New Friends Meet Thru The Love Of Bushcraft

    I had the very great privilege of meeting for the first time, BushcraftUSA member "Sticker" and his significant other on Saturday, Oct. 27th for a regularly scheduled meet up of bushcrafters. "Sticker" aka Terry, has only been a member for a little over a week now and they both decided that it might be fun to meet up and start working on the BushclassUSA Basic lessons. We met as usual at 9AM in the Group Camping Parking lot of the Minneopa State Park, here in southcentral Minnesota. After waiting for about a half hour to see if any other members would arrive, we headed out on our hike.
    I decided to help them work towards their first lesson "Student Practice for a Twig Fire" by going over the basics of gathering natural tinders, discussing the use of ferro rods, using man-made tinders and the mechanics of building the twig fire. Once we arrived on site near the river, they set to work gathering their materials.
    Here now is the video of our day trip, and all the fun we had meeting up for the first time and becoming friends for the experience.

   Along the way, we talked about friction fire methods and then the discussion turned to other ways of making fire. I took the opportunity to demonstrate a bow drill fire using some basswood for a spindle and some cottonwood for a hearth board. I could see that Terry was watching the whole process pretty carefully, so I gave him the proven set to take home and try on his own if he liked. We also looked at starting fire with flint and steel and now I am sure we will be building some tinder kits soon. It was a lot of fun.
    After some hot chocolate, we headed back to the vehicles and called it a day. I have to say, it was a fun way to make new friends. We definitely have some new members to BushcraftUSA and have set them on the path of enlightenment.
   Terry has since shared with me in a PM that they are now working on getting together a couple of kits using the Finnish Gas Mask bags and that they have ordered some new ferro rods. Way to go, you two!
    I hope you enjoyed the video. Until next time, Happy Exploring.