By Daniel Stables /13th March 2023/ BBC.com
Increasing numbers of people around the world are taking to woodlands and wildernesses to learn ancient survival skills and rekindle a lost connection with the natural world.
“So – what do you think’s going to kill you first?” said Original Outdoors instructor Richard Prideaux, with the hint of a smile. “Starvation’s a few weeks down the track. Water’s not a problem – there’s a river down there. But hypothermia, yes. That’s a possibility on a night like tonight.” He looked up at the brittle winter sky, clouded only by wisps of breath. “Yep,” he said. “We’re gonna freeze.”
It was mid-January, and I was standing in a woodland near the Welsh market town of Ruthin with a grubby backpack at my feet. I would be joining the increasing numbers of people in Britain and worldwide taking to woodlands and wildernesses to learn ancient survival skills – foraging food, making fire, building a shelter – to rekindle a lost connection with the natural world. Tonight was set to be the coldest night of the year; beyond the ash and birch trees, the humps of the Clywdian Hills were dusted with snow. My first survival experience would be a baptism of ice.
Human beings are extinct in the wild. The majority of us would be clueless in a true survival situation, having been coddled and cosseted by the comforts of civilisation. Cloistered away in our homes and offices, with fresh water at the turn of a tap, warmth at the touch of a button and food delivered to our doors, we have lost touch with the natural rhythms and resources that keep us alive. The acquisition and practice of survival skills seeks to redress this imbalance, and it has a name: bushcraft.
“With camping, you’re just existing in an outdoor environment,” Prideaux said, as we set off into the woods in search of edible mushrooms. “Bushcraft is about interacting with it in a meaningful way; knowing where your break points are with the environment.”
With camping, you’re just existing in an outdoor environment; bushcraft is about interacting with it in a meaningful way
Take mushrooms, for example. There are more than 100 edible species in the UK, but many are easily confused with near-identical ones, several of which are easily poisonous enough to end a human life. Was that a delicious chanterelle I could see sprouting amid the heather, or its doppelgänger the deadly webcap?