Seriously behind on my blogging now – life has lots of distractions for me at the moment (trying to learn Coding and French to name two). Looking back on my photographic filestore I came across some pictures of a cadet campcraft come bushcraft weekend from last Easter.
Friday
The Sea Cadets were only joining us on the Saturday so the Friday was a relaxed day of set up in the beautiful Pippingford Park in the Ashdown Forest. I was working with my friends Dave, Alan and Jess.
Friday set up
Saturday
The cadets joined us first thing and thankfully brought the breakfast along with them – courtesy of the camp chefs. Then it was straight down to classes such as erecting tents, mapwork and kit. Evening time was spent around the campfire – these introductory campcraft weekends are for some cadets the first time they have ever slept out in the countryside.
Cadet time
After the cadets had bedded down for the night I tried out a little night time photography with my Samsung phone camera – I was surprised that the lens captured all the detail of the tree tops.
Sunday
Early Sunday morning found me with a cup of coffee in my hand – supplied by our very own Warrant Officer – Dave Lewis – not often a Petty Officer receives such an honour – I did think he was after something 🙂
Settling in
Straight after breakfast it was back into class. The cadets covered some First Aid, cooking on stoves, packing kit away and some more nav.
Classes and more classes
A Bit of Bushcraft
While out and about I did come across a Badger Set that was covered in tracks and other sign. The other sign included spotting their latrine and the snuffle marks their snouts leave in the humus layer.
Badger time
There was little in the way of fungus at this time of year except for the big Bracket fungus and the Birch Polypores. I also spent time turning grass into rope and looking out for early buds starting to poke out.
As per usual there was time to have a brew (and gave me an excuse to use my cranes).
Keeping my hand in
It will not be long to the next cadet camps in 2019 however I am told it will be an Advanced Campcraft course in the mountains of North Wales – looking forward to that one.
After the day was finished I was really struck by how many of the skills I practice under the title of bushcraft were being practiced on a daily basis on the Isle of Lewis just a few generations ago
My brother Finlay has been attending Lews Castle College on the Isle of Lewis off and on now for a number of years and I was privileged recently to be asked along for a day to teach him and his fellow students some bushcraft skills. They have a great horticulture area at the college with some impressive greenhouses growing a wide range of plants. Finlay loves working with plants and the college has provided him a good place over the years to develop his skills.
The current course he is attending is called Grow2Work and its aim is to instil a work ethic within the students, giving them confidence and building their self esteem. The students develop a number of skills, such as working as part of a team and following instructions by spending time planting, harvesting vegetables and strimming plants.
A lovely day bushcrafting at my brother’s college
My Grandmother Mary passed away earlier in May this year and while I was up on the island for the funeral my sister Tina had a chat with the course director, John Maclean, and mentioned that I did teaching around wild plants and bushcraft skills. Unknown to me, Tina had volunteered me to do a day’s bushcraft tuition for the whole of Finlay’s class when I was next up at the end of May on holiday to the island with my family.
I found out eventually I was doing the course and so, not really knowing what I was going to do with it, packed an extra bag full of bushcraft and survival kit. I fully expected to have half my kit confiscated at the airport but miraculously the security folk let it all through. If I had been asked to open it up I would have been hard pressed to explain myself.
I had been asked to run the course on the Monday so I managed to do a recce of the castle grounds woodland to find good teaching areas. While I was doing this with the kids my wife Alison ran the Stornoway half marathon. I shot this little video of the day recceing the woods and supporting Alison.
I spent a lot of time as a teenager exploring these woods around the castle and it did feel rather strange to be coming back to teach bushcraft skills in one of the places that my passion for the art started.
Monday morning arrived: I went off to Stornoway with Finlay Mhor (Big Finlay – my brother) and with Finlay Bheag (Little Finlay – my son). I met the rest of Finlay’s class – Murdo, Matthew, Alistair, Josh, Mark, and John – and the tutors John and David. We had a good chat about what we could do and ended up agreeing to spending some time:
making nettle cordage
identifying some of the wild plants growing around the site
setting up a tarp and hammock to learn some bushcraft knots
trying out some different fire lighting techniques
and finally shooting some Atlatl darts in the wood.
There were a few nettles growing around the edges of the gardens so after putting on some gloves I got the guys to pick some to make some cordage. I explained that it was thought the nettle was introduced to the British Isles by the Romans as a method of producing linen or as a method of keeping warm (urtification).
