I have been getting a little feed back from listening to people talking about bushcraft, and I get the impression they want to be able to gather with like minded people interested in Bushcraft skills..

So I have decided to write a report about how I have been able to do just that since I became facinated with these skills…

I developed a local group who got together regularly though out the summer to practice skills and just chill out. I was able to find a land owner who was more than happy for us to use his land, and encouraged it. If your thinking about starting a group or already have then finding a place to gather in an amazing resource to have…

If you have a group or would like to join a group please let me know, by submitting a comment at the end of this post or going to the ,Ask A Question, page. I read all comments left and any question or comment submitted on the ‘Ask A Question’ Page…

I was thinking of adding a Forum to the website so you can add groups already running, add that you’d like to start a group someplace, or just come looking for a group to join…

What would you like to know, what would you want included in a report about starting a group…

Leave your comment below…

Starting or Joining a group is I think the quickest way to mastery of Bushcraft…

If you have no training a group can learn from books quicker than someone alone. Everyone bring s a useful perspective tot he gatherings and discussions and ideas about how to improve skills. Members are able to give you insights and ways to improve your techniques. And everyone brings new ideas, pieces of knowledge gained from books, courses or direct experience being out in the wilds…

When I wanted to teach for the first time it was easy to find a few people who wanted to come along…

I never even intended sarting a group but it happened very easily, and it would be simple to copy what I did…

There are so many people out there interested in these skills. Lots of people who do not and will never understand, think it wierd or unusual. But there will always be those. They make sure the woods are never too crowded…

There is never a crowd on the leading edge, I think the learning of Bushcraft and Nature awareness skills is the leading edge and more people having this knowledge may be the best way to bring our environment back into balance…

Please ask your questions. let me know what you want to know about teching these skills or setting up groups locally…

Submit your questions or comments below this post, or click on the ‘Ask A Question’ Link above to leave your questions or comment…

Regards

Vicki Smith,Cumbria,UK Which is the hardest terrain to survive in?

The hardest terrain to survive in will always be the one where you have least knowledge and experience…

Someone who grew up as a native in the Desert will probably have a hard time living in a UK forests, and would have an evenharder time living in the city streets, as somone who lives in the streets relatively easily compaired to how they would copy if you dropped them in the forest…

Thats not really an answer is it, but it is the answer really…

Where you focus your learning or where the majority of your experience is gained is the greatest ease of living…

The hardest places I have lived was one night camping at a relativily high altidude in the CairnGorm Mountain in Scotland…

I had much of the modern technology needed to survive there, we could have built a snow cave to live in, if I not had the technology to live there even though it was only for one night, I would not have gone…

So again the answer maybe comes down to technology, the tools and equipment you carry be it modern technology or ancient technology, but more importantly I think is the technology I call knowledge…

Choose a terrain, any terrain, and if you can figure out how to shelter your body in such a way as to keep it at a comfortable temperature, either with clothing of shelter made from avalible materials, then you have step one of living in that environment…

Next can you keep your body supplied with water, that is clean, uncontaminated and will not significantly alter your core body temperature (by this I mean being just warm enough and then drinking ice cold water will make it harder for you to stay warm)…

If either of these things shelter or gathering water and carrying it, need tools can you make them from avalible material…

Can you keep yourself health, and deal with any minor scrapes, cuts, bruises, blisters, bites & stings, some climates make the tiniest cut or scrape a whole bunch of trouble if you cannot keep it clean or apply suitable precautions to keep parasites away long enough for the body to seal the membrane thin transition between your blood and the outside environment… (The tropical regions of the world can make these small cuts bad news if you do not know suiteable plants to use as poltice or carry medicines with you…

If you need fire, can you make it easily and do you have an easy supply of fuel…

Food, do you know what you can eat in this place…

Wander with a aborigional person who knows their place on the landscape in the outback of Australia and you may find you are always fed and watered and never experience hunger or thurst. Take that exact same route alone or with someone with no knowledge of place and you could be dead in a few days…

The hardest terrain to live in is an opinion, and it will depend of the knowledge, skills of the person you ask…

If you can take enough equipment with you even the moon is an option for a place to hang out for a while…

If you must rely on being able to make & harvest what you need from the landscape then learn the skills of the people who lived there before our technology, they already figured everything out, those that got it wrong died and their skills died with them, those that lived had the skills that worked and these got passed on…

Personally I think it also has a lot to do with your state of mind in a place. I don’t like to be cold, but I can go for days without food and it not really effect me much. Put me somewhere where I cannot keep warm enough and I’ll tell you it’s the toughests place of earth to live. Ask someone else about their stay in the summer woodland of the UK in the most perfect conditions but they could not eat for 3 days and that might be their toughest place to live and yet paradise for me…

I guess the hardest terrain to live in is where raw materials are scarce or hard to get to, places that experience extremes of temperature hot or cold combined with a lack of avalible because it is frozen or it hardly ever rains, and you have your tough terrain, to me the amount of animal life is a guide, the more diverse it is the eaiser it is to live, although the extreme of this would be the tropical rain forests where there is such an abundance of life that many of the most tiny parasites will use us as their home with somethimes detrimental effect…

I’m not sure I’ve answered your question Vicki but I have enjoyed considering the ideas here, to me the greatest thing you can learn is a principle, like the principle of shelter, once understood it allows you to look at the materials avalibale and create a suitable shelter in any climate…

Julian Drummond

Michael Bridger – Oxford, UK

“I would like to know what rights to roam there are within the UK and is there a good website to give information on the legalities of lighting camp fires etc? . . . Many thanks.”

