The woodlore fundamental bushcraft course is an immersive journey into the ‘go anywhere’ core skills of wilderness survival. This highly informative and inspirational week eases the transition into wilderness living and equips you with a fully rounded and balanced understanding of how to survive in the wild.
Learn how to use a knife safely, identify woodland plants and their uses, build simple shelters and traditional fire lighting, plus outdoor cooking. Check out advanced bushcraft course for more info.
Basic skills
Whether you’re slicing feathersticks for fire starter or batoning wood for efficient kindling, these basic skills will allow you to live comfortably in nature. Moreover, they will strengthen your connection with the natural world.
You can acquire many of these skills by yourself, although you should consider joining a bushcraft course for more practical learning. These courses offer a comprehensive immersion in the cornerstone skills and knowledge. They also have a high instructor-to-student ratio.
A wilderness bushcraft course requires you to apply key skills in context, allowing you to understand the freedoms and limitations of living more directly dependent on nature. It’s a chance to reconnect with your primal instincts and rediscover the wilderness in a safe and controlled manner. You’ll also learn lifelong skills that will allow you to thrive in the untamed wilderness.
Shelter
When it comes to bushcraft, learning how to build a shelter is one of the most important skills you can have. This is because a shelter can protect you from the elements and keep you warm, so it’s essential to know how to build one.
The first step is to find a suitable spot for your shelter. You should aim to find a flat spot, away from streams and bodies of water. You should also try to avoid places where there is heavy insect activity.
The next step is to make a fire pit. This can be made from stones or logs that you have foraged. It’s best to find these beforehand so that you don’t have to do it while you’re building your shelter.
Cooking
Whether you are camping for the weekend or more permanently this bushcraft campfire cooking course will give you the skills and confidence to prepare tasty, filling and wonderful meals. The techniques taught are scalable, which means that they work across many environments – from snowy forests to deserts.
The water section of this course is particularly extensive, and teaches a range of failsafe protocols for purifying drinking water in different environmental conditions. As two-thirds of the world’s freshwater is unsafe to drink, this is a crucial skill to have.
Our online Elementary Wilderness Bushcraft course is an excellent introduction to wilderness survival skills and bushcraft. It consists of professionally-filmed and edited instructional videos, as well as interactive presentations with diagrams and texts. The presentations are easy to follow and complement the videos well, providing a full learning experience.
Navigation
Navigating is a critical survival skill that allows us to safely explore the wilderness in a variety of environments. It is also a crucial tool for hunters, hikers and military personnel.
This course teaches the fundamental skills of navigation using a map and compass. This includes orienting the compass to read topographic maps, taking bearings and triangulating locations. It covers the use of UTM, Lat & Long and Township & Range coordinate systems.
Experience the thrill of surviving in an unspoiled natural setting with this outdoor adventure. Embark on an epic journey through the wild 560-acre Pearl Island archipelago, where you’ll build resilience and enhance survival skills in a setting featured on Bear Grylls’ ‘The Island’.
Knots
There are many knots out there with fancy sailor-sounding names and lingo, and while they can look impressive, you really only need a handful to get the job done. The bowline for example is an excellent anchor knot that doesn’t slip and can be easily undone after being pulled tight – unlike the clove hitch or double figure 8 which you would need to cut or spend hours with pliers trying to loosen.
From winter bushcraft courses to day workshops that bond families, there’s something for everyone looking to explore the wild and build essential wilderness skills. There are even courses centred around axe skills for those wanting to delve into traditional woodland crafts. For those who want to learn more, the Intermediate Wilderness Bushcraft Course builds on basic techniques and takes them to a whole new level.
