What is Bushcraft & Survival?

What is and what are the differences between Bushcraft and Survival?

Now heres a question that many of you will already have your own answers to. But for those who don't have an answer i thought this would be a good place to start as an introduction to both Bushcraft & Survival.

What is it or are they?

I think personally the easiest most descriptive way to answer this would be to use a timeline of events in an imaginary situation.

So to make this easy to understand you have to firstly imagine you’re on a hiking expedition in the Alps with some work colleagues and a snow storm comes in. Visibility is near 0 the temperatures are -20c and your group gets scattered and you end up alone. Lost with no sat-phone or group leader and you where tent sharing and you freind has the tent.

This has now become a very dangerous situation as you haven't got the kit needed to spend a night outside in these conditions. But you do have knowledge of how to “survive” hopefully until you are found by search and rescue or you find the member of your team who has the sat phone who is hopefully looking for you.

Hopefully the rescue teams already out!!

But right now your main priority is to stay alive. You have basic tools in your pack, like a fixed blade knife, a folding saw, a metal water container and a box of waterproof matches a sleeping bag and pad and also a military shovel. What do you do next???

The answer to this question and everything you do in between now and finding safety is survival. It literally means what it says. It’s the things you do in the time it takes to make it to safety from being in a dangerous wilderness situation that could be life threatening.

Survival practice is normally symbolized as exposing yourself to harsh environment's or wilderness situations with minimal kit. Nobody really puts them selves into a “real” survival situations without a few exceptions. It is merely and wholly is the art of staying alive in the outdoors.

No.1 rule of survival - DO NOT DIE.

Lost!!!

So you dig a snow shelter into the side of a large snow drift thats accumulated at the base of a cliff sheltered from the wind somewhat, you use some spruce bows from the partially scattered trees around for insulation from the ground that you’re sleeping on, wrap up in your sleeping bag and you make the night through somehow alive and relatively un-scaved!!

The next day you wake up from your 0 hours sleep without hypothermia, immensely bedraggled, extremely tired and confused and somewhat scared. But you know you need to get down from this altitude to the lower ground to find better shelter and get out of the elements more, as you are a long way from any sort of civilization and coming down would be the best option as far as finding people would be concerned also. So you start your descent downwards until you eventually come to a large forest.

Lets say you know what your doing a bit and you manage to find water, get a fire going and boil it and make shelter and your successfully still alive after a couple of days but search and rescue and anybody else are completely abscent.

You have left clues of your whereabouts to overhead rescue teams like arrows made from logs to indicate your direction of travel but the weather is still not great and you think its best to stay put. You have a fire you have managed to keep going for signaling, you have clean water and you realise you may be here for days or longer but knowledge is power and you know enough to kick yourself for not bringing more kit lol.

A raised bushcraft bed

To make things easier you need to build a raised bed to get up off of the cold floor as your new sleeping pad isn't as good as what you thought and a tripod or some sort of hanger for your water bottle to dangle from to make boiling water quicker.

You’re now starting to focus your attention on things that could make your life more comfortable and the longer you are there the more things you will need to make, this could include cordage, some sort of working platform, a fresh water filter, a more sustainable shelter, all the way down to spoons or forks ect. if you were to extend this timeline that you were lost in any survival situation you could make clay pots or bowels possibly, plates, a chair, a hammock, a smoking rack, cups, a sledge, snow shoes, even clothes from animal hides if your a good hunter or trapper -This is where we find Bushcraft.

Bushcraft is the art of crafting objects you need from raw materials that can be found in your local vicinity. there is a huge list of things you can craft and make and many times what you will need will depend on your location and other factors like weather, the characteristics of the landscape or what you have actually brought with you.

But essentially and generally bushcrafting comes after the survival bit. You’re alive and well and you’re looking to enhance your wilderness experience by making things more homely, and nature is your local hardware store.

So now we know the difference, survival is staying alive in the wilderness until you are found or rescued or you make it to civilization.

Bushcraft is where you don't get rescued or there is no rescue and you are staying somewhere temporarily or permanently and you want to thrive in your surroundings and make things more comfortable, so you make them from what you have around you. By learning Bushcraft you are learning to work with nature and craft what you need from the bush….