Dave Canterbury Or Mors Kochanski ?

If you have read Dave Canterbury's "Bushcraft 101" but have not yet read Mors Kochanski's "Bushcraft," then you really ought to! Mors wrote his book back in 1988 and has been one of the leading survival instructors out there teaching wilderness skills for more than 30 years in Canada. What is unique about Mors's book is that he goes into areas and details that Dave's book does not cover completely. And yet, what is awesome about Dave's book and what he focuses covers the areas and points that Mors's book didn't. It's very evident that Dave indeed admires Mors and his knowledge as you can see his influence in his own direction of bushcraft yet is still his own. However, you can see they share a similar bond at the same time.

When structuring the direction of his book, Dave, places emphasis on the importance of understanding your essential gear and its purpose, while incorporating his own take on bushcraft survival basics, What I like about his book is how he wants you the reader to understand how to get started and what you should consider so that you can literally take the book and physically do what it says to get out into the woods. Whereas, Mors's focus of his book is directed at understanding the dangers of environmental conditions which can lead to further problems that he would rather a person seek to avoid all together, as he guides the reader to understand the essential knowledge of firecraft and the needed foundations of it. Now, when I say "firecraft" I am not merely talking about just making a simple fire, but that it dives right into the subject to cover all the needed points. He goes into detail of variables such as how to make fire, what tools to use to construct one, how to use those tools, what type of fire lays exist for both group camping as well as individuals, how to perform different cooking methods with fires, warming fires, what advantages do some fire lays have over others, wood processing, tinder bundles, where to make a fire, where not to make a fire and so on.

When you begin to see the layout of each author you begin to realize more about their woodsmen knowledge and perspective. Dave wants you to know where to begin before venturing out in the woods and where to start. Mors wants you to be careful and know the importance of being safe and smart as he guides you to know and understand things like proper axe and knife skills while giving you tons of pictures to demonstrate his points. Sure, Dave is not in any way against safety as he himself brings up these points now and then such as knife safety, the four W's and other topics. What I really like about both their books is they completely compliment each other. It would be like spending time with Dave for some time when reading his whole book and then being trained under Mors afterwards as he goes into more depth covering certain topics in his book that Dave didn't spend as much time in. But after finishing you really feel the overlapping of issues both spoke about, to the point it really begins to click and sink the very points the made inside you really well. and that is priceless!