In this episode, Chris Speir delves into the essence of primitive camping, discussing its benefits, challenges, and the importance of self-reliance. He shares practical tips and personal stories to help listeners enhance their outdoor experiences. Join the Facebook community for more insights and discussions.
Episode #2: The Concept of Primitive Camping
In this episode of Primitive Camping & Bushcraft, host Chris Speir explores the concept of primitive camping, highlighting its essence, benefits, and challenges. Chris shares personal stories and practical tips to help both beginners and seasoned campers connect with nature and thrive in the wilderness.
Topics Covered:
Community Engagement: Join the Primitive Camping & Bushcraft Facebook group to share your experiences, ask questions, and connect with over 6,000 like-minded adventurers. Participate in discussions and get inspired by others' stories and tips.
Next Episode: Tune in next time as we dive into the essential gear and tools needed for primitive camping. We’ll break down each item and provide insights on how to choose and use them effectively.
Book Mention: For a more comprehensive understanding, pick up a copy of Chris Speir’s book, "Primitive Camping & Bushcraft," available at major online retailers.
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Now imagine heading into the wilderness with nothing but your skills and a few essential tools. How would that work out for you?(...) Today, I want to explore how to turn that situation into an exciting adventure rather than a daunting challenge. So welcome back to Primitive Camping in Bushcraft. I'm Chris Spear and I'm gonna be your guide in mastering the skills needed to thrive in the great outdoors. So whether you're new to camping or a seasoned adventurer, this episode will equip you with the practical knowledge to enhance your outdoor experience.(...) If you haven't joined our Facebook group yet, head over to Primitive Camping in Bushcraft. This private group will get you connected with over 6,000 fellow outdoor enthusiasts where you can share your experiences and become inspired. So what we're gonna do today is I got six little points or six little topics that we're gonna talk about. And today we're gonna define what Primitive Camping really is. Primitive Camping is all about connecting with nature relying on minimal modern conveniences. It emphasizes self-reliance and resourcefulness.(...) So I put a little line in this book. When I wrote the book, Primitive Camping in Bushcraft, I put a little sentence in here that some people have just like, I disagree with you on there, but well, it is what it is. It says, many people will argue with me on this point, but what some consider to be survival in Bushcraft is really just primitive camping.
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Primitive Camping is all about enjoying your time in nature. And I tried to convey that in this book and tried to define it. You know, last episode, I defined how Primitive Camping is different from survival in Bushcraft because survival is like a 72 hour period and I don't wanna sit and rehash the same old material over and over. But, you know, survival is a 72 hour period after some kind of disaster, some kind of medical emergency,(...) you know, natural disasters, man-made disaster, you know, stuff like that. They're 72 hour period and where you're trying to get back to civilization or trying to get help or you're trying to acclimate yourself to thriving in the wild or thriving in the situation. And, you know, it's just a life or death experience, which is usually 72 hours.
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But then you have Bushcraft and Bushcraft is pretty much opposite of that. And Bushcraft is where you head out into the wilderness to survival on your own and thrive on your own. And, but they all go hand in hand because some things are used and one needs to be used and the other or whatnot. Bushcraft is dependent on your skills, you know, that's why the book's called primitive camping and Bushcraft because it combines the two. And so traditional camping
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is basically heading to a little camping spot that's predetermined. And, you know, like if you head out to a state park or something like that and they have the primitive camping sites already set up with a little fire ring and then they got your water spigot over here and then they got your electric plug over there,(...) you know, that is not necessarily primitive camping. I mean, you can primitive camp there. Primitive camping pretty much is heading out into the woods or the forest or the back country or wherever you want to go. And you're relying on what you brought in your backpack. That's it, you know, primitive camping for however many days you're gonna stay, you're primitively camping in the woods. You're gonna use whatever materials that are available in nature, in the landscape.(...) You're gonna use those tools and those materials to make what you need to survive while you're out there. And, you know, you're gonna bring enough stuff with you for seven, 10 days or whatever it is, however long you're gonna be.
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And that way you can actually go ahead and create your own experience. And that's what bushcraft and primitive camping is all about. You're gonna create your own experience when you're in the great outdoors.(...) But one of the benefits of primitive camping is you get a deeper connection with nature.
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You get a deeper connection with yourself and you really start to understand skills. You really start to understand your, how far you can go, how far you can take yourself. And you're gonna push yourself, you're gonna get tired, you're gonna get exhausted, you're going to be, you know, but you'll sleep better.(...) You'll have a better sense of accomplishment and you will start to develop your skills and self-sufficiency. And the beautiful thing about it is the simplicity and the tranquility of the wilderness.(...) Some people, you know,(...) folks that have not grown up in a world of going camping regularly
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don't understand a lot about the wildlife and the way things are out in the wild. And, you know, it scares them. It scares them exponentially to the point where they don't, they have this facade of what nature is. Every little sound.
