ABOUT US

Left alo­ne, with our own strength, abi­li­ties and expe­rien­ce, far from civi­li­sa­tion in one of the far­thest pla­ces from civi­li­sa­tion. The  only com­pa­ny that we have are the bears, wolves and mooses and other such inha­bi­tants of the deep woods. The only cle­ar goal that runs thro­ugh our heads – to survi­ve! All this of cour­se with the help of our tra­di­tio­nal and histo­ri­cal sty­le, cra­fted by us and our woodland com­pa­nions as in the days of old as the trap­pers and true forest people did. Our jour­neys seem both unu­su­al and remo­ved from  eve­ry­day life, con­si­de­red by many to be an under­ta­king bor­de­ring on being a true adven­tu­re. Eve­ry­thing plays out on authen­ti­cal­ly wild lands, lands of the forest people and trap­pers of old who in tho­se won­der­ful times thri­ved on a raw life­sty­le in tho­se very beau­ti­ful and fro­sty lands.

MEDIA PATRONAGE AND SPONSORS

The far north of Euro­pe; here, tho­ughts slow down unqu­estio­na­bly. Rein­de­er, magne­ti­zing auro­ras and raw natu­re. The­se are the con­di­tions that this enor­mo­us land is situ­ated in, the histo­ry of which could fill a lar­ge libra­ry – a land that covers as much as 380 squ­are kilo­me­tres, exten­ding to Fin­land, Nor­way, Swe­den and Russia.

Sur­ro­un­ded by this wild and unto­uched by human hand natu­re – witho­ut the rush and com­mo­tion of the civi­li­zed world – one thinks and feels dif­fe­ren­tly. You start to live (and it’s not a cli­che) … in har­mo­ny with natu­re. The­re is a wild, myste­rio­us charm here that can both fasci­na­te and ter­ri­fy. It can give you fre­edom, but at the same time ensla­ve you with its strength. In a way, it is a mysti­cal pla­ce that chan­ges you pro­fo­un­dly. A meta­mor­pho­sis that has been accom­pa­nied by myste­rio­us folk for centuries. 

It is they who were the first in Scan­di­na­via; it is they who were for­ced to the far north by the Vikings. They moved aro­und with the­ir rein­de­er – just like nomads do – from pla­ce to pla­ce, fishing and hun­ting. All that time they lived clo­se­ly with the unpre­dic­ta­ble nor­thern natu­re and, inte­re­stin­gly eno­ugh, they came up with stun­ning two hun­dred names for snow. They lived in a pla­ce whe­re the tem­pe­ra­tu­re often reaches minus thir­ty degre­es Cel­sius, and becau­se of this, they were extre­me­ly har­dy. The­se people of the snow are as power­ful as the natu­re aro­und them to this day – they talk to gho­sts and can cur­se the­ir enemies.

Having a bestia­ry expla­ining eve­ry­thing that hap­pens aro­und them, folk­lo­re is an inse­pa­ra­ble part of eve­ry­day life – for exam­ple, when some­thing dies, a spi­rit is to be bla­med for it. If some­thing goes wrong, it is also the fault of one of the simi­lar cre­atu­res. Joik can be heard here; a rhy­th­mi­cal, pri­mal sin­ging with a magi­cal tone, which is a form of con­nec­tion with all that is natu­ral; it is a kind of a sha­ma­nic pray­er. A pure mixtu­re of prag­ma­tism and spi­ri­tu­ali­ty. Welco­me to Sáp­mi - the land of the Saami, a pla­ce out of this world.

