I’m inconvenienced by modern conveniences much of the time. They break, they suck up money, and when their full cost and upkeep is taken into account, they don’t seem make my life much more convenient. I like pumping and carrying water more than I like dealing with tempermental plumbing systems. I like composting toilets more [...]

Longer canoe trips, those of the mulit-week and mulit-watershed sort, have intrigued me for some time, but there has always been the problem of long carries. Not everyone who participates in our programs is fit enough to carry an 80 or 100 pound boat several miles. So to facilitate these types of experiences, I just [...]

We’re in the August issue of Men’s Journal with a write-up of our northern Quebec canoe and bushcraft trip with the Cree. Jesse Huffman wrote about some wilderness trips for August, including our trip, a course with BOSS, and trips with Outward Bound and NOLS in the Adventure section of the magazine. Included is a [...]

The 2008 fall bushcraft semester will be our 12th semester course, and the first one to run from start to finish at our new location in northern Maine on the banks of the Aroostook river. We’ve put together a schedule that takes advantage of our new location, with lots of time spent living and traveling [...]

We’re running a bushcraft canoe expedition in northern Quebec with native Cree guides again this year. It’s an amazing experience traveling with David Bosum, his wife Anna, and Lawrence Capissit, our other guide from 2007. Canoeing the historic waterways of their people and learning how they have lived off the land for thousands of years [...]

As the result of numerous requests for a small bushcraft kit of core components that people can bring to our courses, we’ve partnered with Ben’s Backwoods and put together a bushcraft kit of the most useful items. It consists of a Mora knife (you choose whether you want a wood or plastic handle), metal pot [...]

After 8 weeks living at our bush camp, I’m back for a short while enjoying creature comforts such as bug screens and electricity.  It was a great spring, and there is lots of work left to do there, but things are coming along well.  Look for more posts soon about our recent experiences.

I’ve had a lot of campfire discussions with friends, students and interns since I last had the ability to post without driving an hour.  Living outdoors for an extended period of time (in the last seven weeks I’ve spent four nights inside, on two separate trips to NH to see my family) not only hardens [...]

If you’re interested in some of our fall workshops, I’ve got our fall semester broken down into weeks and on our schedule as of today.  No, we don’t have internet in Masardis yet, but I took a trip into the Presque Isle library and have been working on it for a few hours.  The fall [...]

Last night I went through and updated each page of our website with our new address and phone number.  This morning I realized that I had written the new address on a previous blog post incorrectly.  That’s since been corrected.  Sorry for any confusion.

We wrapped up the spring Earth Skills Semester Program last week.  We finished out the course with ten days on the Allagash river, which was a great culmination to our time together.  We saw a bunch of wildlife and caught a bunch of trout on the flyrod, but nothing of significant size. Our other big [...]

At the beginning of this semester course I picked up a sun oven. They’re simple to operate, use no fuel or electricity, and can be used all day whenever the sun is shining. I figured I’d try out a commercial model before building a bigger one. It’s been a great acquisition and I won’t run [...]

I’m back for a day to pick up more gear. After a week in our new camp in Masardis, I’m completely in love with the location. We spent the week building permanent shelters, exploring the area, and exploring the river. We’ve got a new mailing address and a new phone number if you want to [...]

We’re off to our new base camp in Masardis, Maine tomorrow.  I hope to get the internet hooked up in a few weeks, but until then I won’t be posting, answering email, or doing anything else web-related.  If you need to get in touch with me, leave a message on our answering machine. Today we [...]

I’m featured along with Survivorman Les Stroud in an article titled “Getting Out Alive; Survival experts show pilots what to do when the propeller stops spinning” by Marc C. Lee. Although written for pilots who find themselves alone after ditching their airplane, it’s a good primer for most survival situations. You can read the article [...]

I saw an ad for a college today and in the photo they had as their centerpiece was a student in a lecture hall looking toward the front and acting interested. That’s a negative for me. I remember sitting through a bunch of lectures, some great, some not, but what I took away from the [...]

