How to Use and Choose a bushcrafting knife

A knife is a very personal thing. Whether it is a pocket knife or a fixed blade bushcrafting knife it says a lot about the owner. The very shape and size give you a wealth of information regarding what kinds of tasks the owner accomplishes with the knife.

When choosing a bushcrafting knife one must keep practicality in mind at all times. Some knives are really cool looking but virtually useless when it comes to surviving effectively in the wilderness; they simply are not designed to complete the required tasks.

Environment has a great deal to do with knife choice.

In a jungle environment a large bladed, long knife or machete will be your choice because it is well suited to the kinds of hacking tasks in that climate. But bring that same machete to northern Canada and you will find survival a hard task to accomplish.

In the more temperate, mountain and arctic regions a smaller bladed knife (4"-6") will be the most effective. A blade in the Scandinavian style is perfectly suited to the tasks found in the average northern climate as all the hacking and heavy cutting tasks should be completed with an axe or hatchet.
It's all very well and good to have a huge blade on your knife that you can split logs with using a batton, but given the sheer volume of wood required to stay warm on a northern night a smaller, more nimble knife and an axe is a much better choice. Battoning/splitting wood with your knife is all very well and good and fun for the first few pieces, but good luck managing to survive that way!

The tip of the knife is another important point to consider. If you plan on skinning animals you will want to make certain that the knife has a good rounded tip, not much of a drop point. A more "dagger" like tip will tend to poke through the skin, potentially ruining a nice hide. Once again, the Scandinavian style blades or the Finnish Puukko is a good choice for such work.

The key with a good bushcrafting knife is it's cutting edge. A slightly convex edge to the blade will give strength to it, but it is harder to sharpen than a hollow ground blade (concave shape) or a flat Scandinavian ground blade. For ease of sharpening the Scandinavian Flat ground style is the best choice. It is not quite as durable an edge as the convex grind, but since this is a knife and not a prybar that shouldn't be an issue!

A good bushcrafting knife should have a full tang whenever possible. That means that the metal of the blade continues right through the handle making is less liable to break under heavy use. The tang may be hidden inside the handle (known as a stick tang), or you may be able to see it running up the sides of the handle when 2 pieces of wood or bone are used.

How to use your knife
Using a knife in a survival or bushcrafting sense is the same way a knife should be used on a daily basis.
So these few rules can be applied to your daily kitchen tasks equally as well as to your wilderness activities.

1) Always cut AWAY from your body, your hand.... yourself. NEVER cut towards yourself! Materials are unpredictable and one slip and ruin your day and send you to the hospital.

2) Keep your knife as sharp as you can. Sharp knives cut better. Sharp knives take less effort to use. Sharp knives are less liable to slip and injure the user.

3) Never put your knife away dirty. Always wipe the blade off at least, even after cutting plant materials. Most bushcrafting knives are made of carbon steel that will rust, so keep it clean.

4) Don't throw your knife! Especially if it is your only knife and you are counting on it.

5) Despite the popularity of "battoning" with knives to split wood I wouldn't suggest it ESPECIALLY if you are in a life and death survival situation. Your knife is your lifeline, and battoning is simply too risky, the blade is liable to loose it's keen edge or snap. In a situation like that, with no axe, it's better to simply break small trees and forest debitage with your hands or over your knee. Save your knife, you'll need it!

Essentially, exercise common sense. Look after your knife like it is gold. That is the core of your bushcrafting capabilities. DON'T USE IT AS A PRY-BAR!

Always be armed!

When I turned 5 years old I remember my father taking me down to his workshop on my birthday.
I had that 6th sense, that all children seem to have, that something exciting was going to happen, after all, I was turning 5!
He went over to one of the shevles that had old jars full of nails and myterious tin boxes that were well out of my reach, opened a brown tin box that had a lock on the front and produced a tiny sheath knife.
I remember my pulse quicken when I saw it, the white handle and grey pewter pommel, the dark leather sheath with decades of use and history behind it.
Dad got down to my level and carefully explained how to use a knife to me for what seemed like the hundreth time. In fact, he had been showing me how to use a knife safely and effectively by example and in simple words ever since I was about 3.5 years old, and it had all been leading up to this.
Then the moment came. He took the knife by the blade and handed me the handle with these words: " This knife was your grandfathers, his father gave it to him when he turned 5. When I turned 5 he gave it to me, and now I'm giving it to you. Keep it clean and sharp. No man should be unarmed."