In Scotland historically nettle was used to make scotch cloth; the poet Thomas Campbell wrote in some of his letters, “In Scotland, I have eaten nettles, I have slept in nettle sheets, and I have dined off a nettle tablecloth. The young and tender nettle is an excellent potherb. The stalks of the old nettle are as good as flax for making cloth. I have heard my mother say that she thought nettle cloth more durable than any other species of linen.”
Stripping and prepping the nettles
After picking the nettles the guys stripped off the leaves and crushed all the nodules in the stalks to make them easier to split open. Nettle cordage would have been made on the island in the past as it has been common on the island for centuries. I got the class to split open the stalks of the nettles along the full length of the stems and then pulled out the hard pithy core to leave long strips of the outer nettle fibre.
Splitting the nettles
We then wrapped the nettles into short strips of cordage. The guys liked this as they could see how they could easily make cordage from nettles in their garden if they did not have any modern cordage to hand.
Making some good cordage
After making the nettle cordage we went for a walk up into the woods. On the way we stopped to chat about many of the wild plants growing around the college. One of the common plants was the Silverweed. I explained this plant was a staple food in Scotland prior to the introduction of potatoes in the 1500s and was known as Seachdamh Aran (the Seventh Bread). It was thought that a man could sustain himself for a year on a patch of silverweed the square of his own height. In North Uist during the clearances, homeless folk were said to be living on shellfish and on bread made from dried silverweed roots. A good document on this can be found on the BBC website.
Silverweed – The Seventh Bread
After talking about some other plants including comfrey, thistle and some different types of trees, we set ourselves up a little camp. This was to show the class some of the hammocks and tarps I use when bushcrafting. They were all keen to try out the hammocks. I had brought along two types of hammocks. One was the EDC Chair hammock and the other was the Woodsman hammock. Both hammocks are made by my friend Mat Howes of UK Hammocks. After setting up the hammocks we set up a tarp and practised some knots, including the Evenk, the Tarp Taught and the Clove Hitch.
Hammock time
After lunch it was on with the business of making fire. We had already made fire by using a parabolic mirror earlier that morning using the sun’s rays – not often you can do that on the Isle of Lewis. Although I used a modern mirror this technique has recently been shown to have been used for thousands of years – World’s Oldest Solar Device.
Parabolic Mirror
We decided for safety to light our fires on a patch of concrete within the nursery area (normally I would use raised fire pits for this). I taught the class how to use modern firesteels at first and they soon had sparks going strong.
Firesteel session
My son Finlay got in on the act as well and everyone was able to light up some cotton wool balls in no time. I have to say a big thank you to my wee boy Finlay as he was the perfect student all day, getting stuck in with all the others.
Little Finlay had a go as well
After the cotton wool balls I got the class to catch some sparks onto some char cloth that we then popped into some hay.
First tinder bundle
Everyone was happy when we got that first tinder bundle burning happily.
First flames
After the firesteels it was time to make some Lucky Fire, sometimes known as the Beltane, the Need fire or Forced Fire on the islands. In Gaelic it is called teine eigin (translates as ‘fire from rubbing sticks together’). Bushcrafters normally call this skill the Bowdrill but what is not commonly known is that this method of fire lighting was used in Scotland in some places to light fires up until the middle of the 19th century.
I doubled up with each of the guys to give them a feel for how it worked but due to a lack of time could not teach them to do this on their own. The wood was lovely and dry due to the sunny day and we soon had some good coals going.
Bowdrill teamwork
As we were bowdrilling I explained how this technique had been used on the islands until very recently and it would have been quite likely that some of their recent ancestors had used this technique to light a fire. After getting a few coals we popped one into a tinder bundle and started blowing that into flame.
Final strokes and getting the bundle going
Everyone was keen to be involved in all parts of the process of making fire.
Everyone had a go
Even the boss John got involved and before we knew it we had flame again 🙂
Even the boss John got a go – then we got flames again
As we could not keep the fire going because of the college safety rules all I could do with the class was to explain at this point how they would go about building their fire up so it became self sustaining.
Flamage
The final activity was to get the Atlatl darts out. I could not bring any with me on the plane so I just bought some bamboo canes locally and made flights out of tape. All in all the set cost me about £6.
