Originally Posted by
HillBill
No one is a bushcrafter per se, the name is just a single word to describe a vast array of knowledge and skill.
For example..... the person who goes out into the woods and spends a night or two is a wild camper. They may use bushcraft skills and knowledge to aid them, but all your doing is wild camping. Another person may go out to the woods to collect natural materials for crafts such as carving/basket weaving etc, they use knowledge of the natural world and practical skills to do what they want to do. Both come under the umbrella that is "bushcraft" yet they are totally seperate things.s, Bushcraft isnt something that exists on its own. Its something that is applied to other activities, not an activity in itself. If we had to learn everything involved in "bushcraft" to be called one, then theres not a man alive who could call themselves a bushcrafter.
Not long ago, it didnt have a distinction because it was just ordinary life to most people.
You don't need to have started a fire by friction or knap flint, if anyone says you do, ignore them, they are deluding themselves and just shows how little they understand the concept of "bushcraft" Everything that exists today is only modern bushcraft, because if all we had was bushcraft in the first place,. then everything we have now is just the evolution of bushcraft. Its evidence of a learning curve as we have learnt to utilise natural materials in more and more diverse ways. Everything that exists comes from the natural world. Even man made things like plastic, come from nature. We have just learnt processes that allow us to change one thing in another.
To me bushcraft just means " a practical working knowledge of nature and the natural world"
As to the 1 to 10 scoring system......... with all there is to know and do, i doubt Ray Mears would score higher than a 3 and i'm being generous.