PATRONITE – IT’S US AND YOU! Your sup­port chan­ges a lot! Why? Becau­se in our tra­vel busi­ness we value inde­pen­den­ce and fre­edom; witho­ut rigid ver­ti­cal hie­rar­chies, witho­ut enti­ties deci­ding and set­ting the­ir own con­di­tions. This inde­pen­den­ce is pro­vi­ded by loy­al obse­rvers, name­ly you. In full of faith we call this a “WIN-WIN” situ­ation, whe­re two win­ning par­ties take part. WE, who can tra­vel as we wish and sha­re with you eve­ry­thing that appe­ars on our trap­pe­r’s path, and YOU, who can bene­fit from all the know­led­ge, tips and curio­si­ties in the area of our expe­di­tion. But most of all – YOU can par­ti­ci­pa­te in it too! That is why we deci­de to use Patro­ni­te… but not only becau­se of that. Keep in mind that in tra­vel vide­os you usu­al­ly see only bre­ath­ta­king views and hap­py people. Few people reali­ze, howe­ver, the hard­ships of life of a pas­sio­na­te cre­ator-vaga­bon­dist; a tra­ve­ler witho­ut a per­ma­nent address, some­ti­mes hun­gry, witho­ut fami­ly and friends at his side, and witho­ut nor­mal rela­tion­ships. Yes: not eve­ry­one can live like this, but we want to show you that you can take advan­ta­ge of the­se moments and live life to the ful­lest – despi­te tem­po­ra­ry cri­ses! We will show you this reali­ty witho­ut colo­ra­tion, in the belief that this reali­ty will defend itself. Patro­ni­te is also an agre­ement betwe­en us and you, that – with a neces­sa­ry dose of secu­ri­ty and sta­bi­li­ty – we will be able to con­ti­nue to cre­ate films for you, to descri­be you our adven­tu­res and to spre­ad the idea of sim­ple and true life; in natu­re, in per­ma­nent con­nec­tion with the sour­ce. The idea of living bey­ond the reach of civi­li­za­tio­n’s pres­su­re of whims, sne­aki­ly pre­ten­ding to be needs. We are incre­di­bly gra­te­ful for the trust you have pla­ced in us – it is thanks to your sup­port that we can con­ti­nue to do what we love and belie­ve in, whi­le at the same time giving others spa­ce for self-reali­za­tion, and sho­wing you a dif­fe­rent, won­der­ful world…

LIST OF OUR PATRONS

MECENAS
Rado­sław Nowak
Nor­bert Rutkowski
Michał Aleksandrowicz

FOREST ENTHUSIAST

FOREST DELTIOLOGIST

FOREST COLLECTOR
Łukasz Wasz­kie­wicz
Mał­go­rza­ta Kaptur

FOREST REPORTER

FOREST TOURIST

WOODSMAN
Jaro­sław Mikulski

Thomas Paterski to the studio Radio Three

Radio Three of the Polish Radio welco­mes Tho­mas Pater­ski to the stu­dio. Hel­lo dear readers. Who­ever fol­lows the acti­vi­ties of Leśne Rze­mio­sło , could listen to me on August 5, 2018 on Trój­ka – Pro­gram 3 of the Natio­nal Polish Radio. In the series “Droz­d’s Eye’s View…

Personal Compass – interview with Thomas Paterski

Tho­mas Pater­ski – Leśne Rze­mio­sło. “Tho­mas Pater­ski. Tra­ve­ler, arti­san and survi­val instruc­tor. He is con­nec­ted the craft of trap­ping on a daily basis, he makes his own equ­ip­ment for his trips to the nor­thern are­as of the taiga. He is the orga­ni­ser of many expeditions…

MY CRAFT

Hand­ma­de equ­ip­ment for forest people – this is my spe­cial­ty. When cre­ating my things I rare­ly used the conve­nien­ces of modern civi­li­sa­tion so that in the pro­cess of making them and when sha­ping them, to bet­ter acqu­aint myself with the tech­ni­qu­es of tho­se very days. Thanks to this, all the ele­ments in my posses­sion are unre­pe­ata­ble and uni­que. The tried and tested solu­tions from pre­vio­us voy­ages have immor­ta­li­sed this equ­ip­ment and the top-notch quali­ty of the­se top-notch mate­rials from which they were made.

A FEW NUMBERS

Thanks to my pas­sion to bush­craft and tra­vel, a few years of histo­ry under logo of Leśne Rze­mio­sło, over a tho­usand kilo­me­ters were tra­vel­led over dozens of coun­tries. All this on foot, on hor­se­back and by canoe or even by dog sled. Leśne Rze­mio­sło isn’t just abo­ut outings, it’s abo­ut edu­ca­ting and infec­ting others with the craft of forest life in the bro­adest sense.

Years

Courses

Publications

DAYS IN TRAVEL

OUR HISTORY

The Histo­ry of Leśne Rze­mio­sło began in 2014 when, some­whe­re deep in the woods, i met a gro­up of camp-living enthu­sia­sts. It was in a Polish Forest, smel­ling of sap and the fra­gran­ce of autumn rain.  This uni­que atmo­sphe­re, with mysti­cal might and the camp­fi­re light, so to as the pas­sion emit­ted by each of them, all this beca­me the cor­ner­sto­ne of this new and exci­ting pro­ject. My own uni­que cata­lyst was the situ­ation itself which thri­ved in the touri­sty atmo­sphe­re. It only needed a few years for the equ­ip­ment mar­ket to come across arti­fi­cial mate­rials, which by itself iso­la­ted us from the spi­rit of natu­re and gave us a feeling that if it is not war aga­inst her that we are waging, we are strug­gling aga­inst her becau­se when we use old equ­ip­ment, tra­di­tio­nal­ly and clas­si­cal­ly sty­led and made by hand from natu­ral mate­rials, you feel the one­ness with the sur­ro­un­ding natu­re. This mat­ter of order led me to cre­ate a ple­ase for the real people of the forest – adven­tu­rers, eth­no­gra­phers, histo­ry buffs and of cour­se, for the arti­sans and han­di­cra­fters alike.

