'This book is SO good! Anybody going camping, staying local, this is an absolute MUST!' Zoe Ball, Radio 2 'I LOVE THIS BOOK' Chris Evans, Virgin Radio Breakfast Show 'Wilderness Chef is a poetic meditation on escape and cooking elegant food in the wild' Phil Robinson, The Times 'This cookbook should be your top pick for flavoursome food in the open air' METRO 'Packed with ideas and simple, tasty and largely healthy [food]' i newspaper 'Ingenious ways to conjure a feast whether you're out camping, on a long hike or enjoying a day at the beach' The Sun The first cookbook from outdoors legend Ray Mears, Wilderness Chef shows you how to cook delicious, flavoursome food in the open air, whether in the wilderness or your own garden. Ray Mears has spent his life travelling the world, living with and learning from trackers, adventurers and indigenous peoples in the desert, the rainforests and the Arctic north. In this book he shares a delicious array of his most popular recipes, tried-and-tested for all levels of skill and in all conditions whether in the garden or the wild, from quick and tasty meals to opulent gourmet feasts. Opening with advice on setting up your outdoor kitchen, Ray shows how to light a fire, cook in ashes and leaves, steam, smoke and build a simple ground oven. He then shares his fabulous and enjoyable recipes, including: - easy ideas that children and grownups can try (campfire s'mores, wilderness hot dog, egg on a stick) - gourmet meals (Italian hunter's rabbit, succulent split-stick roasted salmon) - recipes learned from bushmen and indigenous peoples (potjiekos, canoe country pancakes, fragrant and intense Gurkha curry) Woven throughout are colourful stories of Ray's cooking around the world, from baking a birthday cake using ingredients sourced in the rainforest, to pulling a giant Emu leg drumstick out of a ground oven built by a Pitjantjatjara elder in the Central Australian desert. Gather round an open fire. Share delicious food inspired by the outdoors and infused with age-old wisdom. This is living. This is the way of the wilderness chef.

Nobody sees and understands woodland better than Ray Mears. With deep natural history knowledge and practical woodcraft skills, gained over a lifetime of learning from the world's last remaining indigenous peoples, Ray offers a different way to experience our wooded landscapes. He challenges the old concepts. He looks to our ancestors and shows how man's hand in shaping woodland is critical. We are not separate from nature, we just need to ensure that our interactions have a positive impact. With the emphasis on interaction, British Woodland is structured by usage. We learn that sycamore and clematis are among the best woods for burning, pine and oak help us navigate, and hawthorn and beech have edible leaves. Rope can be made from willow, utensils and tools from hazel, and historically, weapons were made from yew and wych elm. With Ray as our guide, encouraging this sense of connection to individual trees, our appreciation of wooded landscapes will change. We can learn how to live inclusively in nature, for our own wellbeing and enjoyment, and also for the future of our planet.

'Fifty years into my life journey I realise that, while I love remote wild places and the peoples I meet there, it is in forests that I find the greatest joy. Of all the forests that I have explored, it is the great circumpolar Boreal forest of the North that calls to me most. Here is a landscape where bush knowledge really counts and where experience counts even more ... This book has been thirty years in the making.' Out on the Land is an absorbing exploration of, and tribute to, the circumpolar Boreal forest of the North: its landscape, its people, their cultures and skills, the wilderness that embodies it, and its immense beauty. The book is vast in scope and covers every aspect of being in the wilderness in both winter and summer (clothing, kit, skills, cooking, survival), revealing the age-old traditions and techniques, and how to carry them out yourself. It also includes case studies of early explorers, as well as modern-day adventurers who found themselves stranded in the forest and forced to work out a way to survive. So much more than a bushcraft manual, this book goes deeper, to the traditions and cultures that gave us these skills, as well as focusing on the detail itself. Ray and Lars's practical advice is wound around a deep love for the forest, respect and admiration for the people who live there and sheer enjoyment of the stunning scenery.

Ray Mears has travelled the world discovering how native people manage to live on just what nature provides. Whats always frustrated him is not knowing how our own ancestors fed themselves and what we could learn about our own diet. We know they were hunter-gatherers, but no-one has been able to tell what they ate day to day. How did they find their calories, week in week out throughout the year? What were their staple foods? Where did they get their vitamins? How did they ensure their bodies received enough variety? In this book he travels back ten thousand years to a time before farming to learn how our ancestors found, prepared and cooked their food. This extraordinary journey reveals many new possibilities many of the same food sources are still there for us if only we know where to look. Through Ray Mears' knowledge of the countryside and the research conducted specially for this book with archaeo-botanist Gordon Hillman, we learn many new, useful and often surprising things about the amazingly rich natural larder that still surrounds us.

