Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Growth

I don't consider myself all that skilled or knowledgeable when it comes to bushcraft skills...regardless I have come far in the past few years. I most certainly do not see myself as a teacher of any kind, but this past weekend in the bush I was pleasantly surprised by the subtle influence my passion has had on someone very close to me.

My girlfriend shocked me completely when she asked me to teach her how to featherstick some kindling. I had previously gotten her a Mora knife, and after watching me she decided to try her hand at learning some basic knife skills.

Getting the technique down


The results

She later proceeded to have me guide her through the process of making her first fire using a firesteel and birch bark.


Her first fire ended up "drinking draino" because she turned her back on it in her excitement, but she just got right back to it and started another one with more feathersticks and birch tinder (and this one ended up lasting the whole night). This was the first time I ever completely let someone else take the reigns of starting and managing the fire, something I consider a fairly sacred task.


Passing on this knowledge is a pretty special thing...I guess we both grew a little bit this weekend.

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