Out sledding with the kids at the Xmas parade and a beautiful sunset over the lake.  

Putting together the media kit for this winter's snowshoe trips. One box that fits on a toboggan.  

If you’re interested in learning how to live, work and play in the boreal forest in the bitter cold of winter, we created the Winter Woodsman course just for you. Part survival course, part bushcraft, part winter guide training, the goal is make you feel comfortable and at home in the winter wilderness with a [...]

We’re adding two new bits of information to our program descriptions: physical challenge and technical challenge. Each of these operate on a 1-5 numerical scale with 1 being the easiest/lowest and 5 being the most challenging. Physical challenge refers to how physically challenging a particular program is, as well as whether or not a person [...]

Dirty bird in the 14 deep, pumpkin pie in the 12. It's a dutch oven Thanksgiving !  

What does your road look like this morning?  

Beauty after the storm. Happy Thanksgiving!  

Originally shared by +MRC Custom Leather Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Stay home, spend time with family. Skip black friday and wait for small business Saturday! Support small business :)

Out in the new snow. Never too early to get ready for a winter expedition.  

Snow is starting. Looking across the pond through a sea of snowflakes  

Although we’ve managed to keep our tuition frozen for a number of years, we’re increasing the tuition on our immersion programs for 2015.  Tuition for the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester and the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester will increase by $250.  Tuition for the Boreal Snowshoe Expedition will increase by $100. But it isn’t all bad news.  [...]

We’ve got a new forum up and running, and we’ll be using it for the next few weeks to see if it works for us. I found some great looking software called muut that, without going into a lot of detail, looks like it will be a good fit. Most, if not all, of the [...]

Our forum recently took it’s last breath and is no longer with us. It wasn’t a sad parting. 100+ new spam users per day, old and clunky interface requiring lots of time and input, not viewable from a mobile device; let’s just say no tears were shed on our end. We did lose some content, [...]

Family walks are the best walks.  

Home with my kids today and my five-year-old said she wanted something sweet.  I haven’t baked a sourdough cake in the dutch oven for a while, so I decided to mix it up, figuratively and literally.  Behold the Sourdough Oatmeal Quick Cake; quick to mix (3-5 minutes), an hour to bake. I started with some [...]

Pics from our recent campfire cooking class. Cooking in the dark never tasted so good! Campfire Cooking: NH Monthly Self Reliance Workshops Series View the album on Flickr.

Latest design from Pole And Paddle Canoe: Battery powered broad hatchet.  

Unstructured play in the woods is a tonic for all ages. Out with the boys and the dog.  

Fermented foods yes, giardia no. Kraut and kimchee put up this morning.

Favorite traveling sourdough container once its empty. Gallon plastic mayo jar.

Best part about traveling is coming home. Look who was waiting for me when I came in the door.  

On the morning show in Denver this AM: Discovery Channel’s “Dude, You’re Screwed” Jake, Terry, John and Tim tell us all about the second season of the Discovery Channel’s “Dude, You’re Screwed.”

Number 3, the photo by Nick Gallop, was shot near the field school in one of our canoes. 39 Reasons Living In Maine Ruins You For Life Ayuh.

Two days in Denver. The mountains are stunning, just like I remember them.  

First time in many years I'm reading a print newspaper with morning coffee. Feels like I went back in time.  

Kids around campfire. Shelters done. What its all about. School Of The Forest.  

What woodpecker made this hole? Tom teaching at the School Of The Forest.  

School Of The Forest, stopping for lunch on a ridge near the folk school.  

I've said this before, it's cool to be written up in the media, but when your friends and colleagues say it, it means that much more. The incomparable fellow Maine Guide Tom Jamrog wrote a flattering bit about me and Lou Falank at Snow Walkers on his blog. Tom is a big reason why you [...]

Neat article on how constellations change over time. We're not seeing the same constellations as our ancestors. The Constellations Won’t Always Look That Way Over time, stars change their position in the sky. A new app shows you how the patterns we recognize today have shifted.

I’ve been playing around with a new kind of blog post for a few months now. I’m calling them updates, and they are short bits and photos that aren’t complete ideas. They’re the type of thing that end up on social media sites, but as I’ve always had a healthy distrust of social media I [...]

Our next School of the Forest is scheduled for November 15th. We’ll get started at 10am as usual but we won’t be wrapping up at 2 o’clock this time around; we’ll be sleeping in the shelters we build! Staying the night isn’t mandatory, but it will be fun! Cost will be the standard thirty dollars [...]

I cook with cast iron daily, and have a bunch of it at our field school for students to use. There are many good reasons why I think cast iron is superior cookware, both at home and on the campfire. And with all those benefits comes one major drawback; disposable cleaning and upkeep products. When [...]

Another reason to wear and use natural fibers: keep micro-plastics out of the ocean. Your clothes are polluting the ocean every time you do laundry An estimated 1,900 microfibers can get rinsed out of a single piece of synthetic clothing each time it’s washed, and these microplastic fibers might be the biggest contributors to ocean [...]

Are you looking for a cheap, fun night out this Wednesday? For the November installment of our Self Reliance Workshop Series with GALA, we’re having an instructional campfire cooking dinner. Learn to cook over a campfire, build a sturdy pot suspension system, and use a dutch oven and a reflector oven like a seasoned professional. [...]

Had a blast at the Snow Walkers' Rendezvous. Now thinking about all kinds of remote winter expeditions. Winter isn't long enough. For planning purposes anyway.

Daughter, dog and ducks on a walk around the pond on a beautiful fall afternoon.  

Variety of tent styles at the Snow Walkers' Rendezvous.  

Snow Walkers' Rendezvous, in the tent with Derek and Paul. Living the good life under canvas.  

Making a grip of sourdough pancakes this morning. Indoor kitchens are great!  

Chest-deep in the lake for 20 minutes taking the dock out today. Cold water is serious business, really tired afterward.  

The Snow Walker’s Rendezvous is this weekend in Fairlee, Vermont. If you’re interested in traditional winter gear and techniques in the north, it’s one that you shouldn’t miss. I’ve been going for 15 years, and it keeps getting better. This year I’m traveling with Paul Sveum, who will be presenting on the 21-day Boundary Waters [...]

Winter survival and preparedness article by Jonathan Olivier, in which we're quoted heavily. Prepare for Winter Emergencies with These Simple Survival Practices Fire was my saving grace as a kid, camping in the dead of winter with a few friends on our breaks from school. We would often only sleep a few hour…

Every time I vote I think about the American revolution. I wish current generations valued democracy like they did in 1776.  

After seven busy years, we will no longer be offering programs at our 41 acre field school. Today we’re closing on an adjacent piece of property, and now we’ll be offering programs at our 61 acre field school. If you know the lay of the land around here, the purchase includes the land from the [...]

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time playing street hockey during the warm seasons and pond hockey during the frozen one. As we were in New Hampshire, we all wanted to be players from the Boston Bruins. My brother would usually pretend he was Bobby Orr. I always liked the scrappy [...]

I heard a while back that there are no other places named Masardis in the USA or Canada. A quick internet search led me to a page that said there are no other places named Masardis in the world. As such, I’ve decided to refer to it as simply Masardis, and no longer Masardis, Maine. [...]