Basic Bushcraft Skills

Since there are so many important skills to learn when it comes to survival and bushcraft it can be difficult to know where to start. But before you learn how to make a cup out of birch bark or cordage from nettles, you should learn some basic bushcraft skills to help you survive should you ever find yourself stuck in the wrong situation, and no better place to start than with an understanding of how long you’ll last in hazardous situations with the Rules of 3.

These figures have widely been accepted as being roughly accurate, but what these numbers don’t tell you are the effects of what will happen before the time limit is reached. The average adult can last for 3 weeks without food until they die, but as with all other effects in the rule of three, you’ll be far from capable of doing anything long before that limit is reached.

Learning the basics will make more difference to a survival situation than any amount of advanced crafting or useless “survival kits” that people think they can just pull out and be saved. The tool below is a good example of something you’ll find in a cheap survival kit and its called a survival credit card. The tool includes such things as a screwdriver head, a ruler, various spanner sizes and a bottle cap opener, with the only useful things on it being a small and awkward saw and knife edge.

If you gave this tool to someone in a survival situation who didn’t know what they were doing, they’d probably just stab around at a piece of wood until they cut their finger.

The following is a list of the five most important basic bushcraft skills to learn to increase your chances of returning to safety.

Attitude

Our mental state is the single most important tool to maintain when your in trouble as rash decisions can cost lives. An unplanned decision made out of fear is not one that has been thought out with the most logical factors taken into consideration. A good example of this would be the story of Pauloosie Keyootak who got caught in a blizzard when driving his snow-mobile to another town, instead of hunkering down and waiting till it passed he kept going and ended up 100 miles south of his starting location, even though his destination was 185 north of were he set off.

If you ever find yourself panicking or don’t know what to do next in a bad situation then just remember to S.T.O.P

Stop

The first thing to do is literally just stop. Stay where you are for a second, take a few deep breaths, and try to calm your nerves and level your head. The goal here is to clear your head to a state where your decisions won’t be influenced by panic or fear and can be based on logic and practicality.

Think

When was the last time you recognized your surroundings? how long have you been lost and did you go off the beaten path at any point? Can you remember hearing running water at any time or did you see some kind of landmark?

You should ask yourself as many questions as possible to try and determine your location and the best way to back to safety, but the questions you ask yourself would depend entirely on your situation. The questions above could be asked if you get lost in the woods but would be entirely different in a plane crash for example. Whatever trouble you find yourself in, the more questions you can answer the higher your chances will be.

Observe

Most people don’t realize they are lost until it’s too late. What started as a pleasant afternoon stroll for Ed Rosenthal turned into a 6-day survival situation where he almost died, and all because he decided to go into a desert canyon he didn’t recognize in any way. Landmarks should be observed at all times and being able to see something like a mountain or river can help you find your location. Taking note of the position of the sun can also give you an idea of which direction to walk in, with the basic rule being it rises in the east and sets in the west giving you an idea of which direction to go to get back to where you started.

Plan

Based on how many questions you can answer about your situation you should now have a good idea of what to do next. Knowing which way to walk based on following something you can see in the distance is useless if you try and get there at night. It’s better to have a few scared family members who worry about you for one night than it is to try and get somewhere in the dark, only to end up at the bottom of a cliff. Make your plan as rational and safe as possible, and don’t try to exit your situation faster than the safest plan you can come up with.

Shelter

If you have to spend a night in the wilderness or happen to be in a harsh environment then making an effective shelter can save your life. The preferable option would be to find an old building or fishing hut or even turn over a small boat to use as a roof, but finding something like this would be very lucky and quite unlikely.

If you need to make your own shelter then you’re going to need materials, giving people stuck in a forest a huge advantage. When making a shelter there are three main things to keep in mind which are the structure, the thatching, and the bed.

The structure is the stick frame of the shelter but can also include things like fallen trees and natural formations. The structure has to be strong enough to withstand the weight of the thatching with the wind blowing against it, something easily achievable with standard sticks and branches.