This was a pla­ce whe­re we could sha­re our know­led­ge and wri­te abo­ut our craft and pre­sent our pro­ducts as well as sell them in a com­pa­ny sto­re. During this time, I led a team of abo­ut twen­ty people whi­le also doing video pro­duc­tions for Leśne Rze­mio­sło, reader’s digest and doing tra­ining ses­sions and even orga­ni­sing nume­ro­us expe­di­tions and nation­wi­de gathe­rings pro­mo­ting tra­di­tio­nal cam­ping. My pro­ject was at the time a very big Polish pro­to­ty­pe thro­ugh which all bro­ad know­led­ge would pass, from natu­re to eth­no­gra­phy, tra­di­tio­nal craft, both short term and long term adven­tu­res, on hor­se­back and fini­shing them by canoe trip and buil­ding log cabins. As the old trap­pers and forest people once touched the bre­vi­ty of time, so did Leśne Rze­mio­sło with its reach, con­si­sten­tly trans­for­ming the pro­ject into a clas­si­cal archa­ic work. Leśne Rze­mio­sło beca­me a time machi­ne of it’s own of the days of yorn in which the forest people could spend time in natu­re. Roman­tic, altho­ugh often seve­re and deman­ding; teaching humi­li­ty to the natu­re aro­und them. Like a time-machi­ne in which most of the equ­ip­ment and clo­thing was made by hand, today, most of the equ­ip­ment I use during my expe­di­tions – as befo­re – has its sour­ce in my work­shop and is made enti­re­ly by me. Wha­te­ver you can read or find here, howe­ver, has its roots in the tar­ni­shed pages of history.

TEAM

My name is Tho­mas Pater­ski. I was born in Eastern Euro­pe and I am of Polish roots, but I have the spi­rit of the far north. I stu­died Inland Fishing Methods. I am the ori­gi­na­tor and CEO of the Leśne Rze­mio­sło pro­ject, reve­aling the secrets of forest cam­ping and the histo­ry rela­ted to the fur tra­de. Sin­ce high scho­ol, I have been a sco­ut leader and a survi­val instruc­tor at the same time. In addi­tion to fishing and being a trap­per, I also deal with hun­ting, leather­craft and car­pen­try. I have the neces­sa­ry expe­rien­ce and know­led­ge of buil­ding log cabins that I have gained from obse­rva­tions and my own expe­rien­ce; I am also no stran­ger to wor­king with sled­ge dogs and hor­ses. Becau­se of my love for being a tra­ve­ler and unwil­lin­gness to live in the so-cal­led civi­li­zed world, I lived on the nor­thern route, living like the trap­pers of the old days, along with Nano­ok and Wydra. I devo­ted myself enti­re­ly to distant jour­neys into unin­ha­bi­ted are­as of the taiga, thus explo­ring the prac­ti­ce of eve­ry­day life in the wil­der­ness as a tra­vel­ler, trap­per, guide and forest cam­ping instructor. 

Nanook

Nano­ok is the youn­gest mem­ber of the team. He is a dog of the Aki­ta Inu bre­ed – a spitz ori­gi­nal­ly meant for hun­ting ani­mals like boars, deer and black bears. They also are spe­cia­li­zed in hau­ling heavy loads and guar­ding. Nano­ok’s ance­stors came to Japan with the first wave of set­tlers aro­und 15,000 B.C. They were ani­mals of the peat dog type, popu­la­ri­zed in the Neo­li­thic period. Accor­ding to the Inu­it, Nano­ok is a half polar bear and half-human. Hun­ters wor­ship­ped this mythi­cal cre­atu­re, deeply belie­ving that it is the being that deci­des whe­ther fishing or hun­ting would result in suc­cess or a dis­gra­ce­ful defe­at. As befits an Aki­ta, Nano­ok is not only har­dy and endu­ring but also intel­li­gent, stub­born and inde­pen­dent, endo­wed with a pas­sion for hun­ting. He is par­ti­cu­lar­ly inte­re­sted in all kinds of dens and bur­rows full of the scent of wild ani­mals, into which he sticks his black nose with gre­at pas­sion. Despi­te his tough cha­rac­ter, he some­ti­mes likes to come to me for a bit of stro­king and distrac­tion. Eve­ry day, Nano­ok, along with Wydra, helps me in my life on the tra­il, brin­ging to the team eve­ry talent natu­re has given him – guar­ding, defen­ding and trac­king, as well as being a dog-team leader. 

