My Passion
My friend Kev Newton of https://www.aussiesurvivalinstructors.com has pushed me to consider the difference between camping and bushcraft. Sure, there are overlaps in the Venn diagram, but Kev is right - camping and bushcraft are not interchangeable words as if they mean exactly the same thing. Many, if not most, bushcrafters “camp,” but certainly not all campers “bushcraft.”
While acknowledging the difference, I do not want to get bogged down in labels, for even within their respective categories there are those who quibble. I accuse myself of having said - no less thought - that somebody in a RV “isn’t really camping.” Yet, perhaps age does cultivate wisdom, as I no longer concern myself with how other people enjoy “camping” and simply delight in their being outside doing “stuff.”
No doubt, I absolutely am a camper, but am I really a bushcrafter? I certainly posses many bushcraft skills, as they are commonly understood, but the fact remains that I do very little crafting, which is so essential to bushcraft that “craft” is half of the word itself. Nevertheless, there is one aspect of bushcraft that I am very passionate about…
Recently, at a local municipal campground full of RV’s, a friend of mine, John, went to his RV, grabbed a bottle of lighter fluid, a canister of propane, and a flamethrower attachment and proceeded to light a campfire. Fire is so incredibly primal that an argument could be made that mastering fire is an essential characteristic of humanity - that our ability to conjure fire is the sine qua non that separates us from the animal kingdom or elevates us from it. Whether we do what John did or we use more primitive methods, firecraft is a part of our human DNA, and inasmuch as I am passionate about firecraft, I believe that I can in some way consider myself to be a bushcrafter, for what is “bushcraft,” anyway, if not simply getting in tune with knowledge, skills, and resources that run deep into our evolution as a species? For most people throughout history there was no special word for “bushcraft” - it was just everyday life. It is only in an era where technology has advanced more in the past 100 years than the previous 100,000 that we need such a word; it is only in a world where technology has advanced faster than we as humans have that something so basic is, for so many people, seen as a novel skill rather than an essential part of everyday life - though the most many people do to start a fire is press a button on their stove!
Therefore, while I enjoy my bushcraft style of camping as a recreational activity, I cannot get away from firecraft as something more than mere recreation. It not only feeds my soul, but it reminds me of what it means to be fully human - to be, as St. Irenaeus said, “man fully alive.”
“The glory of God is the living man.”
Is this bushcraft or “just” camping???