Bushcraft Beneath Our Feet: Going Beyond The Typical

For a long time I thought Bushcraft was mostly about forests, carving tools, shelters, and fire making. I kept thinking I needed to travel somewhere far away to learn the deeper skills I was searching for.

What I did not realize was that I was already standing in the middle of another form of Bushcraft here in the Southwest.

Over the last few days I have been working closely with Mildred from the Tiwa language and culture program at the Taos Day School. She has spent years teaching youth and helping build hornos, passing on knowledge through direct experience instead of books or videos. Working beside her has changed how I think about Bushcraft completely.

Bushcraft is not just about wood.

It is about learning to work with the materials of your environment. Here in the Southwest that means clay, dirt, straw, stone, water, and heat. Earth itself becomes shelter, cookware, insulation, and community.

While helping repair and shape hornos, something obvious finally clicked in my brain. I have spent years fascinated by primitive pottery and survival skills, yet never fully connected the fact that if you need bowls and you have clay, then you can simply make your own bowls.

That is Bushcraft.

Not fantasy. Not gear obsession. Not consuming endless videos online. Real Bushcraft is solving human problems with the materials around you.

The Southwest has its own ancient technology and wisdom. Hornos, pottery, earth building, and clay work are just as much Bushcraft as carving a spoon in a northern forest. Maybe more, because these skills fed and connected entire communities for generations.

Sometimes the knowledge you are searching for is not somewhere far away.

Sometimes it is already beneath your feet. In another post, I will specifically write about the genius of hornos.

Following the Grain: How I got into wood carving

 

When I was a kid, there was a movie about a boy who carved a small wooden man in a canoe and set it into a mountain stream. It was called, Paddle to the Sea.

The figure traveled all the way to the city, following rivers, lakes, and hidden waterways. I don’t remember every detail of the film, but I remember the feeling. The idea that something made by hand could move through the world on its own, guided by gravity and terrain, not by control.

That image stayed with me.

Years later, when I went to art school, I tried to move in the opposite direction. I wanted discipline. I wanted lineage. I trained myself as a painter, drawn to post-Impressionists and Renaissance masters, and eventually to Michelangelo’s sculpture. I focused on rendering, anatomy, proportion—learning how to see accurately and reproduce what I saw. I worked hard at the craft of art and reached a high level of technical control.

At the same time, something else was happening. I was hiking in nature for the first time in my life. Spending long hours in the mountains. Doing hallucinogens. Letting the edges soften. And I found myself pulled again and again toward work that was rougher, more immediate—natural forms, instinctive marks, the kind of punk-rock energy that refuses polish. People sometimes call it naïve art, though that word never quite fits.

What I struggled with was honesty. How do you let work be simple without pretending to be untrained? How do you avoid faking naïveté once you’ve spent years learning technique? That tension followed me everywhere. In studios. On trails. In my own head. There is a famous Picasso quote that perfectly sums this up: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

One day, walking toward the mountains near an apple orchard in New Paltz, New York, I noticed a piece of wood lying on the side of the road. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t precious. But it stopped me. I picked it up, and something clicked. I started carving.

Not as a project. Not as a statement. Just responding to the material. Following the grain. Letting the form suggest itself instead of imposing an idea onto it. I carved on and off over the years, slowly, quietly. That thread eventually led me to Taos, to totem carving, to all the small objects that come from listening rather than forcing.

Carving did something that drawing and painting never fully did for me. It removed the illusion of control. Wood pushes back. It splits. It resists. It demands attention. You can’t fake your way through it for long. The knife tells the truth.

The other day, walking along the road, I saw another piece of wood. Just sitting there. And instantly I was back in New Paltz, back at that first moment by the orchard. Same feeling in the body. Same quiet excitement. The sense that the material already knows something, and my job is simply to pay attention.

I don’t start with a plan anymore. I don’t need the object to be anything in particular. I’m interested in what the wood reveals, not what I want it to become.

Maybe that’s what stuck with me from that childhood story. Not the carved figure or the canoe, but the idea of release. Make something carefully. Set it into the current. Let the land finish the work.

Working in a Native American Community and Chronic Disease Prevention

A large part of my work is chronic disease prevention within a Native American community. What I have learned, both professionally and personally, is that many modern conveniences are a major driver of chronic disease. This is not a rejection of technology. It is a recognition of its cost.

Comfort, efficiency, and labor-saving tools often remove the very movements and stresses that kept human bodies resilient for thousands of years. In the process, we often throw the baby out with the bathwater. Traditional ways of knowing and older methods of living were not primitive. They were refined through lived experience, long before technology insulated us from consequence.

Working for a Native American tribe has given me the rare opportunity to see this firsthand. I see the struggle many Native people face as traditional lifeways collide with modern systems that reward convenience but quietly undermine health. I also recognize this struggle in my own family history. My father was a craftsman in the 1960s, deeply committed to making things by hand. He battled large corporations, mass production, and a culture that increasingly valued speed and profit over integrity and craft. Balancing those worlds is not easy.

There are certainly areas where technology is beneficial and even necessary. But labor-saving does not always mean health-saving. Often it means the opposite.

A simple example is wood processing. If you are cutting down massive trees all day, a chainsaw is the right tool. But if you are splitting your own firewood for home use, replacing physical work with a machine removes an important form of functional movement. Swinging an axe is not just about efficiency. It builds strength, coordination, timing, and endurance. When you outsource that work to a motor, you lose more than calories burned.

