Following on from last weeks post reviewing the Karrimor Trig rucksack this week we are going to discuss the idea of using bushcraft skills on expeditions.
Samuel Hearne who we mentioned on the blog just the other week adopted bushcraft techniques out of necessity on his journeys because the most up to date modern equipment and techniques of the time were simply too heavy for long distance exploration and he accepted that he needed to rely on native skill and knowledge to feed himself and maintain his kit over long periods. Nowadays with very light weight equipment being readily available it may be possible to carry all the kit you need for longer periods but it's the law that is the main thing that prevents us from heading into the wilderness for long term bushcrafting or to use bushcraft skills on our expeditions.
At the time of writing his 1884 book Woodcraft and his articles for Field and Stream magazine the kind of camping George Washington 'Nessmuk' Sears's was advocating was considered light weight. Nowadays the heavy canvas, tool kit and cookware would be considered grossly heavy by almost anyone contemplating an expedition on foot.
At the time though his approach was not practised by recreational hunters and campers and even the frontiersmen and mountain men of the early 1800's would, out of choice, travelled in companies sharing heavier kit between them and relying on their survival skills in extremis rather than as a routine.
Compared to the heavy canvasses and iron cookpots of Nessmuks era though we can carry a titanium cook pot and a small gas stove that weighs less combined than the small hatchet he would have carried to process his fuel wood. Out tents or nylon tarps weigh a tiny fraction of his canvas tarpaulins and while they might now not be suitable for using to drag firewood or stretcher a casualty as they are much thinner and not as abrasion resistant as an old fashioned canvas they are more waterproof and far, far lighter.
bivibag, thermarest, sleeping bag and fly sheet; a combined weight of about four kilos, probably half the weight of an old canvas tarpaulin.
A modern light weight camping shelter.
Because the kit we have available nowadays is so light weight we can afford to carry more food than we might perhaps once have had the capacity to carry so we might be able to travel a little further without re-supply or without having to resort to fishing or hunting. Nowadays carrying hunting and fishing kit would be considered by many to be additional unnecessary weight on expeditions, but that's not the main reason that bushcraft and modern light weight camping an expedition seem to have parted ways.
In the UK land ownership has been such a contention issue over the centuries and laws so restrictive regarding access to and passage over land that many of the rights exercised by Nessmuk during his adventures are denied us now. We couldn't go on an expedition across the UK and expect to hunt, fish and trap our own food or to be able to have fires wherever we camped in the evenings. Because we can't do those things we then have to rely on the modern light weight camp stoves, freeze dried food, and other modern equipment. Because we are then tied to using a modern stove instead of a fire we don't need an axe and saw to process firewood or a firesteel or bow drill kit to light it. Ye we might be able to whittle beside the camp stove in the evening but it's not the same as a camp fire and whittling for whittling's sake might be good practice for real bushcraft skills but without a purpose to you're whittling it's not really bushcraft.
It's a great shame that we don't have the right to practice bushcraft in the countryside here in the UK, a right that is protected in law in Scandinavian counties. Allemansrätten in Sweden allows people to access more or less the whole countryside as long as they follow some sensible rules. These rules might include bans on fires in high risk areas during the Summer or completely in specific nature reserves, bans on fishing in certain conservation areas and the need to abide by relevant firearms and hunting laws. But largely access to the countryside is unrestricted as long as you practice courtesy and don't approach near peoples dwellings.
At a camping shelter in Tyresta National Park in Sweden, due to fire risks and the need to maintain this pristine piece of primeval ancient forest fire, other than in designated areas like this one, is banned and you may only use wood supplied at camping shelters like this one rather than being allowed to cut and gather your own wood. But this is the exception rather than the rule and outside of these protected areas there is even greater freedom to experience the outdoors.
While I do love this principle and regularly take advantage of it on my trips to Scandinavia I can't see it working in the UK. The much larger population, the fact that most of the land is intensively managed lowland agriculture rather than forest and upland does not suit free access and neither does the mentality of many people here in the UK. We certainly aren't as a nation as closely linked to the landscape as out Scandinavian friends and I worry, having worked in the countryside my entire career, that the general level of respect for nature and the countryside here is far too low for people to be trusted with full access to the countryside.
The number of times I've seen people flout signs saying not to disturb undergrowth or cut live trees, even a few years ago at the 2014 Bushcraft show I watched a man and his young son, systematically cutting down willow coppice stems to make way for their shelter despite signs asking people not to cut vegetation. The amount of litter I find in the countryside, the poaching that goes on, the gates that get left open, the dogs that are allowed to freely roam and terrorise livestock I'm not sure our nations countryside could survive the kind of access that Allemansrätten gives the Swedes.
Bushcraft when practised properly does not impact the countryside negatively, a neatly coppiced hazel rod here and there, some harvested fruit, fungi or some legal caught fish or game, a fire carefully extinguished and the ashes scattered, shelters taken down after use do not disfigure or endanger the countryside. That is not the perception though and and any thought of cutting wood, having fires or harvesting wild food on a hike, camping trip or expedition is fairly likely to be met with disdain by modern light weight campers, especially because of the weight of the kit and equipment that allows you to do those things. Additionally the though that you would burn wood or cut a piece of living hazel to make a spoon, whistle or bow for your fire set will shock and horrify people who don't understand the nature of hardwood trees and the benefits of coppicing. Leaving no trace is a good moto of campers but actually if more people engaged with bushcraft instead of insulating themselves from nature with modern light weight kit maybe they would feel inclined to leave a positive trace in the environment.