I’ve been diligently at work writing up my ideas and plans for the Jack Mountain Bushcraft University, and have been getting feedback from our alumni about the process. The general plan is to take the academic components we’ve developed over ten semester programs and put them online for anyone, anywhere, to use. We’re putting together [...]

It was a busy day yesterday. We baked some potatoes in the sun oven, baked some sourdough biscuits in the reflector oven, waterlined and shellaced a canoe, made fish spears, caught a bunch of fish with them, built a tripod for smoking them, filleted them and smoked them as the sun sank over the horizon. [...]

I do a lot of dutch oven cooking, but I don’t like the legs on them because I usually either hang it from a tripod or support it with fire irons. But I love the lids on the camp ovens because they have the lip that will hold coals. So I’ve been thinking about sawing [...]

I’ve taken a wide variety of wilderness medical courses around the northeast. In 2000, I took a winter medicine and rescue course at the AMC center in Pinkham Notch at the base of Mount Washington. It was a two-day course, and on many nights they have slide show presentations for the people staying there. The [...]

Last summer I guided a trip to northern Quebec where we spent a week with Cree guides David Bosum and Lawrence Capissit. They were born in the bush and have spent their lives living off of the country there. One day one of guys on the trip was asking David some questions about winter trips. [...]

This morning I saw five bald eagles over Rust Pond.  They come through each year as the ice starts to go out.  It’s a big deal because for the rest of the year I never see them around here.  I think they move further north.  There is a certain way they fly that is unique, [...]

Yesterday afternoon everybody carved a bucksaw frame. It’s a great project in that it teaches safe and precise knife skills. We build them with no nails or wooden pegs, so that friction is all that holds it together. To accomplish this the carving and fitting needs to be close to exact. If someone does a [...]

Yesterday afternoon the temperature was near 60 degrees (F), a big change from a week ago. Each morning I hear more birds singing, and the trees are getting ready to bud. Spring is almost here. One aspect of our programs that we don’t talk much about is the fact that students live outdoors in shelters [...]

After pressing a specimen of Lycopodium, we spent most of yesterday morning on navigation.  We introduced the compass, then built a compass from the sun which we maintained all day.  We rounded out the morning by making hand-spun rope, then having everyone make their own rope using a rope-spinner. The afternoon began with a sharpening [...]

“Having done is worth more than having read, having watched, or knowing how.” I was thinking about experiential learning yesterday when the line above came to me. I think it will be our slogan for 2008. We live in the era where information is everywhere. But we should never confuse familiarity with understanding or experience. [...]

Today we start week 2 of our spring bushcraft semester course.  The weather is warming up nicely, but there is still a lot of snow on the ground.  We scraped a few deer hides over the weekend, and in the next day or so we’ll have all of them scraped and hung up to dry.  [...]

In the current (April, 2008) issue of AMC Outdoors magazine, there’s a great little article by Christopher Collier about canoe poling titled Pole Position where I’m quoted several times. There’s also mention of Don Merchant and Pole And Paddle Canoe. Read the article here.

Yesterday we rebuilt the sauna, and today we’ll start scraping deer hides so as to make buckskin.  Below is one of my favorite quotes from Sigurd Olson. The bush is a complex of many joys — companionship on the trail, the thrills of exploration, the impact of silence, vastness, and infinity, the good feeling of [...]

Our first day of the spring bushcraft semester course was marked by a wide range of weather. We went from still air, to snowy whiteout, to sleet, to rain, as the temperature warmed through the day. In the afternoon we went into the bush to familiarize everyone with the area. On our way out, we [...]

It’s day one of the spring Earth Skills Semester Program. Everyone’s here, and this morning we hit the ground running. There is still 36″ of snow in the bush, but since the shelters have raised beds we’re able to make it work without too much discomfort. Spring came to Wolfeboro yesterday, with warm temperatures and [...]

