Last month I did something I almost never do and wrote about a movie here on the Bushcraft Education blog, hopefully it was more than just a rant about how rubbish The Revenant, a film claiming to depict the ordeal of Hugh Glass after his mauling by a bear in1823, was and how much more about survival we can learn from Riddley Scott and Matt Damon film The Martian. For the original post follow this LINK. I said in that post that even though The Martian is fictional it demonstrates a need for bushcraft and survival skills even in space, I thought I would follow it up with my thoughts on just why bushcraft skills will always be relevant.
People who practice Bushcraft tend to spend a lot of time looking back to times when the manual skills we value so highly were an essential part of every day life, to the mountain men of North America who lived by their trapping and navigating skills, to the Mesolithic hunter gatherers who gleaned every necessity from the land, and the craftsmen of yesteryear who relied on their manual skills and basic tools rather than the convenience of modern power tools.
However bushcrafters and survival skills enthusiasts have plenty of reasons to look forward as well, and before all the sensible people reading this give up expecting the next sentence to mention the zombie apocalypse, just give me a minute more to make my case.
Zombies aren't real and those 'prepping' for a zombie apocalypse need to keep their stockpiles of green tipped ammunition and toxic green knife handles as far away from me as possible.
A knowledge of bushcraft is timeless, even if many of the skills are now made largely redundant on a day to day basis by modern technology;
The flint and steel or bow drill has been replaced by the piezo electric lighter, the electric oven and gas central heating.
Tracking and trapping animals and birds for food and clothing has been replaced by cellophane wrapped, battery farmed livestock and internet shopping.
Collecting, eating and preserving seasonal vegetables and fruits has been replaced by ordering a side salad or buying expensive 'porcini' mushrooms at a delicatessen even though they grow plentifully just yards from your home.
A bumper harvest of 'porcini' also known as cep or penny bun, fairy ring chantarelle and a giant puff ball. Sold dry in tiny packets in supermarkets for an absolute fortune.
What worries me is the only people that seem to value these skills are the few first nations peoples who preserve their traditional knowledge for cultural as much as practical reasons and the relatively few people who practice bushcraft as recreation. In the UK our schools are demanding more and more inclusion of technology in the curriculum with very little emphasis placed on manual skill development. We have young school children learning computer programming, ipads in every classroom, students at secondary schools requiring laptops and home computers for every piece of homework, homework being conducted on virtual learning environments rather than in exercise books while all the time there are fascinating opportunities out of reach of our children just on the other side of the classroom window.
In the school grounds of my childrens school I could gather quince, lime bast for making rope, cat tail pollen for baking in the spring and seed down for firelighting in the autumn, a huge range of wild greens; shepherds purse, garlic mustard, lime leaves, pineapple weed and bitter cress, I could tap birch trees and use the bark to make birch tar and I that could all be embedded in the science curriculum but it isn't. There is a bit of a catch 22 here in my mind and I'll address it fully in another post next month . Briefly though the problem of trying to teach bushcraft at schools is that there simply isn't anyone to teach it and the risk is that if it was taught it would be taught badly and would turn children of to it, just as children can be turned off to other fascinating subject by bad teachers or by a poor curriculum, geography, science, literature and history for example should all be fascinating and engaging subjects, I don't know how you would ever make maths interesting but someone's got to try I suppose, but often schools manage to make even the most interesting topics tedious and disengaging and the same could happen to bushcraft if it was done in a school setting.
The point of this post though is whatever the difficulties of taking advantage of the natural school surroundings or of teaching a bit about the natural world those difficulties should be conquered and the learning should go ahead, children should be taught about nature and the environment, traditional rural skills and knowledge and bushcraft is the perfect way to do that teaching, in fact it's why I started this blog in the first place.
Quinces collected with the permission of my daughters school, we turned them into jelly and mixed some of them with some black nightshade berries to make a delicious chutney too. But the school didn't take advantage of them at all, in fact the teachers didn't even know what they were and were at a complete loss when Lillie took a jar of the finished jelly in for them to try.