Chris Loynes of the University of Cumbria gave a great talk about this idea of leaving more trace at the Nature Connections Conference in Derby in 2016 and published a blog post on the topic HERE.
With the availability of modern light weight kit camping and bushcraft have become two very separate things to most people and that is a shame in some respects.
We'd be really interested to know how you link your practice of bushcraft with other outdoor activities and would love to feature some guest blog posts on the BushcraftEducation blog with peoples thoughts and ideas. Please get in touch with us through social media or in the comments section on the right of the page. We look forward to hearing from you and perhaps to publishing a guest post from you soon.
Now that we are posting regularly again on the bushcraft education blog we will be resurrecting the regular series that we used to run. The 'Applied Bushcraft' series will be one of them and today's topic for the applied bushcraft series is Outdoor Education.
As a postgraduate student I studied Outdoor Education (OE) and because of my background and interest in bushcraft often looked for ways in which bushcraft could be integrated into OE programmes. I have also regularly looked at the benefits of teaching bushcraft as an educational activity, in fact that is the whole premise of this blog. I will use some excerpts from my post grad essays here to give a little bit of history of OE and how it intertwines with bushcraft.
Throughout the first half of the 20th Century pioneering outdoor education programmes were established all around the world to address a range of perceived needs of the youth of their respective countries and generations. Some of the reasons for the establishment of these programmes included;
• Development of moral fibre and desirable character traits (Cook 1999)
• Developing active lifestyles through games and recreation (Smith 1997a)
• Combat social decline (Loynes 2007; Richards 1990)
• Development of 'Character' (Baden-Powell 1908)
• preparing boys to be MEN (Baden-Powell 1908)
• prepare boys physically and mentally for service in war and/or the community (Baden-Powell 1908; Loynes 2007)
Emmeline Pethick's country holiday programme for girls, Baden-Powell's Scouting movement, The Woodcraft Folk and Kurt Hahn’s Outward Bound schools are all examples of these outdoor education movements. It may have been the moral panic of the Victorian era and concern over a perceived social decline amongst the working classes that led these and other influential 'social entrepreneurs' to begin developing early forms of OE (Loynes 2007). These early forays into OE were informal, in that they were not established in a recognised or nationally endorsed curriculum or delivered in schools or as part of any formal training. Although many became very popular and some are certainly now recognised on both a national and international scale.
A stone on Brownsea Island in Dorset commemorating the first scout camp.
By Adrian Pingstone (Image:Scout.stone.750pix.jpg) [Public domain]
Even though the outdoors was a common theme whatever the specific objectives of these early programmes there were significant cultural clashes within the field of OE from it's very inception.
A ceremony of the kindred of the kibo kift, an early outdoor education movement based in the UK. Image courtesy of The Kibbo Kift Foundation
The Kindred of The Kibbo Kift was a breakaway group from Scouting. Leaving behind what it's leader John Hargrave felt was an overly militaristic approach to engaging boys with the outdoors, although interestingly according to Smith (1997b) this is the same reason given by Baden-Powell as to why he stopped his involvement with the Boys Brigade and focused on his Scouting programme. Kibbo Kift focused more on living an open-air life and would eventually become The Woodcraft Folk in 1924 and which still exists today..
The Woodcraft Folk were also heavily influenced by Ernest Thompson-Seaton, who was born in Britain and brought up in the USA and had developed a strong appreciation of Native American culture and teachings. Seaton was a founding member of the Boy Scouts of America and his writings and his Woodcraft Indians organisation heavily influenced the establishment of the The Woodcraft Folk (Woodcraft Folk 2010), although Smith (1997b) claims that Baden-Powell was strongly influenced by Seaton as well.
Seaton, Baden Powell and Dan Beard, another influential figure in the Boy Scouts of America and the founder of an organisation known as the Sons of Daniel Boon which merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1910.
Seaton's overarching philosophy was that the outdoor experience should be more recreational (Seton quoted by Smith 2002), but in the classical Latin sense relating recreation to social education rather than time out from work or responsibility (Glyptis 1991). Seaton also had a fascination with the Native American Indian cultures basing a lot of the principles of his Woodcraft movement on their teachings of harmony and balance in nature, He was also a supporter of instinct psychology and rather than directly addressing the development of the moral, physical and character of young people he allowed them to exhibit a 'boyish savagery' as part of their developmental journey (Hall 1999) towards 'civilization'. He eventually accepted the Indian way of life as an end goal without there being a need to look further for civilisation and by 1915 was encouraging the teaching of Native American religion and ceremonies (Smith 2002).
An Excerpt from on of Seatons books; The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore, Doubleday (1912)
It only takes a cursory glance at the books by Baden Powell and Ernest Thompson Seaton and at the curriculum of these various societies and organisations to spot the links with bushcraft. There is more to the history of OE than the British and American contribution though, rather than the key goals of preparation and character development in the programmes discussed here so far there is another approach to the outdoors which is deeply ingrained in the Scandinavian culture. This culture of outdoors engagement is so ingrained within the culture of those nations who practice it that it has become part of the vocabulary.
