The Bush Boy's Book

Book excerpt: Uniquely Australian, and the first Australian bushcraft book to be published and gain a wide readership, The Bush Boy's Book was published in 1911 and was considered compulsory bushcraft reading until at least the 1940s for all bushmen, scouts, cadets, army recruits, farmer's sons and early outdoor enthusiasts of all types. This was the book our grandfathers and great grandfathers ravenously pored over by gas, kerosene or candle light, committing every little hint and tip to memory. Today, over 100 years after it was first published, this fine book has been all but forgotten. It's time to bring it to a new generation of bushcrafters, scouts and outdoor recreation devotees. In October 1911, the Perth Western Mail's Literary Editor had this to say about the book: "The Bush Boy's Book, by Donald MacDonald, comprises 260 pages of excellently printed matter, which should prove invaluable to anyone, boy or man, who enjoys or wishes to know anything about life in the open. For Boy Scouts it will furnish a gold mine of information. The author has the trick of making his descriptions perfectly comprehensible. He would seem to have left nothing out - beds and bivouacs, camps, codes, camp cookery, fishing, game, guns, bushcraft, shooting, swimming, bush surgery, snakes, 'things worth knowing', traps and snares, tips and instruction on all manner of things that concern bushmen; how to extricate oneself when lost, how not to get lost at all, how to be happy though bushed, to make beds, meals and shelters, etc., etc. It is written for Australians, by Australians from an Australian point of view, and the letterpress is supplemented by diagrams that leave nothing to be misunderstood. Both the author and the publisher are to be congratulated on a praiseworthy work."