Modern backpacking gear is lighter, stronger, and more comfortable than ever, so what is the real point of bushcraft anymore? In this episode, Chris breaks down the difference between camping, primitive camping, bushcraft, and survival while explaining why knowledge, practice, and preparation still matter more than whatever gear is sitting in your pack.
In this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris responds to a question from the Facebook group: If modern backpacking gear is lighter, stronger, and more comfortable, what is the point of bushcraft?
That question opened up a strong discussion. Some folks said bushcraft is about traditional skills. Others said modern gear should be used when it works better. Some treated bushcraft and survival like the same thing, while others made a hard line between the two.
Chris breaks down those different camps and explains why bushcraft is not about rejecting modern equipment. It is about not becoming helpless without it.
Topics covered in this episode include:
Chris also brings the discussion back to Scripture, looking at Abram, Noah, Joseph, and David as examples of people who trusted God while still taking action, preparing, practicing, and walking forward with wisdom.
The real answer is simple: bushcraft is not about suffering, showing off, or pretending modern gear does not exist. It is about building the knowledge and skill to handle yourself when equipment fails, plans change, and the woods start teaching hard lessons.
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft Podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Speir.
So here we're gonna 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're in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the
fire and let's get into it.
A question comes along every so often
that makes you just really think
and reformat everything, I
guess to say in your mind.
It helps you to reformat
everything in your mind.
So the question was
George, a member of the group,
Primitive Camping and
Bushcraft posted, made a post
and he said, "If modern
backpacking gear is lighter,
stronger and more comfortable,
what is the point of Bushcraft?"
So when I read that post
when he first posted it
and I was like, "Oh, let's sit back.
Let's pop some popcorn and
let's watch the fireworks go."
But to my surprise,
that didn't happen and
didn't come to fruition.
So I can honestly say
that I'll give you a
little backstory here.
He had just completed a
survival course out in Arizona
and during that course,
he carried around 50 pounds of equipment.
Later, he hiked a similar country
with about 20 pounds of
modern backpacking gear.
And that got him to thinking
and he asked a simple question.
"If modern gear is lighter,
stronger, more comfortable
and easier to use, then
what's the point of Bushcraft?"
Boy, I could hear the
fireworks taking off on that one.
So I'm telling you right now,
whenever I first read
that post, I was like,
"What? Oh no."
And I sat back and as they piled in,
comment after comment
after comment after comment.
And that is what
we're gonna discuss today.
So, like I was saying, the
comments started pouring in.
Some people say Bushcraft is all about
learning traditional skills.
Others said it's about using whatever,
every equipment works best.
Some thought Bushcraft and survival
were basically the same thing.
Others argued they
were completely different.
A few people even wondered if Bushcraft
had become nothing more than a way
to sell expensive old fashioned gear.
That was pretty good.
And the longer I read
through these comments,
the more I realized that
George wasn't really asking
about backpacks,
knives, tarps and ferro rods.
He was really talking
about something much bigger.
Like, what are we
really trying to accomplish
when we head into the woods?
And I think that's a
question that is very much worth
digging into on this show,
this episode, on this podcast.
So as I did before, last week,
we talked about the backpack
and how many different
camps, over four different camps.
This week, we're
gonna break it down again
into separate camps.
So as I read through all the comments,
I noticed several different camps
beginning to develop,
beginning to form.
And the first group
believed that Bushcraft
is all about knowledge.
Every bit of it is about knowledge.
All Bushcraft is is about knowledge.
It wasn't about the
gear that they carried.
It was understanding,
knowing how to find dry tinder
after three days of rain,
knowing how to choose a safe campsite,
knowing how to read the weather,
knowing how to solve problems when
something goes wrong.
And that group kept
coming back with the same idea.
Knowledge weighs nothing.
Then there was another group,
the second group, second camp,
and it leaned heavily
towards traditional equipment.
Now, traditional equipment, guys.
Canvas, wool, axes, cast iron, leather,
flint and steel, those six
items are just an example.
But for them, Bushcraft
is as much about preserving
old skills or older
skills or older set of skills
or older lifestyle or way of life
as it is about
enjoying the great outdoors.