If we aren't careful one day when we really need the skills of a bushcrafter, the practical skills which relate to ecology, survival, navigation, resource identification and collection, identification and gathering of food which only come from consistent exposure to and work in nature and the outdoors, we will find that no one has those skills. When in a few years we are all driving electric cars, commuting on mag-lift trains operating all our household appliances with our phones or in a million years when the human race is boldly exploring the galaxy with our computer whizz kid great-great-great-great etc.. grandchildren living in human colonies on the other side of galaxy, travelling faster than we can ever dream who is going to grow our food, plan the rotation of timber production, manage pests, carry out habitat management and restoration, discover and classify new species etc.. When computer code can do all that then we can start relying on technology but until then we will need to maintain and develop our connection with nature. Even if one day our technology has advanced so far that we can explore space and new planets what value will there be in that if all we can do when we get there is write computer code and do maths. We will always need ecologists, environmental scientists, experts in agriculture, bushcrafters and others with practical nature based skills. And with little engagement in those areas in school maybe it will be the people who practice it for fun that will save the day.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Ecological Knowledge; wisdom for sustainable development. Canberra: Centre
for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, pp.
13-15.
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Outdoor Learning? Outlines Outdoor Learning in Elementary Schools From
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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.
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Learning Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press
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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.
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Institute of Education.
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.
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An Inuit Igloo - traditional snow shelter.
(Source: www.icrecreamnation.org, 2013)
In kicking off the new BushScience series I thought I’d sneak this topic in before winter leaves us entirely. The science of snow keeping you warm can seem counter intuitive but in reality is very simple. In the UK we rarely have enough snow to enable the practice of making snow shelters, with the possible exception of the Scottish Highlands, but they are nevertheless a well known concept, even if only from children's programmes. However, in other parts of the world, most notably Arctic regions with indigenous groups such as the Inuit, snow shelters of one sort or another are still common. Most famous has to be the igloo, those domed structures built of snow blocks.
I am sure I am not alone in having heard people commenting on how they ‘can’t understand the point of these shelters, because it must be freezing in there’ or statements to that effect. Of course these people are right: it is freezing in snow shelters - but all things are relative. In the UK or other temperate climates our idea of a snowy skirmish, maybe once or twice a year and most likely at temperatures between 2oC and -5oC (36oF - 23oF), ends in a retreat to a heated home at around 20oC (68oF). With this concept of cold, then freezing in the real sense (0oC or 32oF) does sound pretty cold. But snow shelters are for regions with persistent snow not the odd flurry, where the temperatures can drop far lower, maybe -30oC (-22oF) or less. In these circumstances coming in to a shelter that offers freezing temperatures, or even slightly lower is a much ‘warmer’ proposition, representing a similar temperature difference as going from a temperate winters day to a warm house.
A close up of some snow flakes
(Source: Flickr user LadyDragonflyCC, 2013)
Lets consider then how this works, it really is very simple. We humans have devised essentially just two methods to keep warm - an active source of heat, with fire being the most obvious example, and insulation, a more passive method. Snow acts as an insulator and works in exactly the same way as many other insulators, by trapping air. As we all know snow is essentially fine ice crystals, when it lays a large proportion of the volume of the snow is air - think of how much compacting (or air removal) you have to do to get a decent snowball. The air trapped within the snow is less influenced by outside air temperature because it has no direct contact with it and therefore tends to be fairly constant, at or around the temperature of the snow itself. When this air-filled snow is used in the construction of shelters it breaks the direct link between external and internal air and slows or prevents entirely the equalisation of air temperature by heat conduction. (For a slightly more scientific description of the properties of snow as an insulator try one of these: https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/snow/index.html , http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~campbell/snowdynamics/reading/Pomeroy.pdf )
Other insulators that work on this principle include warm clothes, double glazing, duvets, sleeping bags, loft insulation and many others. None of them in their own right provide a heat source, but they all retain air, either in a distinct layer or in lots of little pockets. With the introduction of a heat source, in the case of clothing or blankets a person, or in the case of double glazing or loft insulation some source of domestic heating, this trapped layer of air prevents the warmth of the air being conducted away by disrupting its direct link with external, usually lower temperatures.