Sixty years ago, four men parachuted onto a Norwegian glacier, carrying only the most basic equipment. Their mission was to prevent the Nazi regime from building an atomic bomb. Now wilderness expert Ray Mears tells the true story of this gruelling campaign, showing how these men's ability to survive in extreme conditions influenced the outcome of the Second World War. The Telemark campaign was an example of the bravery and skill of the SOE trainees. The Norwegians transformed a military disaster into a triumph. This book tells the full story for the first time.

There are probably more deer in the United Kingdom now than there have been in the past thousand years. As they have increased in numbers and distribution so, too, have the issues associated with them. Practical Deer Management offers candid and comprehensive advice for anyone who has to deal with deer and the issues they present, be they gardeners suffering attacks on their flower beds, foresters looking to prevent damage to newly planted trees, or landowners with larger scale problems. While a wealth of information on deer exists already, a career in teaching countryside managers quickly made it apparent that there was a need for a straightforward and comprehensive volume that is accessible to all. Written to be clear and easily understood, Practical Deer Management looks at the deer themselves and suggests non-lethal protective measures in addition to more active management, with attention given to other considerations such as health, the law and the practical construction of infrastructure such as high seats. A humane approach is stressed throughout. Practical Deer Management is an essential handbook for anyone who has to deal with deer and the problems that they may present.

Ray Mears' Outdoor Survival Handbook is a book of discovery, explaining the everyday skills you need to live in and enjoy the natural world without violating it. Season by season, this unique, fully illustrated guide describes the resources and materials available in the wild and how to use them. Whether you want to spend a day, a week or a month out of doors, Ray Mears' Outdoor Survival Handbook will help you enjoy it to the full.

Packed with practical tips, insights into nature and respect for traditional knowledge, this is a book for families, groups and individual hikers and climbers - for everyone who enjoys outdoor life.

Animal Tracks and Signs was first published in English in the 1970s, and immediately established itself as an all-time classic. Totally unique in its accessible, down-to-earth approach and detailed coverage of more than 200 creatures, it is the only book in print that enables readers to determine which animals have passed through the countryside by examining the traces they have left behind, opening up a captivating new world that might otherwise remain unseen.
Whether following footprints in mud, sand, or snow, feeding marks on cones, nuts, trees, and animal remains; homes and hiding places above and below ground; or feathers, pellets, and droppings, readers are taught how to identify the bird or mammal that has been before them, aided by hundreds of beautiful, informative colour photographs, line drawings, and diagrams, and clear descriptions of the anatomy, behavior, movements patterns, and habitat of different species.
Quick-reference place sections compare actual-size prints, pellets, and droppings for fast identification on the move, covering such diverse wildlife as the shrew, hedgehog, fox, elk, and bear; the sparrow, kestrel, and eagle owl.
The new reissued edition includes a new Foreword by Ray Mears, who has found this book to be an invaluable point of reference throughout his career, and recommends it to students on his Bushcraft and Survival courses.

'If Ray Mears isn't a Great Living Englishman, then goodness me, who is? Ray is a persuader, pragmatist and populariser in the Durrell-Attenborough-Bellamy tradition.' - Robert Crampton, The Times Ray Mears is a household name through his television series Tracks, World of Survival, Bushcraft Survival, The Real Heroes of Telemark and many more. He is a private individual who shuns publicity whenever possible and would prefer to let his many skills tell their own tale - until now. In My Outdoor Life, Ray tells of his childhood and the formative years when he first developed a passion for both bushcraft and the martial arts skills that are central to his life. Having travelled the world several times over, he is no stranger to risk and has had more than his fair share of dangerous and life-threatening encounters to share with his readers. But his life is so much more than a tale of derring-do. Shortly after he returned to England having narrowly survived a serious helicopter crash, his father died. Just a year later, he had to face the death of his first wife Rachel. The book conveys the many sides of Ray Mears, taking us up to the present day - including the previously untold story of his involvement in the man-hunt for murderer Raoul Moat. My Outdoor Life gives us all a chance to share a life-story as rich and as inspirational as a walk in woods with the man himself, Ray Mears.

A journey of discovery through our natural world. Bushcraft and survival legend Ray Mears takes us on his own lifetime's journey through the natural world, into the British countryside and across continents, and shows us how to tune our senses, enhance our experience of nature, and understand our place within it. Guiding us through practical fieldcraft tips, Ray brings us up close with creatures we share our planet with, and reveals how we can learn from them, from the stealth of the leopard to the patience and stillness of the crocodile, and even the colour-changing camouflage of the octopus. With Ray as your companion, you will unlock the hidden secrets of the wild and begin to see, instead of merely look.