In this issue: Humberto Costa guiding an English school through the Amazon, with a riverside family and the Tatuyo people among the teachers; November's ENGB with no entry fee, with a correction of what the last issue said about it, and Guilda with a ticket deadline; October with bush gatherings in four states; a new book by Otávio Cko on the origin of two words; five videos worth the fortnight; and the star tick as this month's warning.
Humberto Costa guided the English school through the Amazon
Twenty-four days of Amazon, between setting up and running it: the expedition of Woodland Ways, a British bushcraft school, had Costa as its in-country guide, and four phases, two of them taught by the forest's own people.
Humberto Costa, of Costa Bushcraft and Survival, closed on 18 September what he called mission accomplished: 24 days living the Amazon, between setting up and running the Jungle Survival. It is the Amazon expedition of Woodland Ways, a British bushcraft and survival school directed by Jason Ingamells, based in Derbyshire, England, which has Costa as its guide in Brazil. The school's page says the expedition is led by its team in partnership with local professionals and Indigenous communities, and that it is Costa's lifelong relationship with the Amazon that ensures access, safety and cultural integrity from start to finish.
According to the Woodland Ways page, it runs two weeks, ten days inside the forest, ten students at most, arriving via Manaus. The expedition includes food and water in camp, with a note: students help prepare both. It also covers transport by land and river and the hostel on the first and last nights. On fitness, the school asks little and warns plenty: if you can comfortably walk a full day over rough hillside and countryside, you should be fine, but heat and humidity will be high, and they weigh more than it seems.
The first phase is a fixed camp of about five days, and the published programme has nine strands. It starts with the mind: fear, cognitive load and decision-making in a humid, sensory-dense environment. Then natural navigation, compass, map and river travel, with what the school calls an honest appraisal of GPS limitations beneath dense canopy. Then tools and craft from forest materials; rope, bindings, baskets and nets from natural fibre; hunting, trapping, fishing and plant use, with an emphasis on sustainability and local practice; shelter that handles rain, airflow, insects and heat; water, from finding it to purifying it; jungle first aid, with envenomation protocols and evacuation planning; and wildlife behaviour, from snakes and insects to large mammals.
The list is worth reading slowly, because it serves anyone practising here who has never set foot in Manaus. Note the order: before any tool, the first item is how the mind reacts to fear and fatigue, and it is the mind that decides the rest. Two other things stand out. The first is sleep: the school puts hammock systems, clothing management and sleep quality inside the shelter strand, as a performance factor, not as comfort. It is the same hammock that Woodlore highlighted in issue 02, writing about Dambrós: a hammock with mosquito net and tarp because of damp, insects and rain, which Ray Mears's school called an example of adapting technique to the environment. The second is GPS. A school that sells expeditions says plainly that it has limits under dense forest, and teaches compass, map and reading the ground before it.
After the camp, the expedition went through two communities. The first, according to the school's page, is a blackwater river community specialising in weaving, raft use and sustainable river living. In Jason's account, these were days with a riverside family who live from the forest and the river in both high and low water, learning spear fishing, hand lines and flotation.
The third phase was further upriver, with a community of the Tatuyo people. The page speaks of tree climbing for food collection, traditional hunting and fishing techniques and the creation of natural pigments, within a spiritual and cultural framework; Jason reported trapping, gathering, preparing forest fruits and weaving. According to the Instituto Socioambiental, the Tatuyo are among the Eastern Tukanoan-speaking peoples of the Uaupés river, in the northwestern Amazon.
The fourth was isolation: small groups left in the forest with reduced kit, choosing where to camp, building shelter, getting food and managing fire without direct instruction. The length of this phase is intentionally undisclosed, the page says, and the groups did not know when they would be picked up. The school also warns that once inside, in some areas extraction is impossible, and there is no communication with the outside world until the rendezvous points. It ended without incident. The close included a blessing ceremony by the Tatuyo, and there is nothing to add about that.
What this says to those reading from here. In issue 02, it was Woodlore, Ray Mears's school, that asked Dambrós how bushcraft is done in Brazil. Now an English school brought students to learn here, and the teachers of the middle phases were a riverside family and an Indigenous people, with a name. Costa himself summed it up on 25 September: it is a meeting of those who seek knowledge with those who share it, including ancestral knowledge. And it is only the beginning, he said.
It is also worth noting the care with which the school itself wrote. The phase with the Tatuyo appears within a spiritual and cultural framework, not as a loose technique class, and what is learned with the river community comes with the meaning of the craft. It is the yardstick of Outros matos, Other Woods, this bulletin's section on where the things we use come from: another people's technique arrives with that people's name, and what is ceremony remains ceremony.
