Greetings from the UK

Hello everyone, I joined this forum after stumbling upon an article about, of all things, a Swedish Gas Mask bag being used as a Bushcraft Satchel. I found the article very refreshing in it's"down-to-earthiness" attitude and it encouraged me to seek out the forum (which, I have to add, wasn't quite as easy as I'd expected !)

I've been interested in "bushcraft" (whatever that may mean ?) for more years than I care to remember, but find myself a little at odds with many of the forums, in particular a lot of the "looking down the nose" manners that seem, unfortunately, to be considered acceptable, so was looking for something which more truly embodies what I consider to be a forum in the truest meaning of the term - somewhere people can come and discuss things openly and without fear of reproach or being belittled for whatever reason.

My "significant other" comes from an island just North West of NZ (Oztrailyer I think she calls it ;) so maybe one day, we'll get down this way.

I hope to be able to contribute something soon, got a lot of catching up to do first though, so 'til then, be well and be happy.

Cheers

Simon

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ShrafterPermalink Reply by Dave. Southern Land Solo on September 7, 2017 at 16:28

Hi Simon. Let me be the first to welcome you to the site bro.

Good points about the "looking down the nose" attitudes which can turn up sometimes. It could be a by-product of over-zealous people who are passionate about the outdoors? I find it can be quite divisive.

My thinking is, if it works for the individual (or can be made to work) then it is a good product. Back in the pioneering days when cost was an issue they probably made a lot of their own kit.

Do you have a favourite area in the UK to go to?

The Swedish Gas Mask Bag article: Was that a written article or a Youtube video bro?

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ShrafterPermalink Reply by Simon Lucas on September 8, 2017 at 7:23

Hi Dave, very many thanks for the warm welcome.

On the Swedish Gas Mask bag thing, it was an article written by Ryan from this very forum - which is how I ended up here (I hope that makes some kind of sense ?) It kind of ties in with your comment about pioneers making their own kit (or perhaps modifying something they had to hand) to suit their specific requirements.

I am not sure what the "bushcraft kit suppliers" situation is in NZ, but looking at some of the comments on the forum here, it seems we in the UK, are spoiled for choice, but I've started to realise that's not necessarily a good thing - I will put my hand up and admit to having a lot of stuff that's been bought, looked at, then tucked away in a cupboard.

The proliferation of choice means I can just buy something else (within reason of course), but the Gas Mask bag made me stop and think about taking something that was "nearly there" (in this case, I want a bag/satchel) and than making it properly suit my purpose. Most importantly, it made me take the bag out, use the thing, find what I did/din't like about it, then make changes. Sure, it's taken a couple of hours, needle and thread, some material etc., but it now does PRECISELY what I want it to do, the way I want it to do it.

Sorry, this has gone on a bit - wasn't meant to honest !

Cheers

Simon

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ShrafterPermalink Reply by Dave. Southern Land Solo on September 10, 2017 at 21:21

Cool bro. I will see if I can find Ryans article. I haven't read it yet.

There are two very good suppliers of bushcraft/survival items in NZ. There may be more but I only know of these two so far. I will follow this up with a blog to everyone to see if there are anymore around.

Your satchel sound good bro. There is nothing like personalised kit. We end up keeping it for a lifetime.

I like to use the British Military WWII Gas Mask Bag as my main satchel. It is an awesome bag with a good number of compartments in it to separate my kit. I cut off it's old carry strap and replaced it with a 303/SLR rifle sling. The sling is connected to the bags steel rings with paracord.

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AdminPermalink Reply by Ryan Johnson-Hunt on September 10, 2017 at 23:00

Here it is:

https://www.wildernessmag.co.nz/escape-the-apocalypse/

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ShrafterPermalink Reply by Simon Lucas on September 11, 2017 at 0:31

The article I originally found was this one:

https://bushcraftnz.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/guide-to-the-bushcraft...

but it was obviously a while ago now ;)

Cheers

Simon

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AdminPermalink Reply by Ryan Johnson-Hunt on September 11, 2017 at 8:31

Ah yes that was the first version of the website, I tried using Wordpress but it didn't have the social features we needed so we switched to ning.com.

Crazy that old site is still up!