Tag: Fire-lighting

The Value of a Tarp in Your Day-Pack

The Value of a Tarp in Your Day-Pack

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With heavy rain being a fairly regular feature here in the UK – even during the summer – I rarely, if ever, go for a day hike without taking a waterproof jacket. This is hardly an earth-shattering revelation as I’m sure this preference is almost universal amongst those heading for the great British outdoors. What’s probably less common is packing a tarp. Including a tarp in your day-pack isn’t limited to the UK, however, as it makes sense anywhere you might have damp or cold-damp weather and you can string…

A Bushcraft Camping Outfit – Equipment for Living in the Woods

A Bushcraft Camping Outfit – Equipment for Living in the Woods

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Whether you are camping in the woods for a weekend or staying out for weeks, this bushcraft camping outfit is a good base model. By keeping your wilderness bushcraft camping equipment as simple and streamlined as possible you’ll minimise the amount of kit while maximising its functionality…

A Winter Camping Trip in the Northern Forest
A Winter Camping Trip in the Northern Forest

A Winter Camping Trip in the Northern Forest

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Winter camping in the northern forest can be an amazing experience. Also known as the boreal forest or the Taiga, the environment is simply beautiful. In many ways travel in the northern forest is easier in the winter than in the summer. The swamps and lakes are frozen and passable, as are the rivers which become your highways. There are no mosquitoes or other biting insects. The winter, however, brings its own specific complications and hazards…

Fjallkniven TK4 Lock Knife
How to Build a Survival Kit on Bushcraft Principles.

How to Build a Survival Kit on Bushcraft Principles.

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Having been given a copy of John ‘Lofty’ Wiseman’s ‘SAS Survival Handbook’ when I was 13 years old, I spent a disproportionate amount of my mid-teens devising ingenious ways to cram more and more survival kit into a tobacco tin. At the weekend I’d go…

Bow drill
Bow-Drill – The Keys to Success

Bow-Drill – The Keys to Success

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Friction fire-lighting is one of the defining skills of bushcraft. The ‘bow and drill’ or ‘bow-drill’ is the most widely applicable of the friction methods. Yet many people struggle with it, particularly while learning or during practice by themselves. Failure is OK when you are learning, while you are getting used to the posture…

Firelight
PLAN Your Skills for Survival

PLAN Your Skills for Survival

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In the past our forebears used bushcraft in a way that allowed them to live very close to the land, much closer than you or I do today. These days many of us are heading to wild places equipped with a combination of bushcraft skills and modern equipment. In this way, we use our bushcraft…