For thatching it can be any material that’s capable of withstanding the rain such as dead leaves, straw, hay, reeds, wide leaf plants like bracken, or any other material that could act as tiny make-shift roof tiles. Always remember to put your thatching on starting from the bottom to help form an over-lapping tile-like formation.

The bed is a very important feature and not just so you can get some sleep. Something I see again and again in amateur survival shelters is people going to sleep by lying directly on the floor, and even if they are in a sleeping bag it’s still far from ideal. There are two reasons you should never sleep directly on the floor, even if you have a sleeping bag. The first is the floor will be significantly colder than the air which will suck heat away from your body much faster when you’re in contact with it.

The second reason is that it could rain during the night and laying on the floor could see you soaked while asleep. Getting wet is one of the most important things to avoid when in a survival situation and sleeping on the floor is a good way to get yourself in trouble. Even if the walls of your shelter are completely waterproof, the section connecting the walls to the ground won’t stop water running through should the rain be heavy enough.

The simple way to avoid this is to build yourself a bed if you have the time, but if not then at least put something down to avoid getting wet if water runs through during the night, like a thick layer of leaves or piles of reeds.

Water

The average human can last for 3 days without water, but this is the amount of time until you actually die. The first 24 hours is the only time you will get where you can function “normally”, after this a lack of water will affect you in a huge way so it’s important to know where to find it and how to make it safe to drink.

How to find water

Obviously a flowing source like a stream or river is preferable, but they are the kind of thing that can’t be found for miles when you want one. If you’re stuck without an immediate source then try looking in a few of these places:

Large leaf plants

Plants with big leaves often hold small amounts of water where the leaf meets the stem and can also collect condensation in the mornings. The amount of water is tiny but it all adds up with enough plants.

Dig for it

Look for the greenest and dampest section of earth you can find and start stabbing at it with a stick. It doesn’t matter too much how wide it is but you should aim to get at least 12 inches deep. If there’s enough water in the soil then it will collect in the bottom of the hole, but note this method produces very muddy water and should be filtered through some cloth several times.

Trap it

If you have some kind of plastic sheeting, even if it’s just a regular supermarket plastic bag then you have the ability to trap condensation. There are two main ways you can do this and both don’t require much effort. The first is to place the bag over a stick frame or even a small bush with no leaves on it so that the handles come together at the bottom. The trick is to position the bag in such a way that any condensation will run down the inside and drip off the handles at the lowest point and into some kind of container.

The second method is to dig a hole and place the plastic sheet over the top with stones around the edge to keep it in place. Put a container underneath and place a small stone in the middle of the plastic to create a low point over the container. The moisture in the soil and natural condensation will collect on the underside of the plastic and drip off the lowest point into your container.

Get it from plants

There are a number of plants that contain drinkable water but the chances of these being around when you need them are slim. If you know how to recognise edible mushrooms or berries then putting a load of them in some cloth and squeezing out the water can provide a nice boost. Even something like nettles are edible and crushing or squeezing out the water in some cloth can provide a small but possibly much-needed bit of liquid. If you eat the plants directly then your body will require water to digest them, so keep this in mind if your situation is desperate.

Look for Sphagnum moss

This type of moss can often be found growing on the floor of pine forests but isn’t uncommon in other environments. If you see some of this moss then grab a clump of it and squeeze out all the water. It typically grows on very damp soil in very large patches and will give you a huge amount of water, though it may not taste very nice.

Making water safe to drink

Filtering water through a cloth to remove the bits and then boiling it is the most effective way to make water safe as bacteria and germs can’t withstand the heat. If you don’t have the option to boil water then your options are limited and listed below:

Use Sphagnum moss

This type of moss has anti-bacterial properties and can be an effective filter in place of using cloth. If you have a spare bottle then cutting off the bottom and filling it with alternating layers of charcoal and sphagnum moss can provide a descent filter.

Use Ultraviolet light

UV light is good at killing germs and can be utilized with anything see-through that can hold water. After you’ve filtered the water as best you can put it in a bottle or anything transparent and hang it up in direct sunlight for a few hours. Anything transparent can be used including plastic bags and lunchboxes as long as the light can penetrate the sides and shine into the water. Without the option to boil water, filtering it through a moss and charcoal filter before letting the UV rays kill the bacteria is the most effective way to get safe(ish) drinking water in a survival situation.