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I have somebody explain to me one time that, you know, people get scared at nighttime out in the wilderness because they can't see. But if you turn the flashlight on, it'd be exactly the same way it was in the daytime. It's just all your senses are heightened in the evenings or at nighttime because you can't see everything. So you're having to depend on your other senses like smell and hearing. Hearing is really what gets you because every little noise that you hear is going to like trigger something in you, your anxiety levels. But if you slow down or quiet down, you would hear the same noises during the daytime, you know.(...) But moving on to number three here, challenges of primitive camping. And I kind of bunched the definition of primitive camping and the benefits of primitive camping into one, but the challenges are, you know, primitive camping requires planning. And you need to plan out your meals. You need to plan out what kind of clothing you're going to bring. You need to plan out what kind of tools that you want to bring, you know, where you're going to go, what you're going to do. You need to make a plan that you can actually leave with somebody that if you head out into the woods and you don't check in by certain days or X amount of days that they can actually start to look for you and they know when you're going to be back. So that is one of the things that you need to do is a camping plan.
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But you need to adapt to changing weather conditions. You need to,(...) your shelter needs to be able to
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provide shelter from the elements pertaining to whatever weather you're going to be and what region of the country that you're going to be camping. Now there's a lot of folks out there. There's a lot of guides. There's a lot of outdoorsmen. There's a lot of adventurers that have different experiences and different climates and different, you know, like some people that live up in the mountainous areas would not be able to do what I do here in the swamp areas,(...) and then vice versa, like me, you take me out of the swamps and put me in the mountains and they're used to that. They're used to the environment. They're used to the weather conditions. They adapt to that and you'll have a harder time flip-flopping around. Now that's not to say that you can't do it because anybody could do it. Us humans are extremely resilient. We're able to adapt and change at a moment's notice.
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But one of the other challenges of primitive camping is learning and mastering survival skills.(...) So I highly recommend reading some books.
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I would read the books before I would watch the videos.
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Videos are not,(...) I don't know how to say this, but you're going to get more information out of a book. And then once you've found out what it is to do in the book, then I watch the videos on the topic. A lot of times videos are there just for entertainment. A lot of time videos are there for views. A lot of times videos are just there for to propel the creator forward rather than the authenticity of whatever it is that you find in the book.
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But I would start with a book, and there's plenty of books out there. And as we go through the series, I'm going to start recommending several different books.(...) Obviously I recommend the Primitive Camping in Bushcraft book, and it has several survival skills. This thing is packed full of how to select your gear, how to select your knife, how to select a cutting tool,(...) how to select whatever kind of backpack you need. It goes all down, and it's not saying that you have to do this or this. It's throwing all the options out there to you to allow you to make the decision on what best suits you. And I took a different approach with this than most of your other books out there right now, because they're just like, this is how you have to do it. It's not, it's not how you have to do it. And when it comes to primitive camping in Bushcraft, there's no rules. It's what works for you. If you like doing X, Y, and Z, then you go right on ahead, X, Y, and Z.(...) And one of the things that people get all the time, people like using the bow and knot or a overhand loop knot, and people will freak out if you use an overhand loop knot.(...) Let me tell you, it's all about you, what works for you, how you're gonna do it. That I don't wanna get too far down the rabbit trail there. So one of the personal stories(...) of a camping trip that I had is, it was one of the first ones, my brother Aaron and I, we were heading out
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and it just rained and the rivers was up and we were heading out to this piece of property. It was kinda like a little island. It had a creek going all the way around it. And we were camping on that island and it never really flooded, but this time the water was up real high and it had rained a lot. And we get out there and we had a pump. And I believe I mentioned this story in the book, but I think it got cut out of the final draft. But for Christmas, we had received a gift of one of those little hand pumps.(...) And it was just one of those little micro, little pocket size, little hand pumps,(...) and water filters. And we was gonna, man, we got this licked. And that's all we're bringing is that. And we're bringing a couple little things. And the rest of the time we're just gonna catch our fish and eat our fish. And so we get out there
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and we start filtering our water. It was hot, it was mid July. I mean, it was hot. In South Mississippi, mid July is hot. It is like 32 inches from the sun.
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And I know there's other places that's hotter than that, but you had the humidity to it and it's crazy.(...) But we were heading out to our little spot and then we cleaned us a little place out. The weeds had started over growing. So we knocked some of the weeds down. I honed my hammock and Aaron built him a little shelf, a little bed, laid it down with different materials to sleep on.
