Bushcraft Instructor Requirements

 We are often asked what you need to know to be a bushcraft or survival instructor. So I have compiled a list that could be used as a rough checklist for the aspiring Bushcrafter. It is by no means exhaustive and should be used only as a guide. Most people will specialize in certain areas because of a personal interest.

Hard Bush Skills

  • Shelter building
  • Solo lean to (Min 1 week)
  • Pair lean to
  • Mors super shelter
  • Sleep in Shelter down to -10
  • Group shelter
  • Bender style shelter
  • Raised beds
  • Emergency litter bivi
  • Woven mattress
  • Winter Quinzee
  • Winter snowbank
  • Winter snow trench
  • Experience sleeping in shelters for total 30 days

 

Knots

  • Bowline
  • Clove hitch
  • Jamb Knot
  • Water knot
  • Fisherman’s (inc double)
  • Blood knot
  • Prussic (x3)
  • Trucker Hitch
  • Figure 8 (on a bite, follow through)
  • Timber hitch
  • Italian hitch
  • No knot
  • Slip knot
  • Reef knot
  • Two half hitches
  • Sheet Bend
  • Non inverting slippery bowline
  • Alpine butterfly
  • Poachers noose
  • Slippery hitch
  • Square, Diagonal and tripod lashings

 

Fires

  • Quad pod large pot stand
  • Quick Stick pot stand
  • Rotisserie with hanger
  • Tripod
  • Feather stick fire (from sawn and from a tree)
  • (feather sticks must have more than 3 curls)
  • Make char cloth
  • Make amadou
  • Know 5 different fire types and why to use them
  • Parallel, pyramid, square or cabin fire, star, cross
  • Bow drills X100 (from cedar, alder, aspen, hazel)
  • Hand drills x10 (mullein, sunflower, cattail, thistle)
  • Make a pump drill

 

Crafts

  • Birch bark bowl
  • Netting needle plus net or hammock
  • Roycroft pack frame
  • Bucksaw frame
  • Rehandle an axe
  • Canoe paddle
  • Quick bow
  • Hunting weight bow
  • Arrows fletched from feathers
  • Atlatl and Dart
  • Carve a bowl and spoon
  • Burn a spoon and a bowl
  • Mocassins or mukkluks
  • Emergency Snowshoes
  • Make a knife (either stock removal or blacksmithing)
  • Use and sharpening of hand tools, Drawknife, spoke shave, plane, auger drills, wedges
  • Make camp furniture
  • Make a clay pot
  • Make a candle
  • Weave a willow or reed basket

 

Material processing

  • limbing, splitting trees with an axe
  • Safe use of knife, axe and saw
  • Swedish knife techniques and cuts, make a Kochanski ‘try stick’
    • Square joints
    • Arrow notch
    • Pot hanger cuts
    • Square hole
    • Root debarker
  • Make Amadou
  • Tan a hide, make buckskin or fur on
  • Make 2 ply twisted cordage from grass, nettles, inner bark and sinew
  • Use spruce roots, debarked and split

 

 

Natural History

Botany

Be able to identify plant and fungi parts, families and uses

Plants

Identify 100 plants with latin names, uses and edibility

Fungi

Identify 20 local fungi with latin names and edibility

 

Weather forecasting

Understand weather systems and maps

Know the different types of clouds

Know the local weather trends

 

Stars

  • Be able to identify 10 constellations
    • Ursa Major
    • Ursa Minor
    • The plough/big dipper
    • Cassiopeia
    • Draco
    • Northern Crown
    • Cygnus
    • Boötes
    • Southern Cross
    • Orion
  • Know 2 ways to find the pole star

 

Food

  • Water purification systems
  • Prepare meals from foraged foods
  • Cooking for a group with
    • Fire,
    • Reflector oven,
    • Solar oven
    • Earth oven
    • Dutch oven
  • Preserving foods,
    • Canning,
    • Salting,
    • Dehydrating/drying
    • Fermenting (foods, wine, beer)
    • Pickling
    • Baking (hardtack and hard pastry)
    • Root cellaring
  • Bake sourdough bread and keep the sourdough alive
  • Understand calories, deficiencies and balanced nutrition
  • Understand bodies systems, ketosis, starvation, fasting

 

Hunting Fishing and Trapping

 

  • Demonstrate knowledge of different hunting techniques
    • Still
    • Spot and Stalk
    • Ambush
    • Calling
  • Demonstrate proficiency in firearms or bows, ideally both
  • Ideally have PAL and Hunting license
  • Be able to identify different animal sign, scat, rubs, and tracks
  • Demonstrate knowledge of hunting one species of Big Game and on Small game
    • Mule deer,
    • Elk
    • Whitetail Deer
    • Black Bear
    • Mountain Goat
    • Squirrels
    • Rabbits
    • Ground squirrel
    • Turkey
    • Ducks and Geese
  • Be able to gut, skin (pluck), quarter, and butcher large game and small game
  • Use and process rawhide, sinew and animal fats
  • Understand principles of tracking and trailing

 

 

Fishing

  • Ice fishing and either course or fly fishing
  • Use primitive lures and rods
  • Know local species

 

Trapping

  • Be able to demonstrate making.
    • Piute trigger deadfall
    • Squirrel snare
    • Rabbit snare (lifting)
    • Deadfall trap / Figure 4
    • Night lining
    • Fish traps/ bottle trap
    • Fishing Nets

 

 

Navigation and Expedition skills

 

Hiking

  • Understand and be able to explain 3 Norths and declination
  • Know how to read different maps
  • Be able to write a detailed route plan
  • How to take and walk on a bearing
  • Use triangulation to find your position
  • Experience of off trail travel
  • Minimum of 10 days multi day backpacking experience
  • Fast and light approach
  • 5 tarp setups
  • Wall tent set up

               

Canoeing

  • Minimum 10 days canoe expedition experience
  • Ideally lake water instructor
  • Be able to demonstrate strokes both tandem, solo and left and right-handed and in reverse where applicable)
    • J stroke,
    • Silent stroke
    • C stroke
    • Canadian stroke
    • Sweep
    • Draw (stationary and sculling and
    • Pry (stationary and sculling and
    • Reverse
    • Box strokes
  • Self-rescue and tandem rescue
  • Laws and requirements
  • Some canoe polling experience
  • Ideally have some swift water rescue training

 

Winter travel

Minimum 10 days experience

  • Snowshoeing and sled
  • Ski/snowboard touring or backcountry touring
  • AST1 or AST2 for avalanche risks and awareness
  • Hot tent camping experience 10 days minimum
  • Dog sledding expedition experience

Climbing and steep terrain

 

  • Understanding of belay and short roping techniques
  • Some experience scrambling and or rock climbing
  • Experience of creating pully systems