And with that, the knife was mine! I can still remember the excitment of having a knife of my own, and I still feel the same thrill whenever I pick that tiny knife up.

This little knife, that has no markings, is well over 80 years old now and is still razor sharp. It has all the attributes and characteristics of a good knife:

1) the blade is a full tang

2) the blade is well hardened and tempered making it flexible enough not to snap, easy enough to sharpen but with good edge retaining qualities.

3) the edge of this knife is a single bevel, like a scandinavian knife, making it very easy to sharpen.

4) the handle is durable and comfortable to use, even for a full grown person despite it's small size.

5) the handle is still tight and firmly affixed to the knife blade.

That summer, armed with this tiny knife, my father took me into the back woods of Alaska to begin teaching me how to live successfully and comfortably in the wilderness.

My Dad had a wealth of knowledge to share with me after years of working for the Geologic Survey of Canada. An interesting aside, he was on many, including the very last GSC exploratory expeditions into the far north venturing where no european had ever gone before. Because of this background he took the ability to survive alone for weeks at a time with little to no supply line very seriously and wanted to impart his wisdom to me. Later on, I'll tell you more of what he taught me. But this entry is more about knives.

As I grew I came to realize that I needed a larger knife to get the things done I wanted to out in the bush. The little one of gramps was good, but it wasn't quite "cutting" it for the job.

Therefore, at around the age of 18 I decided to make a knife for myself. I had seen some Finnish knives (puukko) and really appreciated the workmanship, the utility of the blade and the overall balance. And so I created a puukko for myself from some old scrap steel I had found on the road and made it to measure for a sheath I found (without a knife in it... sadly) while out hiking in the Rockies. The handle is a section of stag antler I found in the boreal forest of northern Alberta.

This was the result:

I continued to use and enjoy this knife for years and years until our second anniversary when my wife bought me a real Finnish puukko with my name on the side.

The blade on the Finnish puukko is somewhat shorter than the knife that I made, but it is still sufficient for most everything and is heavy enough to accomplish even the hardest tasks without damage.

Ever since I recieved this wonderful gift I have been using it as my daily knife.

It was made by Kauko Raatiniemi of Kolari, in Finnish Lapland, and similar ones can be found at this website: http://www.woodjewel.com/PublishedService?file=page&pageID=3&action=view&groupID=306

Next time I'll go into how to choose a good bushcrafting knife and how to safely use it.

Cheers! And enjoy nature!

Bushcrafting Today

Being out in the woods, listening to the wind in the trees, breathing the fresh air, and living in a minimalist way is one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have in this modernized day and age.
Bushcrafting and general wilderness experience is essential to good mental health, especially for those cooped up in a cubicle all week!

This being said, I have noticed a rather odd trend in wilderness enjoyment in the past 2 years or so. Commonly this trend appears under the guise of "bushcrafting" when in actual fact it is simply bare survival.
Bushcrafting shouldn't leave a person unduly exhausted, irriated or injured in any way; rather, it should refresh and harken back to past centuries when our ancestors lived quite well and quite comfortably off the land.

It's a well known fact that hunter gatherers around the globe have more spare time, time to relax, and tend to live much longer and be healthier than those individuals living in primitive farming communities.

It is this relaxed and sucessful lifestyle that we as bushcrafters should seek to effectively reproduce whenever we shed the shackles of the city and venture out into the wilds.

Of course, living sucessfully in the wilderness all comes down to practice, common sense, decent equipment and the right attitude.

These are the things I look forward to sharing with you.

Life is a journey, and we have to learn from those who have walked the path first, otherwise we are destined to make the same mistakes over and over again.