Bushcraft 101

Dave Canterbury published Bushcraft 101 in 2014, and it is a practical handbook rather than a narrative. Its subject is how to look after yourself in the outdoors with what you can carry and what you can make from what is around you, and it reached best-seller lists in the sports and travel categories when it appeared.

The book is organised around five categories that Canterbury calls the Cs of survivability: cutting tools, covering, combustion devices, containers and cordage. Everything else in it follows from those, on the argument that a person who has thought about all five is equipped for most of what the backcountry will ask of them.

Within that frame the chapters deal with choosing the right items for a kit, making tools and supplies rather than buying them, finding and cooking food, and protecting yourself from weather. Canterbury writes as a survival instructor, and the advice is aimed at people who want to spend longer in the wilderness rather than at readers looking for an emergency manual, though it covers the basics of that too.