When gear breaks and plans fall apart, primitive camping reminds us that survival is about improvising, adapting, and practicing until it becomes second nature. True strength and contentment don’t come from perfect tools, but from learning to endure and trust Christ in every situation.
On this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris shares a story about camping with his sons when a brand-new stove broke on day one. What started as frustration turned into a lesson in improvisation, open-fire cooking, and teaching his boys to adapt.
Chris also reads from his book Primitive Camping and Bushcraft about “Thinking Outside the Box” and dives into Philippians 4:11–13 to remind us that true strength and contentment don’t come from gear — they come from Christ.
You’ll hear practical tips on redundancy, improvising in the woods, and why practice matters more than perfect gear. Plus, a quick look at upcoming freeze-dried meals, coffee, and fire kits available soon at PrimitiveCamping.com.
Whether you’re a seasoned camper or just starting out, this episode will help you prepare, adapt, and keep your faith strong when things don’t go as planned.
Welcome to the Primitive Camping at Bushcraft podcast. I'm your host, Chris Speir. So here we're going to talk about gear grit 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 are in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the fire and let's get into it. Well, welcome back to the show guys, and I really appreciate you tagging along with me. Have you ever had a moment in the outdoors when something did not go according to playing? Yeah, if you didn't raise your hand, something you ain't been outdoors enough,
because I'm telling you right now, it don't matter what you do. It doesn't matter how much you plan for it.
Sometimes certain things are gonna happen that it, you didn't plan for. You know, it's always, things are always gonna go, not go according to plan. And it doesn't matter how prepared you are, it doesn't matter how much gear you pack. Eventually something is going to fail. Something's not gonna work the way it was intended to work.
And or the way you planned it and that, dude, lemme tell you that right there is, is how most of my trips go. Stuff doesn't go. As planned, nothing is ever going as planned. Uh, for a trip for me. You know, I'll plan on going for a couple of days. Stuff happens, you know, you'll have to make improvisation, you'll have to improvise on certain things.
You'll have to, uh, something's gonna break, or, you know, something's gonna get lost or whatever. So. I'm give you a little story that my kids were young and we wasn't really primitive camping. I mean, we were loading some stuff in the boat and going down the river and we were on the side of the river for three days.
It was camping in a Coleman tent. You know, one of those three or four man tents, kinda like the, uh, cheap ones that you get from Walmart.
I had both of the boys, they're five years apart and they absolutely loved camping. They, they loved camping growing up and they still love it to this day. And they were, I want to say either 10, 10 and five or 12 and seven or whatever. Whatever. Um, they were in that age range somewhere in there, and they were younger.
And we get out there and I had a stove we were cooking on, and my plans was to use this particular stove. It was a propane stove, and my plans were to use this stove to cook all our meals. And that's what I accounted for. It was one of those new, at the time, at the time, Coleman came out with a new propane stove on the stand and you pop that thing up, you flip it open and you twist your bottles on and stuff like that.
Well, we got through day one and then something happened. Somebody somewhere come to visit and they had a dog and the dog got off and he was on a leash or something, but he let go of the leash and the dog wrapped around the stove with his leash. And when he did he. It startled him and he jerked and it, the stove flipped upside down.
And this brand new stove, man, I mean, it ripped the lid off of it. I mean, it tore it up bad and I, I was like a little aggravated, I ain't gonna lie. And.
I had to find another way to cook. I couldn't get it to light no more. I couldn't get it to work it. It completely broke that stove. I mean, it was brand new. Golly. It was brand new. And you know, at the time, money didn't come easy. You know, it still don't come easy, but you know, in your younger years when you look back at it sometimes you're like, wow.
You know, how did I afford to do that? How did I do that? You know?
So no matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to work, and suddenly I had two hunger boys, and so we had to improvise. And the next three days of camping, we had to cook on the open fire and. A lot of, you're probably looking back at me right now saying, uh, I don't see a problem with it. But yeah, it, it was not bad.
It was not bad. I just was not prepared to be cooking over at Open Fire like that. So we had to adapt. We started, um. We went out, we hunk some trot lines, which I'm gonna do a whole episode on fishing without, uh, fishing poles. You know, someone had mentioned that in the group. About being able to fish without poles or without other gear.