ENGB 2026 charges no entry
The participant guide for the 11th gathering, in Rio, says it plainly: exceptionally in 2026, there is no entry fee. Those who go only pay to use the campsite, and a weekend with a small tent comes to 84.20 reais.
The National Gathering of Bushcraft Groups, ENGB, has published the participant guide for its 11th edition, and the official profile began pointing to it in posts from 25 September on. Item 6, How much does it cost, opens in capital letters: exceptionally in 2026, ENGB will not charge an entry fee. Taking part in the event is free.
What you pay for is the campsite, directly to the Camping Clube do Brasil, at its RJ-10 unit in Recreio dos Bandeirantes, facing Macumba Beach, at Estrada do Pontal, 5,900. Staying overnight costs 36.50 reais per person per night, plus the tent, hammock or shelter: 5.60 a night up to 9 square metres, 13.40 up to 24. Coming for the day only means paying day use, 18 reais per person from age 5. The guide does the maths itself: one person with a small tent, Friday to Sunday, is two nights and 84.20 reais. A couple, 157.20.
The guide also covers what weighs in your pack. The campsite has no drinking fountains, so water comes with you or gets bought there. Power is 220 volts. There are toilets and hot showers. Your own food and camp stove are allowed, within the campsite rules. Groups of more than 10 people may get special terms buying the patch and T-shirt in advance, and the organisers recommend buying early because stock on site may run short; anyone who buys and can't come has one month after the event to arrange pickup. The packing list includes a reusable cup, a bag for your own rubbish, rain gear, repellent and an extension lead. And the organisers ask each group to bring its flag, and bus caravans to let them know ahead.
And there are three rules that change the pack of anyone who practises bushcraft, all in item 16 of the guide. There will be no campfires during ENGB, because of the environmental protection area next to the campsite. Barbecues only if raised, with no contact with the ground. And sleeping in an improvised shelter or bivouac is not allowed: it is tent, hammock or shelter. Anyone planning to build a tarp-and-branch shelter to sleep in should plan something else. The guide also warns that the gathering will not be cancelled for rain, and that protecting your own setup against rain and wind is each person's responsibility.
Flying in means landing at Galeão or Santos Dumont, and the guide suggests a ride-hailing app straight to the campsite. For those arriving by coach from outside Rio, the route the guide gives is from the Novo Rio bus station to Central do Brasil, bus 315 to Mercado Leão, in Recreio, and from there bus 810, which runs roughly every hour and stops in front of the campsite. Pets, small ones only, at 10.50 reais a night, and none on day use, which runs until 6 pm. Under-18s only with their legal guardian present.
Over the last two weeks, the gathering's profile has been confirming who is coming: the Guerreiros Bushcraft group, Guerreiros Outdoor magazine with the official coverage, Javalis Outdoor as official store and sponsor, Survivor Gear in the exhibitors' area, the hiking group Tamo Junto na Trilha and, on Monday 28 September, Jocimar Bruno. The full programme is not out yet: the guide says the link will go on the same page as soon as it is ready. The same goes for check-in and accreditation times, which the guide promises to publish later.
A correction, because it is ours. Issue 03 said entry would be paid directly to the campsite, with a special rate for participants. That was what the official profile had posted on 3 August, and it was what got passed around the groups. The guide now says otherwise, and the guide stands: ENGB charges nothing, and the campsite charges for its use. If you passed on last issue's information, pass on this one.
Two weeks earlier, in Brasília, Guilda Bushcraft opened registration for its second edition, named Reunindo Amigos, Bringing Friends Together. The gathering runs from 6 to 8 November at Clube Gravatá, in Ceilândia, Federal District, with check-in from 6 am on Friday and the official opening at 4 pm. The first batch costs 130 reais and covers all three days, until 25 October at 11:59 pm. Half price, 65 reais, is for people over 60, under 12 and students, with proof on arrival. Patch, T-shirt, cap and scarf are on pre-sale until the same date.
The speakers announced on the registration page are Giuliano Toniolo, Coronel Montibeller, the Guerreiros Bushcraft group, Humberto Cerrado, Wester Silva and Moraes Preparação. The group that organises Guilda is Wellington Aranha, Wester Silva, Alex Moraes and Nicolai Mirsky, and accreditation happens on arrival, with a participant wristband. The link has been going around the groups since mid-September; what we add is the date that matters, Sunday 25 October, when the batch closes. For anyone who has never been, BushCast, the Guerreiros' weekly show, gave episode 221, on 22 September, entirely to Guilda: an hour and a half on its history, workshops, exhibitors and what is being prepared for this year.
