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…
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…
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…
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?
Mike Pullen of TA Outdoors joins me again for a couple of days in the woods, where we employ a range of campcraft skills, including some that really help with campfire cookery set-ups. In particular we look at a range of ways of suspending pots from small billy cans on solo overnighters to elaborate cooking crane set ups for kitchens in semi-permanent camps catering for a larger number of people. This culminates in us cooking a roast dinner on our overnighter. Along the way, of course, various knife, saw and fire skills are covered as a natural part of what we were doing during the time we were out in the woods…
Spring is a time of great change. The dormancy of winter gives way to energetic new growth. In this period, the dark skeletons of deciduous trees begin to show colour and movement, and when you look closely there is some fascinating detail to complement the obvious beauty. One of the aspects of spring that is most obvious and most pleasing on the eye is blossom. Here I look at a range of common and widespread European species of tree that produce profuse blossom and examine the similarities, differences and unique characteristics of each to help you identify them…
The vibrant blossoms of spring, such as on cherry trees, are obvious, particularly when these blooms are shown off to their best in bright sunshine. The flowers of other trees, however, are less obvious, especially when they are less obviously flowers. In this article I put a highlight on the flower structures of three very widespread and common European tree species, along with related details, that will help you identify these species in late winter and early spring – a time when the easiest identification features (their leaves) are not yet present…
In the Spring of 2017 Justin and his dog Saku set off on a a traverse of Newfoundland. Starting on snowshoes and hauling a sled, Justin switched to backpacking and pakrafting once the conditions allowed. 68 days and 700km later, Justin and Saku had crossed the island of Newfoundland from West to East, beginning on the Gulf of St Lawrence and ending up in Cape Broyle on the Atlantic Ocean. Justin joins me on Paul Kirtley Podcast episode 38 to talk about this and other adventures he’s had in his native Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada…
Dan Hume, bushcraft instructor and author of The Art Of Fire: The Joy Of Tinder, Spark And Ember guests on The Paul Kirtley Podcast to discuss his travels to remote places in search of traditional fire techniques being applied and relied upon to this day…
Mors Kochanski and Jon McArthur join The Paul Kirtley Podcast to discuss the motivations behind, and the aims of, the Global Bushcraft Symposium. Along the way, Mors shares a few anecdotes too…