Thermal Layers and Shell Clothing Clothing for winter in the northern wilderness must cope with a wide range of temperatures, from around freezing to -50oC (-58oF) or lower. Your clothing may also have to fend off serious wind-chill, when travelling by snow machine or skiing across barren terrain such as the Hardanger Vidda in Norway….
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…
Cold weather clothing makes winter activities and travel possible. Dressing correctly for cold weather makes you comfortable and is your primary defence against hypothermia and cold injuries. In addition to acquiring and wearing appropriate cold weather clothing, it is necessary to properly manage and care for your clothing. Managing your winter clothing is an…
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…
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…
In a crisis or emergency your thinking can become clouded. Stress, adrenaline and fear can all play a part in this. In the outdoors this may be compounded by tiredness, dehydration, low blood-sugar, being wet, cold or too hot. You may even be injured. When you are miles from help, you…
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…
If you were stranded in the middle of nowhere, your chances of survival would be significantly higher if you had this equipment with you. To me, however, these items are not just pieces of survival equipment, they are things I use everyday when I am living outdoors. They are well-used but also well-loved. With the exception…
Every year people die of hypothermia or in hypothermia-related incidents. Hypothermia most commonly takes hold when people are not prepared for it. They are often ill-equipped or dressed in inadequate clothing. They do not understand the contributing factors; they do not recognise the signs and symptoms in themselves or their companions and they do not…
The human body’s mechanisms for staying cool on an extremely hot day are powerful. The human body’s mechanisms for staying warm on a very cold day aren’t nearly as effective. An understanding of how your body is affected by cold will make you more capable in cold environments and help you avoid cold-injuries…