhood memories of reading the book are drastically different from the quality of the book, when read as an adult. Last week, I found a copy of this book. I first read this in the fourth or fifth grade, and loved it. Upon re-reading it the other night, I discovered it was just as awesome a tale as it was when I was a kid. Now, as an adult, and a combat veteran, I can look at some of it, and—recognizing that Davis admitted he mostly relied on Puller’s own recollections and Marine records, including commendations—acknowledge that some of it might have been embellished, either by Puller himself, or—more likely—by those around him who were influenced by the Legend of Chesty, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters as I discussed in Forging the Hero, myth is history, told better. Chesty Puller has been an inspiring myth of what the ideal United States Marine should be to generations of jarheads, as well as outside observers. Hell, when I re-read it, I wanted to go enlist in the Corps! If you’ve never read this story of one of America’s most iconic fighting men, you need to do yourself a favor, and go find a copy. Build The Perfect Survival Kit by John D. McCann This is a pretty good book, for what it is. The problem I have with “survival kit” books, whether like this, or a “Bug out Bag” book, is they end up as formulaic recipes for “pack this, and this, and this,” with the flavor of a gear catalog. While that may be unavoidable to some degree, it shouldn’t be. My ideal for a “gear book” for survival, would be for someone to offer a paradigmatic approach to the subject, to allow people to think—objectively—about what they need, in their specific environment and circumstances, in order to drive gear selection and set-up. In fact….I might make that my next book. I think I will. I ought to be able to write it reasonably well, without it taking a year or two… Continue reading...