The same pattern shows up with footwear. Modern shoes are a form of technology. Highly cushioned, rigid, and expensive running shoes often weaken the feet rather than protect them. Minimal shoes or barefoot movement strengthens the foot, improves balance, and reconnects the body to the ground. Weak feet contribute to ankle, knee, hip, and even back problems. This is not theoretical. It is a biomechanical reality.

Back pain offers another clear example. Sitting for long periods weakens the glutes and the posterior chain. When those muscles atrophy, they stop doing their job. The body compensates elsewhere, and pain follows. This is not a mystery. It is the predictable outcome of removing movement from daily life.

All of this ties directly to an idea I once wrote about called the inner accountant. The body is efficient. If you do not use a muscle, it does not maintain it. That efficiency keeps us alive in harsh conditions, but it works against us in a world designed to minimize effort. When movement is optional, the body assumes it is unnecessary.

This is where indigenous ways of knowing matter. They are not nostalgic. They are practical systems that embed movement, effort, and skill into daily life. Tai chi, bushcraft, traditional food preparation, walking, carrying, lifting, and working with the hands all serve the same purpose. They keep the body honest.

The unifying idea is simple. Health is not created in the gym. It is created through daily interaction with the world. When technology removes that interaction, disease fills the gap.

The old ways were not anti-progress. They were pro-resilience. And in a time of chronic disease, they may be exactly what we need to remember.

From a chronic disease prevention perspective, tai chi and bushcraft address the same root problem: the gradual removal of meaningful movement from daily life. Conditions like diabetes, joint degeneration, chronic pain, and balance loss are not simply the result of poor choices; they are the predictable outcome of lives structured around comfort and efficiency. Tai chi restores coordination, balance, joint integrity, and nervous system regulation in a low-impact, accessible way. Bushcraft restores strength, load tolerance, and confidence through real, purposeful work. Together, they rebuild the physical capacities that modern life erodes—without requiring gyms, machines, or high-risk intensity. This is why these practices are not alternatives to public health efforts; they are foundational to them. They quietly reintroduce the kinds of movement, attention, and self-reliance that once prevented chronic disease before it needed to be treated.

The Difference Between Bushcraft and Survival That Nobody Talks About

I love bushcraft. I love the skill, the patience it demands, and the quiet satisfaction of making something useful with my hands. Carving spoons, reading grain, refining cuts, learning how wood responds to pressure and edge. It is deeply human work, and it feeds something important in me.

But over time, I have started to notice a difference between bushcraft and survival that nobody talks about.

Bushcraft can quietly let you forget your body. Bushcraft is highly skill-based. When you are good at it, efficiency replaces effort. Problems get solved with technique instead of strain. That is part of what makes it so enjoyable. You can work for hours in a focused, almost meditative state, feeling productive and grounded, without ever pushing your heart rate or demanding much from your legs or lungs.

The human body, though, is brutally honest. It only maintains what it needs. Muscle costs calories. Cardiovascular capacity costs calories. If those systems are not regularly demanded, the body lets them go. I have written about your inner accountant here. 

I noticed this very clearly recently. Over the past month, I carved about a dozen spoons. Long sessions. Deep focus. A lot of joy in the work. During that same stretch, I skipped hiking. When I finally went back out on the trail, the feedback was immediate. My legs felt weaker than they should have. My breathing was shorter. My lung capacity was not where it had been. Nothing dramatic, nothing injured. Just the body reminding me of what I had stopped asking it to do.

This is not a criticism of bushcraft. I respect it deeply, and I will never give it up. But I am also sixty years old, and do not have time to confuse skill with readiness.

When people talk about survival, they usually jump straight to extremes. Getting lost in the woods. Accidents. Severe weather. Emergency preparedness. Civil unrest. All of that matters, but it tends to distract from a more basic truth.

Survival is not primarily a craft problem. It is a capacity problem.

Before you can build a shelter, you have to reach the site. Before you can make a serious fire, you have to process and move fuel. Before you can help a downed hiker, you have to move your own body under stress, often while cold, tired, and scared.

Skill matters, but skill alone does not override emergencies. Cardiovascular capacity and muscular strength do.

Bushcraft often happens in controlled conditions. There is time. There is comfort. There is room to work slowly and beautifully. Survival rarely offers that. It shows up when conditions are bad and decisions are rushed, when everything in your body wants to stop or seek comfort.

That is why it is so easy to fall into the trap of beautiful work. You can spend hours carving a spoon, improving your technique, and feeling productive, while slowly letting go of the systems that actually keep you alive when things go sideways.

Cardio is not romantic. Cold-weather hiking is not cozy. High elevation effort does not feel meditative at first. When it is cold and snowy, and the wind is up, every signal in your body says to stay inside and be comfortable. That is exactly why it matters.

For me, the best cardio is getting out on a trail and pushing myself. Sometimes gently, sometimes hard. Sometimes, when I really do not want to go. That is not punishment. It is maintenance.

The same blind spot exists in tai chi. Tai chi is beautiful. It opens the body, sharpens awareness, and calms the nervous system. It is essential work. But if tai chi replaces cardio and strength instead of complementing them, you end up cultivating sensitivity without capacity. You feel more, but you can do less.

