Some of you may know that I write a column for the trade publication “Tactical Retailer”. “Is Bushcraft The New Prepping Trend?”, is my latest article.
While SHOT Show 2016 was my busiest ever, I didn”t see any major technology or product announcements. Everyone had new products, but they were incremental improvements. Additionally, everyone I spoke with was upbeat despite the slowdown in the worldwide economy.
Let’s face it, when times get tough, people turn to themselves. That’s how the Prepper movement started. But Prepping has hit its peak and people have begun to realize you can only store so much for future use and even a warehouse full of water and food won’t do you any good if you aren’t with it.
I’d like to discuss a “tactical” trend that’s starting to pick up steam. Regardless of whether you refer to it as fieldcraft, bushcraft or outdoor skills, the techniques that are part of this movement allowed our ancestors to make it day-to-day while they tamed this nation’s frontier. And while it’s seeing a resurgence here in America, bushcraft has been popular in Europe for quite some time with well organized groups and specialty stores.
Along with most of my generation, I learned my skills while growing up. I was a Boy Scout and honed them while camping and hunting. Later, I added to those skills while serving in the military by attending Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. However, not everyone has had these same opportunities. Today, even those in rural areas do not learn how to survive on their own for 72-hours or more, thanks to our modern standard of living.
Prepping might have been the foot through the door, but as many are beginning to learn, you never know when you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to fend for yourself.
At SHOT Show 2016, there were more and more products aimed at survival, evasion and escape. Specialized items such as lockpick kits, fire starting kits, first-aid items, water purification and pocket survival kits have become increasingly popular, and there are multiple specialized suppliers who have stood up to meet the demand. My trip in March to the IWA Outdoor Classics in Germany only confirmed this.
Like I said before, these skills and the items to support them are intended to allow their user to survive and thrive in the backcountry. In some cases, the concept is to just get out of a risky area in order to make it to a safe haven, and in others, the idea is long-term survival and to live off the land. Both instances require skills as well as tools.
To read the rest of the article, visit www.tacretailer.com/2016/05/05/is-bushcraft-the-new-prepping-trend/. Industry folks might want to check out the whole publication.
Tags: Tactical Retailer
I’m not so sure, having reprints from Nessmuk and Horace Kephart, and recall reading Bradford Angier’s “Survival With Style” over and over in the 1970’s as a kid.
I guess what’s old is new again.
Two years ago, you couldn’t fill a survival class. People wanted to shoot.
It seems that the greatest hype on sirvival was around 2012 – at least, on the eastern side of pond.
Bushcrafting is undoubtedly on the upswing. I think it’s important to make a distinction between that and backcountry living though. A whole lot of bushcrafting is an attempt to reenact an imagined history that never really existed. As such, there are lots of strange skill and tool choices that no historical backwoodsman would ever make if they were in the present and probably rarely if ever made back in the day. SERE is much more pragmatic, but is based on what happens if you find yourself on plan C or D. As the guys at SOLKOA point out, it’s the exception condition — not the primary plan. All of which leaves pragmatic “plan A” backcountry living largely un-addressed both from a training and equipment standpoint. All of the above come from a preparedness mindset, but tend to be prioritized incorrectly. Borrowing again from SOLKOA wisdom, an overwhelming percentage of civilian survival situations are precipitated because someone got lost. So the most important survival skill isn’t a survival skill at all, it’s land nav. You’ve got no business worrying about firecraft until you have land nav down cold. Yes, bushcrafting is big and getting bigger. I just wish it was more about preparedness and less about a rich fantasy life. Which I guess makes it pretty similar to the prepper thing.
Well said.
Before I started working in the industry professionally, the big money in our region was playing into the ‘My Side of the Mountain’ or Gary Paulsen type fantasy. Or as we now like to call it: traditional or pioneer type survival.
One of the many reasons why my co-workers and I joined the industry professionally is because we had all been trained in the traditional style and found it lacking for most applications in the real world. My (mid-sized but surprisingly influential) company was one of the first to switch over to emergency type survival with an increased focus on land nav, and as a positive development led to other companies in the region slowly following suit. Unfortunately as I briefly outlined in another comment, media interest has let others to pursue a different type of fantasy. At the end of the day, you just have to acknowledge that the pragmatic approach will never live up to the fantasy and hope that people are smart enough to accept that.
I feel general readiness overall has been a bigger theme of the more serious shooting/training community. Rounding out your skill sets beyond just knowing how to work a gun. Combative/blade, basic survival, emergency first aid trauma, fitness/conditioning, other field craft like lock picking and Intel. I like that a large portion of the community is waking up to the idea that the only useful skill to learn and pay to learn isn’t only the gun and broadening your skill set makes you much more capable for yourself and others that may depend on you.
Me thinks this is driven by the media a good deal. Just take a glance at the trend in TV and movies.
Walking Dead
Fear the walking Dead
Falling Skies
World War Z
To name a few.
So people have a fantasy thought of, “If the SHTF I would want this, and that and oh ya, gotta have that to build me one of those….!” These are the same folks who come unhinged when Starbucks runs out of their favorite latte whatchamacallit or somehow believe chickens magically appear all pre-cut in the meat aisle.
I am reminded of that scene from the movie “Tremors” where the prepper couple are loading up gear and the husband laments on how they built a bad ass underground bunker ready for SHTF and the threat IS underground flesh eating worms!!
Media exposure is the best and worst thing to happen to the industry. Television shows and movies, both the fictional ones you’ve mentioned above and those god-awful reality shows, along with video games for our younger clients play a large part in attracting new clients to outdoor training. Unfortunately their perceptions very rarely line up with the reality of outdoor training. These new clients have also introduced new shady advertising techniques. The worst of which is sacrificing good skill development for the sake of client adventure and playing into media expectations. A far cry from the above practice, my company has renamed some of our advanced level (with prerequisites) courses and are lower level kids courses with media friendly names. As ridiculous as I personally find the practice, I can’t argue with the increase in registration these name changes have brought even now a few years after the name switches.
Thanks for the reply
These are the skills that allow an individual to go their own way, survival is a state of mind in the world. Any person who looks for the craft must learn to think for themselves and how others live(d). Scouts, SERE, EE, playing in the field by your house all give us a feel of confidence in the out side. Live on and love the other side of the doorway.
Well put
Bushcraft is temporary. Backcountry living is only slightly less temporary. If TEOTWAWKI hits to some extent or another, those two conditions will still be temporary. People can’t all move to the hills and expect to live. We’ll be in cities and towns. In our own homes, unless displaced. If a long-term collapse occurs (in whatever proportions) you may be forced to live with a revised, very local, and technologically reduced economy.
It’s all about knowing how to do stuff with what you got on hand and wherever you are, whether it’s starting a fire, distilling water, growing potatoes, or fixing your own truck. A LOT of different trades and skills could be useful if things go down the toilet.
Aside from a general mindset and a handful of skills, none of this has anything to do with civil deterioration. I hope thats clear to the people training these things. If that’s what you’re concerned about, the most pragmatic approach is proactive “urban farmsteading”.
Which is why there needs to be an urban/suburbancraft angle, like making a generator out of a lawnmower.
In the meantime, time spent with a Boy Scout Troop as a youth or adult leader will impart a few basic skills and help develop an attitude that you can do very well under sub-optimal conditions if you have the skill set necessary to help yourself.