So,
these particular set of people,
this particular camp of individuals
likes to slow down and enjoy,
they enjoy slowing
down, making things by hand,
like spoons and stuff
and chairs and mallets
and just making things
out in the landscape.
They like using methods
that generations before us
depended on every single day.
And that's one thing
we're thinking about,
is that a lot of these older skills
that we utilize in Bushcraft,
primitive camping,
survival type situations,
is essentially skills
that were used daily
years ago, 100, 200 years ago.
Not so much 100 years ago,
but now it's getting closer
to 250 years ago, for instance.
You know, America's
celebrating the 250 years
or just celebrated 250
years this past weekend.
And, you know, 250 years ago,
you had to know these things.
You had to know how to Bushcraft.
You had to know how to live off the land
and go out there or your life,
I mean, essentially
your life depended on it.
So the third group had a
much more practical approach.
Their attitude was rather simple.
If modern gear works better, use it.
Plain and simple.
For instance, carrying a Bic lighter.
If modern gear works better, use it.
Carrying a sleeping bag,
that weighs I have a down stuffed
waterproof sleeping bag.
It's really not a sleeping
bag, it's more of a blanket.
And that thing is immensely hot.
And it's so hot, I hardly ever use it.
And it really, it really keeps you warm.
But it's lighter than a
traditional sleeping bag.
It's lighter than a wool blanket.
And it is waterproof.
I mean, hello.
So if you could walk further,
if you can sleep warmer and
you could carry lighter gear,
then what's up?
You spend more time enjoying your trip
instead of struggling
because you're trying to prove
something.
And that's one of the
things that I wrote down here
because a lot of bushcraft is people
trying to prove a point.
I can go out into the
woods and suffer through this
and survive.
Yeah.
But a lot of individuals
will disagree with that.
And I understand a lot of
people will go out into the woods
and like ease their way through it
because they know how to
do these certain things.
Then there was another camp that really
caught my attention,
another group.
And these folks, they
kept saying the same thing
over and over.
Bushcraft is not survival.
I believe I was one that
posted that in that comment.
Bushcraft is not survival.
Survival is something
that you hope never happens.
And bushcraft is
something you choose to practice.
I really did smile
whenever I saw those comments
because a lot of that is
how exactly how I explained it
in the book, Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft.
And on page 10, right
there, Bushcraft and Survival.
And it wasn't really
popularized until all these TV shows
started coming out.
Of course you had the 18th century
reenactment type stuff
where people would do that.
And it's one thing, but
then you had groups of people
that would go out camping and
minimalistically on purpose.
Survivorman, Dual Survivor,
those were some of the first TV shows.
And then Naked and Afraid alone,
it just started taking off from there.
It was several
different TV shows and stuff.
And that's what really
popularized survival.
And then people started grouping
bushcraft in with survival
because if you're out
doing this quote unquote
survival stuff or
bushcraft, then you're surviving.
So I don't know.
I will leave that up
to you guys to decide.
But I don't think George was asking
whether a titanium pot
is better than a steel pot.
I really don't.
And I don't think he was
asking whether a Bic lighter
is better than a flint and steel.
But what I was really
thinking he was asking
is that if modern
equipment can do the job better,
then why should we spend so much time
learning the old ways?
And honestly, realistically,
that is a relatively fair question.
It's one every outdoorsman
ought to ask himself sooner
or later, including myself.
I ask myself all the
time, why am I doing this?
I used to go out and rough
it and eat freeze-dried foods
and stuff that I just caught and cooked.
And I could still do that.
If we're honest, there are very few of us
who would choose to sleep in wet wool
when we have a very quality sleeping bag
or waterproof blanket back at home
or to choose from or to bring with us.
Very few of us would
actually choose that realistically.
I'm speaking realistically here.
Unless you're choosing to
do it just so you can say,
I did it.
A lot of people
wouldn't do it on purpose.
Now, hold on here.
I'm probably gonna ruffle some feathers.
And a lot of folks is like, dude, really?
But you got these schools
that teach you these older ways,
these classes that you're
going to take for bushcraft,
survival and stuff like that.
Man, I get it.
I get it.