When I was a kid I remember being at a small airfield with my dad. As we walked past the planes, he explained to me how they were built. We stopped in front of one plane and he told me that this one didn’t come from a factory; It had been built by the owner. [...]

Our new sourdough cookbook is finished and back from the publisher. It has all the sourdough recipes we use on our trips, as well as recipes for simple baking powder breads, easy pie crusts, bannock, and more. Unlike other sourdough cookbooks, our recipes have no perishable ingredients that you probably won’t have with you on [...]

I had a professor in graduate school who said that we decide how the world works by the time we’re two and a half years old, and we spend the rest of our lives justifying and defending that idea. It’s a concept that keeps coming up and makes me think about what I believe and [...]

You’ve managed to find our home on the web, but what can you do here? Here are some ideas. 1. Get information on our programs and check our Schedule to find out when they run. 2. Read the latest news and events right here on our blog. We’ve written more than 275 posts, so you [...]

I’m back from Masardis, having done most of the legwork needed to move our programs there.  I was also able to witness how much snow they’ve got on the ground.  My guess is somewhere between three and four feet on the ground, plus another ten inches that fell while I was there.  So because of [...]

I’m heading up to Masardis today to start getting things ready for the spring semester.  I’ll be away from the blog for a while until I get internet access set up.

We had a great day working on pack baskets yesterday.  Usually I have people gather the materials with which to carve their skids from the surrounding woods.  But due to the deep snow and difficulty of getting around without snowshoes, I made these before the course started.  It saved a lot of time, and the [...]

Two more inches of snow overnight, and it’s really coming down this morning.  We’re close to breaking the snowfall record set in 1873-74, and this will get us closer. We’re running a pack basket course this weekend.  In these courses we use molds to make sure the shape of the basket is pleasing.  To ensure [...]

I recently rewrote the section of our student handbook that explains how we assess student work in our yearlong and semester programs. That rewrite is below: Assessment: Logbook and Portfolio There are no certifications in bushcraft, wilderness survival or primitive skills that are accepted universally. If any school offers a certification, it’s likely a result [...]

We filled our last general intern position for 2008 today.  Thanks to everyone who contacted us about them.  We’ll still have a few summer homesteading internships available to semester course graduates, so if you want more information on them please let us know.

We’ve got a variety of canoe trips planned for this spring.  While they will be part of our spring Earth Skills Semester Program, there will be a few open spots for each of them if you’re interested in coming along.  Trips we’ve got planned include the Aroostook River, the St. John River, a whitewater paddling [...]

I’ve got a group of scouts coming out this afternoon for a mammal tracking exercise.  With the snow conditions being what they are (two inches of ice on top of three feet of snow), there won’t be any clear prints or patterns to see.  When people are moving along on the crust of the ice, [...]

This morning we’ll be wrapping up the filming and everyone will be on their way. It’s been a great time and we’ve had a lot of fun, but it has kept me pretty busy. If you’ve called or emailed in the past week, I’ll be getting back to you tonight. The show, I’ll Try Anything [...]

A friend sent me this link to an interview with Michael Pollan titled “Don’t Eat Anything That Won’t Rot.” It’s about the present and future of food, and is an interesting read if you’re interested in where your food comes from and why there are so many fragmented foods these days. From the introduction to [...]

The weather shifted yesterday, with an inch of so of rain falling in the afternoon.  The front came through last night, and now we’ve got sun along with high winds rushing to fill in the low pressure system as it moves out over the Atlantic.  I haven’t been into the woods yet this morning, but [...]

We had another busy day filming yesterday. We started in the morning ice fishing out on the lake. It was dead for a while, then we caught a nice bass. Afterwards we were back in the woods. I went into the woods off of the trail at one point and sunk into the snow up [...]

