Bushcraft Buddy Blog
Wattle and Daub – The number 1 iron age building material
Wattle and Daub The number 1 Iron Age building materialWattle and daub were the main choices for lining walls right up to the mid-1800s when better building materials became available. It was used many thousands of years before the common era as far back as...
How likely are wild animals to attack?
How likely are wild animals to attack?Everyone would have seen a movie at one point with killer wolves or sharks or a creature that attacked someone just for the sake of attacking, but in reality, more people are killed each year from defective toasters than from...
The most amazing Cockle recipe ever
The most amazing Cockle recipe everFor those of you who like gathering shellfish, there’s nothing better than coming home with a big bag of fresh cockles. Fortunately, most people who go after shellfish mostly stick to gathering mussels as there are by far the most...
Where to find wild Rabbits
Where to find wild Rabbits For those of you who fancy a hunting trip or just want to do some photography, rabbits are one of the wild animals that you can always count on being close by, even if you never normally see any. Found across most of the world in one...
5 Things to keep in mind when choosing a shelter location
5 Things to keep in mind when choosing a shelter locationBuilding a survival shelter is one of the first things you should think about doing if you are stranded in a survival situation, as they can quickly make the difference between life and death under the right...
How to make leather like they did in the Bronze age
How to make leather like they did in the Bronze AgeLeather is nothing new and has been used since people first learned how to skin animals, presumably tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. But the early types of leather that would have been used by what people...
Tasty stone age animals you just cant buy at the shops anymore
Tasty stone age animals you just can't buy at the shops anymoreLiving in the Stone Age wouldn’t have exactly been fun or easy, with giant cave bears and mountain lions roaming the land and every task you do will be with wooden or stone tools. Everything about life was...
How do Eskimos keep warm?
How do Eskimos keep warm? How do Eskimos keep warm living in the colder areas of the Arctic Circle, where the ground is permanently frozen solid and the average daily temperature is well below freezing? With conditions in the middle of winter often hitting...
What do Amazon tribes eat?
What do Amazon tribes eat? When people think of Amazonian tribes, one thing seems to pop up constantly, and that’s cannibalism, although it has been well documented throughout tribes across the world, it's much rarer than people may think. Tribes within...
Medieval Mortar Recipe
Kelp – The slimy, free beach vegetable and why you should gather it
Gathering Kelp The slimy, free beach vegetable and why you should gather it Kelp is one of the most common types of seaweed and appears all around the coast of Britain, Iceland, South Africa, Australia, and most of the west coast of both North and South...
The best place to forage in South Wales
The best place to forage in South WalesLlansteffanThe south of Wales has some amazing scenery and couldn’t make a better spot to do some foraging, with its large patches of wild garlic and Samphire-covered marshes, it offers a little bit of everything. The best place...
How to gather Razor Clams
How to gather Razor ClamsThe razor clam is one of the tastiest shellfish you can find around British waters and is also the one that seems to be gathered the least. The method of how to gather Razor Clams is a little different to the other shellfish you'll find,...
How to catch shrimp in the UK
How to catch shrimp in the UKCatching shrimp is probably one of the least popular beach foraging activities, well, right after limpet gathering I suppose, but nothing comes close to the satisfaction gained from taking a big bucket of shrimp and cooking it right there...
How to make Hardtack
How to make HardtackThroughout history, dozens of nations produced hardtack as their main staple for long periods of survival. It was a standard army and navy ration for nations across Europe and is recognized as being one of the best survival foods out there. It can...
Crab Catching UK
Crab Catching UKThere is only one type of crab that is worth catching for food around the UK, and that's the Brown Crab. There are a few other types that people eat, such as the smaller shore crab or the larger spider crabs, but these can be hard to gather, and...
What tools did our ancestors use to survive?
What tools did our ancestors use to survive? The Stone Age in Britain ended with the discovery of how to melt copper around the year 3500 BCE, and a few hundred years later people worked out that adding tin to the mixture made bronze. After this stage the...