They're actually teaching
you things that you can do.
But let me tell you,
there's only so many
things that you can learn.
Each school starts
rehashing the same old stuff.
It's like videos, all right?
Let me put this into perspective.
Once you've done so many bushcraft videos
that you could think of, that's it.
You start after that,
you're starting to rehash them.
You look, take a look on
the interwebs, on the Googles,
and I can promise you,
you'll find 500 different people
making videos of the same subject.
It's the nature of the outdoors business.
Essentially, that's what it turned into.
It turned into a business.
It's a business of
suffering is what it is.
It's a business of suffering.
Now, some of you will disagree.
That's fine.
That's fine and dandy.
You go out there and suffer
through a survival course,
a bushcraft course or
something to that effect.
And once you get done with it,
yeah, you retain the knowledge.
So it goes back to group number one,
comes down to knowledge.
So it's my choice.
Very few of us would turn down a
dependable water filter
just to prove we know how to boil water.
Yes, you could just scoop
it right out of the river,
and yes, you can boil it,
and yes, you can drink it.
You can go ahead and do that.
There's nothing wrong with that.
When it comes down to
filtering nasty water like sewage,
a lot of us, instead of
just boiling it and drinking,
we're gonna try to find
a way to filter it out
to make it a little bit cleaner.
That's all you're doing,
is trying to make it
a little bit cleaner,
a little less gritty,
a little less nasty.
So very few of us is gonna
refuse a reliable flashlight
just because lanterns
existed 100 years ago.
So with those, that type of mindset,
where does Bushcraft fit?
Honestly, we just
discussed it just a second ago.
The answer starts with
something I wrote in the book.
I separated camping, primitive camping,
Bushcraft and Survival
because they're related.
They're all related, but
they're not all the same thing.
Camping is for recreation, all right?
Plain and simple,
camping is for recreation.
Primitive camping removes
many of the conveniences
that we rely on
ourselves if we go camping.
Bushcraft is developing
the knowledge and the skills
to live comfortably in the great outdoors
using the resources that's all around us.
For some folks, that'll
be going into the woods
with a knife and a handkerchief,
or going into the woods with a knife
and the clothes on their back,
and making a city.
(laughs)
Survival is an emergency.
And I don't know how
survival is an emergency.
If you're in what
they call a quote unquote
survival situation, that is
some kind of accident happened.
Something, you got
lost, an accident happened,
you got shipwrecked,
you blah, blah, blah.
That is a survival situation to where
that next three days,
72 hours, whatever it is,
is dependent upon what you do.
How you practice your
bushcraft in those three days
is going to determine how you come out,
your outcome, your survival.
So one is a choice, one is not.
That's why I don't believe bushcraft
is about rejecting modern gear.
I believe it's about refusing to become
completely dependent on it.
And that's a big difference.
So that's why I wrote the book,
the way I wrote the book.
I wrote "Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft"
in a way to inform a person that is
little to no experience,
or some, some experience,
but they didn't understand
what all do I need to bring with me
to go on my camping trips, or my
primitive camping trips,
or if I want to load a backpack,
head out into the woods and
enjoy my time in those woods.
That's what I wrote this book for.
It outlines the gear you can,
and it gives you an
informed decision for you to select
and pick what kind of gear
that you want to take with you
into the great outdoors.
So over the years, I've gone
through just about every phase
that I can possibly
imagine when it comes down to
what gear and stuff like that.
I have been in the
camp of way too much gear,
and I think we've
recently talked about that.
Boy, my nose keeps itching.
I have carried too
little gear, not enough.
I've bought equipment because somebody,
I have still suffered through this,
a YouTube personality has,
hey, you gotta have this, it's awesome.
And they make it look like, yes, that,
I gotta have one of those.
I gotta have that, that was awesome.
And they make you
think that you have to have
this particular piece of
gear to go on your next trip.
And it really
hindered me because I learned
how to use that gear,
and then come to find out,
I really didn't need to use that gear.
I really didn't need it.
I've also gone into the
woods with cheap equipment,
just to have the stuff break.
And there's plenty of you out there
that know all about that.