And so trot lines is gonna be something real easy to do with that. So we were hanging some trot lines here and there, and we were catching some catfish and we loaded down with some catfish and I showed the boys how to cook those fish. And we cooked some fish over at Open Fire. We roasted some over at Open Fire, but then again, you know, I was out there, already had my groceries and everything, and we'd just go out there to have a good time and fish all day, a boat ride and just explore the Great River and, and the great outdoors.
It wasn't. It wasn't like I didn't go out with a specific task in mind at this point. I wasn't going out with a specific, uh uh, let's, I wasn't filming things and doing stuff like that. I was just going out to enjoy the great outdoors with my, my sons.
Ah, good old coffee. So, speaking of coffee. Don't forget, pick you up a bag of the primitive camping in Bushcraft Blend coffee and um, I'll be offering it here soon on my website. So we are, we got some good news for the primitive camping website going on now. Um, pretty soon I'll be launching primitive camping.com and I will be offering freeze dried meals.
And I will be offering the coffee and I will be offering the fire kits and the such. So it's coming. It's coming. It's coming. So we get out there and I had to pull a section of the book out that we talked about, and I'm gonna read this page. And this is page 38 of the book. It is called Thinking Outside the Box.
When it comes to Camping you all, you always want to think about how to accomplish a certain task, should you lack the tools designed to accomplish that task? What can you use to create the desired outcome from the limited inventory you have with you? You want to avoid being cornered into believing that everything can only be done a certain way.
Thinking outside the box is nothing more than improvisation. For instance, when it comes to fishing bait, you can simply use a piece of cotton. I've caught large mouth bass on a piece of grass. And once you've caught and cleaned the fish, you can repurpose the in trails as bait to catch more fish. Each fish you catch creates more bait to catch more fish First aid solutions.
They also call for quick and improvisation in the woods.
You wanna be carrying a full fledged splint. You don't want to be carrying a full fledged splint in your backpack. It would take up too much room. You can, however, find a sturdy stick and use it to improvise a splint. Or if you, you were injured, your arm, you can use a handkerchief or a T-shirt to make a sling.
Thinking outside the box applies to everything from fishing, hunting, setting up your camp, first aid, even cooking, which we're sort of talking about today. Let's say that you want biscuits for breakfast but didn't bring any flour. It's springtime, and you notice cattails in the stream.
You can collect pollen from the cattails to use as flour. Once collected, pollen should be sifted to remove any bugs or debris, and the pollen is very fine and can be used as a flour substitute. In many recipes, you can use cat cattail, pollen to make pancakes, muffins, bread, even. Baked goods. It can also be used as a thickener for soups and stews.
And once you've collected all your pollen, you can take your stainless steel pot and use that as an oven by heaping coals on top of the pot and cook your biscuits. And that's outlined on page two 12 of
these examples are meant to get you thinking. As stated before, there is no wrong way and no rules when it comes to primitive camping. It's simply about bringing what you need to survive and simultaneously making yourself comfortable. Once you get the hang of things, you'll be enjoying your time peacefully in the woods, not working yourself to death.
Just to say you went camping. In the following pages, I'll break now primitive camping and bushcraft into categories and gear and shelter and water, and fire and food and cooking. As you explore the information and method presented, go at your own pace, find what works for you, and then gradually find ways to make it your own.
All right, so that was page 38, the primitive camping in bushcraft book right here in my hands. All 256 pages of text. So, and photographs, tons of photographs. So. We had to adapt after the stove broke and I had to learn how to cook over an open fire. Not that I haven't done it before, it's just I wasn't feeding boys over an open fire.
So it was pretty cool. Um, we learned how to adapt that we overcame and we ended up cooking some fish on a stick. We ended up, you know, cooking our food. A certain way, and I know bringing stoves and propane stoves and ovens and all that stuff, camping is not really considered primitive camping, but I figured it fit into this example real well because you know, there's gonna be times you're not really primitive camping, you're going camping.
You, you, you're loading your car up and you're heading out into the great outdoors with your family, and you're looking to enjoy your time with the people you're with. And that's what camping is all about. Regardless of, you know, what the naysayers are saying, no, it's all about survival. It's all about bushcraft.
It's all about going out there with a knife and, uh, a handkerchief and living for a month. Don't worry about all that. Go and enjoy yourself. Get your butt up off the couch and go outside and sit on a log. Make that, log your couch. Make that into a t-shirt. So. Redundancy. I talk about it all throughout the book.
