The Ultimate Barefoot Shoe: Viking Style

Perhaps the ultimate barefoot style shoe...full leather, wrap around design, zero drop, toggle fastening, and over a thousand years old. 

This is a time when the North Sea Empire was a thing, and when the King of England was called Svein Forkbeard. It sounds like something out of  a Tolkien book but this is part of North European Heritage, of British Heritage, in fact.

A recent trip I took to the Jorvik Viking Centre in York was inspirational. The city of York, called Jorvik in Old Norse, was under Scandinavian control for over a hundred  years between the 800 and 900 years AD; and

The shoe stall at the Jorvik Centre, York.

the Viking influence could be felt in the United Kingdom, in East Anglia, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire;  as well as the Isle of Man and Scotland.
 
According to  wikipedia "A study into the Scandinavian ancestry of British peoples found that there is evidence of particular concentrations in the Isle of Man, Shetland, Orkney, the Western Isles, Skye and the western Highlands in Scotland; and the Wirral, West Lancashire, Cumbria, Yorkshire and East Anglia in England"

It made me think that the whole barefoot / minimalist running trend, isn't solely related to, say, a native indian barefoot running tribe in Mexico, but is a heritage from our ancestors, world-wide. In Northern Europe, this may be in our Anglo-Scandinavian forebears.  These days, with Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings being in the popular consciousness, so called fantasy, in fact these ideas of high adventure lie in the past of our ancestors. And I am sure they were all barefoot runners...maybe...

The Akubra Colly

Review of the Akubra Colly Hat

Akubra Colly catalogue shot

The Akubra Colly is a made to order model of a traditional Australian stockman hat, and it is big: large 4 inch brim and 5 inch plus crown. The crown has straight sides with very little taper which I prefer and plenty of room (I find the smaller crowns such as the Stockman don't quite have enough height). It has air vents and comes unlined in rabbit fur. I prefer unlined hats with vents these days as it keeps your head cooler. The rabbit fur itself is a bit coarse and a bit hairy and I wonder if this is because Akubra now imports its furs from outside of Australia: my older Akubra seems to have a much better quality rabbit fur. That's a small point of course; and anyway its going to get worn and dirty: it's not a dress hat (mate) it's a bloody Akubra.

I bought mine in the green hue of santone fawn, which I really like, but it also comes in regency fawn which is a brown and in sand which is a beige colour.

My Akubra after some customisation

This is a very comfortable hat and I ordered my correct size and the hat hasn't shrunk (too much) and it remains comfortable. I have customised the shape slightly to how I like it with  a tigher pinch crease and flared sides.

I really like the hat and this model may well become my signature hat. I would recommended it but would say that you need a certain self confidence to wear this big brash Australian cowboy hat. If you feel self consciousness wearing hats maybe a more conservative model such as the Stockman or Cattleman would be more your thing. 

UPDATE
OK...so I have had my Colly for three years or so and it has worn in nice, and it has shrunk at bit and tapered, but I still love it so much that I bought another in Regency Fawn which is a nice colour, probably my prefered colour as it is more of a brown colour.
Here are some more pics. I think the Santone Fawn one, my original hat,  is less well made than my new hat, somehow, it always seemed to have a brim that had that downward shape, so much so that I curled the brim sides cowboy style. Obviously the older hat has a tighter pinch from wearing it so much. The new hat is made much better, but you know, you get a made to order hand made hat for a factory price its damn good value for money. Akubra make great hats, I wear the old Colly hat for my adventures in the woods and doing BBQ's and the new one for work. Job done. I just need a light coloured one for summer!

 

Bushcraft according to Ray Mears

If you look across most of bushcraft books, TV shows, blogs, vlogs and youtube reviews you may find that the term "bushcraft" is synonymous with "survival", but I think this a narrow view and one which limits the application of bushcraft.

