Doing it for real

[deadbeforedawn]

Hi all, hope you all read this and i get some feed back.
i've been planning to get away for a long time know as life at home is crap, anyway it will be about 4 yrs until i get all things sorted but intend to take the car as far as inverness. sell the car then take off around the coast in the canoe and head up the west coast. if i start in april/may it will give my plenty of time before winter sets in
of course in the years before it happens i will try and learn all the skills i need to live off the land and if things get really bad in winter i will have the money i've saved to help when food gets scarce and i can move nearer a village.i have thought about it and i know it will be hard at times and times change but once you get used of the life its got to be better then the one i've got now.
will be interested in your comments.

[dave53]

hi dbd a lot of things can happen in 4 years as you learn things on this forum you can test out your new found skills at weekends and days off who knows it might give you the confidence to get out there do a bit of bushcrafting make new friends who are like minded and in your area regards dave

[PhotoGirl]

what would you do for income should you need it not just for food but other things you may need. What skills do you have already and would you be going it alone? Pets? will you be in a permanent residence or travelling?

If you know its what you want to do then go for it just wondering what you have thought of already. Saving to get away myself and already learning many skills.

[georann]

Its a big jump that will require a lot of skills and equipment, potentially costing you a fair bit. Plus youve got to carry it. On a more serious note, you cant just abandon your life and go off as what youre doing is potentially very dangerous, you always need a back up plan and someone you can trust to help you out. A lot can change in 4 years so dont be set on doing this, things may change but you can still enjoy the skills (and friends) youve gained through bushcraft

[Limaed]

Welcome to the forum.

You might be intrested in reading some of Mike Tomkies books, he lived a reclusive Highland life in the 70's looking after wild animals with only his dog for company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Tomkies

Im intrested in what you define as living off the land? A remote small holiding or debris shelter in the wild? I don't wish to sound rude but the NW Highlands arn't some Bushcraft Nirvana thier often portrayed to be, many of the ecosystems that supported our ancestors simply don't exist anymore. Rightly or wrongly all of the Highlands belong to somebody and you may find yourself in trouble if you're taking another man's game and building a Basha in his woods without permission.
The Scottish climate can be extremely harsh, the midges are awful in the summer and our maritime climate and northern latitude is perfect for producing Hypothermia in the winter. You really need to know what you're doing.

[rik_uk3]

Hi there

You won't live off the land, you will need to buy and barter/steal food or you will starve, be under no doubt about that. That said I wish you luck in your endevours.

[Toddy]

My Dad took himself off in the 1930's and lived wild on Rannoch Moor for several years. However, he was a skilled tradesman (joiner) and he took a small kit of tools with him. When he was well enough he worked for the local farmers.
This provided him with fresh supplies to augment his hunting and fishing.

You have four years you say. Best advice we could give you is find some way of having a skillset that other folks will be happy to employ on an occasional basis.

Limaed said all that needs to be said about the realities of living wild up there.
Inverness is truly a city these days, and the countryside is not empty.

Best of luck,
Toddy

[QDanT]

Hi all, hope you all read this and i get some feed back.
inverness-around the coast in the canoe - and head up the west coast. learn all the skills i need - will be interested in your comments.

My comment is Inverness is on the East coast so if you get round the top of Scotland you'll be heading down the West coast not up maybe maps would be a good skill .
good luck,

[deadbeforedawn]

thanks for all the reply's
for the last one i would come down the great glen to get to the west coast,did this two years ago as a holiday it took two weeks but i will have no time table to run by
i was just thinking inverness would by easier to sell the car,mind saying that in 4 yrs i will have to pay them to take it.
for all the rest thank you for your kind advice.
i was thinking of moving from place to place but if i could get a small croft going that would be a good idea
for living off the land i know it will be hard but rabbit and fish would be in plenty in the summer and a small veg patch would cost very little
why i picked the west coast is it's the only place i know and like, apart from the midge
but once again i would like to thank you all for the reply,s
hope to here from you again soon
thank you

[Toddy]

Crofts are heritable and they are in demand when they do come up for sale or rent.
Rabbits ? well, the land is all owned by someone, and not all land is suitable for rabbits.

I really do think you need a tighter plan. Winter is not a time to play around up here unless you are set up for it.

cheers,
Toddy

[v-ness]

I think every bushcrafter out there has at one time or another dreamed of just taking off and living of skills and wits.

Taking time out to live rather than exist

My advise would be to look carefully at your reasons for doing this. You said your life is crap, from personal experience I can tell you that problems come with you when you try to escape. And being alone without a social network and support these problems can become much harder to deal with than amongst friends.

Others have mentioned the skills and permissions needed, so I wont go into this, but pay close attention to these as you're life and health will depend on how successful you are.


However, the great outdoors can be a wonderful and magical place and if you decide to take a year out- good luck!!

