A Family Guide to Bushcraft

Posted by Shell Grayston.
First Published Nov 2015; updated May 2023.

Bushcraft and survival techniques are useful life skills to teach your children. Plus, some of the activities may be fun to do, such as building a den. This book helps you teach these things to your kids.

We are always looking for ideas or inspiration to get outside. So we've been having a look at a new book called *Bushcraft - A Family Guide: Fun and Adventure in the Great Outdoors

by John Boe and Owen Senior.

Bushcraft covers many exciting outdoor activities, including building shelters, tracking, and foraging.

Learning the art of bushcraft in a fun and safe way is an excellent way to spend quality family time together. Bushcraft adventures can involve getting dirty, and smelling like a campfire, but get you having fun outdoors, learning and discovering together.

Building a shelter out of sticks, logs, and leaves.

The book is A5 size, so a good size to throw in a rucksack. The illustrated, practical guide contains everything children and adults need to know to have fun and stay safe in the outside world. The guide starts with a brief safety introduction and a note on equipment needed, as Bushcraft is all about using what nature provides, so you don't need much equipment to carry out most of these activities.

Some examples of activities included in the book are:

how to find and collect water
how to build a shelter
how to navigate naturally
how to make a bow and arrow
tips on tracking
foraging ideas
inspiration and recipes for outdoor cooking

The activities are well-written and simple to follow, with illustrations to help bring the ideas to life.

My favourite chapters in the book are: How to Find and Collect Water and Natural Navigation.

These two activities appealed as they are activities we've not tried before and useful skills to learn.

We decided to have a go at the Natural Navigation learning activity. It didn't all work to plan but we learnt lots along the way and succeeded in getting all the family together. Though we might not all be natural navigators yet, we discovered a few new things along the way, which is what it's all about.

My least favourite chapter is preparing game and seafood for cooking. The preparation of game does not appeal to me at all, so I quickly bypassed this section. Hunting is, of course, personal choice, if you like this kind of thing, then that chapter may prove useful.

At the end of each chapter, a couple of blank pages (lined) are left for notes, which is an excellent idea. You can write up any interesting finds along the way, ideas/inspiration, and you could include some pictures to remember your bushcraft adventure 🙂

Building a tarp shelter — ...and enjoying our tarp shelter.

Bushcraft - A Family Guide is an excellent guidebook, whether you are new to bushcraft or more experienced and looking for further inspiration and information. It is well presented with an easy-to-follow format making this book a useful guide for outdoor adventures.