The Best Bushcraft Books: Learn The Skills Of Our Ancestors

Whether you are a novice or an experienced outdoorsman, bushcraft can teach you valuable skills for surviving in the wilderness and enjoying nature. With so many different books on the market, it can be difficult to know which ones best suit your needs. To help make your decision easier, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best bushcraft books available today.

From comprehensive guides to specialized titles focusing on specific areas such as plant-plant-edibilty or shelter construction, these titles provide essential knowledge and instruction for anyone interested in mastering the art of bushcraft.

Preview: Bushcraft doesn’t have to be expensive, and while nothing substitutes for in person training, these books prove to be an invaluable supplement to it!

Now, let’s begin!

---

What Makes The Best Bushcraft Book?

There are Five main things to look for when searching for the best bushcraft book, and each of these has a reason for why. When you purchase a book that is meant to teach you about wilderness skills, you want to make sure it has these features:

• Written by someone trustworthy and with real experience
• Images or drawings to help visualize content

With that being said, the bushcraft books below are going to be written by experts in their field, and they have many drawings or photos to help illustrate the content that is written.

What Are The Best Bushcraft Books?

These are my tried and tested, top selection of survival/bushcraft books to equip yourself with the knowledge and tools necessary for self-reliant outdoor adventures.

I have included a breakdown of what I appreciate or find lacking in each one too!

1. Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills And Wilderness Survival by Mors Kochanski

Best Bushcraft Book Overall

What I like:

• Great Drawings/Graphics
• Specific to the great boreal forest (Can be a pro or a con)
• Speaks in depth on topics including: fire lighting methods, tools, cordage creation, different tree and plant uses, proper shelter building, hunting methods, tanning hides and much more

What I don’t like:

• More specific to the boreal forest environment (not as applicable for some people, can be good or bad.. for me, this is my favorite environment so it would be great!)
• Sometimes it can be too detailed leading to overwhelming

My overall Thoughts:

This book has become my favorite bushcraft book of all time. And I say this for multiple reasons. To begin, this book goes into such depth on many different topics necessary for wilderness living such as how to properly store an axe in camp, how to cut down a tree using only a knife, and even different plant cordages for specific uses.

For example, I learned that the outer bark of fireweed has significant strength, enough to be used as a snare cordage.

Second, this book is the most detailed wilderness skills book that I am aware of that exists about the northern U.S. and Canada’s boreal forest environment. The boreal forest is some of the largest swaths of untouched wilderness left in the world.

If there is a place that you want to be immersed into the extreme wilderness, the boreal forest would be it.

This book goes into details of the uses of the True Tinder Fungus, how to skin and tan a moose hide and again, much more. It gives so much information on topics that I think it is an essential piece to anyone interested in boreal bushcraft. 

The only downsides that I have with the book are that for some things, it can get a little too in depth that would cause a beginner bushcraft practitioner to get a bit overwhelmed.

For example, it went over 10+ ways to suspend a pot over the fire. For many people, learning about some options for how to suspend a pot in any given situation can be awesome. But for others, this simply might become too overwhelming to try and remember the different methods.

2. Bushcraft 101 by Dave Canterbury

Best Bushcraft Books For The Beginner

What I like:

• Beginner to Advanced learning format: This is the first book in his series that features basic bushcraft.
• Books have a waxed feeling to them, feels high quality.
• Dave’s in-person courses primarily teach skills found in the books. So if you can’t afford in-person training, this series is a good way to jumpstart your knowledge.

What I don’t like:

• Have to purchase all three books to get all of the information (but it is worth it).
• Some overlap information from book to book. 

Overall Thoughts:

If I had to choose one set of books to get for someone interested in learning survival and bushcraft skills, this series would be it.

After taking many of Dave Canterbury’s survival courses in person, I can attest to say that most of the skills learned in the courses are talked about in his bushcraft books.

This is a win-win situation as people who have taken courses with him have the books to brush up on the knowledge, and people who have never taken a course or can’t afford them have the books to learn what the courses may be about. 

Second, the format of this series goes from more simplistic and gear-heavy bushcraft to more advanced and complex primitive bushcraft.

This is an excellent format for people who have different levels of skill sets. If you have a lot of experience, the advanced bushcraft book below might be a great option.

For someone who is more of a beginner, the whole series from start to finish can give you an excellent idea of bushcraft.