Lastly, this forum has a lot of good advice and if you try to get to some meets folk would probably be more than happy to pass on some of their- often considerable skills and you might find a new direction for your life with and amongst likeminded people here.

Good Luck
Ness

[fred gordon]

I heartily agree with all the caution that has already been expressed. Four years is a long time and perhaps a change of area would be a first step. I suggest you read a book called 'Blazing Paddles' by Brian Wilson. If you like I can lend you a copy. Canoeing round the north coast of Scotland is one of the most dangerous areas in the world, especially the Pentland Firth. Nearly killed this guy, a very experiences kayaker, several times. Break yourself in gently

[Tengu]

Id say go for it provided you are not going to burn your bridges. (like, can you afford to replace the car?)

[woodspirits]

lots of exellent advice being given, take it on board then go for it! you really are only young once give it a shot but have a back up plan if it turns a bit sour

on a personal note, 40 years ago my quest was to join the merchant navy and eventually go to south america, jump ship and head into the amazon! well it was difficult getting a deckhands ticket at the time so i signed up for a deep sea fishing company (trawlers) hoping to gain enough experience to get me a merchant seamans ticket. a couple of years later real life got in the way, (or i grew up) i met and married and that took me down a completely different path

if you dont give it a go, you'll spend the rest of your life wishing you had! best of luck in your quest

steve

[Andy T]

i used to haul ( by hand) 40 lobster pots in the pentland firth everyday and i have to agree its not a stretch of water to be taken lightly, having said that go for it mate its something i would love to have attempted but i am possibily the wrong side of 40 now and as near as dammit married, if my relationship ever goes belly up keep an eye open for me when you are up that way as our paths may well cross cuz i would be giving it a go

[Sniper]

It's a bushcrafter's dream allright, I think we would all love to have such an adventure. Unfortunately reality has to set in sometime. There would never be enough wildlife to sustain you without breaking the law, to keep yourself in vegetable foodstuff you would require a full growing season, what would you do until harvest. A croft you would need a heck of a lot of money even to lease and then the landowners would most likely consider long term applications first ( and there is waiting lists galore). There are short term holiday leasing but the cost of them is monumental, do you have that kinda cash, I suspect not when you want to live of the land. There is very little in the shape of wild food, especially around the Great Glen area and even that would only be available at certain times so you would have to supplement your lifestyle with buying in regular supplies. Winter in the highlands can be deadly in winter without the right equipment and that does'nt just mean food but fuel for heating and lighting as well, candles sound very romantic but they are not very practicall really long term. If I were you I would consider taking on a small holding for a couple or three years where you are just now and try living of what you can produce yourself, only then could you even consider this, however much appeal it has. Sorry I don't mean to dampen your spirit but unless you can come up with more than a very sketchy plan of how you will sustain yourself you will most assuredly live up to your name. However if you go for it I do wish you all the very best of luck with it ....you will be needing it.

[Tengu]

How come crofts are scarce and in demand?

When I was on lewis i saw LOADS of derilict properties.

Theres lots of others all over the highlands.

[Sniper]

All owned by someone no doubt but owners unprepared to pay for restoration and upkeep I should't wonder Tengu. It's a real tragedy that these things are let go to seed but again maintenance cost especially for bringing in the materials the the more remote areas is very high.

[Toddy]

Besides, the owners probably have built new houses nearby. Just because they're remote doesn't mean they need to live primitively.
The old blackhouses and but and bens get left to fall down and weather back into the land.

cheers,
Toddy

[Xunil]

The NW of Scotland is hard - really hard. Much of it is truly beautiful but winter comes earlier and usually lasts well into what passes for summer here in England - you will need a place of shelter with adequate resources to provide heating for long periods where foraging/gathering will simply be impossible. Peat will be one of your best sources for storable fuel but you'll catch it hot from any authorities if you are found digging it in quantity.

On the back of that, you also need a reliable method of long term food storage to cover you against the same issues.

If you stay in one area for any length of time you will seriously upset the natural balance and drain the surrounding resources. In a good year species like rabbits will bread, well, like rabbits but in a bad year (which could entail a number of factors other than harsh weather) the rabbit population can dip, which adversely effects predation and so many of those predators will be looking to share some of your other potential resources (or food stocks) themselves in their ongoing quest to survive.

One of your biggest enemies will be the wind - if you intend remaining coastal in the far NW of Scotland you will 'enjoy' more windy days than you care to shake the average stick at. When you get a storm up there it lives up to its name and can run for days on end, making beach foraging difficult. Also keep in mind that MW Scotland is predominantly cliffs

I spent just a few weeks up there with a close friend of mine some years ago near the Kyle of Lochalsh and he helped on the outskirts of a large sporting estate. His labours were in spectacular surroundings and there was never a shortage of game which, happily, he was able to take advantage of without fear of legal repercussions due to his position on the estate. He was basically what I would call the equivalent of a keeper's mate, if there even was such a thing.