Arctic survival tips
Arctic survival tipsThe Arctic is classed as anything that lies north of the circle that is 66° north of the equator. It includes seven countries which are Russia, Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden, the United States but only with Alaska, and Denmark but only with their...
What to do if you get frostbite
What to do if you get frostbite (A bad case of Frostbite on the fingers, this may look gruesome but the damage is only on the outer layers of skin so no fingers will be lost) For anyone going into an environment of extreme cold, knowing what to do if you get...
Pemmican recipe – The ultimate survival food
Pemmican recipe – The ultimate survival foodPemmican is widely recognized as the ultimate survival food and can safely last for years if kept in the right conditions. It was the number one trade item between the Native Americans and the settlers for over 100 years and...
How to catch Rabbits with a piece of string
How to catch Rabbits with a piece of stringThe Rabbit snareLearning how to catch rabbits with a piece of string is one of the few things in bushcraft that you shouldn't do unless you have to because they can cause a great deal of suffering to the rabbit before it...
How to gather and cook Acorns
How to gather and cook AcornsThe Acorn is normally something most people consider to be nothing more than an annoying clean-up project, but learning how to gather and cook acorns used to be a common skill, and provided food for our ancestors for thousands of years and...
How to find water in extremely cold climates
How to find water in extremely cold climates The trick isn't how to find water in extremely cold climates, but rather getting it into a liquid form without freezing to death in the process. One thing you should never do is eat snow or swallow pieces of ice...
Trapped in the arctic circle – how long before you should eat your friends?
Trapped in the arctic circleHow long before you should eat your friends? The Arctic Circle is an area within a circle of latitude that is 66° north of the Equator. It includes 7 countries which are Canada, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark but only...
Can you survive in Antarctica?
Can you survive in Antarctica?Antarctica is the 5th biggest continent on Earth and spans an area of 13.66 million km². It is covered in nothing but ice, snow, and rocks, making it the hardest continent to survive on, which is one of the reasons that nobody bothered to...
Should you eat insects in a survival situation?
Should you eat insects in a survival situation?Across the planet, there are millions of people who eat insects and creepy crawlies of all kinds, from a nice flame-grilled tarantula to ant larvae soup. while this may sound strange or disgusting to some people, insects...
Is it possible to survive on a desert island?
Is it possible to survive on a desert island?There are many shows, movies, and books that have been based on the classic view of being stranded on a desert island. Images of people waking up on the beach after their ship wrecked and building a shelter are all too...
Survival Food of the Past
Survival Food of the Past Have you ever wondered what people during medieval times ate when they were on long journeys? or how hunter-gatherers from the stone age managed to survive the winter?, of course you have, so today we're going to look at survival food...
How did our aboriginal ancestors discover iron?
How did our aboriginal ancestors discover Iron? One of the things that fascinates me about bushcraft and survival is how our ancestors discovered new things for the first time and how they made use of them. How did our aboriginal ancestors discover iron is one of the...
What’s the best material to use for waterproofing a survival shelter?
What's the best material to use for waterproofing a survival shelter? A good question as choosing the right material could mean the difference between a good night sleep and waking up every 20 minutes to sort out the small puddle forming under your bed. ...
How to find and identify flint
How to find and identify flintFlint has been popular amongst hunter-gatherers since they first discovered it could be used to make fire. How to find and identify flint was one of the most important skills our ancestors had to learn, being utilized by ancient people...
The best place to practise bushcraft in the UK
The best place to practise Bushcraft in the UKWithout a doubt the best single place to practise your bushcraft skills in the UK is Scotland. There's 2 main reasons for this, first of all it has the tallest mountains and the most remote wilderness, and the second...
What did hunter gatherers eat?
What did hunter-gatherers eat Before diving into exactly what hunter-gatherers ate, it’s important to understand who they were. As the name suggests, a hunter-gatherer is someone who survives by hunting animals and gathering wild plants for food. This lifestyle...