In this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris takes you from the smell of fair food and meeting listeners to the quiet focus of bow-drill fire craft, walking step by step through how to turn a single ember into a steady flame. Along the way, he shares a listener story about family, faith, and purpose in the outdoors, showing that tending your fire is a lot like tending your soul.
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In this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris takes you from the smell of fair food and shaking hands with listeners to the quiet focus of bow-drill firecraft.
He opens the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft book to page 150 and walks through starting a friction fire, step by step, breaking down what it takes to nurture a single ember until it becomes a blaze. Along the way, he shares a listener story about family, faith, and finding purpose in the outdoors, showing that tending your fire is a lot like tending your soul.
Inside this episode:
Street Fair reflections, lessons, and community shout-outs
Reading and teaching from Primitive Camping and Bushcraft page 150
Step-by-step look at the bow drill — from ember to full flame
Why patience and practice matter more than shortcuts
How building fire mirrors our walk through hardship
A listener story that reignited the flame to keep going
Practical tips for feeding the fire — both in camp and in life
Primitive Camping and Bushcraft (page 150, “The Bow Drill”)
Primitive Camping Rations – freeze-dried meals, coffee, and fire kits
The Friday Blog Post – “Starting Fire the Old Way”
Community group on primitive-camping.com
Every fire begins with patience, not force.
Practice friction fire to build skill and discipline.
Faith and focus fade the same way coals do, you have to tend them.
Keep the right people around you; warmth spreads both ways.
The fire you build today might light someone else’s tomorrow.
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Speir.
So here we're gonna talk about gear,
red and the kind of stories
you only get around a fire.
It's all about learning, adapting
and keeping your faith strong.
So whether you're a seasoned outdoorsman
or just looking to unplug and reconnect,
you're in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the
fire and let's get into it.
All right, welcome back
to the Primitive Camping
Bushcraft podcast.
And I am coming to you from
underneath the tarp of Camp Wut-Da-Heck
Wut-Da-Heck
And it is a very nice,
nice November afternoon.
Not hot, but not too hot, not cold.
I got a fire rolling.
You might see some smoke
if you're watching the video
and it is about
three-ish in the afternoon
and time has changed.
So about an hour and a half from now
it'll start getting dark.
And it is just turning
into a beautiful time of year.
And I'm telling you
right now, this past weekend,
I know I didn't do a podcast on Monday
because I've been
burning a candle at both ends.
I deeply apologize about that.
I just, I was getting
ready for a street fair
and the street fair
has come and has gone.
And now I know what to expect.
Sometimes you don't know what to expect
on your first time around.
And now I do.
Not to mention selling the
books and coffee and meals,
fire kits, fire plugs.
I also did freeze-dried candy.
So that stole a lot of the joy
from the primitive camping stuff,
but I still got to meet a lot of
interesting individuals.
I got to meet a lot of people
and I still have the
smell of blooming onions
or chicken on a stick
running through my nose
a week later.
Man, that stuff was so good.
I'll tell you what, I ate
two chicken on the sticks
and a blooming onions in one day.
But that fair is in the books.
And I learned a lot, like I was saying.
I had all the primitive
camping rations, coffee,
everything out there.
I had individuals come
up and start conversations
that had been listening
to me for a little while,
had been following
the website for a while.
I got to see friends that
I haven't seen in 20 years
or more.
It was great making those reconnections
and making those connections.
It was great being able to network,
get out and shake some hands
and just have conversations
just like we do here on the podcast.
Just have some good conversation with
some good individuals
and then go about our business.
I met so many folks and one fella,
he told me, he found me
and he came just to get
the copy of the book.
He came just to get a copy of the book.
So that kind of stuff right
there means the world to me.
It really does because it
shows that what I'm doing here,
people find value in it.
And I do appreciate you guys.
I really do more than you know.
So I probably ate too
much, which I know I did.
I had too many of those onion petals.
The blooming onions, you
get it out back or whatnot.
I had too much fair food.
And you think you're just
gonna go sell a couple of meals
or some coffee or whatnot.
And then you end up standing there
and talking to some people.
And by the end of the day,
your hips are killing you
from standing up for 14 hours.
But it's like what we're
gonna be talking about today
a little bit later, it
makes it all worth it.
It reminds me that what I'm doing here,
this community that we,
and I'm talking to you as the listener
and all the members of the website,
that this little community that we're
building is growing.
And it's something that is real.
Facebook is like 7.3 thousand followers
on the group.
And you look at other groups
and it's really not that big,
but you know what,
there's more closely knit.