He helped with the birds on the tops, assisted with the guided salmon and see trout visitors, did odd-jobs around the estate and did a lot of pest control with a silenced air rifle. He did a bang-up job with feral pigeons in cattle barns and stoats, weasels and rats around the pheasant feeding bins. Part of his arrangement was that he could also help himself to any train-kill, which is the rail equivalent of road-kill. If one of the train drivers reported a deer killed on the tracks that ran within the estate grounds he was able to go and harvest from the carcass at certain prearranged times (to avoid the daily train runs).

He had tried in the far NW for a time but came back down to the Kyle of Lochalsh area when he found the going too hard up there. From what I hear he is somewhere in southern Ireland now, doing much the same thing.

If I might make a suggestion, why not think along the lines of finding work along these lines in exchange for the use of a bothy or shepherds cottage, lodge or some-such ?

You could then live a semi-self sufficient lifestyle in comparative safety, foraging, fishing and hunting for much of your food but with the safety and security that a heated, if modest, home brings, not to mention the fallback of a support network of people who are at hand if you need help at any time - think injury, illness etc.

Often you can end up with more troubles than those you try to leave behind in an exercise like this, but with a little planning and a slight shift in your thinking you could very well make a roaring success of it.

I am fascinated by the American pioneers and, in particular, the fur trade era. On the one hand the romance of it all has to appeal but on the other the harsh realities are just that - harsh.

I think you could pull the whole thing off very nicely if you present yourself well to any prospective employers and don't look like a scruffy wanderer who has no business being on their land to begin with.

Lambing always requires seasonal, temporary staff in the early part of the year, and if you volunteered your services locally for the next year or two then you would be a useful addition to a sheep farm if you knew what you were doing. Endearing yourself to the local sheep farmers is an almost sure-fire way of finding more work or a place to 'live'.

Poaching carries severe penalties and unless you are literally miles away from anywhere and anyone, you will do yourself a huge favour by staying on the right side of the landowner or tenant.

Rabbits don't work as a mainstay diet, but clearing them in numbers (with permission granted by prior arrangement) for the local landowner/tenant usually gets your name circulated very quickly through the local area and odd jobs and other opportunities usually arise as a result. You might also make a few pennies by selling the 'crop' to a local butcher or game dealer, or the estate/landowner/tenant may offer you a small amount for them.

On the flip side, if you are caught harvesting game of any kind without said permission your name will be mud and it will go hard on you. The communities and scattered individuals that populate these areas are close knit and do not take kindly to folks just helping themselves.

I certainly think there is scope for a venture like this, but only if you approach it properly.

Key skills/requirements, as I see them, and listed in no particular order of relevance:

1. Shelter (obvious I know)
2. Firemaking - practice various methods including hand and bow drill, even practising in the dark and working 'blind'. Carry a hand drill set with you - it's small, light, reliable and takes up almost no weight. Firesteels are all well and good but proper firelighting skills are vital in the event that you lose or are otherwise separated from your normal method of starting a fire. Likewise, some sort of 'tinderbox' arrangement where you always carry a small amount of very dry various grades of tinder and possibly even some small kindling.
3. Water - gathering and caching/storing. Make sure you have containers of suitable capacity and durability, and at least two methods of sterilising your water other than boiling it, which is horribly inefficient and the resulting steam in an enclosed shelter can be a bloody nuisance in the colder months where it can cause your clothing, bedding etc to get damp and even freeze solid in a cold snap - this level of condensation can even spoil some types of preserved foods.
4. Food caching - I view this as very important if your are working within a limited season. You will need assorted dried fruits and vegetables, grains, pulses and rice can be good as well, otherwise your health will suffer. Either plan on finding a base and stocking it with bought supplies, which can be as simple as raisins, sultanas, porridge oats and long grain rice (and similar) or plan on gathering a lot of seasonal produce and process it yourself. If you do it the second way, you will need all manner of pots, pans, airtight containers, a proper oven is a big help (although not essential) and a freezer makes storage easy and practical. Meat and fish can be preserved in a number of ways, so familiarise yourself with the methods, practice them and work out which you prefer and which require the least gear, keeping in mind that unless you end up in a cottage of some sort you will only have what you can carry to.p process everything. The two steps are very different - processing and then storing - and concentrate on calorie rich foods. Rabbits are a pleasant treat if properly cooked but in terms of nutritional value you could probably do just as well by eating the pot you cook them in...
5. Resupply - you need a plan for being able to top up in the event that you run low on food, clothing, bedding etc.
6. Hygiene - this is the killer of the list. I am going to include general cleanliness as well as field hygiene. Basically if you look scruffy you aren't going to find anyone who will pay you for even casual labour. So you need a method of keeping yourself and your gear clean - the fringe benefits are that this is a great morale booster, it keeps you warmer, and reduces the likelihood of parasites.