In Scandinavia the word 'friluftsliv', literally 'fresh air life', encompasses all forms of outdoor and nature based activity and is not a discipline, subject or means of facilitation but rather a way of life (Stormeldeting 1972; Swedish Ministry of Culture 1999). I would argue that the vast majority of those people in the UK who go outdoors, whether that involves walking, rock climbing, fishing, canoeing or bushcraft do it in the spirit of friluftsliv even if we don't have a specific phrase for it. However, on the whole it seems to me that in the UK, instead of outdoor and nature based activities being an integral part of our culture and society we are in fact drawing further away from the natural world. As demonstrated by recent studies which indicate that the amount of time children spend playing outdoors has dwindled to between five and a half (JCB Kids 2013) and as little as 30 minutes per week (Mothercare 2014). This is not just the case in the UK, In the USA The Nature Conservancy conducted a poll in 2011 to gauge how 'connected' America's youth are to nature. Key findings included the fact that 88% of American youth claim to spend time on-line every day, with 69% playing video games or watching TV with that same level of frequency. Contrast that to the fact that less than 40% of American youth spend time taking part in outdoor activities on a weekly basis (The Nature Conservancy 2011). With all these distractions and easily obtained entertainment, and with the temptation for parents to use the TV and games console as an 'electronic babysitter' to get a bit of peace and quite or a free minute to prepare a meal in addition to the risk averse culture we now live in (Gill 2007), we are certainly not immersed in the spirit of outdoor life like those who practice 'friluftsliv'.
Perhaps this reduction in outdoor engagement is due to the advance of modern technology? Perhaps the outdoors does not provide the convenient, easily accessible recreation of a games console? Or perhaps it's just too muddy? Maybe Marinetti got something right in his Futurist Manifesto? Maybe there would be a time when technology and 'progress' is all that matters and nature is but a hindrance and a dirty place to be avoided? (Marinetti 1909)
Games consoles and other modern entertainment distracts fro outdoor experiences. By Evan-Amos (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The poor voluntary engagement with nature indicated by the studies cited above may well be one of the reasons for including OE in the modern national curriculum; so that it can be used as a tool to engage children and facilitate learning with the outdoors as an arena for development. Much in the way that Gösta Frohm established Skogsmulle in Sweden in 1957. As a response to what he saw as a population that was becoming more and more urbanised and less in touch with the natural world than the increasingly mechanised industries of forestry, trapping, mining and agriculture would previously have necessitated (Friluftsfrämjandet, nd). Although the skogsmulle programme is not officially part of school curriculum in Sweden outdoor play and nature based learning is (Ärlemalm-Hagser 2006), as it is in other Scandinavian countries, in particular in the Norwegian education system. In Norway outdoor learning was formally recognised in the curriculum in an attempt to improve the overall pedagogy of schooling and deliver a rounded programme using the outdoors and nature to provide situated learning (Lave & Wenger 1991) rather than de-contextualised learning (Säljö 2001). Outdoor learning achieves this by teaching about nature in nature, about society in society and about the local environment in the local environment (Jordet 1998) instead of trying to teach children about things outside of the classroom from the classroom. Outdoor learning as it is delivered in the Norwegian curriculum should be a course of prolonged exposure to the outdoors directly linked with the theoretical subjects being studied (Jordet 2009) not just one off activities with short term objectives and impacts. This approach and it's origins as part of the curriculum is different to the way OE has developed and been applied in the UK. OE as it is applied in the English Curriculum. This might be due to the existing culture of friluftsliv in Norway compared to a different culture perhaps best described as one of outdoor avoidance or nature deficiency (Louv 2005) in the UK.
Another cultural difference, comparable to that difference between the friluftsliv attitude in Scandinavia and the more contrived involvement with nature, through OE, in the UK. Is the difference between the UK and other countries with no memory or remnant of first nations and those countries with a preserved tradition of ancestral skills and remnant populations still living by means of traditional skills. Outdoor education could be considered a concept unique to first world countries where the general populace are disconnected from the outdoors to the point where it has some sort of novelty value. But where a nations prevailing or remnant culture embraces or demands a closer connection with nature and the outdoors does the concept of outdoor education exist at all?
I would argue that it does not, at least not in the same way. Think of first nations and the research which exists into the continuation of their traditional skills and knowledge. For them teaching those skills, such as Polar Bear Hunting (Pearce, et al., 2011), making skin clothing (Kritsch & Wright-Frazer, 2002), Fur preparation, hunting, fishing and trapping (Ohmagari & Berkes, 1997), is a necessary continuation of their traditional way of life and an exercise in cultural heritage. Whereas if we were to deliver a similar or even identical activity in the UK it would fall in the realm of OE, or be illegal/impossible due to environmental changes, extinctions and modern legislation.