But I've also gone out into the woods
with plenty of cheap gear,
and proved that you
don't have to spend a fortune
to enjoy camping.
And what I really learned was that gear
was never the lesson in this.
The gear was not the lesson.
It may have been the
question, what gear are you bringing?
But the trip was always the lesson.
The trip, every single
trip taught me something.
Every single trip that you go on will
teach you something.
And sometimes it,
like I discussed last week,
it'll teach you that
you brought too much.
It'll teach you that
you brought too little,
or you left behind something
that you really should have brought.
And then sometimes it teaches you that,
hey, that expensive piece of gear
wasn't any better
than the cheaper version.
And that seems to be a lot of
the answers that I'm getting
on my recent trips,
is that you do not have to
have that $240 piece of gear
when the $40 piece of
gear that's just like it,
is just as good.
Now, the situation that
I have had happen to me
is that a lot of this
gear that I'm using,
I will move on to the next phase.
I don't need that gear no more.
So I ended up spending
too much money on this gear.
And it, oh, that was cool.
That was great.
But it's not something I'm
gonna bring with me every time.
And then next thing you know,
I mean, if you're doing this like I do,
and you're just
shooting YouTube videos on gear
and bushcraft and survival,
and just outdoor gear in general,
and you're doing review videos,
and you have companies
calling you all the time saying,
can we send you a piece of gear?
And I'm like, sure,
send me a piece of gear
and I will put it through the paces.
Half of the time, I don't even do a video
on some of this stuff
because I would not
recommend it to my in-laws.
And I probably said that wrong.
Because I really do
care about my in-laws.
But I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
I wouldn't recommend it to nobody.
And if I wouldn't use it,
I'm not gonna show a
video on it for you guys.
You know?
So this gear,
after a while starts piling up.
And your trips become fewer and fewer.
And you get more and more gear.
And next thing you know,
you walk in there and
you look like a hoarder
because you've been hoarding gear
that you really don't need.
So,
every single trip has
to teach you something.
Every single trip.
It's gonna teach you
something about your gear.
It's gonna teach you
something about your backpack.
It's gonna teach you
something about your sleeping bag.
It's gonna teach you
something about your underwear
that you wear.
That sounds silly, but it's the truth.
You wear the wrong pair of underwear
and guess what?
You're chafed.
(laughs) That's a reality right there.
Sometimes these things
are gonna teach us,
these trips are gonna
teach us that we pack too much.
Sometimes it's gonna
teach us that we left behind
stuff we should have brought.
And it's gonna tell us that that
expensive piece of gear
wasn't any better than the cheaper stuff.
I believe I just went over that
and that's why I have a pencil
to mark off my bullet points.
So,
knowledge can solve
problems equipment never will.
And that is a very good
idea right there is that
knowledge can solve problems
that gear or equipment never will.
And looking back through
looking back through many, many, many,
many years of stuff.
When I was getting into this
and I was really starting
to develop all my skills,
I can remember saying,
oh, a better knife.
I need a better knife.
I need a better knife.
I need that $120 knife and I'd order it.
I need a better backpack.
That's a hundred dollars, I'll order it.
Oh man, look at that stove.
I need a better stove.
I'm gonna order a better stove.
150 bucks.
(birds chirping)
I need a better liner.
I need a better this.
I need a better that.
And one day I look around
and I realized something,
none of the stuff that I
spent that money on is in my camp.
And that is the wake up call.
Because if you're
spending that much money on gear
and you don't even use that gear,
you don't practice that gear,
you don't even bring that gear with you,
you don't add to the
knowledge in your nugget.
That is a wake up call
because it's telling you
you have what they call
GAS, gear acquisition syndrome.
And that is a real thing, man.
Don't get me wrong,
guys, don't get me wrong.
I really do, I like good equipment.
I really do.
I like good equipment.
(birds chirping)
And if something works better,
something lasts longer and
makes my trip more enjoyable,
I'm interested from here on out.
But I've reached a point where
I don't buy something
just because it's popular.
I don't buy stuff because it looks cool.
(birds chirping)
There's all kinds of cool gadgets
that come out every week.
Check YouTube.
That one guy, what's his name?
I forget his name, but anyway,
he's always got the latest gadget.