Ray Mears is different, I think he has the spirit of a true bushman, he says:

 "Bushcraft is a term I employ to describe a deeper knowledge of the wild and of nature"

And this is what I have tried to incorporate in my life, rather than to focus on, say, bushcraft in exotic places, or owning expensive knives and equipment, rather to apply what the essence of bushcraft is in my day to day living.

I suppose I think to myself what a bushman needs in his life, or perhaps to strip my own life, and its needs and wants into a minimalist form. Do I need another Akubra hat? Do I need another knife? Do I need another pair of shoes? What do I actually need to function in this life. Do I need to stock pile and to collect and to amass material things?

My move into barefoot running certainly helped me in this regard - what we think we need to run (expensive padded /cushioned /bouncy trainers), or walk (all the right branded gear) or do bushcraft (clothes, expensive knives, boots, stoves, etc) isn't actually what we need. Mainly all we need is a healthy body and some knowledge and some basic equipment. We can even run barefoot without any trainers. What a revolutionary thought! (But quite sad that as human beings who evolved barefoot that the very thought is almost crazy to most people). Why do need all the right kit to walk? And, bushcraft, isn't this almost our birthright? what our ancestors did for thousands of years? We don't need thousands of pounds worth of equipment to do any of this. I think we need a certain frame of mind only. And I think we need to drop the ego and to find our own adventure, anywhere and everywhere, everyday.

I am lucky that my office is on the edge of a nature reserve and that every lunch time without fail I walk through the woods. Walking these woods as a part of my working week, has taught me how the seasons change the environment, how to identify birds and trees and other plants from Ramsons (Wild Garlic) to the Blackthorne, but also encourages me to climb trees or balance on fallen branches. At the weekend, when I get a chance to disappear into the woods I can apply these skills more readily, it may  well be the most urban of bushcraft, but I feel it connects me to nature like no other way because one is directly interacting with it, through the mind, through the senses, and through the physical body. But it goes further than that, a different sense of being, of thinking: stitching holes in my trousers and leather stitching my shoes, mending and reusing, cutting down on plastics, and being more environmentally aware. A feeling of spirituality of nature, as if trees themselves have a form of consciousness. For me bushcraft, a deeper knowledge of nature, has been transformative taking  me down the path of the shaman.

I will leave this blog post on the one quote from Ray Mears that resonates with me is:

"Take only Memories: Leave only Footprints"

So I think we can take a different path for "bushcraft", to incorporate it into our lives not as a hobby that one does at the weekend, but everyday, as part of our lives, as part of ourselves.

Bushcraft, Carving and Whittling with the Casstrom Woodsman Knife

If the sword is the soul of the samurai then the knife is the soul of the bushcrafter...

The Casstrom Woodsman Knife, is a quality Swedish knife (made, I believe, in Spain) designed by the UK’s Roger Harrington of Bison Bushcraft. 

Description  of Casstrom Woodsman Knife designed by Roger Harrington

The knife has a blade of three and a half inches (eighty eight millimetres), and five thirty seconds (four millimetres) thick and has an attractive drop point. The steel used is bohler k720 also known  as  02 carbon steel. The scales are “d” shaped made from bog oak (ancient oak preserved in a bog for thousands of years) with black liners, and the handle has an almost imperceptible swell and a very slight dip near the pommel, blink and you would miss it. The sheath is made from thick but rather dry looking leather which I treated to give it some lustre. The sheath fits nicely on a belt and overall the knife and sheath is compact and unobtrusive.

Carving, slashing, chopping and batoning with the Casstrom Woodsman.

On arrival the knife was super sharp and cut through a variety of hard and soft woods with ease, like cutting butter in fact. It did lose its edge after carving hard wood, and did get a ding or two on the blade (a rolling-in rather than a chip) from chopping bamboo and batoning a very hard piece of ash - as one would expect - but the scandi grind was easy to hone and strop back to ultra sharpness. The blade feels short, fat and stubby, and at first I felt this was would be to the detriment of its usability but in fact the shorter dimensions made wood carving very controlled and I felt super-confident with this knife. It feels like a "safe" knife and I haven't cut myself with this knife - unlike my Helle Viking which neccesitated a trip to hospital!

