Featured Image Credit: Ed Blomfield

Remember when you were seven and you boldly told your parents you were going to sleep in the garden? Your parents, a pair of understanding souls, asked if you wanted help setting the tent up, but you were adamant: “No. No. It’s fine. I’m going to build a shelter… like they did in the olden times.”

Mum looked at Dad. Dad looked at Mum. One look. One hundred unspoken words.

“OK… son. We’ll be right in here, if you need us,” said Dad.

They knew before you’d even started that this mission was destined to failure, and they were right. You had three chunks of fire wood, not big enough to hold up a structure, a handful of twigs, a sleeping bag, and not a single idea where to start and what you needed to do. You didn’t realise it at the time but your parents were watching as five minutes into the mission, you tried crawling under a hedge to see if you could sleep under it (you couldn’t). 60 seconds later, deflated and defeated, they watched as you went to the backdoor and reentered the family home. Nobody said a word about your wildly unsuccessful attempt at bushcraft – which was nice of them.

“You’ve got to be resourceful, you’ve got to be aware, you’ve got to have your eyes open”

A fairly roundabout way that of introducing the latest video in Outdoors Magic and Filson‘s collaborative look at bushcraft fundamentals. Just like ‘the art of making fire’ one, it’s filmed in a real nice way and features outdoorsman Thom Hunt sharing his own experiences when it comes to building shelters. If this doesn’t make you want to get out there, and sleep in the woods under a structure you’ve built yourself… nothing will.

As Thom says at the start of the video, “You’ve got to be resourceful, you’ve got to be aware, you’ve got to have your eyes open, you’ve got to know where’s going to be warmest, where’s going to have the closest amount of resources – maybe like firewood. It’s a massive test of your creativity.” Words to live by. Whether you’re seven, or seventy.

Bushcraft expert Thom is a Filson ambassador and is wearing the Filson Alaskan Guide Shirt and Filson Lightweight Angler Cap.

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