He's always showing off
the latest whatever it is.
And dude, you don't have
to have the latest gadget
when you're going out
into the great outdoors
to take a camping trip
and take your kids camping
to teach them something, to put the
tablets, the phones up,
to learn more about
the outdoors and trees,
identifying trees and identifying,
you don't have to have
the latest and greatest.
Mors Kochanski, and this
quote came up several times
within that group and that discussion,
says this quote came up several times.
The more you know, the less you carry.
The more you know, the less you carry.
And I agree with that.
And a lot of people
agree with that statement.
And it's the truth,
but I also think people misunderstand
what it really means.
So I don't think he was saying your goal
was to carry the
smallest backpack possible.
I don't believe that.
So I think he was trying to say
that knowledge creates options.
And I'm not trying to
put words in his mouth.
God bless him, you
know, God rest his soul.
But I believe that he
was seriously saying
the more you know, the less you carry
is you have options.
And I talk about it all
the time on this podcast.
I talk about it all
the time in this book.
I talk about it all the
time on the Facebook group,
that everything that you see,
everything that you put
up here gives you an option
of what gear to bring,
what gear not to bring.
And you know, you see it through
several of the other
survival instructors,
bushcraft instructors
throughout these schools all over.
And there's tons of them.
There's a bunch of them,
members of this group, Facebook group
on primitive camping and bushcraft.
And they teach the
knowledge that you need.
You know, they show you
some skills that you learn
and they teach you
how to do certain things
that you can add to
your memory banks up here.
If your lighter quits
working, you know another way.
If your water filter
breaks, you know another way.
And bushcraft isn't
about replacing equipment.
It's about making sure
equipment isn't your only plan
or your only option.
That is the thing that bushcraft is.
And that is what he's talking about.
The more you know, the less you carry
because you don't have to carry five
different water filters.
You don't, everything that
he had fit in a two-quart pot,
every bit of it.
So let me go figure that,
and that was a jacket too.
(laughs)
Modern gear helps us do
things more efficiently.
All right, bushcraft
teaches us why those things work
in the first place.
Traditional skills pass
down through generations,
through books,
through, you know, whatever.
Think about a fire.
If you carry a Bic
lighter every trip, why?
Have you ever asked yourself that?
Why do you carry a Bic
lighter with you every trip you go?
Because it's reliable.
Because it's fast, because it's simple,
because it is the most advanced,
cost-effective way to start
a fire in everybody's pocket
in modern history.
All right, everybody has
a means to start a fire,
and they carry it in their pocket,
and it's not a flint and steel.
So, but hold on, I
still practice my ferro rod.
I still know how to
use a flint and steel.
I still know how to make a bow drill
and have practiced it
numerous times, even this year.
I can still take natural tinder,
and I can still enjoy the
primitive methods if I want,
but I can start a fire
with that Bic lighter.
And if that Bic lighter
breaks, or you lose it,
I know how to start a
fire with other means,
off the landscape.
(birds chirping)
And one of the simple things with that
is because your Bic
lighter is going to fail.
It will fail.
It's not a question of when,
or how, it's a question of when.
It is going to fail.
Equipment is not gonna
replace your knowledge.
It's gonna make it
more convenient for you.
It's gonna build upon your knowledge.
And I really do think that
we should approach Bushcraft
with,
is this going to supplement my knowledge?
Yeah, there we go.
Something like that.
Making that up as I go.
(laughs)
You can enjoy both.
You can learn traditional skills.
You can enjoy both.
You can learn traditional skills.
You can get out there,
and you can bring as much
gear as you wanna do it,
but there's no rule that says
you have to choose one over the other.
You can go and enjoy it.
I had a commenter on a post
where some young individual was saying,
"Hey, I've never done this before,
"and I don't know what to bring.
"Can someone please tell
me what I need to bring
"for a three-day trip?
"I'm going camping this
weekend for three days."
And somebody said, "If
you have to ask that,
"you don't need to go camping."
Plain and simple.
I was like, "What?"
I couldn't believe my
eyeballs when I read that.
Here you are in a position
to help somebody else out,
and you're gonna be a
smarty pants like that.