BushCast 221: youtu.be/0nRaKE4jGm8
The two gatherings sit two weeks apart and follow different models. One charges a ticket and sells batches in advance; the other gave up on the entry fee and left the bill with the campsite. For organisers, they are two ways of answering the same question. For those going, it is November with two dates and the sums already done.
Abroad, Guilda's weekend is also the weekend of the Georgia Bushcraft Fall Gathering, in the United States, from 6 to 8 November, with more than 150 classes. The Wilderness Gathering, the UK's longest-running bushcraft festival, has already set 2027: 19 to 22 August, again at Hole Park, in Kent.
October has bush in four states
A three-day gathering in Paraíba, a weekend immersion in Santa Catarina, a one-day workshop in São Paulo and a week-long course in Minas. Four formats, in just over two weeks.
EMCG, the Encontro dos Mateiros, opens the month from 16 to 18 October at Granja Terraço do Mocó, in Massaranduba, Paraíba. Registration closed on 20 September, as announced here, and on that last day Arthur Jorge named Giuliano Toniolo as the edition's special guest, alongside Humberto Costa. The list of supporters grew in the final stretch, with Tocaia Bushcraft among the new names.
On Saturday the 24th, Mota Bushcraft holds the year's last edition of its Lâminas e Fogo na Natureza workshop, Blades and Fire in Nature, at Camping Mairiporã, in Greater São Paulo. Vitor announced it on 25 September, with limited places, in the same format as the September edition: blade, wood, fire and tinder. It is the closest date for those in the Southeast, and the only one this month that fits in a single day.
And in Lagoa Santa, Minas Gerais, the Escola Mestre do Mato closes October with two courses back to back: primitive fire, on the 23rd and 24th, and Cobra Criada, from the 25th to the 31st, a week of training and field living taught by Giuliano Toniolo, with only six places, according to the 21 September announcement. Add EMCG and his talk at Guilda, and that is three states in less than a month for one of the six names the map lists among the masters.
And the Santa Catarina immersion has a new date: the first Intensive of the Escola Catarinense de Bushcraft, with Leocir Dambrós in Garuva, moved to 31 October and 1 November because of the election runoff, and it can stretch into the 2nd, a public holiday. Dambrós has already shown the immersion in two videos on his channel.
And the first date of 2027 already exists. Moidú Bushcraft, a gathering in Rio Grande do Sul, announced its fifth edition for 30 April to 2 May 2027, themed Vida ao Ar Livre, Wilderness Craft. The visual identity imitates oil painting, as a tribute to Nagualero, Ric, a content creator who also recorded his camps in paint.
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Otávio Cko went after two words
One of the six masters on the map has published a book on the origin of woodcraft and bushcraft. It is not a manual: it is research, with a stated position.
Otávio Cko, the name Otávio de Souza Meiatto goes by in the scene, presented his second book on 11 September: Woodcraft e Bushcraft, an essay on origins and essence. The question that opens the announcement is direct: where did woodcraft and bushcraft really come from, not only as practice, but as concept, tradition and a way of understanding the relationship between people and nature.
According to the synopsis, it is a historical and analytical work, based on bibliographic and documentary research: it traces the first occurrences of the two terms, how they took hold over time, and where the two traditions meet and part. And it takes a position. Otávio wrote that the book was also born of his unease with the way these traditions are being reinterpreted and shaped to suit the present. It is, in his words, an invitation to look back before deciding where to go.
The book came out through UICLAP, the same independent publishing platform that carries the books of Arthur Jorge and Giuliano Toniolo. It is the author's second title, after Fogo e Bushcraft, which treats fire as a link to the history of peoples.
This is not a review. The book has not yet been through the shelf here, and the section has a rule: a review only after reading, saying what the book actually teaches, who it is for, where it is dense and where it is thin. When it has been read, the review comes. And the usual disclosure applies: Otávio reads this bulletin, is on the map and has already answered one of the fortnight's practices.
He was, in fact, the one who answered issue 02's practice in public, carve a piece and name the wood: a set of cutlery in guava wood, from pruning offcuts, carved once the wood was already dry, which he found hard but good for practice. Days later, on 3 September, he showed his first kuksa, the wooden burl cup of the Sámi, from northern Scandinavia, which was a blog feature in August. Imperfect, he wrote, but made with his own hands.
The origin of the word bushcraft is a story this bulletin wants to tell in Outros matos, Other Woods, the section on where the things we use come from. Now there is a whole Brazilian book about it, written by someone who practises.
