Bush Craft

Blind Pig reader Leon Pantenburg generously donated a copy of his great book “Bushcraft Basics: A Common Sense Wilderness Survival Handbook” for me to giveaway as part of my Thankful November series.

Here’s a blurb about the book:

In Bushcraft Survival, Pantenburg delivers practical tips and anecdotes that cater to readers who are looking to improve their outdoor skills and prepare for every potential disaster. Drawing from his personal experience as an avid outdoorsman and years as a journalist, Pantenburg lays out easy-to-follow steps to prep for both short and long-term survival situations.

As natural disasters become increasingly present and people continue to rely on reality television shows for survival tips, developing bushcraft abilities is becoming more and more important. In this thorough handbook, Pantenburg covers a wide range of topics, including:

  • Developing a survival mindset
  • Crafting survival kits
  • Choosing clothing best suited to survival
  • Picking materials and objects to help you survive
  • Building a variety of shelters
  • Deciding what survival tools you should pack and which you should leave at home
  • Effectively make a fire using different techniques

Filled with time-tested techniques and first-hand experience, Bushcraft Survival is the ideal book for those who want to step up their hiking or camping game, as well as those who are searching for relevant advice on emergency preparedness. 


I got The Deer Hunter a copy of Leon’s book a while back and he really enjoyed it!

The book would make a great Christmas gift for anyone on your list who likes the great outdoors or who likes to know how to take care of themselves in an emergency.

For a chance to win a copy of Leon’s book along with a sample of Survival Common Sense wallet-sized firestarter leave a comment on this post. *Giveaway ends December 5, 2020.

Leon also has a great website. Jump over and visit him at Survival Common Sense.

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38 Comments

  1. Enjoy reading all outdoor books. Almost too old to do much strenuous hiking or camping. But still enjoy camping in the lake campgrounds.

  2. This sounds like a book my deer hunting, trout fishing grandsons could benefit from! Their dad is teaching them well to love our mountains and the outdoors.

    1. I’m a retired community college instructor, and a long time Boy Scout volunteer. Along the way I learned this: There is nothing like the great outdoors to teach a youngster important lessons about life. There is something for everyone in this book.

  3. Books on survival are fine but a person has to get out there in it and do it before they stand a chance in a survival situation. I have developed some survival skills over the decades but they are now useless to me. If I won the book it would be a waste. Not that I wouldn’t read and enjoy it but I am not healthy enough to put what I would learn into practice. So I’ll defer to someone younger and better shape.

  4. Every time the electricity goes off I have to scramble for a flashlight and/or candles. I know these things should be where they can be easily and quickly grabbed. We tend to become complacent and leave them where we last used them.

  5. We have been saving survival books for years. They are so knowledgeable and a joy to read. So nice of him to donate one. Love my books.

  6. Sounds like a great book for even a temporary crisis (weather related) not to mention a total all-out emergency. I’m sure I’m not nearly as prepared as I ought to be for an emergency. I think 2020 has shown us to be prepared for the unexpected.

  7. Survival without the conveniencies of our times is now a lost art in our times. Everyone should know the basics of survival in emergencies, whether temporary or long term. I would love to own a copy of Bushcraft Survival.

  8. Survival is something we all need to learn. It may come a time when we will need these tips. Mmy husband would and my self would love to have this book. We would be trying things out in it I know.I know it probably has alot interesting things in it. Thanks a bunch..

  9. My husband used to watch a lot of the Survivor type TV and I was always telling them to boil the bones of whatever they had for a nourishing broth! I hope to never end up in such a situation. I feel selfish to enter for another prize but I would like to have this book.

    Thank you for my Foxfire book–I have enjoyed reading it.

  10. all my life in fannin county I have heard “far’ for fire, “tar” for tire and “hope” for help. Have been told this is from the scots/irish dialect by the original settlers of these Mts. Is this true? Thanks for keeping these things alive.

      1. Tipper,
        This reminds me of someone saying the Wisemen were firemen because they came from afar. My Dad almost always used hope for help.

