Lessons From Applying The North American Winter Camping Style In The Scandinavian Boreal Forest
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.
Also, I’d been asked to make a keynote presentation at the symposium (which you can watch here) and I wanted to make two quite different but complimentary presentations.
On one level this presentation is about my winter camping experiences in northern Sweden and what my buddies and I learned from these experiences; practical take-aways if you will.
There are also some lessons in meta learning. There is a model for learning new environment specific skills here, as well as demonstrating the value of building relevant experience in durable layers.
There is a message of honouring and learning from those who have gone before you, and crediting their help (another emergent theme of the GBS). Plus I touch on how you represent your experiences to the wider world (something I examine in more depth in my keynote) and consider when one should turn personal experience into teaching or guiding.
I have edited my slides into the presentation and they are clearer to see than if you were at the presentation. I should also thank Randy Breeuwsma of Karamat Wilderness Ways and Tyler White of TJack Survival for additional video footage of my time on stage.
Please enjoy this presentation, which also includes a Q&A session towards the end…
You can view my presentation slides here on SlideShare.
Links and References
Bruce Zawalsky – Boreal Wilderness InstituteAndré-François Bourbeau’s 2019 GBS KeynoteSnowtekker TentsBlack River SledsFaber Snow ShoesCountry Ways SnowshoesTegsnas SkisMadshus SkisFrontier Bushcraft Bloodvein River Trip
Books Referenced In The Presentation
Related Material On Paul Kirtley’s Blog
A Winter Camping Trip in the Northern Forest
Winter Magic: Return To The Northern Forest
Fjelltur: A Norwegian Adventure
Six Men, Three Boats and The Bloodvein: Canoeing A Wilderness River
6 thoughts on “Lessons From Applying The North American Winter Camping Style In The Scandinavian Boreal Forest”
Awesome Paul. Thanks so much for making your great presentation available to us again. Take care.
Hi!! As always extremely inspiering.. But what is your thought on skis vs snow shoes traveling in the boreal forest in the winter. I have heard something that the snow is dryer in north-Amerika. That’s why the different traditions.. I just love skis…
Swede on skis
P.S looking fordward to more stuff from you and some great winter days..
Many thanks Paul for the great presentation! Again I learned a lot about camping in the boreal at winter. Nice to see that even the experts in bushcraft do a lot of research, reading and testing before they head into such an adventure.
Took me a few months before I watched this. Solid presentation as always, Paul. Great! A couple of personal questions, if you’re obliging.
You seem really interested in the boreal. Why is that? What drew you to it? I’d be curious to see how this passion arose.
You imply it’s not really for you, but I’m wondering if you’d consider being an expedition leader? Not over mountains, but perhaps something like this – winter camping into a boreal forest? I think you’d be great.
What a fantastic presentation about your experience in the Boreal forest, so thank you. What resonated with me is your systematic approach to collating data about your experience and yet you still feel like a student, still learning. As you say it’s shame many more promoters of the craft don’t adopt the same approach before teaching techniques & methodology on various social media platforms. There are those whom are confused about whether they are sharing an experience or instructing!! Everything that I have watched that you have shared it is always evident what you intentions are. Keep up the amazing work and I look forward to sharing your experience on various trips and increasing my learning from your online teaching modules & practical courses. Cheers
Hi Stuart,
Thanks for your comments about this presentation and my approach more generally. I’m glad to hear that it is clear to you if I am either sharing or teaching. It’s something I always try to make clear but it’s good to have this confirmed by a third party so to speak 🙂
I’d also like to add that I really appreciate your efforts to both keep up with my output here on my site and elsewhere, as well as be actively engaged with it, including commenting on various platforms. It makes a big difference to me. Thank you.
Cheers,
Paul