Check out WTIP North Shore Radio’s, “Pack & Paddle,” featuring Scott from Bull Moose Patrol for wilderness tips you can use on your next outdoor adventure!
Listen as Scott chats with North Shore Radio host, Mark Abrahamson, about bushcraft skills and his recent trip to the Global Bushcraft Symposium.
Pack & Paddle: Bushcraft & The Global Bushcraft Symposium Transcript
0:00:00.0 Mark: Pack and Paddle with Bull Moose Patrol is a new monthly feature on North Shore Morning. Scott Oeth is a Registered Maine Guide, an Eagle Scout, and Minnesota Master Naturalist. Among other things, he's an instructor for the Okpik National Cold Weather Leader school. He joins us now by phone to talk about Bushcraft. Welcome, Scott.
0:00:20.4 Scott Oeth: Good morning, Mark.
0:00:21.4 Mark: I'm so glad to hear we're gonna be speaking with you every month.
0:00:24.3 SO: Yeah, this is gonna be great, looking forward to it.
0:00:26.5 Mark: Alright, first, tell us what Bushcraft is.
0:00:29.4 SO: Well, it's kinda interesting. I think, the short answer is, in the US, it's what we would have called "wood-craft", back in the days, if you look at old boy scout manuals, old-time camping books, it's the idea of living in the wilderness and being in a highly engaged fashion, understanding what nature can provide and how to use it in a respectful, ethical manner. The term Bushcraft seems to come out of the UK, and some of the colonies is a term popular in Australia, so, people going to colonize those lands had to learn how to live in that environment and this term "Bushcraft" seems to have really spread there and into Canada. And there's a popular book written out of Canada, it's called Bushcraft and a television show that came up about 15 years ago by a fellow named Ray Mears. It really popularized the term "Bushcraft" that seems to have dominated. But it's all about a way to camp and use some of the skills from the past, some of it is style and aesthetic, a preference for natural materials both in your gear and how you're living out there, and having a more highly engaged relationship out there as opposed to sort of, just look, don't touch the nature's wallpaper, more of slowing down, understanding, being in tune, and living with the environment.
0:01:46.2 Mark: It's more about thriving, being comfortable, rather than just surviving, right?
0:01:50.9 SO: Yeah, that's right, that's right. A lot of it looks to history, primitive, native skills of voyagers or mountain men might have used, but a way to really, to live comfortably in the woods, that's right.
0:02:03.1 Mark: You just attended a global Bushcraft symposium, tell us about that.
0:02:07.8 SO: Yeah, a fantastic event, it has been Alberta, Canada last week, and about 250 attendees, the majority of them were professional instructors in survival skills, or primitive skills, or Bushcraft, and then a lot of enthusiasts, people came from all over the world, it was in part honoring an international survival conference that was hosted in Sweden back in 1995, and they wanted to honor some of the folks that put that on and get those people back together, and it was just a fantastic event. There was more people there from Sweden, Denmark, Holland, east and the west from Minnesota, there was really a lot of people from all around the world, and a lot of ideas sharing, a lot of discussion about how to teach and then the actual skills themselves.
0:02:55.0 Mark: What are some Bushcraft tips, maybe specifically for us in the North Shore region and at the edge of the wilderness here?
0:03:02.4 SO: Yeah, I mean, I think, fantastic area, you know, I've done classes going way back to North House Folk School where they have their winter's gathering right there in Grand Marais, and beautiful tie-in with the North Shore region, but I think it was a lot of things... The list is endless, I'm in a point where I am very comfortable as a camper and doing wilderness type treks and expeditions using modern gear, but when I look at Bushcraft or primitive skills, I think, "Wow, I can spend the rest of my lifetime just trying to get to the level of intermediate, in terms of understanding of the natural world."
0:03:35.1 SO: But, I think, you'd start simply... The fire is kind of a core skill in the Bushcraft type world, so getting good with your fire skills, just for enjoyment with a campfire, lighting without going through a whole box of matches, and having a smoky, miserable fire, understanding how to have a clean, hot, bright fire that lights with one match and maybe going beyond that, figuring, "Well, gee, let's work with some primitive fire lighting, maybe flint and steel, or bow drills", kind of an iconic image of Bushcraft, and it's a physical sense getting that down, but really, you have to have a deep understanding of the materials that you're using, what type of woodworks, how you cut the spindle, how you cut the notch, how you apply pressure. And I used to, kind of, scoff at that, "Well, that's sort of a party trick, what's the point of that? That's not a real survival skill or useful."
0:04:20.2 SO: And then I got into it and it became, almost, obsessive hobby, and there is something very magical about creating the element of fire out of just spinning sticks around, and it's fascinating. So, you have your fire and everything, even fire cooking, we've seen a lot of people camping with gas stoves, and I like 'em, I use them a lot when it makes sense and that's what needs to happen but you can bake, roast, boil, you can cook on the coals, there's a whole lot you can do in terms of cooking. First things like tree and plant ID, carving is a wonderful one that can pass the time, it can provide you with useful tools, but it's just also very, sort of, meditative type activity. And I think, very specifically to the North Shore region, some of the traditional paddle strokes, a lot of canoeists have adopted just the "sit and switch" or "Minnesota switch" where they paddle a few strokes in one side and flip over the other. I really love the traditional paddle strokes, the J-stroke and then even the more refined, what's it called? Canadian stroke or Northwoods stroke, just beautiful slicing action of the paddle, love using a nice wood, solid piece of Ash Beavertail paddle for that, and, yeah.
0:05:31.7 Mark: Now, for people who wanna learn more about Bushcraft, is it best to have a teacher or a mentor? Is there another way to find out more of these things?
0:05:40.1 SO: Well, I think, there's many ways you can go about it, there's some great books as I mentioned, one of the real landmark books is a book, simply called Bushcraft by a fellow named Mors Kochanski, that would be an excellent one for the northern Minnesota region 'cause it's very focused on the boreal forest and that Northwoods type environment. There are some very good videos on YouTube, but there's a whole lot of bad ones but there's some good ones. If you can, I think, it's worth tracking down, and I think you can find a lot of these on YouTube, the old Ray Mears Bushcraft series, he was the fellow from the UK that really... It's become a huge movement in the United Kingdom, it's very interesting, you know they don't have much wilderness, but talking to people at the symposium, it's like, that creates an intense desire to actually get out into nature and experience it, really feel it, so... Ray Mears series are great and you can always follow me on bullmoosepatrol.com, I write about a fair amount of this stuff.
0:06:33.1 Mark: Now, we're talking with Scott Oeth, and you can follow his adventures at www.bullmoosepatrol.com. Anything else you wanna add this morning, Scott? This is great talking with you.
0:06:46.3 SO: Yeah, no, I'm really enjoying it, Mark. No, I'd say give it a try and it doesn't have to be all at once, you can add little bits in here and there and add it your outdoor experience.
0:06:56.4 Mark: Really looking forward to talking to you every month now.
0:06:58.7 SO: Thanks a lot, Mark.
0:07:00.4 Mark: Thank you very much.