The Woodsman comes with a leather thong through the lanyard hole which comes into its own when pulling the knife from the sheath and for extending the grip slightly whilst slashing, for example I used then when tackling some dense bamboo where I didn't want to lacerate my knuckles - another inch on the blade length would have helped in this scenario. This knife also batons with ease with no worries of that thick stubby blade snapping. In the woods, due to its shorter size this knife sits very discreetly on my belt, and I found it to be a practical all-rounder, batoning wood for a small fire, showering a plethora of sparks from the ferro rod, and cutting a baked bean tin into an impromptu stove. No problems.

I personally think that the main tool for a bushcrafter is his or her knowledge and therefore the knife actually only comes out of the sheath rarely, if at all (the same with the axe), its a tool not a toy. And I think that best describes the Woodsman: an unfussy utility tool.

Puting the Casstrom Woodsman to the test: Carving an Eagle

So the test for this knife was to see if it (and me) were good enough to carve an Eagle (my philosophy is that wood carving and whittling are transferable skills to bushcraft cutting skills, plus I have a artistic sensability!). So I found an old piece of sapele and got to work.

The knife made short work of the rough eagle design. Although I noticed the bog oak scales were not as hard wearing as I had hoped and various chips and dings appear as I got stuck into the carving. The blade itself kept its edge well.

Cutting through the hard wood was like carving butter. Contrary to what you might expect the scandi grind and thickness made the knife carve surprisingly very well, roughing out the shape of the eagle with ease, and, scraping, smoothing and so on. This knife excels at all rough carving  duties although is a little too thick to be used for detail work, but that is to be expected.

Well... see for yourself from the photo on the left. I was impressed at the Woodsman's carving ability and the overall confidence I had in the knife when holding it: I didn't cut myself once. The knife just sits very well in the hand and feels nicely balanced.

Is the Casstrom Woodsman Knife any good?

This really is a good knife for general duties, a perfect all-rounder, and sits discretely on ones belt. It is a tool for a job not a show piece, ...it is just a solid companion. However you will need to keep it oiled as it will rust.

Price point was good at just under £100.00, although has stiff competition. But it all depends on what you are looking for. If you have been dreaming of commissioning a custom-made knife by Roger Harrington but cannot afford it then the Woodsman is the next best thing, and I am reliably informed  that in use one would not tell the difference between 01 and 02 steel unless you did an A-B test.

The only negatives that I can see, and the only reasons that I would upgrade this knife is that it is a bit short for a conventional bushcraft knife and the short blade seems to attract damage to the handle nearest the blade making me think that brass bolsters would have been a good feature. I have also found that the dimensions of the handle are not quite right for my hand and I tend to get a cramp after carving or whittling. (UPDATE 2020: I recently adapted the handle to make it more comfortable, however I still think the blade is too short!).  Also, and even less importantly, aesthetically the Woodsman is a little bit dull, however the knife also comes in curly birch if you want a more showy knife. Having said all that Casstrom have two other knives which may suit better if you want a longer blade, or a different wood for the handle; the No.10 Forest Knife which has one of the world's most comfortable handle designs, and the Lars Falt Knife - which I have yet to have experience with.

Conclusion
This is a work horse knife, rather than a looker. A good, solid, well-made quality knife, the grind is symmetrical and the sheath well made- what more could you ask for? It's just a tool for a job  and is perhaps not the most inspiring bushcraft knife around. Having said that I can trust it implicitly and I if I need to take one knife into the woods for some bushcraft I would take this knife as it is very dependable, it's tough, you can strike a ferro rod on it, it's not going to snap, and you are unlikely to cut yourself with it. It is a safe option as a knife.

In summary: a compact, safe, carbon steel woodsman's knife. Handle not as comfortable as it could be, could have benefited from brass bolsters.