Now, it could actually
have a little bit more folks
getting involved in the conversation,
but we do have a pretty
good group of individuals
getting in there routinely
and giving
conversation and stuff like that.
So if you were one of
the folks that stopped by,
if you were one of the individuals
that we got to enjoy having conversation
and shake some hands,
and I wanna say thank you.
And I may have been tired
and I left the fair
looking for something to eat
besides fair food, you
know, but I wasn't just,
I wasn't tired of you guys at all.
You know, I had some great conversations.
Now, this afternoon, as
I sit here by the fire
and underneath this tarp right here
at the good old Camp Wut-Da-Heck
I wanna talk about
something small, something small.
Something that it changes everything
if you understand it correctly,
if you understand it right, fire.
Fire is small, but it's a big deal.
And as you see the smoke
bellowing through here,
blowing through here, you know,
this past Friday's
blog post on the website,
so there's one more reason for you
to sign up for the website.
You know, it's free.
You can come look and
everything and read the blogs,
but everything is gonna be interconnected
from the podcast to the
blog post to the store.
Everything's interconnected
and it's all gonna be a
primitive camping environment,
I should say, that Friday's blog post
was about starting fire with a bow drill.
And here in just a second,
I'm going to read an excerpt of page 150
in the book "Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft,"
which is talking about the bow drill.
Now, one of the questions
that rises all the time,
rises or arises?
Is it arise or rise?
Huh, anyway.
Anyway, back to you, Bob.
(laughs)
So anyway, the bow drill,
one of the questions
that comes up all the time,
there we go, that's a little better,
comes up instead of rises or rises.
But one of the questions that comes up
is the fact that the bow drill,
is it still a viable option today?
Is the bow drill just a
vintage way of starting fire?
Is it something that a lot of survival
of bushcraft courses
throughout the country all teach
just because it has nostalgia to it?
That's the word I was looking for,
it's nostalgic, vintage, old school,
you know, all these
powerful words that meant,
long time ago.
Is the bow drill still viable?
And I guess let me read the actual text
from the "Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft" book.
And on page 150, it says,
"Typically, when people
think about starting a fire
"with natural materials,
"the picture rubbing
two sticks together."
I know when I was a kid,
I sat there with two sticks
and I rubbed them back
and forth on each other
and I never got my fire.
(laughs)
So whether they know it or not,
the method that they're thinking about
is known as the bow drill.
This method has been used
since man's earliest ventures
in making fire and it
remains a viable option today.
So that answers that
question and it's written right here
in the beautiful "Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft" book.
So let's continue, let's
continue on in the next paragraph.
"Once you know how to put
together a bow drill set,
"a bitter practice, believe
me, it takes some practice,
"will allow you to start a friction fire
"in just a few
minutes, believe it or not.
"So steel is not as easy
as some people make it look.
"I have filmed all my
failures and successes
"and to be transparent,
I was utterly exhausted
"after starting my first bow drill fire.
"Even though I managed to
make a fire with the bow drill,
"my technique was incorrect."
And that's the thing,
the bow drill requires
proper technique and a
fair amount of patience.
You cannot rush the process,
we're gonna stop right there.
And that was the first
two paragraphs of page 150,
the bow drill right here
in the "Primitive Camping
"in Bushcraft" book, and
I just hit the microphone
with the book, so, and
there we go, right there.
And the podcast, which
is reflecting the actual,
Friday's actual blog
post, was all about bow drill.
And whenever I said in
here, I filmed my techniques,
or my failures and my successes,
I filmed my failures
and I filmed my successes,
and you can watch those
videos on the website,
on the blog post.
Now I have one that is me
showing you how to do it,
step by step, and one
where I was just doing it
and filming it and nothing was said
till the end of the video.
Now, those were posted on
my "Spirit Outdoors" channel,
but these videos are
extremely viable options
to help you in your bow drill journey
if that's what you wish to do.
So, this process of using a
bow drill to start a fire,
and we've talked about it
before here on this podcast,
and if you've ever done
it the old school way,
you know it's not just about making heat.
It's not, it's not
just about making heat.
It's about patience,
it's about the process,
and it's about persistence.
This method right
here will help you really
work on some issues in your life
if that is what you
need help on working on.
(laughs) So you start with the
spindle and the hearth board.
Now, you're hunched
over, you're sweating,
your hands are burning
before anything ever happens,
and you don't have any
kind of instant spark,
and you have no lighter.
It's just you,
friction, and the sound of wood
working against wood.
(wood creaking)
I wish I had sound
effects to this podcast.
Then finally, you see a wisp of smoke.
You have a tiny ember, and
it's forming in that dust.
Now that dust is, you're
gonna treat that like gold.