Today we are far removed from the ancient skills that would once have been used by native peoples living in the British Isles; the hunter gatherer societies of the Maesolithic (10,000-5,500 years ago) were the last people in the British Isles to operate without agriculture and would have used their own bushcraft skills to survive (Darvill, 2010). In other parts of the world primitive survival and bushcraft skills have been used by native peoples in living memory and in some parts of the world is still a way of life (Wescott, 2001). As Pearce et all (2011), Kritsch & Wright-Frazer (2002) and Ohmagari & Berkes (1997) explain, the successful transmission of these skills is a vital part of preserving the skills, traditions and way of life of surviving native peoples. Where these traditional cultures are threatened or dwindling formal schools have even been set up to ensure these skills can be taught to younger generations such as the Samernas Utbildningscentrum (The Sami’s Training Centre) in Jokkmokk, Sweden, and the TePuia in Rotoroa, New Zealand (Te Puia , 2010). These types of skills have already been lost, or at least only practiced by a very small minority in the UK. They may be primitive skills based on stone age technologies or more modern methods and techniques used well into the 20th Century as part of woodland management practices, but to teach them now is to re-introduce them rather than to preserve them. While these skills are of heritage value elsewhere here they would certainly be classed as part of bushcraft in the UK which has emerged over the last twenty to thirty years as an increasingly popular part of the outdoor recreation and education scene. Other than the obvious cultural value of retaining or re-learning traditional skills are there also educational benefits.
Traditional crafts and skills such as coppering and other skills with a much closer relationship with the raw materials required are largely lost in the Western world. These skills are practised by a few artisans in little more than cottage industries with few people learning to carry on those skills.
Image By Josef Reichenberger (Scan von Fotografie aus eigenem Besitz) [Public domain]
Just as the field of OE claims that there are educational benefits to being involved with adventurous activities such as rock climbing, kayaking and expeditions I would suggest that the same benefits can be seen and objectives met through the use of bushcraft. Although there is limited, if any, conclusive evidence of this I conducted a brief study in 2013 looking at the benefit of including bushcraft in countryside management studies as a way of improving students performance in specific element s of their course, including plant identification (Guy 2013). My research suggested that this was the case although it was based on a small sample size and would benefit from further exploration. I presented the talk in the video bellow at the 2014 Bushcraft Show at Catton Hall in Derbyshire summarising the findings of this research.
In preparation for this research I had to justify that bushcraft was relevant to the curriculum of the BTEC Extended Diploma in countryside management that I was teaching. This highlights the current culture in education of standardized testing and delivery of a prescribed curriculum rather than focusing on the potential developmental benefit of an activity or experience even if it does stray slightly beyond they bounds of the conventional curriculum. Fortunately the field of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Wisdom (TEKW) is closely related to bushcraft and there is plenty of research to suggest that traditional knowledge and skills are valuable and valid even when you consider the availability of modern land management methods and improved scientific knowledge (Agrawal, 1995) (Colorado & Collins , 1987) (Posey, 1990) (Schultes , 1988) (Hunn, 1993) (Ellis, 2005) (Berkes, et al., 1993) (Richards , 1997).
So that is a little bit about Outdoor Education and it's relationship to bushcraft, I hope you enjoyed it or at least found it interesting. The references will be available below for those of you who are interested. We will be posting new applied bushcraft articles fairly regularly and I'm even working on a new book titled 'Applied Bushcraft' which I am hoping to finish by the end of the year.
REFERENCES
Agrawal, A.. (1995).
Dismantling the divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge. Development
Change, Volume 26, pp. 413-439.
Baden-Powell, R. (1908) Scouting for Boys
Berkes, F., Gadgil, M. &
Folke, C., (1993) Indigenous knowledge for biodiversity conservation. Ambio,
22(2-3), pp. 151-156.
BookCaps. (2010) Marxism
in Plain and Simple English; The Theory of Marxism in a Way Anyone Can
Understand. s.l.:CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Brown, D (2011) Back to the Land; The
Eduring Dream of Self-sufficiency in Modern America. University of Wisconsin Press; 1st edition
Colorado, P. & Collins ,
D., (1987) Western scientific colonialism and the re-emergence of native
Science.. Practice: Journal of Politics, Economics, Psychology, Sociology
and Culture , Volume Winter , pp. 50-65.
COOK, L. (1999) The 1994 Education Act and
Outdoor Education: From Policy to Practice. History of Education, 22(2),
157-172.
Darvill, T. (2010) Prehistoric
Britain. 2nd ed. London: Routledge .
Department of Education and
Science , (1975) Outdoor Education - Dartington conference report. s.l.,
Department of Education and Science.
Ellis, S. C. (2005)
Meaningful Consideration? A review of Traditional Knowledge in Environmental
Decision Making. Arctic, 58(1), pp. 66-77.
Gill, T. (2007) No Fear: Growing Up In A
Risk Averse Society. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. London.
Glyptis, S. (1991) Countryside Recreation,
Gateshead
Guy, G. (2013) Does Bushcraft Have a Place in
Formal Education, Horizons, (63) pp 26-29.
Hall, C. S. (1999) A Primer of Freudian
Psychology, Meridian, New York.
Hill, H,. (1980) Freedom to Roam – The
Struggle for Access to Britain’s Moors and Mountains, Moorland Publishing
Company Ltd. Newton Abbot.
Hillage, J; Pollard, E. (1998) Employability:
Developing a Framework for Policy Analysis, Institute for Employment Studies.
DfEE Publications, Nottingham.
Hunn, E. N. (1993) What is
traditional ecological knowledge?. In: N. M. Williams & G. Baines , eds. Traditional
Ecological Knowledge; wisdom for sustainable development. Canberra: Centre
for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, pp.
13-15.
