Traditional Bushcraft with Turkka – Week 11

After recovering from my recovery week, it was back to class Monday morning.  I was really looking forward to a week outside with Turkka, learning traditional bushcraft skills, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

We started the week by carving an atlatl, a traditional spear thrower that utilizes leverage to achieve greater velocity.  We spent the entire day working on these things that aren’t exactly useful, or even native to Finland, but it was still fun to be outside, chipping away at a piece of alder wood.

My atlatl in progress

The next day we set our atlatls aside and started work on our backpacks.  I think this was my favorite project of the week.  Axe in hand, we each set off into the woods in search for the perfect mountain ash shoot.  It needed to be straight and flexible, not an easy thing to find.  It took me three tries to find a shoot that met Turkka’s standards, but finally I was ready to shape my frame and start tying it together.  The next step was creating the net to be used for carrying items, and once that was attached I was ready to head out with my new pack!  Slightly heavier than my GoLite…:)

Making our backpack nets from scratch

The finished product. Slightly crooked…but still functional!

Wednesday we used birch branches to create a decoy bird (apparently if you get good at these, you can sell them for quite a lot to the local hunting clubs) and dead nettles to weave a rug.  We also spun our own rope.  I’m using mine as a jump rope right now.

Decoy birds…a few might be passable…

Rope spinner thingy

Between Thursday and Friday, we made molds for tin, fired our clay creations, assembled a wilderness paint brush, and…dun dun DUN!  Held an atlatl competition!  Using Silja’s decoy bird, we set up a shooting range behind Turkka’s house and gathered around the startline with our various spear throwers.  Turkka attached a rope with 4 knots to the decoy bird that was used to measure distance after each round.  If you were outside the circumference of the knot, then you were out of the game.  If you hit the decoy bird, you automatically won.  Somehow, in some way, I made it to the final round against Andrew and Seishi.  Shockingly, I nailed the bird on my second try!  Turkka gave me the biggest smile and a beer!

Firing our clay creations

All in all, I had fun this week.  Lots of interesting projects, but I’m not sure I would be able to recreate anything that we made during the week if I was truly out in the wild.  Everything we did required some sort of modern material or something from the shop.  I thought the focus would be more on crafts that we could make out in the forest…

Nettle rug

This weekend is Mira’s sauna party.  I don’t know how long I’ll be able to go for since I am dog sitting for Tim this weekend, but I will try to swing by for a bit.  To be honest, I could use some alone time so I’m looking forward to having Tim’s house to myself for a few days.

Tepa is surprisingly good at handy crafts!

Next weekend is the big IWG meeting/reunion and there is a lot to prepare.  Andrew is my planning partner, so…Hope it all goes well.

Until next week –

Em

(Yes, I know, I am way behind on my posts.  I thought I would be able to catch up over the holidays, but I am pretty busy working and don’t have much time to write.  I’m trying!)