Redundancy and, and being able to improvise are so important when it comes to camping, when it comes to bushcraft and survival that you, you always want back up to the back, or you want a, you want a tool that you can use that serves more than one purpose. And that right there is the end all, be all of primitive camping.
Uh, bushcraft is, every tool you use should serve more than one purpose, and that that is, that that is so important. And the reason why is because it limits how much stuff you have to bring with you when you get into the great outdoors, and it actually allows you to learn skills that you typically otherwise would not know.
Things are going to break. Propane stoves, stop working. Water filters, crack or clog up. And I've given this example, I can't tell you how many times I've given this example is, well, he used a life straw, my brother and I, and I'm working on a video for you guys with my brother to introduce him to y'all. So I'm working on that.
We just went up to North Mississippi a couple weeks ago and filmed it. I got bit by the brown recluse spider. It's starting to get a little bit better, but. We got out there, the straw filter clogged, and we had to build a tripod water filter in order to clean the nasty debris and all that stuff out of the water to be able to drink it.
Of course, you could have just drank it straight out of the pond, but that's disgusting. It tasted just like it would've been pissed in the whole time, so that's disgusting. But it can be done and you know, people do it, and I'm not, I'm not knocking it. I prefer to have my water filtered because I don't like drinking grit the whole time, or you know, baby TA poles and all that stuff.
And although it is more protein or anything, boy, I got all kinds of critters crawling on me today. So we talked about the redundancy. We talked about improvising. You always want to carry at least one backup option, and even more importantly, develop the skill to adapt when things don't go as planned.
That is of the utmost importance, is to develop the skill to be able to adapt when things don't go as a plan. And how do you do that? And I harp that on here so much. It's called practice. You get out there, you practice, practice, practice. You learn with your tools, you learn with your gear, you learn and you practice.
You practice, you practice. And then whenever you get tired of practicing, you go out there and you practice. Uh, that's all I could tell you. You find your tools that you wanna learn how to use, you get your gear and you use that gear until this is second nature.
I wonder if he is, he found a ranger is over here chewing on a tongue nut and tongue nuts are poisonous.
Now he realized, Hey, I don't wanna chew on this no more. And he's trying to find something else. Silly dog.
So we get out on the river, the stove is broke, the dog flips it over. The thing busts up in a bunch of pieces and. Uh, and I mean, I could really tell you that I literally just bought that stove. I maybe used it twice before, you know, and the lib wasn't working no more. The enters of the stove like it hit and he drug it.
And when he took off running, he was yelping, if you can imagine. And that leash was a rope or whatever it was that guy had on him was wrapped around the bottom. And he drugged that thing and I was like, golly, dear Lord, please. But. After it was over, I used the grill on there, on the fire, the actual grill portion of it and took it off, put it on the fire.
We were able to cook over the fire with that and we had some grill fish and we had everything. Everything that I had planned to bring, we still ended up cooking. We just changed the method from the stove to the fire. You know, I wasn't, uh, when the kids are young, it is, they're mesmerized by the fire.
Always got a stick in there and they're always. Uh, taking the end of it that glows out, whipping it around, and you know, trying to poke everybody's eyeballs out and then they wanna sword fight with 'em 'cause they could see where the tip of it is and then it leaves them trails in there and in the, in the dark sky.
And, and kids just think it's fascinating and that's why it's so important to get out there with your youngest because. You let them experience the great outdoors at an early age and they'll, they'll not depart from it. Kinda like the Bible says, you know, if you bring your kids up in the ways of the Lord, they will never depart from it and it'll all always be some aspect of their life.
So we got out there. The dog did its thing. We improvised, we cooked our meals over the open fire, used the grill off of the stove that broke, and then um. Puts, put it on the fire. I got to cook everything. And I remember showing the boys how to actually cook a fish, you know, some catfish cooking the fish over the fire.
I remember showing them, um, how to cook a potato and aluminum foil on, on the, on the coals. And it, it was good times. And these youngins are now adults and they do all the same things that I do. Hmm. And it is just great because I had a hand in teaching them a skill, teaching them something new, you know?
And I showed them that you can improvise, that you do not always have to be, I, I, for lack of better words, condemn to your situation, you know, and like you could be content. No matter what the situation is, you can always be content in the situation. And that brings up the devotion, you know, in Philippians four 12.
