At its most basic, bushcraft is having the skill and knowledge to survive in the natural environment without modern conveniences or technology.
If you love shows like “Naked and Afraid,” that’s a peek at what we’re talking about, but it’s more than just a reality show fantasy. Bushcrafters have lifesaving skills that can help them survive if and when the SHTF or when stepping away from the trappings of modern society.
If you feel overwhelmed about where to start, this guide will cover the three essentials that will get you through a night in the wild, whether you’re lost, camping, or testing your beginner’s skills before diving into more advanced techniques.
Learn these skills and you’ll be well on your way to starting your bushcraft adventures.
1. Shelter Building in All Seasons
The type of shelter you’ll need in a summer rain shower will differ greatly from the kind that will protect you during a deep winter snowstorm. As such, one of the most important bushcraft skills to learn is how to build a shelter for yourself that’ll actually protect you.
Remember the rule of three when it comes to survival: you can survive serious injuries for about three minutes, three hours without shelter from the elements, three days without water, and three weeks without food.
This is why learning how to build effective shelters is so important: keeping your core temperature warm and your body dry will keep you alive in an emergency situation.
When it comes to making shelters for all seasons, it’s important to learn how to use the materials around you properly and the best and worst places to set up camp.
The nicest shelter in the world isn’t going to do you much good if you position it in a low-lying area that’s prone to flooding. As for materials, carrying tents and tarps with you is ideal, but if those are damaged or lost, you need to learn how to create different types of shelters with what’s available to you.
The most common ones include:
- Lean-to: This is the easiest shelter, consisting of three walls with one open side. It can be constructed quickly and easily with logs, conifer branches, bark, mud, or snow.
- A-frame: Often called a “double lean-to,” it’s triangular in shape, sheltered on both sides, and supported by a central ridge pole.
- Fallen tree: I love these shelters, as you can get super creative with them. When trees fall, their roots create nest-like hollows that are ideal for crawling into. Use these root networks as supports for branches and nestle into them as closely as you can.
- Dugout: As you may have gleaned from the name, a dugout shelter is one that’s literally dug out from the ground. It’s subterranean and often carved into a hillside.
Learn which shelters are ideal for which types of weather and how to construct them quickly and easily.
2. How to Find and Purify Drinking Water
You can survive for quite a while without food, but you’ll only survive a few days without water. As such, learning where and how to find drinking water is absolutely vital as part of your bushcraft skills set.
It’s best to consult maps ahead of time, so you have an idea of where said water may be found, but observing animal activity can also be beneficial.
For example, redwing blackbirds are usually found near fresh water, so keep an eye out for them when you’re in the wild. Similarly, multiple sets of tracks from several animal species often indicate a freshwater source nearby. If you’ve done your research ahead of time, you can also look for landmarks that indicate a freshwater mountain spring.
Depending on where you are, there may be alternate water sources available. For instance, you can tap some cacti for their water reserves or use plastic bags to collect water from plant respiration. Rainwater catchment can also work, as can melting snow.
You’ll need to boil and/or filter any water you come across in the wild unless you want to potentially suffer from some truly horrible gastro issues like Giardiasis (aka “beaver fever”). Even though rainwater or snow may seem clean, purify it to be on the safe side.
3. Firewood Cutting and Processing
Anyone who’s going to spend a fair bit of time outdoors should learn how to cut and process firewood properly. It’s a skill that you’ll come back to over and over.
This goes hand in hand with plant and tree identification, as you’ll be able to save yourself a lot of heart (and back) aches if you can identify different types of wood and trees. Some wood is even poisonous if burnt. So, add studying plant identification to your skillset.
For example, if you’re keen to build a fire and you cut down a young alder tree, you’re going to have a horrible time trying to get that lit.
The wood from alder trees needs to be well seasoned (aged) in order to burn well, and even once dried, alder has a very low heat output. If you don’t know how to identify these trees in the wild, you may be in for a chilly, damp night spent fighting a piddly fire that won’t catch.
Similarly, you’ll need to learn how to buck, split, and chop different types of wood effectively. There are right and wrong ways to use axes and hatchets to cut firewood, and learning how to use them properly may save you a trip to the E.R. to deal with a nasty shin laceration.