That is not balance.

The real relationship is simpler than people make it. Bushcraft, survival, tai chi, and fitness are not competing philosophies. They feed each other, but only if one is not allowed to replace the other.

Bushcraft refines skill.
Tai chi refines perception.
Cardio and strength maintain your ability to act.

Survival demands all of it.

If you had to reduce preparedness to one question, it would not be about tools or techniques. It would be this.

Can you move when it matters?

Everything else is secondary.

Carve the spoon. Practice the form. Enjoy the craft. Just do not skip the trail.

Because skill without capacity is comfort, and comfort is the first thing survival takes away.

A Man Caught in a Cultural Shift ( how I now see my father's life and death)

 

In the early 1960s, my father was an adopter of two things that would later become mainstream and then commodified: marijuana and crafts. He made handmade leather goods to sell. Items like jackets, bags, belts, and one small item in particular stand out in my memory: a leather pouch he called a pot stash. Bushcraft people today would recognize it as a kind of possibles bag, but his was made for weed, not flint and steel.

He was a deeply curious and active thinker. His shelves held books on Hinduism, Daoism, shelter building, and design. He was immersed in graphic design and interior design, always thinking visually, structurally, philosophically. Craft for him was not just making things. It was his worldview, identity, and resistance all rolled into one package.

During the hippie era, handmade goods were a reaction against the industrial machine of the United States. Making something with your hands was a statement of integrity. It said, "I am not just a consumer. I belong to a lineage older than factories."

But cultures shift.

When John Lennon was killed, something changed. When yuppie culture emerged, money, status, and ambition were polished into a uniform; my father cut his hair and tried to follow along. He began chasing financial success instead of craftsmanship. He leased a Mercedes-Benz. He opened a business in Manhattan that combined antiques with modern design. His heart was not fully in it, and he did not truly understand the game he was playing.

The business failed. He lost our family home. That collapse sent me down a difficult path of my own.

After that, he drank hard. He smoked heavily. Somewhere along the way, he lost his center.

For a long time, I carried resentment toward him. But now I see his life differently. I see him as someone crushed by a cultural transition he could not metabolize.

I think about early human stone tool makers that had mastered flint knapping and who understood the language of stone. Then copper arrives. Some adapt. Some do not. Some love the stone too much. They do not disappear because they lack skill. They disappear because the world moves on without caring what they were good at.

My father lived through a similar shift. Handmade leather goods were once a countercultural strength. Later, it became nostalgia, and then fashion. Then mass-produced again. Some people rode those waves successfully. Others never recovered.

He had three kids. And maybe handmade leather jackets were not the safest way to support a family under that kind of pressure. I understand that now. I have compassion where I once had judgment.

What is tragic is that not long after, handmade leather jackets came back into fashion. And even today, the bushcraft and mountain man movements never really disappeared. There has always been a quiet current of people who value hand skills, wood, steel, fire, and shelter. He could have found a way to stay rooted in his strengths. He almost did. But he did not trust them enough to endure the lean years.

That is the part that still hurts.

When I graduated high school, I wanted to be a famous painter more than anything. If there had been a devil offering a deal, I would have signed it. Instead, I took a different risk. I hitchhiked across the United States and found Taos. That changed everything.

Taos gave me space to keep my hands busy and my spirit intact. I found wood carving. I found bushcraft. I found Tai Chi. Those practices became ways of staying honest. Ways of keeping my soul tethered to something real. I still carve wood today. I am not successful as a seller. But I am still carving away. Ironically, when I arrived in Taos, I found a strong culture of sheepskin and leather goods makers. 

My father didn't have the vision or faith to look elsewhere. That is where I feel the lineage split and also where it reconnects.

My father lost his way because he could not identify what truly mattered to him as a human being. He believed money would restore meaning. It did not. He died early as a result of his drinking and smoking.

I do not tell this story to judge him. I tell it because I understand him now. He was not weak. He was displaced.

And maybe what I am doing, carving wood, practicing tai chi, and walking instead of running, is my way of staying on the narrow ridge he fell from. Not chasing success at the expense of integrity. Not abandoning craft when culture devalues it. Learning, slowly, to measure life not by applause or profit, but by whether I can still recognize myself in the work of my hands.

Humans Need Something to Do With Their Hands

 

Depression and anxiety are often talked about as personal failures or chemical imbalances that need to be corrected. But I think there’s another layer that rarely gets enough attention. For nearly all of human history, people were occupied for most of their waking hours with physical, tangible work. We grew food. We hunted. We built shelters. We made tools. We repaired what broke. Our survival depended on daily engagement with the physical world.

That reality has changed radically in a very short span of time. In the last fifty years, large portions of the population no longer need to do much with their bodies or their hands to survive. Yet paradoxically, we are more mentally overstimulated and stressed than ever.

I notice this very clearly in my own life. When I am the most anxious or depressed, it is almost always when I am sitting still, mentally spinning. My mind starts running endless scenarios, what-ifs, regrets, and imagined futures. None of it is productive. None of it is grounded. It’s just noise.

The moment I pick up a craft, something changes.

When I start carving wood, cooking, fixing something, or engaging in physical movement, the mental clutter quiets down. My attention narrows. The hands take over. The mind no longer has the bandwidth to spiral. It isn’t forced into silence; it is occupied.

