how did you get into bushcraft/survival

[Dave ward]

Hi all, I got to thinking about how I got into the world of bushcraft and survival and wondered if you'd like to share your story? I got into it when I was a kid without knowning it really. I grew up in a very poor family (by uk standed) we very often relied on food parcels off the government in the 80's and hand me down clothes and we as kids used to go and collect cans to make some pennies to put in a pot for spends. Now this was because my old man was jobless (just the way it was in the 80's for some people) and my mum was ill. Now as we didnt have much money etc me and the old man took to rabbiting as well as making stuff from old pallets etc ha ha now as we used to rabbit we'd be getting fires going in the woods and cooking what we could get our handa on. Little did I know that all that time lighting fires and finding crab apples and blackberries etc was gonna lead me to the bushcraft world, and I love it so cant complain at all*

[Silverback]

Bit like us. Very hard for father to get employment due to disability and the fact he was a lazy git. To avoid social services stepping in I was raised by my Nan who was around in wartime and she first introduced me to the wonders of the wilds, and making things from nothing - very much a make do and mend upbringing - it has to be added although we were poor we were on the whole happy.

Did outdoorsy stuff as an Army cadet and it just continued from there. Being outdoors for pleasure got put to bed for a long while as I was spending far too much time doing the volunteer stuff and working unsocial hours. Made the decision 2 years ago to change all that as I realised I'd neglected my family and myself for all those years - time to redress the balance.....

[snowleopard]

I went camping once with my father, and there was a bushcraft instructor in the wood, he taught me the very basics of shelter building and knife work, I then got a mora knife and fire steel for my birthday, and I have gone on from there.....

[saxonaxe]

I'm not really a Bushcrafter, but I have a fair knowledge of, and love of nature and wildlife. I'd never make a Bushcrafter as I seek complete isolation and individual freedom when I go to the woods, not communal campfires or listening to others passing on 'skills'.
I was brought up here, so escape to the woods was like a freedom and a chance to be alone. In the 1950's for kids like me "In homes" there were no toys, so the woods were the playground and learning place all in one. No regrets though...you want to know about 'survival?'.. ha!

[Tommy]

I was brought up here, so escape to the woods was like a freedom and a chance to be alone. In the 1950's for kids like me "In homes" there were no toys, so the woods were the playground and learning place all in one.

This reminds me of a story told to me by a native woman. She was from a reserve in the Yukon and when the adults would drink, the kids would hide in the woods.

Now that's screwed up!

[FishyFolk]

I grew up in a small twon on an island in Northern Norway, and at the Svalbard islands (you'll find them midway between the Norwegian mainland and the north pole). Up there there was not really much to do. We had one TV channel showing what had been shown a week earlier on TV on the mainland. And there was nothing on until 1800 hrs in the evening. So we spent most of the time outside playing. Did not learn any woodsmanship upe there though. kind of hard as there are no trees at all. But we had a 3 month summer holliday (our parents too), so we spent that here in mainland Norway...that is, for me that was another island, and here we do have forests...everywhere, and we still only had one TV channel so spent a lot of time outdoors playing in the forest.

Then the army got me for national service, and I picked up some campong skills there to add to waht my dad thought me. (we were camping out for at least a month every summer since I was an infant)...benn doing alot of hunting and fishing etc and generally stayed out except for the years I was abroad, but even then I used a lot of the skills, but in a professional capacity...it was not my job to camp out, but it was a skill set I had to use to get my job done :-)

Came home and picked up as I left...needed some kit, googled and these YT videos about all the kit kept talking about bushcraft, then I found Ashleys vids, and her I am...

[Silverback]

Looks familiar - I was brought up amongst the dark satanic mills of a Yorkshire Woollen Mill town.....

[saxonaxe]

I don't want to intrude on Dave's thread Sapper, but it was part of a Victorian era built ophanage complex down here in the South. They hadn't changed the regime either...If you didn't work, you didn't eat, always hungry, so you learned what was edible in the woods.. (I'm drying the dishes.. )

[NickB]

Been homeless about half my life. Most people I knew were into escapism through one form or another. We all became good at finding homes in town and finding our food in the bins round the back of super markets.
Now dodging security while you do this is real survival but I wanted to get back back to the real world. I knew we thrived out there once and I could do this again.
Once housed I started investigating a whole new world opened up to me by Ray Mears back in the early 90s. I never did get the hang of lighting fires with two sticks, but shelter making and many other things became a lot easer.
I've been living this lifestyle on and off ever since.
So now, I live on a boat with a computer at hand and I've found forums of other like minded people and I think it's great.
I'd like to say though, that although we all here share a love wild living, We're not all the same. I wish we were.
Nuff said
Nic

[Silverback]

I suppose we could do a whole new thread if we wanted to highlight our issues and problems from the past. Maybe best left for the real campfire rather than this virtual one Saxon. No doubt plenty of us have lots of baggage to unload but as you say this is probably the wrong medium