After a bit of tuition to each pair it was time to do some shooting.
A little bit of Atlatl tuition
In no time they were getting the hang of it. We did though have to move our target (thanks for your ingenuity here John) as some golfers had lost a ball and were searching for it in scrubland near the target.
Boys having fun
I think John is a possible convert to the Atlatl by the look of the concentration on his face.
Some good Atlatl throwing
I really enjoyed teaching my brother Finlay to use the Atlatl.
My brother ready to shoot
In the end they all got the hang of it and were happy to be chucking darts down the range.
Dart away
I must in the end thank my sister Tina and John for arranging this day as I had a fabulous time working with everyone in Finlay’s class.
After the day was finished I was really struck by how many of the skills I practise under the title of bushcraft were being practised on a daily basis on the Isle of Lewis just a few generations ago.
At the end of September last year I was asked to help out at our local church with their open day. This is the 50th post I put on the site and I am glad it it is one of such a good day to mark the occasion.
Our church is the beautiful St James in Bramley Hampshire. It dates back to the twelfth century and is a very family orientated church where my wife Alison is one of the Sunday School leaders.
The church has an annual open day and this year someone (me, more likely than not) had spilled the beans that I taught bushcraft to kids. I was particularly looking forward to this day as I had never taught bushcraft in the grounds of a church before. St James has a small but beautiful churchyard with an area kept aside for meadow flowers. It was in this area (very few flowers because of the time of year) I set up my stance.
A fun day and great location
There were many other activities including face painting, bell ringing and craft stalls and the weather was perfect for the event.
I set up my tipi with a bushcraft loom I had designed in front of it. My plan for the day was to get the kids (and adults) making mats, twisting cordage, bowdrilling and of course taking time out to have a marshmallow or two.
I also had on display some of my carvings (in various stages of completion) for folk to have a look at.
Craft display
I did not have the room to set up an Atlatl or archery range so just had the tools on display.
Primitive tool display
While I was doing this Alison had her hands full all morning painting faces. You will see her handiwork as you go through the pictures.
Face Painting Fun
When I make a bushcraft loom I normally hammer the upright poles into the ground then string it up. In a churchyard, though, I thought that may not be the best course of action. I devised a loom out of some sycamore rods that I could set up just with a few guy lines. This proved an interesting experiment for me and I documented each step in its construction and its use so I will post a How To…. on making one soon.
The loom proved a great success, keeping kids and adults happily occupied while I got on with other classes. These looms can be time consuming to set up (ask my sister Tina – she used to be a Harris Tweed weaver) but will keep kids occupied for ages with minimal adult input.
Bushcraft mat-making set up
As per usual a queue quickly developed for bowdrilling. It may look like I am doing most of the work but I really do make the young ones work for that ember. I find the more effort they put into it, the bigger the smile when they get that flame.
Bowdrill sessions
You can really see them getting into it here.
Bowdrill was one of the day’s mainstays
Once the ember is strong it is popped into a tinder bundle and the kids take turn blowing it into flame. I wish I had had the opportunity as a small child to do this – I had to wait until I was a big child instead 🙂
Group effort in fire making – Spot Daffy Duck?
After a bit of coaching some adults decided to give the bowdrill a go themselves or with the help of some of their family. This gave me a chance to get on with other things.
Single bowdrill lessons with the families helping out
Not all bowdrill but covered the hand drill for a little while as well.
Some Handrill lessons
With all the tinder bundles the kids put together we were able to keep a little fire going at the back of the graveyard where we got some marshmallows toasting – who can say they have had a toasted marshmallow in a graveyard before?
Time for marshmallows
In amongst all this one of the young lads found himself a little frog in the long grass and proudly showed it to everyone. Afterwards he found a quiet spot to put him back in the long grass.
Found a little friend
We just did a little bit of cordage-making using nettles to make some bracelets – not everyone is into bowdrilling (cannot think why!!)
Cordage making for bracelets
The mat-making carried on throughout the morning with kids and adults coming and going. Karen stepped up and organised this well with the kids to produce a lovely mat.
The mat-making class was always on the go
As we finished up I cut the mat from the loom and hung it from the branch of the yew tree. There it hung for a couple of months: the flowers faded, the grasses dried out but the whole mat stayed together in some pretty strong winds.
The end of a great day
I am looking forward to this year’s event and will be working on improving the loom set up.