Jordet, A. N. (2009) Chapter 2: What is
Outdoor Learning? Outlines Outdoor Learning in Elementary Schools From
Grassroot to Curriculum in Teacher Education. Socrates Programme [Online] available
online; http://www.outdooreducation.dk/files/foundation%20course%20manual.pdf
[accessed 08/11/14]
Jordet,
A. N. (1998) Nærmiljøet som
klasserom. Uteskole i teori og praksis. Cappelen Akademisk Forlag, Oslo.
Kritsch, I. &
Wright-Frazer, K. (2002) The Gwich'in Traditional Caribou Skin Clothing
Project; Repatriating Traditional Knowledge and Skills. Arctic, 55(2),
pp. 205-213.
Lave, J., Wenger, E. (1991). Situated
Learning Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press
Louv, R. (2005) Last Child in the Woods.
Atlantic Books. London
Loynes, C (2007) Social Reform, Militarism and other historical influences
on the practice of Outdoor Education in youth work; in Becker, P. Braun,
K.H. and Schirp, J. Erlebnisse und die Padagokik. Abenteuer.
Marinetti, F. T. (1909) Manifesto of Futurism, Le Figaro
Morley, L (2001) Producing New Workers:
quality, equality and employability in higher education. Quality in Higher
Education, Vol 7, No 2
Ofted (2004) Outdoor
Education; Aspects of Good Practice.
Ohmagari, K.
& Berkes, F. (1997) Transmission of Indigenous Knowledge and Bush Skills
among Western James Bay Cree Women of Subarctic Canada. Human Ecology, 25(2),
pp. 197-222.
Pearce, T.
et al. (2011) Transmission of Environmental Knowledge and Land Skills among
Inuit Men in Ulukhatok, Northwest Territories, Canada. Human Ecology, Volume
39, pp. 271-288.
Posey, D. A.
(1990) The Science of the Mebengokre. Orion, 9(3), pp. 16-21.
Richards, A. (1990) Kurt Hahn,
in: Priest, S./Miles, J.C. (Hg.): Adventure Education, State College
Richards, R.
T. (1997) What the natives know: wild mushrooms and forest health. Journal
of Forestry, Volume September, pp. 5-10.
Robinson, K. (2009) The
Element; How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. London: Penguin.
Roth, R. E. (1969). Fundamental
Concepts for Environmental Management Education. Madison: Wisconsin Univ.
Schultes, R. E. (1988)
Primitive Plant Lore and Modern Conservation. Orion, 7(3 ), pp. 8-15.
Smith, M. (1997a) Emmeline Pethick, Mary Neal and the
development of work with young women, [Online] available at;
http://www.infed.org/walking/wa-peth.htm [accessed on 12/11/14]
Smith, M. (1997b) Robert Baden-Powell as an
educational innovator, [Online] available at; http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-bp.htm
[accessed 10/11/14]
Smith, M. (2002) Ernest Thompson Seton and
Woodcraft, [Online] available at; http://www.infed.org/thinkers/seton.htm
[accessed 10/11/14]
Säljö, R. (2001). Læring i praksis: et sociokulturelt perspektiv.
Oslo: Cappelen
akademisk
The Nature Conservancy (2011) Connecting
Americas Youth to Nature, The Nature Conservancy, Arlington VA.
Wescott, D. (2001)
Introduction. In: D. Wescott, ed. Primitive Technology II; Ancestral Skills.
Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith.
Williams, A. Wainwright, N (2011) Changing
Times for Outdoor Learning in Wales: Outdoor Learning Cards, Adventurous
Activities and Physical Education, Horizons (56), IOL pgs 30-33
Yorke, M. Knight, P. T. (2006) Embedding
employability into the curriculum, The Higher Education Academy, York.
Ärlemalm-Hagser, E. (2006) Gender, playing and
learning in natural outdoor environments, Interaction in Outdoor Play
Environments. In; Gender, Culture and Learning. Brodin. J; Lindstrand. P (Eds) Stockholm
Institute of Education.
A traditional image of a keeper surveying his 'beat' with his dogs. By Photographes du National Geographic (http://natgeofound.tumblr.com/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
While 'bushcraft' is a modern word the skills that have been adopted by modern recreational bushcrafters have been practised for centuries. Some bushcrafters are in my opinion preoccupied with a the idea of the ancient or primitive aspects and often forget that the skills and equipment we use as bushcrafters now represent the pinnacle of their respective technologies. Knives with fancy steels, ferocium rods and light weight tarps are not ancient or primitive and while bushcraft might be a refuge for some primitive and traditional skills it's not quite as primitive as some would like to think it is nor does it have a monopoly on traditional skills, with the revival of the Bushcraft Education blog the 'Applied Bushcraft' series is back to look at those professions which still use skills associated with bushcraft on a daily basis. Today we will be looking at Gamekeepers and the 'bushcraft' skills that they use every day.