Occupation as Regulation

This isn’t about productivity or hustle. It’s about regulation. Humans evolved to regulate their nervous systems through physical engagement with the world. Making, moving, lifting, shaping, walking, tending. These activities give the mind a place to rest because attention has somewhere to go.

I often think about autoimmune disease as a loose metaphor here. In overly sterile environments, the immune system sometimes loses its appropriate targets and begins attacking the body itself. I am not saying all autoimmune disease works this way, or that everyone with autoimmune illness is idle. But I do think the pervasiveness of sterile, low-engagement environments has consequences for biological systems that evolved in a very different context.

The mind may not be that different.

When it has nothing meaningful to do, it often turns inward and begins attacking itself. Rumination, self-criticism, catastrophic thinking. Not because the person is weak, but because the system is under-used in the way it evolved to function.

A World That Doesn’t Need You, But Still Stresses You

We now live in a strange contradiction. The world does not require much from our bodies, yet it demands constant mental vigilance. Emails. Deadlines. News cycles. Financial anxiety. Abstract stress with no physical outlet.

Unless you have Zen-level mental discipline, this is a brutal setup.

I wish my mind were strong enough to simply will its way through this. I do believe that kind of training is possible, and I work toward it. But I also think it’s important to be honest about what humans actually need. For most of history, we didn’t meditate our way out of stress. We worked it out through physical engagement.

We whittled. We cooked. We built. We repaired. I honestly don’t know if there has ever been a time when humans weren’t doing this, until now.

Keeping Your Head Together

This isn’t about the root cause of depression. It isn’t about dismissing therapy, medication, or deeper psychological work. It’s about something much more basic.

Keeping yourself occupied in a tangible way is a form of mental hygiene.

Using your hands calms the mind. Moving the body organizes attention. Making something creates feedback, satisfaction, and a sense of completion that abstract tasks rarely provide. Sometimes that turns into gifts. Sometimes it turns into skills. Occasionally, it even turns into a career. But that’s not the point.

The point is simpler.

Staying human in a world that increasingly asks you to be disembodied requires intention. Craft and physical activity are not hobbies in that context. They are stabilizers. They are ways of staying sane. They are ways of keeping your head together.

And for a species that evolved by doing, there might not be a better way to stay grounded.

Carving a Spoon and the Importance of Listening

Spoon carving has taught me a lot about balance—specifically, the balance between direction and intent.

When you decide to carve a spoon, certain things are non-negotiable. It needs a cavity. It has to fit comfortably in the mouth. It has to feel good in the hand. It needs to be light enough to use, not clunky or awkward. In that sense, form really does follow function. There are clear outcomes that have to be met.

But within those constraints, there’s another force at work: the wood itself.

Most of the time, I don’t get to choose the “ideal” carving wood. I work with what I have access to. Right now, that’s Siberian elm, a beautiful but stubborn wood that doesn’t shave easily and doesn’t forgive mistakes. It doesn’t like symmetry. It doesn’t like being forced. Because of that, I have to compromise my original vision. I have to let go of perfection. The grain, the knots, the tension in the fibers all start to dictate the direction.

The wood tells you how it wants to be carved, if you’re willing to listen.

That’s one reason I don’t always connect with highly detailed carvings made from very soft, cooperative woods. They can be impressive, even technically masterful, but when the material is so malleable that you can impose anything onto it, something gets lost. My preference is to work in collaboration with the material, not domination over it. I like hearing what the wood has to say.

What’s interesting is how closely this mirrors the way I like working with people—especially kids.

I don’t believe in dictating outcomes or forcing people into a shape that fits my idea of success. I prefer guidance over control. Structure with flexibility. Listening over imposing. This feels especially important to me as a non-Native person working with Native American children, given the history of boarding schools and the horrific attempts to erase culture by making children “malleable.” That history matters. It demands a different approach.

There are still goals. There are still outcomes. But they come second to agency. The kids guide the process more than we often allow in institutional settings. Just like the wood, they aren’t raw material to be shaped; they’re active participants in becoming.

Spoon carving reinforces that lesson every time I pick up a knife.

I love carving spoons because they’re functional. They aren’t abstract objects. They have a purpose and a set of criteria they must meet. And yet, within those limits, there’s infinite variation. A handmade eating spoon carries character. You feel it while carving: the feedback between your hands, the blade, and the grain. Every small decision matters.

That’s very different from a mass-produced spoon. Whether it’s metal or wood, machine-made utensils are dictated, repeatable, and anonymous. They work, but they don’t speak.

As we move deeper into an era of AI, CNC machines, and automated design, that distinction matters to me. Spoon carving is a moment-to-moment conversation. It requires attention, humility, and responsiveness. You adjust constantly. You listen. You make thousands of tiny decisions based on feel, resistance, and feedback.

At least for now, that kind of listening still belongs to human hands.

And maybe that’s the deeper wisdom of spoon carving, not just making something useful, but practicing how to pay attention, how to compromise without giving up purpose, and how to work with the world instead of trying to overwrite it.

Tai Chi The Missing Element in Bushcraft and Wilderness Survival

I believe Tai Chi is an essential element for the Bushcraft and wilderness survival community.

Most conversations around survival skills focus on physical conditioning, endurance, and toughness. And yes, it is true that the fitter and stronger your body, the better your chances of surviving a difficult situation. A body that can climb, hike, and carry under pressure clearly performs better in the wild.