An Inuit whale blubber lamp, known as a 'quilliq'.
(Source: Brendan Griebel, 2012)
A small heat source inside a snow shelter, these days something like a small gas stove but more traditionally in areas where these sort of shelters are used a seal fat or whale blubber lamp, will slowly warm, and maintain, the temperature within a snow shelter, aided by the body heat of the occupants. When correctly equipped with suitable clothes and appropriate sleeping arrangements - remember the adage: there’s ‘No such thing as bad weather only the wrong clothes’ - these shelters can provide a warm (relatively, remember) retreat from the crippling temperatures outside. A further advantage, which cannot be under-estimated, is the shelter from the wind provided by such a structure. The wind chill factor of the gale force winds which frequent Arctic areas can make already uncomfortably low temperatures unsurvivable - a wind-break is worth its weight in gold, let alone snow! A few simple modifications, such as a cold sink (essentially a whole in the floor) and raised bed platforms, keep the occupants higher in the interior - warm air rises - making the most of the ‘warm’ temperatures. If you do fancy having a go at making a snow shelter follow this link for a chapter from the ‘Field manual for the U.S. Antarctic program’ on making snow shelters - but good luck on finding snow that will work!
As a round up then: snow doesn't keep you warm, but it can help you keep ‘warmer’ than you might otherwise be! Richard
Another branch is to be added to the ever expanding Bushcraft Education tree, BushScience.
The original concept for this series grew out of conversations between Geoff and myself about the overlap in our different topics of university study (Outdoor / Environmental Education & Ecology and Conservation respectively): there is a whole range of scientific understanding, or knowledge which would now be considered science, which can be of benefit to, and indeed some is crucial, in the practice of bushcraft.
Some of this beneficial knowledge is obvious:
Botany - correct identification of edible plant species or even more important, poisonous species; recognising species which have other uses, such as producing cordage, or which are better for certain tasks than others, which types of wood burn the best or make the best tools etc.
Ecology - understanding what resources certain habitats are likely to offer; understanding animal behaviour, learning links between species which may make finding food or other resources easier and many others.
Not all 'Science' takes place in a lab - in this case a forensics lab (West Midlands Police, Creative Commons, 2012)
As you begin to think in depth about the full range of activities that can fall under the title of bushcraft you can quickly add other ‘science’ topics which may be relevant, below are just a few examples:
Physical Geography / Environmental Sciences - land formation, soil types, weather patterns (Meteorology), seasonal variation, and many others which can give all sorts of information.
Chemistry - basically everything to do with fire, the purification of water etc.
Astronomy - specifically in using the stars to navigate.
Nutrition - Ensuring wild food you are gathering is providing a balanced diet.
Physics - You may think I’m going too far, but the preservation of heat in cold environments can be a life saver and this would come under the physics umbrella of the basic sciences.
Mycology - perhaps a new word to some, just the posh name for the science of fungi.
Geology - identifying flint, an appreciation of the permeability of different rock types may help with the location of water sources in some landscapes.
Archeology - perhaps pushing my luck classifying this as a science, but it ends in 'ology' so I think its fair! Understanding ancient methods can be very instructive in how tools or material are used.
Anthropology - another topic granted ‘science’ status under these circumstances because it ends in ‘ology’. However, as the source of much, arguably all, of the bushcraft methods still employed today, it could not be left out! Ethnography - The study of people as a participant from within a specific culture, society or group. Many of the most influential modern bushcrafters have taken an ethnographical approach to learning their skills. Think of all the TV programmes and books where people spend time with native peoples or indigenous cultures and observe and take part in their daily lives. These ethnographic accounts can be of great value to us.
Many of these overlap and intermingle, and you certainly do not need a great depth of understanding, or any understanding at all in any of these in order to enjoy bushcraft: but cherry picking titbits of information may be useful, helping to refine techniques used, make living conditions more comfortable, or may just be interesting!
This series aims to provide some of those titbits, some may be an aid to streamline your practical application, increase understanding or improve best practice, but some will have little if any practical use and will simply explore the fascinating science that underpins the activities we enjoy. We hope you enjoy too!
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