I could mention other factors but the above would be the primary concerns in my eyes.

Keep in mind that a lot of the area you are talking about has a high risk of Lymes disease, particularly in late spring and early summer, which can be pretty nasty. I had two courses of antibiotics to get rid of Lymes disease last year and I felt like crap as a result of it - the joint pain and swelling alone would make dextrous work difficult and the fever is obviously a real danger to anyone going solo. Had I not insisted on being tested for it my doctor would never have added it to the list to be checked when he was organising blood tests - the legacy of Highland deer stalking

Also keep in mind the infamous Scottish midge which, as we all know, are specially trained by the SAS to make your life an absolute living hell without the right kit, lotions and potions

I always start by examining the obvious negatives - this may seem like a killjoy approach but once you list the most obvious and/or potentially dangerous, you can develop strategies, skills and plans to draw a line through them, and move on to the next problem. The more you do this in the current safety of your present situation the better armed you will be when you try this.

I'd love to hear how you get along - maybe part of your strategy for returning back to the 'civilised' world at some point should involve writing a book about your adventures, so add some sort of journal to your kit list and use it daily...

Best of luck, and I mean that wholeheartedly.

[Tengu]

Find a quiet place with sea fishing, shellfish and seaweed....stay there for a summer? You probably could manage that.

Our ancestors (and not so distant ancestors) would try to find a small sea cave

[Andy T]

i lived in caithness for 3 years ( two miles away from john o groats ) and i think its possible, although not always entirely legal. the number of rabbits that are there need to be seen to be believed and permission to take them is not hard to get, if i didnt catch 40 in a day then it was a bad day. i know rabbits wont provide the fat necessary but there are enough wildfowl up there to satisfy that. as regards vegetables yes im sure there are some seaweeds that could be eaten but there lots of potatoes grown in caithness and this is specified on many bags of potatoes as they are almost entirely disease free.

the reason new houses are built alongside older crofts is that it is cheaper for the locals to build a new house rather than do up an old one, they are, or were subsidised to such an extent that a new house costing 60k would in reality only cost 6k to the crofter. they are, or were subsidised on every head of sheep they kept i think that this was done by the highland and island development board to try and keep people living in the area.

finding somewhere to live/travel round would be relatively easy as sutherland is the least populated area in the british isles, i also think that stroma was the largest uninhabited island of the british isles and i used to know the owner so if you really want to get away from it all thats the place

[gsfgaz]

I would think long and hard about this mate , it's awrite sane you want to abandon ur life and head too the north of Scotland and live off the land . but in reality it's a hard thing to do , taking on a small croft would cost you a fortune and that's even if you could get one , and how would feed your self , maybe rabbits or fish but you have to learn how too catch them first , and the weather up here can be horrendous mate ,and the midges would drive u mad in the summer time
i would advise you to use the 4 years u have to get plenty experience and skills under your belt before you even attempt this plan ...
i hope you make the rite decision mate and it all works out for you , four years is a long time bud , your life could changed for the better ,,,
aw the best ..

[deadbeforedawn]

Thanks again for all the reply's
some good comments and sound advice.

[Dormouse]

I say go for it! There's nothing more tragic than a dream unfulfilled - especially if it was because you bottled it or allowed yourself to be dissuaded.

However, before anyone thinks I'm being flippant or cavalier, the advise posted above appears sage and you should use the four years before you go to properly plan and prepare with the cautions in mind. You have plenty of time to research the full state of the reality of your idea and make practical and realistic provisions for a successful and safe adventure.

Good luck with bringing your dream to fruition.

[Ronnie]

Find a quiet place with sea fishing, shellfish and seaweed....stay there for a summer? You probably could manage that.

These are my thoughts precisely. Miss out the Great Glen if you've already done it, there's not much foraging to be had along there anyway. What you need is fore-shore to scavenge shellfish, seaweed and a bit of fishing. The West coast is beautiful and rich in this respect with many sheltered lochs to explore. The weather changes quick, and it's easy to be caught out in a small boat even in summer so you have to be careful, use your maps and plan ahead.

Some source of income is going to be useful - there's no doubt. It will also integrate you into the local community. Fishing boats sometimes need deckhands on a casual basis, might well do cash in hand if you approach the issue carefully. There's also fish-farm work. This tends to be more corporate, more mundane, and harder to get. But independant mussel and scallop producers often have need of seasonal work. If you have 4 years to prepare, then a course in forestry could set you up. Also, as someone has mentioned, estate worker. Again, a course in land management or some other appropriate subject would set you up well for this.

My advice would be to not even think of trying to survive a winter on the West coast roughing it and living off the land. You will fail. Spend the summer living the dream, making connections, and maybe finding yourself somewhere to overwinter.

All the best