But what often gets overlooked is the other side of that equation, relaxation, awareness, and injury prevention.

Relaxation as a Survival Skill

Bushcraft is not just about endurance or fighting the elements. It is also about sitting by a fire, carving a spoon, cooking, or making something with your hands. These moments of calm are psychologically grounding because they connect us to how humans have lived for thousands of years, working with nature, not against it.

The typical Bushcraft demographic tends to be men over forty. We love the outdoors, the gear, and the process. But at that age, we are also dealing with knee pain, tight backs, and shoulder stiffness. This is where Tai Chi becomes a perfect companion.

Injury Prevention and Healing

Tai Chi is not just slow movement; it is functional movement. It retrains the body to move with balance and coordination. For people with decades of habitual movement patterns, that is huge. The practice helps loosen old injuries, restore range of motion, and strengthen connective tissues gently.

When I am out in the field or camping, Tai Chi keeps me loose and mobile. At sixty, after thirty years of Tai Chi and twenty years of Bushcraft, I can say this with certainty: my recovery is faster, my movements are smoother, and I can camp and hike longer without pain.

Heightened Awareness and Perception

The second major benefit is awareness. Tai Chi opens up your senses. When you move with focus and controlled breathing, your vision and hearing expand rather than tunnel in. You shift from narrow task focused awareness to peripheral environmental awareness.

That is survival gold. When I am practicing Tai Chi in the wilderness, I notice birds, wind shifts, and subtle patterns I would usually miss. If I ever lose an item in camp, I will do a few minutes of Tai Chi before searching. It calms me down and helps me see what is actually there, not what I am panicking about.

Trail runners and hikers often miss this. They are moving fast, chasing performance. Tai Chi slows you down enough to truly connect with the environment.

Breaking Old Patterns

Most people do not realize how deeply their movement patterns are shaped by decades of habit. Tai Chi breaks those unhealthy loops. It teaches you to move with fluidity, not tension, and that translates directly into how you carry a pack, swing an axe, or gather wood.

Yes, the learning curve is slow. You will struggle with balance and coordination at first. But that struggle is the point. You are rewiring your nervous system to move the way humans were meant to move, efficiently, quietly, and with awareness.

Final Thought

Bushcraft is about more than surviving. It is about living well in nature. Tai Chi completes that circle. It builds a strong, supple, and relaxed body, a mind that is calm under pressure, and an awareness that tunes into the natural world.

For me, Tai Chi is not just a martial art. It is the missing link in wilderness living.

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6 reasons why the Mora Bushcraft Black is my number one favorite fixed blade.

1. Mora carbon steel takes a fine edge that can easily be brought back to shaving and I have found this to be reliable on all their knives I have owned. The other day I saw some rubber hanging below my car. So I grabbed my Bush Craft Black and started cutting the rubber. I kept trying to cut it but it wasn't budging. I looked at my knife in horror, and I realized the entire edge looked like a boxer's teeth, craggily AF. I checked the rubber and it had a steel core. I immediately went inside using only my ceramic rods and after a moderate amount of work, the edge was back to shaving sharp. Mora's carbon steel is one of the few knife companies I trust, so I keep coming back for more.

2. The handle is so comfortable. I can carve feather sticks for a long time with less fatigue than other knives. Plus the design of the grip really allows the knife to rest in a perfect position in my hand. Sometimes I just want to hold the knife because it feels so good.

3. The 90° spine is the sharpest of all my knives. I have used it countless times and it bites deep into the ferro rod giving me the most sparks of all my knives. It does have to be maintained with a stone every so often but it is still the sharpest out there.

4. It is lightweight. In a package that tics all the important boxes, like steel quality, comfort, usability, a good price, it is also lighter than other knives. Another benefit of it being lightweight is that when you have it on your belt you don't feel like it is dragging you down.

5. Another feature I like that is unique to Mora, is there is no ricasso, or choil, so you can get right up to the guard when cutting. Just to clarify, the ricasso on a knife is the space between the handle or guard, if the knife has one, and the cutting edge. The choil is a little (usually little) notch that allows you to sharpen the edge without the stone rubbing on the ricasso (see picture below). Sometimes people confuse the two and sometimes knifemakers enlarge the choil to allow for a finger to be placed there. It is really amazing how few knife companies do this. I find it makes sharpening easier and it provides more leverage for carving too. Also, the notch doesn't catch on things you are trying to cut. For a good article on choils click here .

6. Another great thing about Mora is they relatively low cost, which means you can get a great knife within your budget. That also means you can use it and not feel like you are destroying a family heirloom. They are a tool to be used not kept locked up for future generations. 

All of these great things about Mora also add up to making easier to having the knife on you when you need it. This week, there was a story of a 69 year old woman, who got separated from her husband while camping and was lost for 3 days in the wilderness without anything. Having a small fixed blade and a few other supplies on your belt, like a ferro rod and some cordage could have really helped her. She survived but was severely dehydrated and in need of hospitalization. It is a good reminder that having a few tools and a little knowledge on how to use them could make the world of difference. I would definitely recommend a Mora Bushcraft black for any hiker to carry into the woods, even for a day hike.