Chat with local experts, take a class, watch YouTuve videos, and read our guides to splitting wood and stacking and caring of chopped wood. Then, get out there and practice in your backyard before heading out into the wild.
If you’d like to study up on tree identification, grab a book like the National Audobon’s Trees of North America from Amazon. It’s a great place to start and then you can move on to more advanced techniques.
4. How to Build and Maintain a Fire
Whether you’re aiming to cook a full meal or simply stay warm overnight, learning how to build and maintain a fire outdoors is one of the most important bushcraft skills to cultivate.
There are good and bad ways to build a fire, and if you don’t use the right kindling or stack your wood effectively, you may end up with a piddly, barely smoldering thing that won’t offer much light, let alone heat.
Learn how to build different types of fires safely and effectively with different types of woods, as well as how to extinguish them properly. Softwoods from evergreens (pine, spruce, fir, etc.) are great for getting a fire started, but they aren’t going to burn well.
You can use these as kindling along with strips of paper birch to get your fire going, but you’ll need to switch over to drier hardwood (oak, maple, cherry, hickory) for a hot, bright, sustainable fire.
The blazing fire you use to keep warm won’t be as ideal for long cooking times, so do plenty of research, watch various tutorials, and experiment safely (e.g. without setting the forest on fire) so you know what you’re doing well before you go off into the wild.
5. Outdoor Cooking Techniques
Just because you’re a whiz in the kitchen doesn’t mean those techniques will translate well to outdoor cooking. If you’d like to eat more than power bars and trail mix when you’re out in the woods, add outdoor cooking techniques to the list of bushcraft skills to learn.
These cooking techniques will include:
- Cooking over open flames as well as in the embers
- Using flat rocks such as slate as cooking surfaces
- Preparing spits, kebabs, and grilling lattices
- Smoking
- Pit cooking
- Using cauldrons or dutch ovens
Of course, this list simply involves different cooking methods when you’re outdoors. Just as important is knowing which wild foods to combine for optimal tastiness. Pick up a book such as Foraging & Feasting by Dina Falconi so you can experiment with different ingredients you’re likely to come across in your area.
Would you rather have plain grilled fish? Or fish with a tasty wild garlic and pine nut pesto served with sunchoke, burdock, and nettle soup?
Knowing how to prepare and work with locally available wild ingredients is one of those bushcraft skills that can mean the difference between surviving and thriving.
As part of your education, visit our guide to success with cooking over an open flame and our guide to survival cooking.
6. How to Use a Map and Compass Effectively
We touched upon this in our article on essential bushcraft tools, but it’s worth reiterating. Having a map and compass with you is wonderful, but will be of absolutely no use to you if you don’t know how to read and follow them correctly.
Although many of us were taught the basics of how to read a topographic map back in high school geography classes, that doesn’t mean we retained this knowledge.
While you’re expanding and honing your bushcraft skills, learn how to read maps so you understand what the different marks and squiggles mean on them.
While you’re at it, learn how to use a compass effectively, as well as how to orient yourself with your map. Practice this many times until you’re comfortable with it, well before heading off over grass and under stone.
7. Navigating Without Tools
It’s wonderful to know how to use a map and compass, but what happens if they get lost or damaged? Learning how to find your way around without these handy tools is another one of those bushcraft skills that may come in handy when you least expect it.
This is where astronomy and geography come in handy.
Familiarize yourself with the stars and constellations in your area and which times of the year they’re easily seen. With the exception of Polaris, the North Star, you won’t be able to see the same ones in June as you will in December.
Unlike many other stars that slosh around in the sky depending on seasonal planetary rotation, Polaris remains fixed. This star is close to Earth’s rotational axis, and since it always indicates true north, it’s been used as a navigational reference point for thousands of years.
If you can learn to recognize this star and align yourself with it accordingly, you’ll always be able to find north no matter where you are on the planet.
You can also navigate by the sun, which will always rise in the east and set in the west. Learn to use your hand to tell how much time you’ll have before the sun sets so you aren’t caught unprepared in the dark.
Finally, learn how to use and set landmarks for yourself so you don’t walk around in circles, lost and dismayed.
Set out to master chopping wood, starting and cooking on fires, and navigation, and you’ll be well on your way to mastering the necessary bushcraft skills you need to survive.