My oldest didn't realise just how heavy a goose
was. We clearly don't buy our Christmas goose
as you can see, this one is going to be the outer
layer of a multi bird roast which will also include
duck, pheasant, coot, partridge and pigeon
Game keeping is a very old profession but it hasn't always been called game keeping, back in the day when the only around 5000 people lived in the British Isles and survived in hunter gatherer societies hunting was a daily part of life carried out as a vital part of survival. It is likely that successful hunters were celebrated and honoured and it is also likely that hunts were considered enjoyable and exhilarating but they would not have been a recreational activity just as going to the super market today is not considered recreational (in fact it's closer to a cruel and unusual punishment, I'd rather hunt my food). As time went by and agriculture became the mainstay of subsistence hunting still played a part to supplement the regular diet provided by agriculture but as agriculture became more and more efficient so hunting became less and less necessary for survival and became a recreation. While hunting and gathering is often a 24/7 job farming doesn't have to be which allowed societies to develop. Hunting for food never died out but the recreational element of it gradually became the most important part. In the British Isles we do not even have any cultural traditions that relate to the eating of game at certain times of year, compare the Icelandic tradition of eating ptarmigan at Christmas (although hunting ptarmigan is now banned in Iceland due to declining populations), or the Rajput tradition of game curries. But in the UK now the closest we come to a game eating tradition is the vague idea that goose is an alternative to turkey at Christmas and those who do choose goose will invariably buy one.
As hunting became a recreational pastime providing that recreation became a profession for others. As far back as 3,500 BC the ancient Egyptians enjoyed hunting as a pastime and professional hunters would have tended the hunting equipment, horses, dogs and chariots that would have been used in the pursuit of leopards, lions, barbary sheep, antelope and other game pursued for the table or purely for sport. Much later in medieval Britain the foresters would have served the crown and maintained the royal hunting estates know as forests and chases. The word game keeper was not yet in common usage but the foresters did similar work, largely they were responsible for the protection of game from those not allowed to hunt, the collection of fines and the preservation of game. It is strange that while game would once have been pursued by all as an integral part of their daily lives and ultimately their survival that as people became more 'civilised' that right was reserved for at least the rich or royal and in the case of some parts of the medieval period solely the King. During the medieval period particularly under the rule of the Plantagenet kings the 'beasts of the chase' (deer, boar etc..) were reserved for the King or those with his specific licence and permission, nobles hunting without permission would be fined and peasants often brutally punished and sometimes executed depending on the perceived severity of their crime. For example the taking of a roe deer carried the punishment of blinding until they were reclassified as a 'beast of the warren' in 1338 and became fair game to all who wanted to hunt them (this ultimately led to their extinction in most of England and Wales until concerted efforts were made to re-introduce them in the 1800's). Medieval sport always revolved around the deer and boar and although pheasants, partridges and grouse were found in the British Isles they were not valued as a sporting quarry until much more recently and it is with game bird hunting that we associate the 'game keeper'. With a decline in the vast space required for hunting in the medieval fashion and the invention of effective breach loading firearms driven shooting started becoming popular in the 1800's and now forms the mainstay of organised shooting and 'hunting' in the UK. The word hunting needs some discussion at this point, in the UK the word hunting would normally be used to reference the hunting of an animal with dogs and possibly also horses whereas all other forms of hunting are normally described as 'shooting' often with the appropriate quarry name attached or 'stalking' (see a post from a few years ago for more info).
With the growth of game bird shooting the game keeper became an integral part of the rural landscape and even today uses a whole raft of skills which we associate with bushcraft as part of their daily routine.
Tracking;
Weather it's determining the cause of death of a pheasant from it's remains, working out where a fox earth is, tracking a wounded deer or tracking poachers a game keeper is constantly interpreting the sign he sees in the countryside. Being able to tell the difference between a nest of hatched eggs and one which has been raided by a crow or badger is vital as is being able to tell the difference between a fox print and a jack russell print or mink and otter prints or between the trail left by a badger and a fox. All these skills relate directly to the work of a gamekeeper. Perhaps we need to make sure we are setting a legal snare on a fox run rather than a badger run or identifying the right spot to set a snare on a rabbit run based on it's foot falls. Maybe we need to determine whether there are otters in an area so we can decide whether it is safe to set lethal traps for mink or live catch traps in case we accidentally catch an otter. Keepers and pest controllers use a specific piece of equipment to catch the signs of these animals;
These 'Mink rafts' catch the footprints of animals that use them which can then be used to determine the appropriate course of action, if mink are present and there is no risk of catching non target species such as otters or water voles lethal traps can be used, replacing the clay/sand mix with something like a mark 6 fen trap or if other species are present a live catch trap could be used instead to ensure that non target species are not harmed and can be humanely released in case of accidental capture.
A mink raft set and ready for action.
Trapping;
I'll refer you to our bushcraft and the law series for this particular topic because although trapping may interest the bushcraft fraternity there is rarely justification for the use of traps in recreational buschraft and it is particularly important to remember that the primitive traps that we as bushcrafters are most interested in are actually illegal. Gamekeepers however do often use traps as part of their regular routine and have to abide by certain laws and guidelines regarding the types of traps that they use and how often they are checked and what species you can use them on. There is already a lot on this blog about trapping and you can view the relevant posts HERE. Mostly game keepers will be trapping pest and predators which if uncontrolled would devastate wildlife populations things such as corvids (Crows, magpies etc..) using larsen and ladder traps.
Foxes will primarily be controlled by shooting but snares and live capture traps also play a significant part in their control. Historically gin traps would also have been used but these have been illegal in the UK since 1957.