A busy day yesterday working on the hands-on, nuts and bolts of winter survival.  It was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the 40’s – a welcome change from the snow and ice we’ve received lately.  Today we’ll be looking at more traditional skills and lore of the bush, identifying many of the trees [...]

I had a great day yesterday with the director of the tv show that’s here filming this week. We scouted the locations I had in mind for the shoot, then took a ride around to get some shots of the area. It’s tough walking in the woods, as there is 3.5 feet of snow with [...]

I’ve been working on several book projects this winter, and the first one is our new student handbook. I’ve put together a bunch of the student resources we’ve developed over the last ten years in our semester programs and expanded on them, resulting in a study guide for our semester programs that would also be [...]

Over the weekend I read Paddle And Portage: From Moosehead Lake To The Aroostook River, Maine by Thomas Sedgwick Steele on Google Books. It’s an 1880 account of traveling the route named in the title, which goes right by our new place in Masardis. I’ve always loved old books, especially if I’ve traveled over the [...]

Next week a tv crew will be here shooting a show called I’ll Try Anything Once. The host, a New York journalist named Touré, and I will be together in the woods for the week, along with a small camera crew. I don’t have a lot of details, but we’re sure to have a good [...]

Building on the nature study post from yesterday, I wanted to add one of my favorite links; Observations Of A Naturalist by Boyd Shaffer. It features illustrated articles (illustrated by Boyd) about nature by a man who knows it well. I studied the field botany of southcentral Alaska in Boyd’s class at Kenai Peninsula College [...]

A friend emailed me about Naturalist Jim Conrad’s site Backyard Nature, part of his push to improve environmental education by offering free nature study courses online. There’s also a public phenology database where you can record nature information you observe. It’s a great resource for learning about the world around you, as well as sharing [...]

Black Spruce Journals; Tales Of Canoe Tripping In The Maine Woods, The Boreal Spruce Forests Of Northern Canada, And The Barren Grounds by Steward Coffin is a collection of canoe trip journals of the author’s journeys from the late 1950’s to the mid 1990’s. It’s a dangerous book to read on during a snowy February.  [...]

There’s a short piece on us in the February/March edition of Portland Magazine. They think pretty highly of our naturalist skills.  From the article: “Follow the paddle whirlpools of America’s greatest naturalist online at www.jackmtn.com”

I was speaking with someone on the phone about our residential programs this morning, and as a result of the conversation I wanted to clarify some points about our long-term programs. Our Earth Skills Semester Programs and the Yearlong Immersion Program are made up of seven different courses that combine together to build a cohesive [...]

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about putting together an online university of sorts comprised of the academic aspects of bushcraft to complement the hands-on work of our yearlong immersion program. Yesterday I spent half an hour sketching out ideas on it, and will likely be sharing them here in the coming weeks. Then this [...]

I’ve been thinking about writing a review for Paul Stamets’s book Mycelium Running since I read it last fall. It’s an amazing book about fungi, which most people think are simply mushrooms. The reality, as put forth in the book, is that fungi are the internet of the natural world; communicating over long distances and [...]

A friend sent me the link to a cool firelighting gadget that works by collecting the sun’s rays with a parabolic reflector. A fire by this method can be accomplished several different ways, but I haven’t seen a handheld, commercial model until now. It looks cool and costs $13. Check it out here.

I’m a vocal critic of the lack of sustainability in outdoor education and recreation. I’ve said numerous times that minimum impact is really displaced impact, in that the impact is considerable but is not felt in the area where people recreate. Northland College has addressed the problem. They’ve put together a web page about their [...]

As part of our ongoing program development, we’re adding a summer homesteading internship to our lineup of courses.  It will provide serious students an opportunity to work on their bushcraft skills amongst a small community of learners while at the same time learning to live simply off the land.  Work will revolve around farming and [...]

I spend a lot of time thinking about the teaching process in preparation for our courses. Years of doing so have led me to believe that there are many things that can be learned, but not directly taught. An example of this took place the other night when some of the participants in our winter [...]