Survival Knife! Learning the hard way

On a plane heading to some islands off the Western coast of Canada, I met some guys who worked for a moving company. They had a large office move contract and offered me some work. I agreed, and when the job was completed, they asked me to come work with them in Vancouver, BC. I ended up working for them for 6 months. After a few months of working with them, I did not meet many people, so I was excited when my boss at the moving company asked me to go hunting with him and a few of his friends.

We drove many hours to a place called “Hundred Mile House.” During the drive, we were drinking beer and listening to Metallica's Black Album and being rowdy. On our drive, we were pulled over by a policeman. As the policeman approached our vehicle, the driver (my boss), who had previously rolled his large pickup truck over a few months ago, totally cracking the windshield, greeted the police officer. I distinctly remember the policeman telling him that it was illegal to drive with a windshield that had a crack longer than 12.” My boss, said, “sir, I don’t think there is one crack longer than 12” on the whole windshield.” We all burst out laughing. The whole windshield was like a spiderweb of tiny cracks. He let us go with a warning to fix the windshield. We began drinking beer again. Someone in the car said they left their flask in the back bed. I volunteered to climb out of the moving vehicle and retrieve it. Driving at night in the woods, I climbed out of the window and jumped into the back bed, grabbed the flask in his bag, and climbed back in. We finally and uneventfully pulled up to our motel. We were all pretty drunk. Next thing, I remember we were up at 4 am getting dressed and heading out into the woods.

It was a very cold, rainy November morning. My boss gave me a shotgun, pointed in a particular direction, and told me go out there and if I see a deer, shoot it. I had never been hunting before. I had been walking for a hour or so when I heard a shot. I walked over and my boss had just killed a deer. As I approached, I could tell the deer was still moving so I took out my knife and stabbed it in the throat. He was so impressed by that, he cut the deer open and removed its heart, and said I had to take a bite because it was my first kill. I balked, but he was insistent, so I reluctantly bit a chunk of the warm muscle. I immediately felt an adrenaline rush deep in my body. I now wanted to get my own true kill. Like a bloodhound in search of a fugitive, I charged off following deer tracks without taking my eye off the ground. I really do not remember how long I was searching, but when I looked up, the sun was just about to set.

An eerie chill went through my spine as the trees looked black and gnarled against the smoky pink sky. I simply didn’t notice where I was or what was happening weather-wise. My cotton jacket had a shell of ice from the rain, and the snow turned to sleet. The winds picked up, and I started screaming for help. Realizing I was totally screwed, I frantically yelled, but no one could hear me. I yelled till my voice was hoarse, and then I cried hard. The winds were so loud that it was useless even trying.

After a good bit of crying, A great fear hit me, I realized that wolves and bears could be out there stalking me. I searched for a clearing in the dark, and I took a long hard look around and realized I needed some protection from the elements. I started to get cold, really cold, and I remembered I had some power bars on me. I knew if I ate them, it would generate some body heat. I think I ate three. I felt around in the dark for a tree and cut off some cedar boughs with my Cold Steel SRK knife. It had a 6” blade and barely enough to cut through the boughs. I really had to use force. I remember the impact of those cuts on my wrist. As I started to make a crude shelter from the freezing rain, I found a piece of corrugated metal that was just lying a few feet away, and I surrounded myself by it and the boughs. I was still cold, so I would periodically get up and do some jumping jacks, and martial arts strikes. Those martial arts strikes really felt empowering in that dark, icy forest.

The thought of making a fire never entered my head. I think back then, I knew so little that the fact it was raining, with snow everywhere, meant it was impossible to make a fire. I am not even sure I had matches on me. I seriously doubt I would have made it through the night without becoming hypothermic. Luckily, after 6 hours or so, the winds died down, and I figured it would be a good time to fire the shotgun into the air as a signal device. After a short pause, I heard a shot. We continued to communicate with each other through gunshots, and I was finally able to find my way to them in the pitch dark. It was about 11 p.m., and they said they were just about to leave and notify someone. I can’t express how happy I was when I finally burst through that dense icy forest into an opening where my boss and his friends were.

Lessons Learned

Obviously, an experience like this is life-changing. I couldn’t help but think of how naive I was going into the woods and all the thoughtless decisions I made that led me into a life-threatening situation. There was a temptation to beat myself up; there was also a temptation to eschew ever going into the wilderness again. But as I thought it through, I realized who I was, and I used it as a way to improve myself.

So I set out to take my outdoor skills to a deeper level. After much reflection, three major areas can get you into and out of a survival situation: Decisions, Knowledge and Skills, and Tools.

Decisions

After being a father of two young boys, I realized just how stupid it was to get into a car that was already damaged from a previous drinking and driving accident. There was also the fact that I chose to walk out into a very unfamiliar forest in poor weather conditions without any training whatsoever. I am not beating myself up here, but I am examining some of the decisions I made leading up to my survival situation. Prior to that experience, I hadn’t spent too much time in the woods. Being a city boy, I didn’t grow up learning how to survive in the woods. This is why we can’t always make the right decision. I had always desired to go hunting but never knew anyone that did it. So I overlooked the bad cues because I really wanted to get out there and hunt. Still today, many people go for a hike and don’t even bring a water bottle or even carry a swiss army knife.