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We got so dehydrated. We were sweating to death. And so we decided that was gonna filter some water with our brand new water pumps. And the water was so silty and so muddy. In South Mississippi, the mud is ridiculous. We use this water pump and our water pump clogged to the point to where it was unusable. And we didn't even get half a cup of water. I mean, it would not pump. It was the silt in there. And that was before I knew you needed to really filter your water to get all the sand and grit and grime and all that out. So what we did is I decided, hey, I'm just gonna boil this water. Well, it would've been raining and I couldn't get a fire started. And I was like, man,(...) I'm going to bed.
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I've had enough with this. I'm going to bed. I had a massive headache from being dehydrated. And it was just a horrible day. It was a horrible experience. So I set my tarp up over my hammock and I just went to bed. Well, about three in the morning, three or four o'clock in the morning, a thunderstorm come through and it started pouring now. And Aaron and I jumped up and go over there to my tarp. And we just started drinking all the water coming off of that tarp. It was crazy. Like it was the best thing you ever had. And you gotta be careful doing that because you don't need to be around a poisonous tree. I had set up around a tongue tree or a tongue nut tree and they are poisonous. But anyway, that was one of the experiences I had.
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The challenge that we had was water.
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All this water around us. And at the time, we really didn't know we were young(...) and we really didn't know that you had to filter the sand out of the water and the grid out of the water. So that was one of the things that we learned real quick after that is that, hey, this stuff messes up with water filters. So you have to filter your water.
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And then I just absolutely fell in love with it and just started adding to my library of experiences with that. And that's what primitive camping and bushcraft is, is you continue to add to your experiences.(...) And you continue to add to your knowledge and your skills. And every time you go out, you're building skills to add to what you have already accumulated.
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So that's basically what happened in a nutshell is we added to our skills that we had to filter our water.
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So I wanna give you some practical tips when it comes to primitive camping and bushcraft. And one of the things is start with short trips, build your confidence and build your skills.(...) Go back to what I said, read something in a book, find out how it's done and then go on a short trip and practice what you read in that book.(...) And that would be amazing.
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It adds to your skillset. It adds to your library of knowledge so quick that every time you read about something, you go out and you practice that something and then you put it to use and it stays there. You retain it and you're gonna be able to use it from there on out.
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So start with short trips and build confidence and build your skills.(...) Now, essential gear.
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I've got a whole chapter about gear in this book. I got it broken down in here in the book from bat packs, cutting tools, cordage, shelter, metal containers, fire starting devices, cooking gear, water, food, miscellaneous and how to load it all up in your backpack. First thing first is that you're gonna look for a reliable knife. And when you're heading out into the woods, a lot of people want these big bushwhacker knives. You don't need something that big. You need a good knife and you need something that is gonna be robust enough if you need to split a log, not a log, but a stick or do some carving and stuff like that. You're gonna look for a full tank knife, usually carbon steel, stainless steel.
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Is it a little bit, it can be done, but carbon steel throws a bigger spark if you're using a Ferro rod. So if you're going more simplistic or you're going more primitive,
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carbon steel knives is the way to go. You're gonna be using different fire starting tools and we're gonna cover these in future episodes. But these fire starting tools like Ferro rods or magnesium blocks or matches and big lighters.(...) I carry three or four big lighters with me when I go into the woods because it is the most economic
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and useful way to start a fire. And for a dollar, you can what, two of them? Maybe one nowadays with the economy the way it is.(...) But you can get a couple of big lighters for a couple of bucks. You can get a pack of five, I think for like $5 or $6 or something like that. And then you got one, throw it in your backpack, throw it in your pocket, throw it into your first aid kit, throw it into another kid or something like that that you're gonna bring with you in the woods. And fire starting tools are always,(...) they are extremely important. Now, another thing you wanna do is water purification. You wanna have a way to purify your water.(...) So, a life straw is extremely important,(...) are extremely easy.
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You can use the life straw, you can use a Sawyer squeeze, you can use a hand pump, you can use,(...) membrane solutions makes a straw type. It's a little bit shorter, a little bit fatter. It fits in your cargo pocket a little bit better than a life straw does. But there's several different methods there. You can use the chemical disinfection methods. They got different ways to disinfect your water chemically.(...) Now they have it to where you put muds, I mean water straight out of a mud puddle in a bag, you put these other chemicals in there and it causes all the sediment and everything just to drop to the bottom of the bag.(...) It's crazy. And I've always steered clear of the chemical disinfecting if I could, because I'd prefer to have just the straight up stuff.
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But first aid kits, that's another thing. Always have some kind of a first aid kit with you when you go. Like I wrote in the book, 90% of the time, you're gonna have it for you, but 90% of the time, you're gonna use it on somebody else. And so that is one of the methods that I have learned over the years is to always have a first aid kit because somebody else is gonna need it. And if your safety conscience and everything, it's not to say that you wanna accidentally burn yourself, it's not to say that you wanna accidentally cut your finger or anything like that. But if you're safety conscience, safety minded, most of the time you won't need it, but somebody else will.
