The organisers of the 2025 Global Bushcraft Symposium in Sweden invited me to deliver a keynote presentation. The theme of the symposium was The Nordic Way. My talk explored how Nordic influences have shaped not only my bushcraft journey but also the broader international bushcraft community. In this post, I share the full recording of that presentation along with some context for those who couldn’t attend in person.
Here’s my main stage presentation from the August 2021 Great Outdoors Festival in the U.K. The aim of this presentation was to explore some commonly held beliefs and accepted wisdom, and see how these concepts fit together, or don’t. In particular, I wanted to explore how a modern person utilising wilderness skills can build strong and active connections with the nature, despite this not sitting as comfortably as it might with some of the modern outdoor credos…
In this presentation I share practical examples of how a greater knowledge of the land through which you are canoeing can increase not only your understanding of the environment but also provide tangible benefits to your safety, wellbeing and enjoyment of the trip. Even if you are not a paddler, I would encourage you to watch the presentation as there is much useful tree and plant information in this talk which will apply to a much wider audience of outdoorspeople too…
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…
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.
Much of what we consider bushcraft today was tied to journeying in the past, whether it was seasonal migrations of native peoples, frontiersmen pushing into new territories or colonial powers employing expeditionary forces. Despite all the technology and materials available today, bushcraft still has a solid place in modern expeditioning in wild places. From lightweight backpacking to canoe tripping to winter camping by snowshoe and toboggan, bushcraft forms a solid backbone of practical skills for pretty much any environment you can think of. Further, there are psychological benefits of entering wild places with a strong base of bushcraft skills honed close to home. In this presentation I explore and expand upon these concepts, highlighting the bushcraft skills which I have found valuable in a career of wilderness expeditions and which you can benefit from learning then applying wherever you choose to have your adventures….
It’s often said that you can’t learn bushcraft skills overnight, that there is always more to learn, that many skills take years of practice to even approach mastery. So, how does the average person with a job and a combination of any or all of kids, mortgage, family commitments, weekly shopping, gardening, DIY, and who doesn’t live outdoors, make significant progress with these skills?
In the presentation I explore the value of learning and using bushcraft skills which have proven their worth on wilderness expeditions but also much closer to home, highlighting the key areas of knowledge and how they can be integrated into your day-to-day outdoor life…
In this presentation, I explore how traditional wilderness skills can—and should—be part of a modern outdoor life, not set apart from it. Drawing on personal experience, real-world examples, and a few honest observations about the state of bushcraft today, I challenge the idea that these skills are only for specialists. Instead, I offer a perspective on how we can integrate them more fully into everyday outdoor activities—whether hiking, paddling, or simply spending more time in nature.
I was among the expert speakers on the main stage at the Bushcraft Show 2013. Since then, I’ve had a lot of people asking me about the content of the talk and I’m delighted to be able to share it here on my blog. The video combines a recording of my talk with the slides I used for the presentation…