We just finished a four-day (2-day weekend, 2-day advanced) winter wilderness survival course culminating with some of the participants spending the night out with no sleeping bags in shelters they built themselves. Over four days we had a wide range of weather, from below zero (F) temperatures to driving rain and slush to whiteout conditions. [...]

I’ve been elected to the board of directors of GALA, which stands for Global Awareness, Local Action. It’s a local organization focusing on sustainability and local issues. We’ve worked together for the past year by offering sustainability workshops on such topics as composting, raised bed gardens, winemaking, local edible and medicinal plants, and more. The [...]

We’ve added two week-long courses to our schedule this spring. Titled Spring Bushcraft Intensive 1 and 2, they are the first two weeks of our Spring Earth Skills Semester Program, but can be taken as standalone courses. In the first week, students will start from scratch to build a shelter of their own to live [...]

Aside from this being a powerful and moving biography, the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly is a fascinating look at survival psychology. From the DVD: As a young boy, Dieter Dengler watched as Allied places destroyed his village; from that instant, he knew he wanted to fly. At 18, he moved to America, enlisted [...]

We’ve had a recent schedule change for June. A private workshop we had scheduled was cancelled, and as a result we’re running the 5-day version of our Advanced Summer Survival Course June 23-27, immediately following our Summer Survival Weekend Course that runs June 21-22.  If you plan on coming bring a fly rod if you’ve [...]

I bought a $100 axe head this past week. I’m guessing that sounds expensive to you, because it did to me at first. It’s an unused, 3.25 lb Emerson & Stevens, made in Oakland, Maine in 1942. The thing about axes is that they’re not making them like they used to. Before the days of [...]

We’ve put together a general intern position for this year. There is a heavy emphasis on organic gardening and food production, as well as general work. Details below. Positions Available: There is one position left for 2008. About: Interns will live on site or nearby, and will have several duties including gardening, shooting video, and [...]

In planning the spring Earth Skills Semester Program, as well as how we’ll accomplish certain tasks at our new base camp in Masardis, the issue of a way to generate electricity to charge camera and video camera batteries and run a laptop has been in the back of my mind for a while. Since we [...]

We’ve finalized the dates for our canoeing and bushcraft trip to northern Quebec with Cree guide David Bosum. We’ll meet in Ouje Bougoumou on the afternoon/evening of Saturday, August 9th, and start our trip the morning of the 10th. We’ll be back the night of the 16th and leave on the 17th. There will be [...]

I came across a great trip journal of two guys who paddled-poled-sailed solo canoes 400 miles along an old route from the St. Lawrence River, across Quebec, New Brunswick and Maine to the Atlantic Ocean in Penobscot Bay. It’s a great story of an amazing journey. Read it here. From their description: Welcome to my [...]

This spring’s Earth Skills Semester Program will be somewhat different from those we’ve run in the past.  Because it will be the first one we’re running at our new base camp in Masardis, Maine, we’ll be making and building a lot of camp projects throughout the course.  We’ll also be building numerous bush structures to [...]

Open To Outcome; A Practical Guide For Facilitating And Teaching Experiential Reflection  offers some simple, practical tools that are relevant to outdoor education. A brief survey of everyone you know will most likely reveal that among the top five moments of learning in their lives, at least four did not take place in the classroom. [...]

After speaking with several people I’ve decided to not restrict our online network just to alumni, but rather to open it to friends as well. So if you’re interested, you can register here or go to http://jackmtn.ning.com. You can post photos, videos, a blog, and more, as well as network with other likeminded individuals about [...]

It’s official. Yesterday we closed on our new property in Masardis, Maine. It’s an amazing area in the middle of Aroostook County, and our land borders the Aroostook river. Everyone here is excited about it, and we’ve got big plans for both the land and the future of Jack Mountain. But there is a lot [...]