Food

The average human can survive for 3 weeks without food. Though this is true for most people, as with water if you go for more than 3 or 4 days without eating anything you’re going to be in serious trouble. You will be so hungry you will frequently feel sick, affecting your ability to press forward and though drinking more water than you need can stop you from feeling hungry, it is only a temporary fix and not a solution.

Fortunately, there is plenty of food out there, depending on where you are in the world of course, but the trick is knowing what’s safe to eat and where to get it. For a list of what’s good to eat in the wilderness, check out our list of Wild Foods.

If you don’t feel like memorizing a ton of plants then here are a few basics that are easy to identify and can be found across the Northern Hemisphere:

Greater reed mace

Also known as cat-tails, bull-rushes, and a ton of other names, Greater reed mace is the number one source of carbohydrates you can get in the wilderness. They can be found growing on the banks of any body of water and are by no means uncommon in Europe and North America. The edible part is the root which has to be carefully dug out so it doesn’t snap off, which involves getting your arm wet. The root should be cleaned and ideally placed on some hot ash to cook it but they can be eaten raw. When you’re about to tuck into some reed mace just remember the edible part is the starch found within the fibers of the root and the actual root itself shouldn’t be eaten since it is too tough. Pull out the white fibrous strands from the inside and suck all of the starch out, with it tasting a bit like a weak potato with a slightly nutty hint.

Seafood

If you’re lucky enough to be stranded near the sea then you should have a huge amount of food available. Mussels and Limpets can be found on almost every single UK beach and aren’t uncommon across the rest of the world. Cockles can be found in large beds on the right beaches and winkles and small crabs often like to hide in rock pools. Seafood should only be an option if you have the ability to make a fire as nothing gives stomach poisoning as bad as shellfish.

Fire

Fire seems to be one of the first things that appears on a survival skills list as a priority, and though this is true for certain situations, fire isn’t actually a necessity for people to survive. This doesn’t mean it isn’t very important though as fire can dry out clothes, raise body temperature, cook food, and make water safe by boiling, as well as providing a psychological boost and sense of safety.

There are priority situations where a fire should be made first, such as a signal fire if someone else knows roughly where you are, but in most situations, you want to make sure you have shelter, water, and food sorted before you build a fire.

( Carving a feather stick is an excellent option to get a fire going)

Ideally, you will have something with you like a lighter or matches, but nothing beats the good old flint and fire steel. Compact, lightweight, lasts a long time and it doesn’t matter if it gets wet like it would with matches and most lighters. The only downside to this tool is you need some kind of tinder to catch the sparks like a tissue, a bunch of dried grass, or certain types of moss or lichen, with “old man’s beard” being particularly good.

There are a load of different types of fires you can build but none of them will work unless you learn how to properly start one. If you don’t have something to start a fire with like a lighter or matches then your options are limited to using a piece of flint if you can find one, or making some kind of contraption like a fire bow or hand drill. If you have a knife then it’s always worth making something called a feather stick which can be very useful if you’re working with wet wood.

To start a fire in the wilderness just follow these simple steps:

1) Prepare

Have all of your tinder, starter material, and fuel ready before you even try and light a match. There’s nothing worse than finally getting a fire going only to see it go out before you could find more material to put on it.

2) Don’t rush with your tinder

It can be tempting to use several matches at once or hack away at your piece of flint in desperation, but rushing simply won’t work and will only increase the chance of something going wrong. Be careful with your primary ignition and gently nurture the spark by slowly blowing on it to make sure it’s properly going before adding it to your fire.

3) Go small to big

Place your flaming tinder onto the easiest-to-catch part of your fire like a few feather sticks if you’re using them. It’ll take too long to ignite something big before your tinder burns out so always build up your fuel in size accordingly.

4) Don’t smother it

Putting too many sticks on your fire could cause it to starve of oxygen and smolder out. It doesn’t matter how cold or wet you are, a fire will build up naturally and can’t be rushed by dumping a load of wood on too early.