Rights to roam…

The freedom to go where you want whenever you want…

Not quite but it is getting better…

If you want the latest information about this topic, I would highly recommend going to the Ramblers Association website…

http://www.ramblers.org.uk/freedom/

The ramblers association has been at the forefront of the movement to get more access to the wild places of the UK, and this site will give you the latest information…

An interesting point made on the website is that there are new ordinance survey maps with areas designated as freedom to roam, take a look at the page below…

http://www.ramblers.org.uk/freedom/righttoroam/latestdevelopments.html

Another useful website I found is a government site about open access land, it has an option to look at maps in your area your interested to find out if it has open access…

http://www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk/things_to_do/open_access

So my interpretation is that the right to roam still needs to be granted, for certain pieces of land, and can be taken away for reasons of safety or to protect wildlife…

The freedom to go on any piece of land you choose does not exist although it is only a criminal offence to trespass on certain places the next website has a great deal of good information about trespass and the law…

http://www.naturenet.net/law/common.html

Below is a quote from the above website:

“…it is within the power of the landowner to ask any person to leave, assuming that person does not have some other lawful reason to be there. The landowner does not have to give a reason. If the person does not go immediately, by the shortest practical route, then they are trespassing. Despite the well known sign ‘trespassers will be prosecuted’, trespass is not a criminal offence and trespassers cannot usually be prosecuted. They can, however, be sued. There is little chance of such a matter ever being so serious as to be worth suing over, and so

this rarely happens.”

I took another quote from the following website:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/section12/chapter_f.html

Section 61 CJPOA <Stones 2001 8-24900> enables a police officer to direct trespassers on land (who are there with the common purpose of residing there for any period) to leave the land where the occupier has taken steps to ask them to do so, and either

* they have damaged the land; or
* they have used threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour to the occupier, her or his family, employees or agents; or
* between them they have 6 or more vehicles on the land.

Failure to obey a direction to leave or returning to the land as a trespasser within 3 months is an offence.

So it seems the right to roam has been extended, and trespass only becomes a criminal offence if you take something without a landowners permission

Another quote from the following website:

http://www.naturenet.net/law/common.html

“In many cases people take things from the countryside, such as stones, wood, earth, and so on. They have all committed theft if this is not authorised by the landowner.

On the subject of lighting fire and right to roam guide on the ramblers association site has this to say:

http://www.ramblers.org.uk/freedom/righttoroam/guide.pdf

“The new right of access is restricted in several ways.For instance,it does not allow walkers to drop litter,light fires,cause damage to plant or animal life and bathe in non-tidal water.It does not allow camping and organised games.The Act does not distinguish between access during the day and at night, although local restrictions could affect access at night.Walkers are responsible for their own safety at all times.Anyone breaking a restriction will be treated as a trespasser and barred from entering the land for the next 72 hours.The Act does not confer additional rights for cyclists or horse-riders but existing rights are not affected.”

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 can be accessed

at:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000037_en_1

I would advise you do your own research about the places you wish to explore to see if open access has been granted there, and also become familiar with the trespass law, so you know where you stand if you do find yourself on private land, which can easily happen if your not an expert map reader…

It seems that only theft,violence, abusive or insulting behaviour would get you in trouble, if asked to leave by the landowner…

I have sucessful deveoped relationships with landowners who were more than happy to have me and a group on their land, mostly because they liked me, but also they could use group visits to their land as part of satisfying part of grants they had for things like planting trees…

I have written to wildlife trusts and got permmision to run classes on thier land, providing I followed their rules…

And I have spoken to the forestry comission’s main office who were more than happy to grant me access to their land fro the purpose of teching if no one else was using it…

There are many ways to get use of private land, even without right to roam extending everywhere…

My hope is you have some usefull resources here

please ask more questions if you have them…

Walk in Awareness

To get this site rolling I invite you to ask me questions about anything within the topic of Bushcraft & Survival skills, if no questions come to mind then I suggest you click on the Private Coaching link above to see a list of the subjects I will be teaching to my small coaching group, these topics will probably trigger a few questions within your mind…

When you have your question click on Ask a Question above and ask your question or questions…

If you add your name and location for example John Smith of Brighton UK I will give you full credit for the question in the blog posts of answers and the weekly digest I will be sending out…

And if you want the answer to your question just sign up to the weekly digest, you’ll get your answer and the answers to all the other questions asked from people just like you who visit the site…

Ask as many question as you like, add your comments, this is your site which I hope will become a growing resource for you to learn and grow from…

Maybe one day soon we might meet at a class held for one of my private coaching group student…

Then the fun will really begin…

Walk in Beauty…