Bushcraft, Fieldcraft & Navigation
Shelter, cordage, fire and finding your way: practical outdoor skills for the open prairie, the river bottom and the foothills.
In simple terms
Bushcraft is knowing how to be comfortable and safe outdoors with simple gear and good skills. In southern Alberta the biggest factors are wind, sudden temperature swings and wide-open country with few landmarks. A tarp, good cordage, a way to make fire and a compass you know how to use will cover most situations.
The grandkids are getting bigger, and it’s time to show them how to be resourceful, and the cool things you can do without all the fancy extras.
Shelter: start with a tarp
- Carry two: a small, light tarp in your pack (around 1.5 × 2 m) for rain or sun on the move, and a bigger, heavier one in the vehicle (around 2.5 × 3 m or more) for a real camp or emergency shelter.
- Materials: poly tarps are cheap and tough but noisy and bulky. Silnylon and silpoly are light and pack small. Canvas is heavy but breathes, doesn’t flap to pieces and resists sparks, which makes it a good emergency shelter near a fire.
- Sewn tie-out loops last far longer in wind than punched grommets.
- Gary uses heavy-duty tarps from Princess Auto for his truck enclosure and keeps a spare 3 × 3.6 m (10 × 12 ft) tarp for a back wall when the weather turns really bad.
Pitching for prairie wind
A setup that’s fine in the mountains can tear apart in a Lethbridge gust.
- Long stakes: Gary uses 10-inch (25 cm) spikes. Short pegs pull out of dry prairie soil.
- Guy every pole. One guy line per pole, angled out at about 45°.
- Gary’s method: tie a fixed loop in one end of 550 paracord and drop it over the top of the pole, then attach the other end to the stake with a Prusik hitch, so you can slide it to tighten without untying.
- Low and narrow into the wind. Point the lowest, narrowest edge into the prevailing west wind.
- Screw-in anchors (the dog-tie-out kind) hold masts and tall poles where spikes won’t.
- Know when to drop it. Watch the forecast gusts (see Wind in Lethbridge) and take shelters and awnings down before a big wind, not during.
Cordage and five knots worth knowing
Carry 550 paracord (it holds about 250 kg) plus some heavier rope. Gary keeps paracord, Dacron rope, ratchet straps and bungees in the truck.
- Bowline: a fixed loop that won’t slip and unties easily. Use it for tie-outs and around a tree.
- Taut-line hitch: an adjustable loop for guy lines.
- Prusik: a friction knot that grips another line and slides when loose, perfect for tensioning tarps.
- Trucker’s hitch: pulls a line drum-tight, for ridgelines and loads.
- Clove hitch: fast attachment to a pole or stake.
Fire
- Always check the fire ban first. Southern Alberta’s dry, windy conditions make wildfire a real risk. Check Alberta Wildfire and your county before any fire.
- Carry more than one way to light it: a lighter, waterproof matches and a ferro rod. Gary keeps fire starters and hand warmers in his truck kit.
- Sun power: a magnifying glass will light char cloth or dry tinder on a sunny day. Gary’s grandkids practised this at camp.
- In wind: build in a sheltered spot or behind a windbreak, start small, and keep water and a shovel beside you. Never leave a fire, and drown it until it’s cold to the touch.
Navigation: map and compass still matter
Phones and GPS are wonderful until the battery dies or there’s no signal. On open prairie with few landmarks, a compass is the backup that never runs out.
- Know your compass: the baseplate, the direction-of-travel arrow, the rotating bezel and the magnetic needle.
- Declination: in southern Alberta, magnetic north is a little east of true north (roughly 12° east, and slowly changing). Set it on your compass, or account for it, when using a map.
- Walking a bearing: pick a landmark on your bearing, walk to it, repeat. Count your paces to estimate distance.
- Back-up habits: tell someone your route, note landmarks behind you as well as ahead, and carry a paper map of the area.
Gary bought compasses for all the grandkids, and his oldest grandson taught them the way it’s done in Cadets: hide candy at a few spots, give each one a bearing and distance, and let the kids find it.
There’s more on map and compass, frostbite and layering on VE6DOK.net.
Water
- Carry more water than you think. Wind and dry prairie air dehydrate you faster than you notice.
- Treat any surface water. A gravity filter (Gary uses an MSR Guardian) or boiling makes river water safe from most pathogens. The Oldman and its creeks pass through farm and ranch country.
- Keep drinking water separate from washing water.
Camp crafts for kids
Some of the best camp memories come from simple projects. Gary’s grandkids have done whittling (with gloves and glasses), leatherwork with scrap leather, snaps and grommets, paracord bracelets and lanyards, and even building their own stilts.