Brooklime, Veronica beccabunga, is an edible leafy green plant of damp freshwater places. You can eat the leaves and stem. The name may be unfamiliar but the plant is relatively common. You’ll find brooklime growing in boggy ground (the sort in which you’d wished you’d worn boots, not shoes), on the damp margins of ponds, streams and rivers and sometimes…
The pignut, Conopodium majus, is one of the most palatable wild foods. The tuber can be eaten raw and is very tasty. To the uninitiated, pignuts can be hard to spot, particularly in the spring. But once you’ve been shown and know in which places to look, they are surprisingly common. Leaves appear in the spring, then…
How should you supervise a child using a bushcraft knife? Should they even have one at all? Bushcraft knives and children do mix but it is a relationship that must be managed… Emma Hampton covers kid-specific safety tips that will enable you to guide your child as a novice knife user. She also answers some frequently asked questions regarding children and knife usage.
Late winter and early spring is a lean time. As soon as shoots start to appear, however, there are some tender, young spring greens to gather. They grow quickly too – the early spring plants race to grow before the trees produce leaves and cut out much of the light to the forest floor. You must be careful though – early spring plants often have defence mechanisms by way of toxins…
Nobody heads out into the wilds expecting to be the recipient of a search and rescue operation. Most people don’t think it will ever happen to them. But you only need to Google ‘lost hiker’ or ‘missing hiker’ to get a sense of how many people for whom it becomes a reality. A famous case, recently popularised further by the film 127 Hours, is that of Aron Ralston who became trapped by his arm…
Without leaves to refer to, people often find it hard to identify deciduous trees in the winter. For those of us who have an interest in bushcraft or survival skills, we need to be able to identify resources all year round. Bark is an obvious feature to look at but in most cases, bark shows more variety and is harder to differentiate than the leaves of different species. Buds are often associated with spring, whereas they lie dormant all winter, waiting for…
Tracking is a passion of mine. One of the things I love doing, even when I’m out for a leisurely walk in the woods, is looking for tracks and sign left by animals. Even if you don’t see the animal, looking at the sign they have left behind can provide a fascinating insight…
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…