Why We Love Ray Mears Bushcraft

Ray Mears and his programs on the BBC have been a favorite in our family for many years.

(Book cover)

Ray Mears teaches survival, animal tracking, and bushcraft skills in a calming, beautiful, non-sensationalized way. He emphasizes working with nature and trusting your intuition and subconscious, especially when tracking animals. I love his focus on aboriginal peoples and how they thrive in otherwise deadly terrain. He showcases almost all climates- African deserts, arctic tundra, European deciduous forests and so many more! He shoes how American Indians made birch bark canoes, how pine snowshoes were made in early Sweden, and how aboriginal Australians dig for life sustaining yams.

One skill that he teaches that we use often is the making of "feather sticks" and other knife and axe skills.



(photographs by me)

My favorite series is the series detailing the life of ancient European cultures. I often have watched programs on the survival of native peoples of equatorial jungles, or arctic fishing and igloo building, but not often have I seen a program on how ancestral Europeans survived. I have provided a link to one of those here:

It is great to learn the skills of ancient cultures. All of our ancestors worked in tandem with the land that they inhabited, connecting spiritually in order to survive. They felt the life sustaining sun on their faces, the earth beneath their feet. In the modern world we no longer depend on these skills to survive, but I think a large part of living was lost during the disconnect. Now we live among synthetic materials- our clothes, furniture, blankets, etc.. are all man made. In contrast to polyester and plastic, there is something special about the touch of natural materials. Natural materials like wool, wood, leather, and cotton all hold a warm energetic life to them that feels like a return to home.

(Creative Commons)

Do you have any favorite programs about the topics I mentioned above? We are always looking for more to watch by the warmth of our hearth in the cold winter months.