I noticed a grain split on the toe of one of my snowshoes yesterday, so to repair it I wrapped some string around it using a whip to hold it tight. The only string I had handy was hot pink, so I spent the afternoon wearing the amazing technicolor snowshoe. I saw a bunch of [...]

“In the woods you must expect to pay a certain price in discomfort for a very real and very deep pleasure.  Wet, heat, cold, hunger, thirst, difficult travel, insects, hard beds, aching muscles–all these at one time or another will be your portion.  If you are of the class that cannot have a good time [...]

I don’t care about the opinion of gurus, celebrities or famous people. I think that people’s devotion to them is a disease. I’ve heard it referred to as celebrititus. Because someone is famous doesn’t mean they’re skilled in the bush, or as a bushcraft instructor, or good at anything else. I’ve met a few famous [...]

I saw a documentary yesterday called America’s Stone Age Explorers which examined the evidence behind the various theories on the peopling of the Americas. It is the first bit I’ve seen in the mainstream media to challenge the Clovis first theory – the one we were all taught in school about the land bridge at [...]

To help people keep in touch with friends they met during their course with us, facilitate trip planning, story-telling, and just general networking, we’ve put together an alumni network site. With regard to trip planning, I know of one canoe trip taking place this spring in Wisconsin where there’s an invitation to our alumni. So [...]

Even thought the days are still short and the snow is piled deep over the garden, it won’t be long before it’s time to start seedlings in preparation for the growing season. I’m putting in several fruit trees this year, as well as expanding the number of edible perennials we grow. GALA is putting together [...]

I’ve got a book from 1972 called The Walk Of The Conscious Ants, by Taylor Morris, that tells the true story of a college professor and his students who decided that instead of taking a semester of regular courses, they would walk from their school in southwestern New Hampshire to Nova Scotia. It’s an interesting [...]

Mungo took a bunch of photos last November when Mors Kochanski was here running a workshop. He’s got 6 pages of them posted at flickr. You can see them here, and read Mungo’s blog (and thank him for posting them all) at Mungo Says Bah.

I saw this track on the dirt road the other day when it was above freezing. I had to think about it for a bit before I realized what it was. Any ideas?  It’s the imprint of ice creepers, things people put on the bottom of their boots to grip ice, so they don’t slip [...]

Following the advice of a longtime friend who knows more about these topics than I do, I’m changing the blog’s title to: MDG : The Jack Mountain Bushcraft Blog The reason for the change lies in his explanation of search engines and how they work.  The look and content of the MDG will remain the [...]

Another in our series of notable quotations. I first came across Richard Nelson’s books while living in Alaska. This quotation is interesting from the perspective of anthropology, as well as for learning the skills of another culture which is common in bushcraft. Different cultures don’t just do some things differently – often they see and [...]

Half an inch of rain is falling around here today.  Everything is already damp from all the snow that has melted over the past several days, and now with this soaking rain the resulting conditions are some of the most difficult for fire-lighting.  You need dry wood to light a fire.  The problem is finding [...]

I just finished a book called Caribou Hunter; A Song Of A Vanished Innu Life. It was transcribed by Serge Bouchard in 1971 from interviews he had with Mathieu Mestokosho, an Innu who lived his life in northeastern Quebec. The Innu lived in the region from Lac St. Jean to Labrador and have also been [...]

Teaching is a process. My son is learning how to skate, and it’s challenging for me as his teacher. I have no memory of learning how to skate as I learned at age 3, the same age he’s at now. For me to teach him, I can’t rely on personal experience because I’ve known how [...]

We’re hiring college students to work as campus representatives. Interested? Call or email us. How It Works: We mail them some posters and they put them up where they think interested people might see them. The campus representative (CR) keeps a log of where they put the posters and emails it to us. The CR [...]

I’ve thought a lot about what it takes to become proficient at bushcraft and a competent guide. Obviously, it takes a lot of hands-on instruction and a lot of time spent in the bush doing it. But it also takes a lot of rigorous study. The natural world is not something that can be learned [...]

