Tinder or Punk,I am only going to talk about natural tenders, although there are a number of man-made chemical tenders, if you want to use these ‘that’s your choice.’ so let’s talk about natural tender/punk all tinder needs to be kept, and pardon the pun tinder dry, so always keep it in a suitable container otherwise it’s a waste of time collecting it. I am always on the lookout for suitable forms of tinder, and this is were preparation comes into its own, no mater what you are doing you can only get out what you put in, so be vigilant. One of the most common is wood shaving’s, and most woods will make tinder shavings as long as they are fine enough, but wood with a high concentration of resin is best, also dry decaying wood, Burch bark or scrapings, dry grass, beaten bark, seed heads, dried leaves, resin from pine trees, dried moss, and some forms of fungus. You can also use cotton wool, and char cloth, these are part man made, but they are not chemicals, char cloth you have to make yourself but is well worth it. First take some strips of cotton material, I use old shirts torn into strips and coiled, they are then packed in a small tin like a tight clock spring, I use a shoe polish tin. Next seal the lid and put a small hole in the top, now place the tin on a fire, smoke will start to come out of the hole in the lid, leave the tin on the fire until it stops smoking and then remove, once the tin has cooled down you you will have a tin of char cloth. Kept dry it will never let you down.

Kindling, this is the wood we use to increase the heat in order to burn larger wood; normally we start with dry dead twigs found in the branches of trees, or shrubs and not ‘green wood’ it’s best to start with twigs not much thicker than a match or cocktail stick. Don’t use twigs found on the ground unless they are completely dry, once the fire gets going gradually increase up to finger thickness and thicker. If suitable dry wood is not available you can make fire sticks or feather sticks, these are made from the dry centre of bigger logs, split into small kindling sticks with the sides shaved in to curls as in the diagram, five to six should be sufficient, alternatively you can just make shavings, also made from sticks cut from the centre of the larger logs as above. Use these to start your fire, and once the temperature has been razed with these, you can usually start to burn other kindling that’s not quite as dry. It can never be overstated that the difference between success and failure can depend on your ability to fined dry kindling.

Activities involving all aspects of backwoods have the potential to be dangerous, especially those involving fires, and sharp tools, because of this, all health and safety precautions should be undertaken at all times.  If you decide to  replicate any of the activities, shown and described on these pages, they must be done under the supervision of a responsible instructor, and under no circumstances attempted by an un trained person. Because safe working can only be assessed on site by the person organizing the activity, no responsibility can be accepted for incidents arising from the use of this material.