You're gonna treat it
like something valuable.
And you lift it into your tinder bundle,
and then you blow it.
You transfer it into your tinder bundle,
and then you blow it into flames.
Not too hard at first.
The more smoke you get,
the more air it needs,
and just enough as it grows.
And that's the first
lesson fire ever taught me.
You don't force it.
You don't force it.
You cannot force it.
You have to nurture it.
You have to tend to it.
You have to be there for it.
You have to treat it
like it is an infant child.
It is always hungry, and
you always have to feed it.
But you have to nurture
it in order for it to grow.
And if you rush it,
rush it, you blow it out.
If you neglect it, it's going to die.
But with steady
breath and steady patience,
it turns into a heat
source, a light source, a flame.
And from that flame, you build.
You're gonna add your kindling.
You're gonna add your small sticks,
and then eventually your fuel, your logs.
And before long, you're
standing beside a fire
that you could cook on.
You can boil some water to add
to your primitive camping rations.
You could dry some clothes by it,
and you could light up your night.
That's what I love
about primitive camping.
That's what I love
about camping in general.
It don't even have to be primitive.
It's just start a
fire with a big lighter.
Yes, you can do that.
You can do that.
You can use a big
lighter to start a fire.
Camping keeps teaching you that life
works in the same way.
And it really does.
Every good thing starts small.
Faith, your discipline, hope.
All of them start like an ember,
and you just have to feed them right.
You just have to feed them correctly.
So that brought me to, while I was
writing that blog post,
I got an email, and I got a email.
Let me explain it.
That truth of the fire really hit me.
I got an email from a listener
that he said he
stumbled across the podcast
about a month ago.
He's got three boys, and
getting them outside again
has helped their family reconnect.
Couple of kids have some health issues.
So camping's been a way to slow down,
breathe, and find something
simple they can enjoy together.
So he wrote, and this is quote,
so I'm gonna share a little
bit of what he actually wrote,
that I've learned so much
listening to you at work.
You talk about faith without pushing it.
And hearing that
helped me find my way back.
And I'll be honest, I had to
sit down after I read that,
and it just, it resonated with me,
because sometimes when you're out here
underneath the tarp in
the middle of nowhere,
you start to wonder if what
you're saying is mattering,
if it really matters.
You start to wonder if
what you're doing has purpose.
And then God sends you a
little ember, just like this,
that it's a reminder that
the flame is still spreading.
The flame's still there.
He told me he'd been
digging out his old military gear,
and he and his boys were planning
their first camping trip together.
His kids are already
listening with him to the podcast.
They're walking through
some pretty hard stuff.
I mean, this individual is really walking
through some tough stuff,
and I don't want to divulge
what they're going through.
I don't want to throw it out there,
and what he told me,
but they're walking through some things.
Yet his letter wasn't about struggle.
It was about hope.
What he said, he was
still being thankful.
It was about choosing to build a fire
when the rain keeps coming.
And if you ever built a fire in the rain,
you know sometimes it
could be very difficult.
You have to nurture that fire.
You have to protect the fire.
You have to keep it from
being smothered in the water.
You have to keep the raindrops out of it.
Because sometimes
faith isn't about shouting
from the rooftops.
It's not about getting out there
and yelling the
loudest of what you believe,
somebody else trying
to shove your beliefs
down somebody else's throat.
It's about quietly
keeping your fire going
when the wind's blowing sideways.
That's exactly what it's about.
I've had some opposite end comments
with individuals on Facebook.
That man, as soon as you start mixing God
and outdoors, I'm out.
And you know,
I'm not trying to push
everything on people.
I'm just being honest.
I'm just doing what I do.
And if something I do offends you,
I apologize that you got offended.
But I'm not
apologizing for what I've done.
So if that makes sense to you,
I mean, because there's no,
I'm not going to make
apologies for what I do.
It's not gonna happen.
So sitting underneath
this tarp this afternoon
and you know, reflecting on it
after the street fair this week,
I realized how much that story mirrors
our, our, my walk with God.
Faith is like a fire.
It starts with a spark.
And maybe you heard something.
Maybe you heard somebody
talk about something online.
Maybe you watched a video.
Maybe you heard a sermon, a conversation,
a single moment that hits just right.
But it won't stay lit
if you don't tend it.
And you hear all kinds of
metaphors about the fire.
Don't let the fire die.
Don't let the flame burn
out, you know, stuff like that.
It's all the same.
It's like, it's your faith.
You have to feed it.
You have to read
scripture, even when you're tired.
You have to pray even
when you don't feel like it.
You have to surround
yourself with folks and people
who bring warmth instead of the cold.