A gin trap; these were designed to hold the captured animal by the foot or leg and often led to severe injury and escape, animals were even recorded to have bitten off their own legs to escape. They have been illegal since the late 50's in the UK.
Spring traps come in various shapes and sizes and licence for use against specific quarry depending on their size, power and design. This specification can not be deviated from and if a trap of the wrong design is used on quarry that it is not licensed for the law has been broken. For example a fen mark 6 can be used to trap mink but a mark 4 can't as it is too small and not powerful enough. Much of this trapping legislation is in the process of significant change at the moment and the fen traps and magnum traps that have been the mainstay of a keepers pest control equipment for the best part of half a century are about to be outlawed and replaced with new traps which are even more human and which satisfy the condition of the International Humane Trapping Standards. For more information check out some previous posts on trapping HERE and HERE.
Providing Food;
Ultimately the work of a game keeper culminates with the shooting season when pheasants, partridges and grouse are shot. While many participate in this shooting as sport ultimately what is produced is food and a lot of bushcraft revolves around the finding, production and cooking of food. A keeper needs to be able to bring down game, or more often vermin, it's the paying guests that should be shooting the game, which can enter the human food chain. The pheasants and partridges shot on the shoot are a sought after luxury product, although sadly many retailers no longer accept wild game that has been shot preferring to import for example venison from farms in New Zealand. Much of what the keeper shoots can be eaten too; pigeons, rabbits, jackdaws and squirrels are all delicious and even the less sought after game species which are rarely shot on shoots but when they are generally just get fed to dogs and ferrets like coots and moorhens for example all make a good meal. There are other vermin I would not recommend eating; fox for example in my experience tastes like bitter spam. Whether the animals and birds are shot as game by paying guests or by the keeper as vermin they are food though and the getting of food is an important part of bushcraft as well as one of the outcomes of the keepers work.
Fur and Feather;
Bushcrafters often pride themselves in not wasting anything and keepers are much the same, I have often paid a significant percentage of my annual shotgun ammunition bill by selling squirrel tails, pheasant tails, jay wings and other resources harvested from game or vermin to people who use them to make fishing flys. Game yields far more than just meat and while the average keeper or deer stalker may not make hide glue or use animal bones to make needles and other tools as would have been done prehistorically they do make a lot of use can be made of the skins and other products of a shot animal. Rabbit skins become dummy's for dog training, non trophy deer antlers become dog chews, whistles, key rings and walking stick handles, hare's are carefully skinned so the short hair from their faces can be used for fishing flies, deer hooves become traditional walking stick handles and very little is wasted.
Environmental Awareness;
As bushcrafters we pride ourselves in being able to identify plants, trees and other wildlife, in understanding what the changing seasons means for the countryside and in recognising the subtle signs of the wildlife that lives there. We know the best places to look for certain plants and wildlife and the best time of year to find them. Keepers have been the guardians of this information for many years and before bushcraft became a popular recreational activity they along with farmers, foresters, thatchers, terrier men and other 'country folk' would have been the ones who had a monopoly on this information, in fact I would hazard a guess that there isn't a single half competent bushcrafter who hasn't learned at least a few things from an old keeper, farmer or 'country person' over the course of their careers. Keepers need to know where to go to find the fox that's been bothering the pheasants, or the best place to set a trap for a stoat or a snare for a rabbit or the best time of year to shoot crows and the right time of year to catch pheasants for breeding and a whole host of other things and this knowledge only comes through regular time spent outdoors in all weathers and seasons and spending that time outdoors is part of a keepers job.
So that's a little insight into the bushcraft skills used by game keepers, there will be more coming soon as we expand out applied bushcraft series. The other once regular series of the Bushcraft Education blog will all be back soon as well with a Bushscience post all about why common ink caps are poisonous when combined with alcohol but absolutely fine to eat at other times due out next week.
I hope you are enjoying the new content and we will keep it coming, you can expect at least one post a week.
This article used to appear as a separate page on this blog but has been updated somewhat to appear now as part of our Applied bushcraft series and provide a bit of added context to what we consider to be applied bushcraft.
TEKW
T(raditional)
E(cological)
K(nowledge)
and
W(isdom)
Bushcraft skills were once more than recreation, without knowledge of plants people would have been without food, medicine and material for construction. Without a knowledge of animal ecology and behaviour people would not have been able to efficiently hunt and trap and would have gone without food, clothing, bone for making tools, sinew for strong cord and hoof and hide for glue. While a knowledge of ecology is still important in many modern professions there may seem to be less use for the traditional skills and knowledge which can also be applied in the countryside and which we might choose to call bushcraft.
An Australian Aborigonee encampment depicted in a 19th Century engraving, first nation peoples like these are often credited with having a wealth of TEKW which is what puts them miles ahead, in terms of their familiarity with the natural world and the things that live and grow in it, of those of us more reliant on modern conveniences and technology.
Public Domain, Link
In the UK we have no first nations people left to pass on their skills and can really only speculate as to the skills they used, guided perhaps in part by archaeological discoveries such as those at Must Farm in the Cambridgeshire Fens and the work of experimental archaeologists. We do still have a wealth of traditional ecological knowledge through the anecdotes and experience of those who have worked the land for decades in professions such as forestry, game keeping, agriculture and perhaps, although as a game keeper and deer stalker by trade I hate to admit it, the old poachers knew a thing or two as well. So although we don't really talk about traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom in the UK it is there.