That blew my mind.
So that individual is no
longer with us in the group.
He is enjoying other groups.
So here's something I want
everyone listening to do.
Ask yourself these five questions.
Do I know how this
piece of equipment works?
Could I accomplish the
same task another way?
Have I actually practiced that skill?
Am I carrying this because I need it?
Or because somebody
else told me I needed it?
Finally, if this piece of gear
disappeared tomorrow,
what would I do?
Those five questions will tell you more
about your bushcraft
skills than anything else.
If you answer those five questions,
and you write them down honestly,
it will actually help you in your
bushcraft adventures.
(birds chirping)
So something else stood out to me
as I read through George's post.
The longer someone had been camping,
the less interested they seem in arguing.
So the more years someone had spent
pounding the ground,
the less interested they
were in debating with people.
The younger campers were
debating all kinds of brands.
The older campers were
talking about lessons.
And I thought that was very interesting
because some men commented
and had been camping for 40 or 50 years.
And they weren't
trying to convince everyone
that their knife was better.
They weren't arguing
over the color of the tarp
if somebody should buy it,
but most of them were simply sharing
what had worked for them.
And that really did tell me something.
The experience has a way of sanding off
all the rough edges.
When you got plenty of
experience under your belt,
it is really going to
make your trips more refined.
(birds chirping)
And when you're new at this,
we think there's only one right answer
and we saw it on YouTube
or we read it in a book.
And then you go out camping and life
really does humble you.
That's happened to me.
Golly, I can't even
tell you how many times
that's happened to me.
(birds chirping)
You ever reached in your bag
and you forgot your rain gear?
What about you had an awesome supper?
You were trying to film a
video and you burned it.
I did that.
I was on the phone,
one of the members of this group,
way out in the middle of nowhere,
and I burned my biscuits.
So bad that the dog wouldn't eat them.
Have you ever had a dog
not eat a burnt biscuit?
And I was looking so forward to that.
It was a homemade biscuit.
It was about this big round and,
golly, I was so ready.
It was almost a loaf
of bread, biscuit bread.
Every mistake that you
make in the great outdoors
turns into a lesson,
something for you to learn by.
(birds chirping)
Bushcraft really does begin
whenever we start learning these lessons
and we start developing our knowledge.
You don't have to just go to a class
to start developing knowledge.
You go outside and just
let the outside be the class.
It's not gonna start when
you buy a piece of gear.
You have to learn how to
use that piece of gear.
You have to learn how to use that axe.
You have to learn how
to sharpen that axe.
You have to learn how
to sharpen your knife.
And before long, you're
gonna quit worrying about
looking like an outdoorsman
and start concentrating on becoming one.
You're gonna stop trying to be,
you're gonna stop trying to look like
the YouTube personality
that you're watching online.
You're gonna start teaching all the time
and you're gonna start
looking like an outdoorsman.
I read an article today, a very
well-known survivalist,
very well-known
survivalist with a British accent
was being accused of, you know,
filming and then sleeping in hotels.
And I'm like, whoa, hold on.
I mean, this dude, I
saw him build his camps
and he stayed in his tents.
And there's another one, a
couple of them from Canada.
And you know, it's just crazy
how you got all these people
that are so well-known that they make
enough money doing this
that they don't have to
worry about, you know,
they just do it for the image.
They just do it for the
looks, the likes, the money,
the whatever, you
know, and then they just,
they really get off base.
They get way off base.
So real bushcraft is going to begin
with the knowledge of
how to use your gear.
It's gonna begin with the
knowledge of how to actually
get out into the woods and
figure out how to tie these knots,
how to make cordage,
how to make a tripod,
how to hang a hammock,
how to set your ridge lines.
You know, that's where all your knowledge
is gonna come from is that
getting out there and doing it.
There's no wrong way, but
you gotta learn how to do it.
You still gotta take the test.
If you become a student of the outdoors,
the woods are gonna
become your classroom.
And every trip is
gonna teach you something.
And little,
oh, little Rusty here is gonna be,
he's gonna bark in the
microphone the whole time.
(laughs)
Little dude.
(laughs)
So every trip's gonna
teach you something.
