Dave Canterbury2017Adams Media
By Dave Canterbury, with Jason A. Hunt on Bushcraft First Aid
Four field books in one set: what to carry, how to use it, how to eat, and what to do when someone gets hurt.
The core idea
Bushcraft Boxed Set gathers four of Dave Canterbury's wilderness-skills books in one set, published by Adams Media in 2017 and running to 1,024 pages in total. Bushcraft 101 starts with gear and core skills. Its first part, Gearing Up, is built around the Five Cs: cutting tools, cover, combustion, containers and cordage. It covers packs, knives, saws and axes, rope and knots, cooking tools and fire. Its second part, In the Bush, moves on to setting up camp, navigating terrain, trees as a four-season resource, and trapping and processing game. Advanced Bushcraft takes in building a kit, woodworking tools and simple machines, advanced firecraft and sheltering. The Bushcraft Field Guide to Trapping, Gathering, and Cooking in the Wild has four sections, on packed-in food, bushcraft cooking methods, living off the land and emergency cooking, with a photo guide to edible and dangerous plants. Bushcraft First Aid, written with Jason A. Hunt, PhD, covers wilderness first aid from the emergency scene and wounds to environmental hazards and bites. Independent reviewers describe it as a supplement to hands-on training, not a replacement for it.
The set's starting point is the Five Cs of Bushcraft 101: cutting tools, cover, combustion, containers and cordage. Its first part gives each of them a chapter of its own, from tools to rope and knots, and then the second part takes that kit into the bush: camp, terrain, trees and game.
The last book changes the question from what you can do with your kit to what happens when someone is hurt. Independent reviewers read Bushcraft First Aid the same way: OffGrid found its trauma care follows the EMT handbook and recommends a course alongside it, and Nate Shivar sums up its central question as how to get the injured person to a hospital fast.
Five jobs, not fifty gadgets. If something cuts, covers, burns, holds water and ties, the gaps are easy to see.
Tools, knots, fire, camp and navigation each get a chapter. Gear only helps in hands that have practised.
Know before you go, assess the scene, and get the injured person to real care. Training, not reading, is what makes that work.
Interactive · the Five Cs pack check
Tick what you would carry on your next day out. One item covers a C. The tags show which of the five are packed and which are missing. The example items are HourLife's, not a packing list from the book, and "Something else" counts if it does the same job.
Nothing packed yet. Missing: all five Cs.
Something that cuts
In Bushcraft 101: Chapter 2, Tools
Something that keeps weather off
In Bushcraft 101: Chapter 5, Coverage
Something that makes fire
In Bushcraft 101: Chapter 6, Combustion
Something that holds water
In Bushcraft 101: Chapter 4, Containers and Cooking Tools
Something that ties
In Bushcraft 101: Chapter 3, Rope, Cordage, Webbings, and Knots
The Five Cs are a starting point, not the whole pack. A day out also needs water, food, a map and the skill to use it, a first-aid kit, and a trip plan left with someone at home.
Nothing here leaves your browser. Your ticks are kept in this browser's storage so the pack is still here next time; Clear the pack removes them.
Pull a spine to see what that book covers. Two of the four show only the parts HourLife could confirm, and are marked as partial.
Use the arrow keys to move along the shelf.
Full contents, from the publisher's sample.
Listed as contents, not advice. Trapping is regulated: read your local laws and licensing first. Learn to identify wild plants from a local expert, never from a book alone.
Partial contents. These are the only parts HourLife could confirm; the book holds more.
Partial contents. The publisher's listing describes four sections; we could not confirm the chapters.
A photograph is not an identification. Never eat a wild plant unless a local expert has shown you it in person. Trapping is regulated: check your area's laws and licensing before you start.
With Jason A. Hunt, PhD, who also wrote Pathfinder Wilderness First Aid and co-hosts Pathfinder TV.
Full contents, from an Everand preview.
Reviewers at OffGrid call it a supplement to training, not a replacement, and recommend a first-aid or EMT course. HourLife agrees: take a certified wilderness first-aid course. The plant-medicine chapter is listed here as contents only, not as treatment advice.
Concept anatomy
Read in order, the set moves like a trip: pack the kit and learn the basics, push the skills further, feed yourself, then deal with the day something goes wrong.
Stage 1 · Kit and skills
2014
What to carry, organised as the Five Cs, then camp, navigation, trees and game.
Stage 2 · Advanced
2015
Back to the kit, with woodworking tools and simple machines, firecraft and shelter.
Stage 3 · Food
2016
Packed-in food first, then cooking methods, living off the land and emergency cooking.
Stage 4 · First aid
2017
Assessing the scene, injury and illness far from help, and getting the person out.
The first part of the book, Gearing Up, opens with the pack and then gives each of the five Cs a chapter of its own.
HourLife's reading of the set as a route, built from the contents we could confirm. It is not the publisher's framing, and the stage names are ours.
Community insights
Waypoint 01HourLife takeaway
Bushcraft 101 opens its gear section with the Five Cs and gives each of them a chapter: tools, rope and knots, containers and cooking tools, coverage and combustion. Thinking in five jobs rather than a long list of items makes it easier to see what is missing before you set off.