There is an awful lot of literature on TEKW from other countries though, a lot of it is about the importance of preserving and passing on that knowledge for cultural reasons and to preserve the identity and culture of the first nations people who have that knowledge and practice the skills related to it.
While the traditional skills of first nations people would once have been taught to their children just as children in modern schools in the UK learn history, maths and phonics now those skills are in much less demand, the person in this picture is Pîhtokahanapiwiyin (c. 1842 – 4 July 1886), better known as Poundmaker, and was a Plains Cree chief known for his skill at using buffalo 'pounds' or corrals. These skills are now for the most part lost and if it wasn't for the efforts of remaining first nations peoples there would be very little attempt to teach these skills to a new generation at all.
Image by; By Prof. Buell, O.B. - Library and Archives Canada, Public Domain, Link
In some parts of the world traditional skills are still very much in everyday use but with improvements in technology, and therefore less demand on young people to learn traditional skills, the number of people in these areas who have well developed practical ‘bushcraft’ skills is declining. Particularly, according to a study of the Transmission of Environmental Knowledge and Land Skills among Inuit Men in Ulukhakatok, in specialist areas such Polar Bear Hunting (Pearce, et al., 2011), making skin clothing (Kritsch & Wright-Frazer, 2002), Fur preparation, hunting, fishing and trapping (Ohmagari & Berkes, 1997). Modern technology may have made many hand tools and traditional skills less efficient than modern methods but by no means have they become obsolete. For example in many parts of the world subsistence agriculture relies solely on the traditional knowledge and skills of the farmers (Beckford & Barker, 2007) (Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1990) and researchers agree that TEKW is valuable and valid even when you consider the availability of modern farming methods and improved scientific knowledge of agriculture (Agrawal, 1995) (Colorado & Collins , 1987) (Posey, 1990) (Schultes,1988) (Hunn, 1993).
Today we are far removed from the ancient skills that would once have been used by native peoples living in the British Isles; the hunter gatherer societies of the Maesolithic (10,000-5,500 years ago) were the last people in the British Isles to operate without agriculture (Darvill, 2010) and would have used bushcraft as their means of survival. In other parts of the world primitive survival and bushcraft skills have been used by native peoples in living memory and in some parts of the world is still a way of life (Wescott, 2001). As Pearce et all (Transmission of Environmental Knowledge and Land Skills among Inuit Men in Ulukhatok, Northwest Territories, Canada, 2011), Kritsch& amp; Wright-Frazer (2002) and Ohmagari & Berkes (1997) explain, the successful transmission of these skills is a vital part of preserving the skills, traditions and way of life of surviving native peoples. Formal schools have been set up in some parts of the world to ensure these skills can be taught to younger generations such as the Samernas Utbildningscentrum (The Sami’s Training Centre) in Jokkmokk, Sweden, and the TePuia in Rotoroa, New Zealand.
Craftsmen at Te Puia, Maori Arts and Crafts institute in Rotoroa New Zealand where the traditions of carving and weaving are kept alive and strong.
These types of skills have already been lost, or at least only practised by a very small minority, in the UK and to teach them now is to re-introduce them rather than to preserve them. But they can be relevant in a range of applications, from developing social skills, to influencing environmental decision making (Ellis, 2005) and, conservation (Berkes, Gadgil, & Folke, 1993) (Richards , 1997) (Schultes,1988) (Ellis, 2005).
TEKW related literature (including references from above);
Agrawal, A., 1995. Dismantling the divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge. Development Change , Volume 26, pp. 413-439.
Beckford, C. & Barker, D., 2007. The role and value of local knowledge in Jamaican agriculture; adaptation and change in small scale farming. The Geographical Journal, 173(2), pp. 118-128.
Berkes, F., Gadgil, M. & Folke, C., 1993. Indigenous knowledge for biodiversity conservation. Ambio, 22(2-3), pp. 151-156.
Colorado, P. & Collins , D., 1987. Western scientific colonialism and the re-emergence of native Science.. Practice: Journal of Politics, Economics, Psychology, Sociology and Culture , Volume Winter , pp. 50-65.
Ellis, S. C., 2005. Meaning ful Consideration? A review of Traditional Knowledge in Environmental Dcision Making. Arctic, 58(1), pp. 66-77.
Hunn, E. N., 1993. What is traditional ecological knowledge?. In: N. M. Williams & G. Baines , eds. Traditional Ecological Knowledge; wisdom for sustainable development. Canberra: Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, pp. 13-15.
Kritsch, I. & Wright-Frazer, K., 2002. The Gwich'in Traditional Caribou Skin Clothing Project; Repatriating Traditional Knowledge and Skills. Arctic, 55(2), pp. 205-213.
Ohmagari, K. & Berkes, F., 1997. Transmission of Indigenous Knowledge and Bush Skills among Western James Bay Cree Women of Subarctic Canada. Human Ecology, 25(2), pp. 197-222.
Pearce, T. et al., 2011. Transmission of Environmental Knowledge and Land Skills among Inuit Men in Ulukhatok, Northwest Territories, Canada. Human Ecology, Volume 39, pp. 271-288.
Posey, D. A., 1990. The Sience of the Mebengokre. Orion, 9(3), pp. 16-21.