Wydra

Wydra - or the Otter - is a boat for two people, hand-cra­fted with a love and pas­sion for tra­di­tio­nal cano­es. It is made almost enti­re­ly of Cana­dian cedar, and its hand-woven raf­fia ben­ches make tra­vel­ling incre­di­bly com­for­ta­ble. Accor­ding to the Nati­ve Ame­ri­can Indians, Otter is a che­er­ful and care­free rogue. From an ear­ly age, it is dif­fi­cult to look after him or keep him in check, as he will always find a way to get out of the con­trol of his guar­dian. This is becau­se he wants eve­ry­thing done his way, looking to cor­rect and chan­ge eve­ry­thing; it must be admit­ted, howe­ver, that his obse­rva­tions are usu­al­ly accu­ra­te. He is acti­ve, eager to play, has no pro­blems with making new con­tacts and imme­dia­te­ly gains the sym­pa­thy of his com­pa­nions. On the other hand, Wydra’s che­eky natu­re is not always well rece­ived – espe­cial­ly when he gives his pas­sen­gers an une­xpec­ted dip in icy water. In the past, boats of this type made a huge con­tri­bu­tion to the explo­ra­tion and conqu­est of Cana­da­’s wil­der­ness by Euro­pe­an trap­pers; becau­se they made it easier to navi­ga­te the area rich in rivers and lakes. Eve­ry day, Wydra helps me and Nano­ok tra­vel thro­ugh the wil­der­ness, as did his ance­stors during the fur trade. 

On eve­ry side was the silen­ce, pres­sing upon them with a tan­gi­ble pre­sen­ce. It affec­ted the­ir minds as the many atmo­sphe­res of deep water affect the body of the diver. It cru­shed them with the weight of unen­ding vast­ness and unal­te­ra­ble decree. It cru­shed them into the remo­test reces­ses of the­ir own minds, pres­sing out of them, like juices from the gra­pe, all the fal­se ardors and exal­ta­tions and undue self-valu­es of the human soul, until they per­ce­ived them­se­lves fini­te and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cun­ning and lit­tle wis­dom amidst the play and inter­play of the gre­at blind ele­ments and forces.

Jack Lon­don – Whi­te Fang

PORTFOLIO

Unu­su­al and out of the ordi­na­ry trips, small and lar­ge – with equ­ip­ment desi­gned main­ly by them­se­lves. The­se are also edu­ca­tio­nal pro­jects cen­te­red aro­und the art of tra­di­tio­nal cam­ping, for fami­lies and enthu­sia­sts of forest life and also tra­ining pro­grams for pro­fes­sio­nals. I invi­te you to get to know my ori­gi­nal portfolio.

SámiiLand expe­di­tion 2021
Swe­den – Nor­way – Fin­land – Russia

A Year in a Trap­pe­r’s Cabin
Poland – Swe­den – Canada

OUR MISSION

Our mis­sion rema­ins unchan­ged: not to disap­po­int you, dear fans of tra­di­tio­nal cam­ping, in pre­sen­ting an alter­na­ti­ve way of spen­ding time in the woods. Alter­na­ti­ve, as it is done witho­ut smart­pho­nes, modern mate­rials and other ultra-light solu­tions. Today, by spre­ading the idea of fasci­na­tion with the histo­ry of the fur tra­de, the indi­ge­no­us peoples of the far north, pio­ne­ers and ori­gi­nal people of the forest, we also intro­du­ce you to the incre­di­ble years of the past and show the cul­tu­re of the ori­gi­nal peoples living in the north. Just for you, we are cove­ring our trips au courant, star­ting with the pre­pa­ra­tions, thro­ugh the who­le dura­tion of the expe­di­tions, to the events that will occur after the­ir end. We will be publi­shing video reports twi­ce a week that you can find on our YouTu­be chan­nel. From them, you will be able to learn abo­ut the cour­se of the expe­di­tion and listen to inte­rviews that we will be doing with our guests. In addi­tion to uplo­ading vide­os to our YouTu­be chan­nel, we are very acti­ve on our fan page on Face­bo­ok. It is whe­re we sha­re pages of the tra­vel jour­nals on an ongo­ing basis. At the same time, we are publi­shing ama­zing pho­tos from equ­al­ly ama­zing trips on our Insta­gram acco­unt. As you enter our world, you will be able to see, touch and taste a stri­king feeling of tra­vel­ling in time! Are you ready? 

CONTACT US