Knowledge and Skills

In short, I had none of either. Although I had never heard of hypothermia, I did know enough to keep my wits about me. I was fit; my martial arts background had given me a way to keep my body heated up. Eating something really helped me with increasing body heat, comfort, and keeping a positive outlook. Also, I intuitively knew I should cut some cedar boughs down to protect me from the icy rain. I had zero knowledge of shelter building, but somehow, I made a crude shelter in the night without a flashlight. I also didn’t know anything about navigation, and I lost contact with my hunting party. I am not sure I would have survived the night. I have not dressed appropriately for the weather. Back then, I knew nothing about gore-tex and the difference between waterproofing and water resistance. Most wilderness survival sites and instructors will tell you that knowledge and training are the two most important things to keep you from becoming a tragic news story, and I also endorse that thinking here. There is a wise saying in the survival world, “the more you know, the less you carry.“

Tools

If you search "survival situation preparedness”, you will find a ton of survival kits that talk about the gear you need. There is certainly a bunch of things I lacked in that situation. However, I did get four things right: I had a shotgun and shells, a decent-sized fixed-blade knife, really good boots, and those power bars. I lacked a proper jacket, a fire-starting kit, a whistle, a flashlight, and an emergency blanket. If I had all of those, I could have easily spent the night out there in the woods. I neglected to include a cell phone since this occurred way before the days' cell phones were carried regularly. If I had one, I would have called my boss, and we would have found each other in probably 20 or so minutes. But it is important to remember that a cell phone doesn’t not obviate the need for solid skills and training; batteries run out, and signals can be hard to come by in remote areas.

Going Forward

I should also mention that my experience was, typical of most survival experiences, a lost hunter, which is similar to getting lost hiking or fishing. It is important to acknowledge that while my experience was very challenging, it wasn’t as hardcore as Robinson Crusoe or plain crash survivors in the Andes. So I never would equate my 6-hour or so experience with people who were lost for days on end. But it does bring modest insights into the harshness of nature and what it takes to survive. I hope reading about my experience, you learn from my mistake and get inspired to learn a few skills and ensure that you have at least a few items in your bag to prevent you from getting into a survival situation. And if you are an experienced outdoorsman, look to my experience as a person who did not have many opportunities to get out in the woods and jumped at the first opportunity to get out there way too early and reflect on possibilities to share your skills with people who do not have opportunities to get out there.

The A.B.M.S. Mindest

• Always
• Be
• Making
• Stuff

As I have mentioned in other posts, my parents were hippies that made hand-sewn leather goods and sheepskin coats for people in the 70's. As a young child to young parents I would play with the scraps while they were working-I have the scars to prove it. I specifically remember gluing together a leather bag with those scraps. My parents were very creative people and set me off on the road towards making stuff.

When I graduated high school I wanted to be an artist and began taking classes at a community college. I started in drawing and painting but soon found myself in sculpture. I started carving wood and researching primitive carvings and carving across cultures. I loved anthropology and incorporated many styles in my work. I have carved totem poles and small work alike.

Then my wife and I decided to move to Mississippi, where she was born. Whenever we visit her parent’s land I head off to the woods. They live in a small rural town that doesn’t even have a police station. I call my jaunts in nature, a bushcraft walk because when I go I always do some bushcrafty activities like, build a shelter, identify wild plants or make cordage from plants. I also gather materials and spot and identify them. It is a like a mini-adventure. When I was a kid I loved those shows about a jungle expedition where someone always got stuck in quicksand. Anyway, this is my little way of having an adventure. I have been doing that for over a decade and haven’t gotten caught in quicksand yet.

After doing some research I purchased VHS tapes from Ron Hood’s Woodmaster series. In them, he demonstrated all kinds of projects to make with wood and other natural and found materials. Watching those videos I realized that I could make that stuff while I was in the woods. What really grabbed my attention was the innovative, out of the box thinking, which I think is the hallmark of bushcrafting Ron displayed. In one, he magnetizes a small thin piece of metal and places it on a leaf in a cup of water to determine north, and in another, he sharpens both ends of two 12” long sticks and interlocks them to make a primitive weapon. There were tons of ideas that you can make from everyday items around you.  From that moment on I was hooked and it became a life long hobby. It also paired well with my background in the arts and it made me feel more confident in nature.

To me ABMS is a daily mindset, I am always looking for a resource and seeing what I can make from it. I also try to make something everyday, even if it is a little feather stick and a small fire. Now these things are not pieces to sell at a crafts fair but they keep the juices flowing. The ABMS mindset puts me in creative mode, it builds body heat (during cold days), teaches me about the properties of different materials and finally it keeps my mind occupied. I don’t know if you are like me but my mind is constantly racing around, so this activity keeps me positive and focused.

Folding Knife Review: The Spyderco Stretch

Backstory

For two years in the late 90s, I worked in a knife shop. It was one of the best jobs I have had and I got to try dozens of customs and production models of folders and fixed blades. Personally, I am more of a fixed blade guy but, alas, they are far too dangerous to be allowed in public. So for everyone’s safety, I carry a 3.5” folder. Jokes aside, I have been carrying a folder since the early 80s. Luckily, I grew up in an era where knives were not seen as evil. Except for the dreaded switchblade. But I digress.