  11. Choosing clothing best suited to survival caught my eye. My grandsons showed up to go deer hunting in tennis shoes, thin camo overalls and only an orange cap for their head. My parents expressed their horror at a lack of clothing by saying things like, get in there and get you some clothes on or you’ll freeze to death going out half neckid. The boys just laugh when I say those things.

  12. This is unrelated to the book but I have a question. Have you or your readers heard the word strow? I was fussing at a cat because she wanted to strow my papers all around and my husband said he never heard that word. I thought it was common usage. Does anyone else use strow meaning to scatter and make a mess?

  13. I have a “mountain man” type cousin who would love that book, but not before I would scan through to learn tidbits. We are living in an unpredictable time, and in too many ways we have gotten too accustomed to an easier life. I was taught by Dad to “learn all you can, because you never know when it will come in handy.”
    This is a strange thing to share, but I remember in my travels as a nurse into remote areas of my home state, it was not unusual for HHA’s to chop wood for the elderly who had wood stove heat. Sadly, they would have froze if they depended on me, but one country girl made it look easy. Fortunately, in that wonderful area neighbors and government support systems went well beyond what most would do to assure these folks could remain in the homes they loved. When I compare the way we live now to the way it once was, I feel everybody needs a copy of “Bushcraft Survival” tucked in their sock.

  14. Interesting that he starts with having a survival mindset. I agree that is the place to start. There is just something pernicious about ever starting to think in terms of having things done for us, most especially if they are said to be “free”. It is a mental mountain to dis-entangle ourselves from all the tentacles of 21rst-century living.

    I grew up using “pretty” as a word to modify anything it was related to; pretty far, pretty cold, pretty steep, pretty mean, pretty ugly etc. I have always been a bit puzzled why “pretty” ever got started being used to mean “rather” or “somewhat”. In my mind, I understand it as ‘not the extreme but beyond the average’. And that is pretty close.

  15. Donna, I know that word pertnear, heard and used it all my life!
    That sounds like a great and interesting book , Tipper, maybe I’ll drop by and have a look at it before it goes away!

  16. One really needs a survival guide book or possibly several for these times ( and times past as well.) Sometimes I find out some really interesting things. I would never be caught without my bug out bag in case I gotta go quickly. Also I carry a compass and Swiss knife in my purse. Stay alert. Stay alive. I really have no answer against heat seeking human hunting drones…. hmmmm…. BTW ITS COLD IN SOUTHERN WV THIS MORNING AND WE GOT 3 or so inches of powder snow yesterday…. brrrr… fed my birdies outside.

  17. Tipper, I am all for a preparedness mindset, and I’d like to think that every year I do better and living off the land and preparing hard times…. but I have to tell you this reminds me of when my husband proposed, my husband (who really is a great person) decided it would be a good idea to propose during an episode of Doomsday Preppers (on Discovery Channel) he was watching. I married him anyway. This book reminds me of that moment. 🙂 (which makes me laugh)

  18. Sounds like a great book for times like the ones we are facing now. I love what you do to help your readers.

  19. Tipper,
    This is what caught my eye in your description of the book. “Pantenburg lays out easy-to-follow steps to prep for both short and long-term survival situations.” It would have to be all that for me to survive since I have been long removed from what our family used to know about surviving or making do.

  20. Sounds like interesting “fireside reading” for the ones of us like myself who are no longer able to spend as much time in the wild and woolly as we used to. I’m also thinking it’d be good fodder for shared activities with the grandsons as long as we keep the fire starting restricted to the back yard.
    Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and is looking forward to a Merry Christmas and “please Lord” a happy New Year!

  21. I thought of a word from my childhood in Iowa that probably came from your part of the country. Both my parents have ancestors from Kentucky, and I guess that’s why I know so many of the vocabulary test words I see here. When I was growing up, both my parents would use this word a lot, and I did too, back then: the word is pertnear. I Googled the word this morning and it is considered a southern word, although it’s not a real word, of course. “I’m pertnear as silly as my husband is.” I guess it came from the two words “pretty near”.

    I’m sure my husband would love the book.

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