Waypoint 02HourLife takeaway
The tools chapter of Bushcraft 101 takes knives, saws and axes in turn, along with the work each one does, from batoning and notches to felling and limbing. Knowing which job belongs to which tool is part of carrying less and using it well.
Waypoint 03HourLife takeaway
Reviewer Nate Shivar reads Bushcraft First Aid as organised around one question: how to get the injured person to a hospital fast. The book's own chapter on the emergency scene ends with helicopter evacuation.
Waypoint 04HourLife takeaway
OffGrid's reviewers found that the trauma care in Bushcraft First Aid follows the EMT handbook, and they recommend taking a first-aid or EMT course alongside it. HourLife's plain advice: take a certified wilderness first-aid course. A book does not replace one.
Waypoint 05HourLife takeaway
The first chapter of Bushcraft First Aid is called Know Before You Go. The second turns to survival skills, built around what the book calls the Ten Cs, with a five-minute fire, shelter and boiling water.
Waypoint 06HourLife takeaway
The emergency-scene chapter of Bushcraft First Aid works through assessment checklists such as AVPU, the ABCs, DCAP-BTLS and the SAMPLE history. Checklists like these stick when you have practised them on people in a course, not only read them.
Waypoint 07HourLife takeaway
Bushcraft 101 gives trees a chapter of their own, Trees: The Four-Season Resource, in the part of the book about life in the bush. The title alone is a useful habit of mind: look at the woods as something to understand all year, not only in summer.
Waypoint 08HourLife takeaway
The Bushcraft Field Guide to Trapping, Gathering, and Cooking in the Wild begins with packed-in food before it turns to cooking methods, living off the land and emergency cooking. Its photo guide covers dangerous plants as well as edible ones. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of a photograph: learn identification from a local expert.
Waypoint 09HourLife takeaway
HourLife's reading of the order: Bushcraft 101 sets out the kit and core skills, Advanced Bushcraft builds on them, the field guide turns to food, and Bushcraft First Aid deals with injury and illness far from help.
Action steps
HourLife's suggestions, inspired by the set. They are not steps the books prescribe.
Before your next walk, lay out one item for each C: something that cuts, something that covers, something that lights a fire, something that holds water and some cord. Add water, food, a map and a first-aid kit, then pack.
Find a certified wilderness first-aid course near you and put a date in the calendar. Reading about wounds and evacuation helps, but a book does not replace hands-on training.
Before every trip, tell one person where you are going, your route, who is with you and when you expect to be back, and what they should do if you are late.
Look up current fire bans and campfire rules for the place you are visiting. Rules change with the season and the weather, so check them close to the day.
Trapping is regulated, and so is gathering plants on much public land. Read your area's laws and licensing first, and learn plant identification from a local expert, never from photographs alone.
Pick one useful knot and tie it every day for a week, then with your eyes closed, then with cold or wet hands. Add a second knot only once the first is automatic.
Practise at a campsite fire ring or another place where fires are permitted, with water at hand. Put the fire out cold before you leave.
When you get home, go through your pack one C at a time. Replace what you used, dry what got wet and fix what broke, so the pack is ready for next time.
First-aid certifications lapse. Note when yours expires, renew it on time, and check your first-aid kit for used or out-of-date items when you do.
Carry the five, practise the knot, and know the way out before you need it.HourLife note after Dave Canterbury
Pick setup actions and daily habits from Bushcraft Boxed Set, choose a start date, and download a printable checklist with real calendar pages.
Bushcraft Boxed Set gathers four of Dave Canterbury's wilderness-skills books in one set, published by Adams Media in 2017 and running to 1,024 pages in total. Bushcraft 101 starts with gear and core skills. Its first part, Gearing Up, is built around the Five Cs: cutting tools, cover, combustion, containers and cordage. It covers packs, knives, saws and axes, rope and knots, cooking tools and fire. Its second...
HourLife’s key takeaways include: Pack by category, not by gadget: cutting tools, cover, combustion, containers and cordage. A knife, a saw and an axe are different tools for different jobs. In the wild, first aid is mostly about getting the injured person to real care.
It's a strong pick for readers exploring Learning & Mastery and Resilience & Mental Strength. HourLife distills its core idea into key insights and practical actions worth trying.
Pack the Five Cs for a day hike — Before your next walk, lay out one item for each C: something that cuts, something that covers, something that lights a fire, something that holds water and some cord. Add water, food, a map and a first-aid kit, then pack.
About five minutes. The HourLife summary distills Bushcraft Boxed Set into its core idea, 9 community insights, and 9 practical actions you can apply right away.
One idea from one book and one small habit from another, every week or once a month, on the day and around the hour you pick, where you are. Nothing else, and one link stops it.
Print it, pin it, post it. Ways to take Bushcraft Boxed Set off the screen and into the world.
The core idea, key takeaways, and how to apply Bushcraft Boxed Set, as one clean, readable page.
Read summaryEvery action from this page as a printable to-do list, with a 7-day tracker.
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Save the insights that land, build the habits that stick, and keep what you learn from Bushcraft Boxed Set working long after you close the page — inside HourLife.
