Book review "Out on the land" by Ray Mears and Lars Fält

I expected much of this beautiful-looking hardcover book, written by bushcraft instructors Ray Mears and Lars Fält. It's very rare indeed to find anything specifically about northern spaces that isn't about the north pole itself. Maybe my expectations were a little too high - for I was somewhat dissapointed.
  
There's a lot of solid bushcraft information gathered in this book. I loved the sections about hypothermia and travel on ice. But as someone who grew up devouring outdoor books and programmes, there's little new information provided. l enjoyed reading the stories and anecdotes, but they are few and far between. A lot of brand names are mentioned in the gear discussions, which makes the text harder to read and quickly outdated. I also expected there to be more in-depth information about the taiga - specifics about its peoples, its history and climate and geography and history. It's clear that the interest of Mears and Fält lays with more traditional bushcraft methods, which is perfectly fine - it's valuable knowledge and both men have built their life around it -, but it does mean that this book is not that useful for (solo) hikers with a more modern, lightweight approach. For example, many hikers rarely make fire, as it's time-consuming and messy and risky in our ever hotter and dryer summers. Yet there's a whole chapter devoted to it in this book. We're also not going to carry heavy stoves and pots and axes around - we're hardly 19th century expedition members!
 The beautiful cover nonewithstanding, in general the photography is more instructional than artistic. Most photos look a little drab and could do with some more contrast and atmosphere. Some really nice portraits, though.   

So all in all, I would recommend this book for people looking for an introduction on traditional living in the taiga and for people who are interested in bushcraft in general, but don't know that much about it yet. For long-distance hikers, books by for example Robert Macfarlane and Tristan Gooley have more to offer. For lovers of the northern spaces, I can warmly recommend "True north. Travels in arctic Europe" by Gadvin Francis.