Every failure is
gonna teach you something.
Every single failure, man.
Let me tell you, if
you failed at something,
you'll be like, I
will never do that again.
And I can promise you, you
will always remember that.
Don't compare yourself to somebody else.
I tell that to the beginners,
the boys that I mentor,
I tell them all the time,
do not compare yourself to somebody else.
Do not compare yourself to somebody
that's been doing this for 30 years,
because you're not
gonna do it the same way.
This guy can make it look like
that's the easiest thing in the world.
And I saw, I was teaching the boys
how to use ferro rods and start a fire.
And I could go over there
with one strike and start a fire,
and they would sit
there in 40, 50 strikes
because they were holding it wrong.
And every time I tried to show them,
they were like, no, I
got it, I got it, I got it.
And they were doing it wrong.
But you can't compare
yourself to somebody else
that's been doing it for 30 or 40 years.
You gotta compare yourself
to who you were last month,
last week, last year,
looking at me 10 years ago to me now.
And it's like night and day, you know,
it's a complete night and day.
Can you build a better fire?
Can you tie another knot?
Do you know several knots?
Or do you just use the
same ones over and over?
Can you sharpen your
knife a little bit better,
a little bit sharper?
Can you identify
another tree or another plant?
Can you choose a better campsite?
If you can answer that with a yes,
you're moving in the right direction.
That's what bushcraft is.
Not perfection, but progress.
As I was thinking
about George's question,
my mind kept going back to what Abram
in the book of Genesis, Abraham,
before his name was changed.
And God told Abram
something that almost sounded
like unbelievable, something familiar.
It's like, leave your
country, your people,
and your father's household,
and go to the land I will show you.
And the thing about that was, you know,
if you think about it for a minute,
Abram didn't climb into
a air conditioned truck.
He didn't unfold a road map.
He didn't have a GPS.
He was a nomad.
He lived as a nomad.
He moved from place to place.
And he had to find his water.
He had to find grazing
land for all his animals.
He had to protect his family.
And he had to know when to move camp.
He had to understand the land around him.
And every single day required wisdom
and understanding to that nature.
But what I really find interesting is,
God didn't remove Abram's responsibility
to make good decisions.
God gave him a direction,
and Abram still had to walk.
He still had to work for it.
God gave him a
promise, and Abram still had
to live each day with wisdom.
And I think that's what a
lesson is for the outdoorsman,
for us as survivalists or bushcrafters
or primitive campers.
Sometimes people act
like faith and preparation
are opposites, but they're not.
Noah still built the ark.
Joseph still stored up
grain for the famine.
David still practiced with the sling
long before he faced Goliath.
And faith does not
excuse us from learning.
Faith gives purpose to
what we have learned.
(birds chirping)
So I wanna thank George
for asking this question.
And I wanna thank every
member of the Primitive Camping
and Bushcraft Facebook group
that took the time to
leave a thoughtful comment.
Because discussions like this are exactly
why this community is here.
And it's why we continue to grow.
You know, we're not just collecting gear.
We're collecting knowledge, and we're
learning how to apply
and integrate outdoors.
And one thing I really
love about this community
is the fact that people are starting
to really get into conversation,
and really starting
to help each other out,
and really starting to post pictures.
And people's like, "Hey,
I didn't do it that way.
"I did it this way."
And they'll post their
picture inside the comments.
And it's starting to turn into
some real good conversations.
So I hope to see you there.
I hope to see you join.
Swing by the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft group
on Facebook, join up.
There's 75,000 of us now.
And I have done a little research,
and it is slowly
becoming one of the largest
outdoor communities on Facebook.
It's crazy.
One of the, not the, one of the.
And it's a great time, you know.
So anyway, all right
guys, thank you so much.
That's enough for today.
I really do appreciate it.
Today we got like a almost,
almost an hour long
conversation this time.
And that was awesome.
So I look forward to next week's episode.
And I hope to see you then.
Remember.
(upbeat music)
These birds, I got some
weird birds flying over today.
They're like kind of split tail.
But anyway, remember in all your ways,
acknowledge him and he
shall direct your paths.
I'll see you next time.
God bless you.
(upbeat music)