The real only downside to these books is that there are a few points of overlap in the books. I am assuming that this is because if some of the information was left out, the individual books might not feel complete.

However, these books provide mostly new information and are incredibly useful. Dave does an excellent job as a written and verbal teacher. See for yourself.

3. Advanced Bushcraft by Dave Canterbury

Best Bushcraft Books For The Advanced

What I like:

• Advanced learning format: This book details more primitive and advanced bush techniques.
• Books have a waxed feeling to them and feel high quality.
• Again, Dave’s in-person courses primarily teach skills found in the books.

What I don’t like:

• Some overlap information from the previous books in the series.

Overall Thoughts:

If you’re like me, when you think of wilderness survival and bushcraft skills, Dave Canterbury’s name comes to mind. As one of the world’s top wilderness experts, it is no surprise that he has written such an informative book on this vital topic.

His Advanced Bushcraft: An Expert Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival provides readers with expanded knowledge about staying alive outdoors in extreme conditions. This is no doubt my favorite book in his series.

4. The Forager’s Harvest by Samuel Thayer

Best Bushcraft Books On Edible Plants

What I like:

• Over 74 different plants (combined) and the edible parts.
• Speaks on how to harvest and prepare plants.
• Gives a chart of when each plant is in season.
• Provides the range and habitat of each plant.
• Incredibly in depth on each given plant
• Many colored images

What I don’t like:

• Too big to be used as a field guide in most situations.
• Sometimes there is more information given that is not always necessarily useful.

Overall Thoughts:

These two books are the most detailed and field-tested plant edibility books that I have ever put my hands on. Although it doesn’t replace in-person instruction, it is extremely informative and well-written.

If there is any single book that I would recommend for someone around the United States or Canadian areas, this would be it. The book features plants found all around North America so it truly would be valuable for anyone in any environment. 

Samuel’s books provide the most in depth and picture filled descriptions to instill a lot of confidence in wild edible gathering. Also, this is a series where it will not only tell you which plants/tree/berry is edible, but it will also go into detail about some of the ways to prepare the food for real wilderness eating. 

The books hit on a few different key points when going over the edible plant and this includes a description, look-alike plants (Samuel calls them look-similar), range and habitat of them, harvest, and preparation. So yeah, overall these books are a home run in terms of learning about the uses of these great plants that surround us. Trust me.

5. Natures Garden by Samuel Thayer

This book is relatively the same as the previous one, however it features different plants.

6. SAS Survival Handbook by John Wiseman

Most Comprehensive Bushcraft Book

What I like:

• Comprehensive and detailed instructions on wilderness survival
• Written by an experienced British Special Forces soldier
• Extensive content, covering a variety of topics
• Contains visuals for easier understanding
• Likely the most comprehensive book

What I don’t like:

• Some topics are not explored in much detail
• Chapter related to urban survival may be unappealing
• Book is quite large with 600 pages, thus it can be quite weighty to lug around

Overall Thoughts:

The SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition by John Lofty Wiseman is an extremely comprehensive book for anyone looking to learn about survival/bushcraft. Containing over 600 pages of explicit instructions and visuals, this book provides a wealth of information on how to remain alive in wilderness and urban environments.

This book provides thorough instruction on a plethora of topics – ranging from wilderness safety, first aid and medical attention, navigation systems, procuring sustenance and hydration, constructing shelters to protect against the elements or dangerous wildlife; as well as methods for signaling in times of distress.

Drawing on decades of experience as a British Special Forces soldier, Wiseman’s knowledge certainly shines through in this book.

However, as essential as this book is, it does have some downsides in my opinion.

The SAS Survival Handbook is an extremely useful resource, yet due to it’s extensive content, some topics are not explored in much detail.

Additionally, this book also contains chapters related to urban survival that I find gimmicky and unappealing. I only want the knowledge of wilderness skills because what good is lugging around a ton of books on urban survival when I’m out in the wilderness? With fewer pages, there’s less weight and a happier me!

---

Some other great options that I don’t have on this list but are well worthy of being on it are:

• Out on the Land: Bushcraft Skills from the Northern Forest
• Casstrom Lars Falt Book-Outdoors The Scandi Way/Survival Skills

Survival Tip: Aggregate berries such as Raspberry, Blackberry, Thimbleberry and Dewberries etc. are known to be 99% edible. Aggregate berries basically means fruits that are made up of multiple connected berries. This could be important to know if ever in a survival situation!

---