The 2007 Maine Wilderness Guides Organization winter guide training course was a great success. Cold weather, lots of snow, and a beautiful remote camp allowed us to cover a wide variety of topics applicable to guiding during the snow season. Kevin Slater brought two of his dog teams which he taught everyone about, and we [...]

There are a lot of bushcraft sites and blogs these days, and I think it’s great.  People are making all sorts of stuff out of local materials and working with their hands to solve problems.  A downside of making lots of items but not using them is that they don’t know if the things they [...]

We’ve gotten about 2 feet of snow over the last four days.  It ended late last night, so the better part of the morning will be spend digging out, then packing down some trails with snowshoes.  Snow depths of over two feet necessitate a snowshoe that gives adequate flotation.  This is determined by the moisture [...]

The holidays are finally over, as is our family month on the road.  There’s a lot to do around here, and a lot of good resources and experiences to share, so it’s time to get on with it.  A new feature of the blog is quotations from some of the outdoor books I’ve read over [...]

I just got back from 12 days on the road visiting relatives, and I’m out the door again tonight to help teach the Maine Wilderness Guides Organization winter guide training course. It runs today (Wednesday) through Saturday and takes place at Mahoosuc Guide Service and in the surrounding mountains. It’s been a busy month.

Yesterday we got our first snowstorm of the year – 10 inches of dry powder. Tomorrow I’m going out tracking in the morning, looking to see who’s been moving since the snow fell. Tracking in fresh snow is one of the joys of living in the north. Shoveling it is one of the curses. We’ve [...]

It’s several weeks after the end of our fall semester program, and all the written work for the college credit option is in. I’ll be posting some of it here, starting with Russ Venditto’s final paper. It’s a .pdf file, and you can get it by clicking here. I’ve added a section to our Bushcraft [...]

After the semester ended and the two workshops with Mors Kochanski, I took a few days to catch up on some much-needed rest.  But we were back at it yesterday with a winemaking workshop instructed by my good friend Shayne White.  He covered necessary equipment and techniques for making wine inexpensively at home, and even [...]

It’s the last full day or our semester course, and we’ve been fortunate to have Mors Kochanski visiting with us and sharing his insights into the work everyone has done. Beyond the obvious benefits gleaned from him sharing his knowledge and experience, his humor around the campfire is always a treat. We’ve also been shooting [...]

To finish their pack baskets, folks have decided to make custom leather harnesses out of bark tanned leather. We didn’t tan it ourselves, but students are sizing it and using copper rivets to fasten the strip ends together. We had discussed using the braintanned hides everyone now has, but the thicker, full-grain leather is more [...]

We make family trips to the library once a week. Last week I got a book called Over The Mountains; An Aerial View Of Geology by Michael Collier. It’s a book of aerial photographs that are stunningly beautiful. The accompanying text explains the geologic features of the photographs. From the introduction: “With this book, I’d [...]

As part of our ongoing series of sustainability workshops, we’ve scheduled a winemaking workshop for Sunday, November 11. My old friend Shayne White will be here walking us through the process of making your own wine at home with simple ingredients, as well as talking about the equipment you need to get started. There’s also [...]

This is the last weekend of this fall’s Earth Skills Semester Program, so it wasn’t much of a break. Everyone is busy working on projects, from scraping a moose hide to weaving pack baskets to tillering bows, as well as putting together our video from week nine. It will remain busy right up through Friday, [...]

A friend of mine shot a moose a few days ago and he’s giving us the hide to tan. I’m meeting him this morning at the town docks as he lives on the other side of Lake Winnepesaukee. The temperature is in the 30’s (just above freezing in Celcius) so I bet it will be [...]

Yesterday everyone sized their pounded ash strips and carved their skids, so today we’ll start weaving the baskets.  Actually weaving the basket doesn’t take as long as getting and preparing the materials, so we should have some baskets near finished by this afternoon.  They’ll have to dry overnight and be tightened, but the bulk of [...]

