Paul Kirtley's Blog | Wilderness Bushcraft. Survival Skills. Outdoor Life.

Lessons From Applying The North American Winter Camping Style In The Scandinavian Boreal Forest

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Lessons From Applying The North American Winter Camping Style In the Scandinavian Boreal Forest was the snappy title of a presentation I gave on the main stage at the 2019 Global Bushcraft Symposium (GBS) in Alberta, Canada. The main theme of the symposium was “skills in context”, and I wanted to make a presentation that tapped into this core messaging, as well as providing an example of some of the global exchange of ideas and techniques we are seeing across bushcraft specifically and wilderness skills more generally…

PK Podcast 043 – North American Titans Of Bushcraft

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David Wescott, Dave Holladay, André-François Bourbeau and Mors Kochanski come together in a panel discussion chaired by Les Stroud (a.k.a. Survivorman) at the 2019 Global Bushcraft Symposium, Alberta, Canada. Recorded June 11th 2019. Listen now…

Card for Paul Kirtley's GBS presentation

Global Bushcraft Symposium 2019 Keynote Presentation

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The 2019 Global Bushcaft Symposium was an international gathering to promote bushcraft, survival, and traditional skills instruction through the open exchange of philosophies, pedagogical methods and dissemination of best practices within the industry. I was honoured to be invited to present a keynote talk at the symposium. In this post, I share a recording of my presentation, into which I have edited my slides, as well as links to many of the references and books mentioned through my keynote. You can also access my slides directly.

PK Podcast 042: Mors Kochanski, Northern Bushcraft Legend

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Mors Kochanski joins me for a conversation about wilderness living skills, bushcraft and survival. Mors explains his background in these subjects, going right back to his school days, along with learning from his mentor Tom Roycraft, through Mors’s own unique contributions and inventions , including the super-shelter. Along the way we cover a lot of fascinating ground….click to find out more and listen to this podcast…

A Canoe Camping Cookset

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I love travelling by canoe. And I love campfire cooking. I definitely prefer cooking over a campfire to cooking indoors at home and, moreover, I think some of the dishes I cook are actually better over the fire than in the more controlled domestic setting. Cooking is an important part of most canoe camping trips. Even if you feel like you can take plenty of gear in a canoe, you should still select it carefully. In this article I share the canoe-camping cookware I really rate and have put together into my outfit….

Dave Canterbury in a hat in cold conditions

PK Podcast 041: Dave Canterbury On Re-enactment, Bushcraft And Survival

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Dave Canterbury of the Pathfinder School joins me to talk about his perspective on bushcraft, particularly the contrasts he sees between bushcraft in the UK and USA. We use his popular concept of the 5C’s of survivability as well as applying the Six Sigma concept to bushcraft/survival as jumping-off points for a wide-ranging conversation, including building a YouTube channel, writing books, putting your own spin on existing knowledge, re-invigorating old works, getting kids interested in the outdoors, prioritising what you learn, different ways of learning, immersion training, first aid kits and the differences between bushcraft and survival…

Canoeing The River Tay – Wonderful Water And Wild Camping

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In this blog I share a brief description, photos plus a full-length video, featuring a multi-day, wild camping canoe trip down Scotland’s longest river, the River Tay. We travelled light and put bushcraft and campcraft to good use on each overnight camp. It turned out to be an epic, highly memorable trip for a good number of reasons…

12 Easy-To-Forage European Plants For Spring And Early Summer

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As spring moves towards summer, there are plenty of wild edibles to choose from. Some of the easiest to collect are the green aerial parts of readily recognised plants as well as some of their flowers. Many of these provide great additional flavours to seasonal salads and some can be used as stuffing herbs or as the basis of a soup. All of these uses provide additional micronutrients to your diet. Flavoursome teas can be made with several of the featured plants and some also have medicinal uses. In this article I present a dozen easy-to-recognise and easy-to-collect seasonal plants for this time of year…

PK Podcast 040: Miles Irving On Wild Foods, Foraging, Health And Connecting With Nature

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Miles Irving, is one of the foremost professional foragers in the UK, author of The Forager Handbook, founder and director of Forager Ltd and host of the WorldWild podcast. Miles’s interest in foraging goes back to his childhood but a chance conversation led to him turning this growing passion into a career. Miles was able to start supplying restaurants with foraged plants and this quickly expanded, ultimately leading to him to supplying well-known chefs and restaurants such as Jamie Oliver, Mark Hix, Heston Blumenthal and The Ivy. His company Forager Ltd has expanded to source nearly 500 wild ingredients and Miles has grown to be one of the most respected professional foragers. Miles continues to push the boundaries of wild food and advocates the reintroduction of foraged foods into regular diets. Miles joins me for a wide-ranging and in-depth conversation on wild foods, foraging, health and connecting with nature…

PK Podcast 039: How Many Knives? Alternatives To Birch Bark; Sharpening Spoon Knives; Plant Toxins In Water; Bushcraft Benefits To Woodland.

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In this Paul Kirtley Podcast I return to Q&A, answering listener questions on a range of topics – Is there an issue with collecting water from streams or ponds containing poisonous plant species such as hemlock water dropwort, Oenanthe crocata? What are the benefits or disadvantages to a woodland if it is being used for bushcraft? How many knives is too many knives? Is a belt knife and a pocket knife enough for a wilderness trip? How to sharpen spoon knives? How to tell the difference between birch species? What are the alternatives to birch bark for lighting fires with sparks from a ferro rod?