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So we're gonna go over basics of selecting campsites and future episodes.
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And you're planning, when you're planning this out, you're gonna be obviously looking at a map. You're looking at a map and like, hey, right here is a flood zone or something like that. You can tell on the map usually the way, especially if you're using a topographical map.(...) Them things allow you to see in 3D on 2D paper. And you could tell places it's gonna flood. If you're prone to rain in and you get flash flooding and everything, you don't wanna camp somewhere that's gonna flood.
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But one of the other things that you wanna do is in your preparation time, you wanna get your mindset and preparation right. The importance of mental preparedness and staying calm and challenging situations.(...) So when you get out there, things are gonna happen, but you don't wanna freak out. So in the event of an injury or something like that, twisted ankle or fall and you broke something or something to that effect, you don't want to freak out. Freaking out ain't gonna do nothing but make it worse. One of the main scenarios where people freak out is if they got lost. And a lot of people just freak out and they make their cells worse. They make their cells even more lost.
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If you get lost, sit down, take a break, relax,(...) don't just sit down and relax.
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And think about your situation. If you got to, stay overnight. Don't freak out, wonder back and forth because all you're gonna do is make yourself even more lost.
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Situation, real situation that happened here recently
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and the local wildlife area here is we had some individuals that went out there and they got lost and their cell phone, they had one bar on the cell phone and they made the call and they called 911. 911 said, "All right, stay exactly where you're at. "Don't move, don't do anything. "Just stay where you're at." And he was like, "Hurry, I'm starting to have chest pain." So he thought he was having a heart attack. Well, they get out there and they start tracking him. Every search and rescue people in the county was heading out there and they decided to move. They thought that they would move in a certain direction. So they found them a mile away from the location that they told them that they were at and come to find out he wasn't having a heart attack, he was having anxiety. And all they had to do was just sit down, relax, chill out and that'd have been good to go.
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So you always wanna have mental preparedness and you always wanna stay calm no matter what the situations and challenges are. When you're planning your trip, like I was mentioning earlier, you wanna inform somebody of your plans.
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You wanna pack the equipment and the clothing and the shelter and everything appropriately for the kind of trip that you're going on and you wanna be prepared for unexpected situations. Now, I know this is going kind of fast, but as we move on in different episodes, it's going to level out because we're gonna be covering all the stuff in the book and how to do that.(...) And so I just want you to don't think for a second that it's not making sense, but it is gonna make sense. Everything's gonna flow together, everything's gonna move into the direction that we're trying to get this to go.
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So that is pretty much it from the meat of the topics there. So I wanna encourage you guys to share your own primitive camping experiences and stories in the Facebook group. Head over to primitive camping in Bushcraft and share your experiences, share your stories. I want you to let me know and let all the others in the group know what kind of experiences have you had? Any situations, any trials, any anything that has stood out to you, something that you learned, stuff like that. Ask questions. What's your most challenging primitive camping experience and how did you overcome it? Go over to the group, get engaged and just find out from the group what works for them, what don't work for them. There's a lot of people from all different skill levels. There's people that's gonna be there that have done it all their life and they're top-notch and they can walk out with a pocket knife and one match and build an entire city. And then you got people that's gonna bring five tents, 13 lanterns and 400 gallons of water and they're gonna camp on the edge of a city.
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So there's different experience levels and there's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. Whatever floats your boat, you go for it. This podcast is available in video form for subscribers on YouTube and Facebook. So at Spear Outdoors and on YouTube at Spear Outdoors. And it's a memory only like podcast video. The podcast itself is streaming on podcast platforms and I will chop them up in a little bit of one-minute clips to throw out there on TikTok and Instagram and all that good stuff. But if you wanna see the whole video, then go ahead and subscribe on Facebook and YouTube. So today we went over some key points of the concept of primitive camping, the benefits of primitive camping, some of the challenges whenever you go primitive camping. And I gave you a couple of practical tips there. Don't worry, they're all gonna get better. It's all gonna gel together. You'll understand as we get further along. So follow along and if you haven't picked up a copy of the primitive camping and bushcraft book to follow along on this podcast, go ahead and do so. Right now, I think they're like 15 bucks on Amazon or 14 or 15% off.
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Head over to Facebook and join the group, the primitive camping and bushcraft group and leave some feedback and get some topic, give me some topics for future episodes.
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And I just wanna say thank you so much for all the supporters out there, all the folks that subscribe to the Facebook page and subscribe to the YouTube page. And thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to hit follow on whatever podcast platform that you are listening to on right now and hit that like button, hit that follow button. And in the next episode, we're gonna dive into essential gear and the tools that you need for primitive camping. So we just talked about it today and next week we're gonna dive into it and we're gonna take just like piece by piece and dissect it. All right guys, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate you. You have a blessed day. I'll see you next time. God bless you.