Because fire spreads both ways.
If you sit too long around cold hearts,
ears will grow cold too.
If you're sitting around
negative people for too long,
ears will grow negative as well.
When a fire starts to die,
it doesn't go out all at once.
And this is the part that is so, so true.
And it doesn't matter.
Faith journey, not faith
journey, camping journey.
It doesn't matter
where you're at in life,
what you're going through.
When the fire starts to
die, it don't go out at once.
It fades slowly.
The cold start getting dim.
The smoke thins.
And if you're not paying attention,
you'll look over and
realize that all that's left
is a little bit of ash.
But if you catch it early enough,
and sometimes,
sometimes, like in the morning,
when you wake up in the morning,
you're trying to get that fire going
because you're cold for the
first hour of six o'clock.
You know, you waking up
and you getting out of bed
and the sun's just
coming up and it's cold
and you're shivering
and you need a fire now.
That's what I'm talking about.
You find ashes up underneath there.
You find some coals inside that ash.
But if you catch it early enough,
if you stir the coals, you blow on it,
add a little bit of wood,
a little bit of kindling,
it comes back to life.
And that's how faith works.
It's not about never running low.
It's about knowing how
to tend it when you do.
And so that's gonna bring me
to the verse for this week.
And that's gonna be 2
Timothy chapter one,
verse six and seven.
Now, there's two
different variations of this.
The ESV is going to say, let's see,
and Paul, let's see, for this reason,
I remind you to fan
into flame the gift of God,
which is in you.
For God has not given
us a spirit of fear,
but of power, love and self-control.
Now that's the ESV version.
Now I use the New King James.
Paul wrote to Timothy, and Timothy,
if you don't know anything about it,
if you're listening to
this for the first time,
as a young man who was tired,
and maybe he was a
little scared to keep going.
He was a little scared
of what was happening.
He was being coached by Paul,
and Paul didn't say start a new fire.
He didn't tell
Timothy to start a new fire.
He told Timothy, Tim, Timothy, Timothy,
Timothy, hey, Timothy.
He told Timothy, fan into
flame the one you already have.
What that means to us is
that our spark is still there.
We still have a coal.
We still have an ember.
Sometime our fire does
dim, and it goes down,
and it goes through
neglect, through people
getting discouraged.
Our flames can die down
just like that campfire.
And Paul is saying fan into flames
the one you already have.
In other words, bring it back to life.
That means your spark is still alive.
It may be buried under a few ashes.
It may look small right
now, but it is not gone.
You just need to breathe on it again.
Maybe that's what a little bit of prayer.
Maybe that's stepping
outside to fill the wind
and talk to God in nature.
Maybe it's helping
somebody else light their fire.
Fan their fire into
flames, being a mentor.
Chris, he started a whole program.
Me and him became friends.
He contacted me to see
if he could use the book
as the textbook for his outdoor voice,
his wilderness voice
up there in Illinois.
And he started a program
with his young man up there.
And I really wholeheartedly believe
that it is doing
something for these kids.
It's doing something.
He's fanning these flame.
He's fanning these coals into flames,
these embers into flames.
So fear tells you that
your fire has gone out.
But God says, no, I gave you the power,
love and self-control.
Those are the tools you stir your coals.
You may hear some dogs
barking in the background.
They have a dog training facility
about a hundred
thousand yards away from here.
But so if your flame's low,
don't walk away from the fire pit,
kneel down beside, fan it, feed it,
because the same God who
lit the fire the first time
is still sitting there beside you,
waiting for you to try again.
Don't give up.
So this evening,
tonight, this week,
and I know today's Monday,
you're listening to
this podcast on the Monday,
but as you head into the whole week here,
remember that the fire that
you build out here in the woods
isn't just about
warmth and cooking supper.
It's practice.
Get out there and
practice with the bow drill.
Start making your
parts for the bow drill.
Start using the bow drill. Start using the bow drill
and do some practice with it.
It's a mirror for your soul.
Everything that you do is a mirror.
Learn to build it right.
Learn to feed it slow.
Protect it when the wind picks up,
and most of all, share it,
because somebody out there is cold.
(gentle music)
And your flame might be
what brings them back to life.
Thanks for sitting
around the fire with me today.
If this episode gave you
something to think about,
if it helped you feel a
little bit more prepared,
or it even stirred your faith a tiny bit,
go ahead and share it with someone else
who might need it as well.
We don't go camping
to run away from life.
We come out here to
slow down and to recharge,
so grab another log,
throw it on the fire,
and remember this.
In all your ways, acknowledge him,
and he will direct your path.
I'll see you next time.
God bless you.