Woodcraft (movement)

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Woodcraft is a recreational/educational program devised by Ernest Thompson Seton in 1902, for young people based on camping, outdoor skills and crafts.

Thompson Seton's Woodcraft ideas were incorporated into the early Scout movement, but also in many other organisations in many countries. In the UK, John Hargrave developed the ideas and founded the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift and the Westlakes founded the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry. The main surviving UK orginsation is the Woodcraft Folk who broke away from Kibbo Kift in the 1920's.

Many groups were founded in Europe in the inter-war years. Typical was the Czech Woodcraft League, founded in the 1920s by Milos Seifert; it grew in its early years but was suppressed for half a century, first by the Nazis and then by the Communists. It survived by guile and misdirection, emerging with the fall of Communism, a small but dedicated organisation with members of all ages.


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