Prior to my time at the knife shop, my EDC was the Benchmade AFCK. It had the Spydie hole but it also had G10 with liners; which added a bit of heft. When I started working at a knife shop I was able to try out other folders from designers and companies like, Chris Reeves, Spyderco, SOG, and Buck, etc. I soon fell in love with the Spyderco FRN folders and I bought a plain edge, Endura 2 and a Delica 2 in ATS-55, without the Boyle Dent. They were strong, took little maintenance and, in my experience had zero malfunctions. They were my EDC’s for 11 years. They had been to India, Thailand, Spain, numerous US cities and joined me on many hiking trips. I still have them, well the Delica 2 was “donated” to the TSA, my wife was carrying it and left in her purse. So I got a Delica 3, which I still have. In those 11 years, I had never had a failure or even a complaint. I did feel that the Endura 3 handle was not as comfortable as it could be.

Why Spyderco?

I have carried Spyderco folders for roughly 19 years, and other types of folders since the 80s, which means I have been carrying folders for over three decades. The Spyderco hole is by far my number one reason for sticking with Spyderco. I have had good folders from SOG, Cold Steel, Gerber and others with the thumb studs and I find the stud makes sharpening near the choil next to impossible, and it doesn't work as well for opening. My second reason for sticking to Spyderco is their integrity as a company and they have consistently high quality on their folders. I have had little problems with any of their knives. They make tough ass knives. Finally, I love the fact that Spyderco was one of the first to start experimenting with steels. I appreciate their desire to be innovative and that they continually come out with exciting new designs. I will add for balance, that I am not a fan of their fixed blades. I think other companies beat them to the punch time and time again.

What I bring to a knife review?

Besides having carried a folder daily for over 30 years, I live in Mississippi and I often go for bushcraft walks in the woods. A bushcraft walk is one where I do some bushcrafty activities like, build a shelter, identify wild plants or make cordage from plants, etc.. My in-laws own about a 100 acres and I wander around do bushcraft projects and my in-laws also take advantage of my passion for machetes. So I am kept pretty busy with lists of land clearing during our visits there. During my weekdays, I am an office worker so I do not use it much at work, except for lunch preparation and minor office tasks. It might be important to mention that I have had a wide variety of jobs prior to my current desk job. While reading this it would be a mistake to peg me strictly as an office worker. I was in art school in the 80s, I have carved large totems poles, worked as a mover, worked in a knife shop and I have trained in Kali and done a good bit of bushcraft and camping.  I also have some game prep and lots of home butchering and food prep hours in.

What is so good about the Stretch?

I purchased a Spyderco Stretch with ZDP 189 blade steel with blue FRN, sometime in 2009 or 2010 and have carried it everyday, except for the rare short plane trips I take without checked luggage. I have carved wood with it, prepared many meals, opened tons of boxes and letters, cut bunches of paracord, and other assorted daily tasks modern life requires.

The first thing standout thing worth mentioning is that ZDP 189 is sick, crazy good steel. I can’t remember if I have ever used a rough stone on it or not. To maintain its amazing edge, I usually use my kitchen honing steel about every two weeks, sometimes more depending on usage. I have used some fine grit Japanese water stone every couple of months. I can NOT say that about any other knife steels I have used. VG10, ATS 34 & 55, AUS8, 1095, D2, 440a &c, 420J, all needed, at some point quite a few passes on a coarse grit stone.  Another important aspect to ZDP 189 is that I have used it on all manner of wood and material and the blade has zero chips and has never needed a regrind. The only quality some might not like is its corrosion resistance. I jumped in a saltwater pool once with it in my pocket, (don’t ask) and in about an hour rust set in the lockback slot on the blade. It is still there in fact, that was about 3 years ago. I am not one of those clueless people who freak out at the sight of a tiny rust spot. Hell, this knife will be around for a very long time.

The second stand out thing about the Stretch is the parrot beak at the end of the handle. A parrot beak is something I have found over the years to be essential on a knife. In fact, I don’t think I even own a knife without one of those any more and I wouldn’t consider purchasing a knife if it didn’t have parrot beak. Additionally, regarding the handle, I have not had any failures, dents, screws loose, or clip issues to mention. Speaking of the handle, a word about FRN. At this point in my knife carry,  I can’t imagine trading FRN for G10 or carbon fiber or titanium or any other material. I know those other materials are way more beautiful and add some heft and value to a folder but...they just don’t hold up as well as FRN does. The Stretch has a lock back. Spyderco introduced it after the trend of the liner lock began to fade. I remember when knife fans dissed on lock backs and the liner was the gold standard. I jumped on that band wagon and purchased a few liner locks but I really didn’t like them and I returned to lock backs. The lockback on the stretch has had zero failures. I should mention that it does include the Boyle dent, which  decreases the chance of the hand depressing the lock during usage.    

Other aspects of the knife are, since Spyderco introduced the flat ground to their folders I am hooked. I do sometimes question their lateral strength but I use it for what it is designed to handle. A knife, and more so a folder, is not a pry bar. I have always preferred flat grinds on fixed blades. The Cold Steel Master Hunter, is a favorite fixed blade of mine that has an awesome flat grind on it. I find them to be far more efficient in a variety of cutting tasks like, peeling veggies cutting paracord and cleaning game. Lastly, I  love the Stretch’s blue color; black got really old for me.    

Conclusion

Knives for me are about function. I am not a collector. I am not a seller. I simply love to use knives. I don’t care if it is cutting food, paracord, or skinning a hog, I love to use my knives and I love them to work without issue. When you find something that works you should stick to it, plain and simple, and this Spyderco Stretch has not given me a reason to get another folding knife.