And I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna back it up a little bit and we're gonna actually do,
let's see here.
So right here, we're gonna back up to 11. Not that I speak in regard to need for, I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know, I know how to be abased and I know how though to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So that is one of the most misquoted scriptures. That is one of the.
Uh, people use that as a, a, uh, like I could use this for all things no matter what. Now, most of the time. Verse 13, which is, you know, is taken outta context as a blanket statement that I can do anything. It was one of those statements of I could do anything through crisis strength is me, and there was a coffee mug or something like that that says I could do anything through a Bible verse taken outta context.
So that was a, a, a saying on a Bible verse on a coffee cup, but. The real meaning of what he's trying to say here is so much deeper and it applies so much to our outdoor stuff, to our lives, to everything, is that Paul isn't saying that he can accomplish whatever he sets his mind to. What he's saying is that he can endure, he could be content that.
Whether he has food or whether he goes hungry, whether he has abundance or nothing at all. His strength to stay faithful and content comes from Christ. Not that he could do all things because this is my power verse, this is my superpower verse through Jesus. You know, that's not what he's saying. And the way this really fits in with what we're talking about today is that.
When a stove fails, when a knife fails, when uh, any piece of your gear fails, you adapt. When the filter breaks, you improvise when comfort is stripped away. You stay content. You stay content because your strength doesn't come from that gear. It comes from Christ. It comes from Christ alone. Your strength comes from Christ alone no matter what situation you are in.
So. I just wanted to point that out this morning that that verse is all the time taken outta context and, and a lot of times when it comes to the Bible and there's a lot of folks out there that get upset at me because I'm doing the Bible verse in these, uh, podcast, a lot of people are cherry picking.
What they want it to say and what they want it to mean. You have to read it in the context, in the context of the times, in the context of what is actually going on. You have to, you have to reference what historically is happening at that time when it's said. You know, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of things like, uh, right now we're talking about social justices.
And the such, all through our country, you know, social justice, blah, blah, blah. Well, they were facing the same thing. Ecclesiastes says it all day, every day, that there's nothing new under the sun. There is absolutely nothing new under the sun. Everything that's happening today is the same thing that happened then.
The only way, the only thing that seems different is the way it's conducted, but there's still nothing new. It's still the same thing, the same everything.
You know, I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He is not talking about Jesus is gonna gimme the superpower to do anything that I want to do. No, he's talking about Jesus gives me the ability to be content in whatever situation I'm in to apply it to whatever I'm doing. So the next time something breaks, whether in camp or in your life, don't panic.
Don't give up.
Stop. Take a breath. Take a sip of your coffee. And improvise. It's not that difficult. And remember that Christ is enough to sustain you. Your gear's going to fail, but he never does. So, like I said a little bit earlier, if you would like to support the channel a little bit, you know, get ready coming up in November or send me an email and we'll work something out.
I'm gonna be offering freeze dried camping meals and Chris Chapel's already got some, there's a couple of guys out there that has already had some. If you're interested in testing a few out, let me know. And I mean, I, I've done some New Orleans style red beans and rice. I'm doing some shepherd's pie. I am doing some breakfast skillet or breakfast blend, and I'm doing some, uh, chicken stew, which is like a chicken noodle, but it, it is not a soup, you know, it's just thicker.
And, uh, these items are gonna be great. I've, I've got, I'm getting ready, I'm doing a street fair in, in Picayune Mississippi in a couple of, uh. A couple of weeks now from now, and I'm gonna be selling copies of the book and I'm gonna be selling actual meals, and I'm actually gonna be doing some freeze dried candy too.
So if you're interested in it, hit it up and let me know and send me an email. And I got the website coming. It's gonna be primitive camping.com. Won't be long. That'll be up and running in the next few weeks, and I hope to debut everything, all it's, excuse me, all at the same time. Don't forget, swing by Facebook.
Join the group perimeter camping in bushcraft, and, uh, shoot me an email. Let know what your thoughts are. Hit the like, hit subscribe, hit forge. Share this with somebody else. If this video helped you or this podcast helped you, lemme know, uh, leave a comment in all your ways, acknowledge him and I'll see you next time.
God bless you. 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 recharge. So grab another law, throw it on the fire, and remember this in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will do. Wreck your path. I'll see you next time. God bless you.