Five videos worth the fortnight
A handmade leather case, a technique from the North, a workshop from Paraíba, a backpack from the sertão and four days of rain alone. With the name of who made each one and a line on why it is worth it.
Jorge, of Mato Verde Bushcraft, in Santa Catarina, showed on 20 September, for the first time, a piece he had wanted for a long while and that cannot be bought ready-made in Brazil: a leather case, made entirely by hand, that carries the axe and the bow saw together. Buckle, carabiner and rivets are brass, the strap comes off for maintenance and the lid closes with two press studs. It was made by Robson Budernik, of Budernik Couros, a craftsman of flint strikers and fire steels. It is still a first impression, recorded inside his tipi with a voice worn by a cold, and the field test is promised for the coming weeks. It is worth it for the craftsman and for the idea of use: an afternoon gathering fatwood with a small backpack, the two big tools carried outside.
Watch: youtu.be/anc6g6xqiLE
Giuliano Toniolo posted two minutes on the peconha on 21 September, the loop tied around the feet that açaí harvesters use to climb the smooth trunk of the palm, traditionally made from the palm's own twisted leaf. It is a working technique from the North, and falling is its risk. It speaks to the cover story: climbing trees to gather food is part of the phase with the Tatuyo.
Watch: youtu.be/LwnCslRFsAU
Arthur Jorge, from Campina Grande, Paraíba, on 14 September: three models of pot hanger for the fire, and how to make char cloth. Twenty-two minutes of unhurried workshop from the EMCG host. Worth it for anyone going to the gathering who wants to arrive with the basics done, and for anyone not going who wants to learn from the host.
Watch: youtu.be/6u436LZj3X4
Fernando Riça, of Vereda Sertaneja, in Ceará, showed on 26 September what he carries in his pack for a day out. Six minutes, and the caveat that makes the video: if you stay the night, almost everything changes, even the pack. Worth it for separating the two clearly, and for the sertão as a setting, which these picks want to see more often.
Watch: youtu.be/otlhgF13Hn8
And Leocir Dambrós, on 21 September: four days alone in the forest, with heavy rain day after day, repairing and weaving a chair with vine, keeping the fire going through a storm and roasting meat on a hot stone. It passed 15,000 views in a week, and the woven chair, from minute 3 on, is worth the video by itself. It is October's Intensive teacher working alone, which is a good way to see how he teaches.
Watch: youtu.be/8uYOL43UNvY
This month's warning: the star tick
São Paulo state has recorded 26 deaths from Brazilian spotted fever in 2026, out of 28 confirmed cases. It is caught by people who walk in the bush, and the tick's young stage, the hardest to see, stays high in the environment until November.
São Paulo's State Health Department confirmed on 25 September the state's 26th death from spotted fever this year, out of 28 confirmed cases, with six more under investigation. The Campinas region, with 10 cases, and Piracicaba, with 6, account for most of the probable infections; Sorocaba has 3. In 2025, the state had 61 cases and 44 deaths.
The disease is caused by a bacterium and passes through the bite of an infected tick, mainly the star tick, the carrapato-estrela. According to the Department, between June and November the environmental infestation of nymphs, the tick's young stage, small and hard to see on the skin, is high.
Symptoms appear in about seven days: fever, strong headache, body and joint pain, tiredness. Between the third and fifth day, reddish spots appear, starting on the wrists and ankles. Treatment is with a specific antibiotic, free on Brazil's public health system, and should start right away, without waiting for lab confirmation. Speed is what changes the outcome.
In practice, for anyone heading into the bush now: light-coloured clothing, long sleeves, long trousers and closed shoes, because ticks show up on light fabric. Repellent as the manufacturer directs. Check your whole body every three hours in risk areas, and again in the shower. Found one attached? Tweezers, a firm and gentle pull, without crushing it. And if a fever comes the following week, tell the doctor where you have been: it is what helps them think of spotted fever in time.
And the warning that does not change, in one line: São Paulo is in the red phase of Operação SP Sem Fogo, which runs from June to October. Fire raised off the ground, always, and no ground fires.
The fortnight's practice: an edge that cuts paper
With ticks in the bush, this fortnight's practice happens at the kitchen table.
Sharpen your knife. A stone, sandpaper glued to a board or whatever you have, holding the same edge angle on both sides. The test is a sheet of paper held by one corner: a sharp knife slices it without tearing.
Send a video of the test: in the Pico Alto group on Instagram, just post it; on your own profile, tagging @picoaltobushcraft with the hashtag #praticadoalto. If you still owe last issue's square lashing, send it along. Whatever arrives becomes a story in the next issue, with credit.