We had a great weekend at the wilderness first aid course sponsored by the Maine Wilderness Guides Organization. The course took place at Mahoosuc Guide Service, and we all stayed in their new Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge. A wilderness first aid or wilderness first responder course is a great complement to the bushcraft and guide training [...]

This morning we worked with map and compass for several hours. A student from last fall’s semester program joined us. She’s preparing to take the Maine Guide exam, and is studying a lot navigation skills and theory. After a half hour, everyone could orient the map and plot a course with their bearings exact. It’s [...]

Today we’re still pounding ash for pack baskets. It’s a big job, and historically marks a low point of morale for semester students because it’s so labor intensive and takes some time. To counteract this we sometimes hire a clown to come and make balloon animals on-site while eveyone is pounding. Spirits haven’t dipped low [...]

Our upcoming bushcraft courses with Mors Kochanski are now officially full.  Hopefully Mors will be back out this way next year, or the year after.

I got a call recently from a writer with Outside Magazine looking for information on Bear Grylls and his show Man Vs. Wild for their November issue. (The article just came out and I didn’t make the cut.) I worked as the survival expert on the Alaskan Mountain Range episode of the show. Since another [...]

Pepe the porcupine is no longer with us – he’s alive and well about 10 miles from here.  In a daring nighttime abduction, some of the ESSP folks caught him in a trash can and drove him far enough away so he probably won’t find his way back.  Everyone had gotten a little attached to [...]

In late June, Pepe the porcupine walked out of the woods and started hanging around our field. He was a baby then, and has literally grown up while eating the clover and vegetables we grow. At the beginning of the fall semester, the students were interested in watching him as he lounged around, seemingly oblivious [...]

Our latest video, Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal 13: Earth Skills Semester Program Week 6, is live on our video page. It’s also on our Youtube channel and will be on our Blip.tv channel before too long. This video follows us on our canoe trip on the St. Croix river along the border of Maine and [...]

The Maine Wilderness Guides Organization, of which I’m a lifetime member, is offering a winter guide training course running from Wednesday December 19 to Saturday December 22, 2007.  If you lead trips in the winter you should consider attending. From the MWGO website: This workshop is designed to cover the skills needed to safely guide [...]

In 2008 we’re officially adding a homesteading and organic gardening component to our programs. it’s nothing new; for ten semester programs, our students have played an active role in living sustainably on the land. But now we’re making it a formal part of the semester experience. Students will have garden space to grow some of [...]

I’ve been hearing about the so-called “sacred order of survival” for twenty years, and while it looks good on paper, in the winter bush it is not only bad advice, but can be deadly. Such ill-conceived advice also usually advocates building a debris shelter, which is an A-frame insulated with leaves. The questions I’ve posed [...]

In 2008 the Earth Skills Summer Program will evolve from a skills course to a bushcraft canoe expedition on Maine’s Allagash Wilderness Waterway. We’ll spend a few days working on core skills such as basic canoeing, axe use and safety, fly and spin fishing, navigation, firemaking and trip planning, then we’ll spend the remainder of [...]

Due to several recent cancellations, we’ve got two spots open for our upcoming workshops with Mors Kochanski.  The first workshop, Bushcraft And Survival With Mors Kochanski, runs November 3-4.  The second, Advanced Bushcraft And Survival With Mors Kochanski, runs November 5-6.  The workshops are $250 each.  These spots won’t last long, so if you’re interested [...]

Continuing our series of sustainability workshops, today at 2pm we’re running an acorn processing workshop.  We’ll be collecting and processing acorns into food, as well as discussing some great uses for the by-products.  If you want to come there’s still room, so give us a call!

We’re back from canoeing the St. Croix after a great week on the river.  The weather was perfect, the water was still a swimmable temperature, and everyone learned a lot about poling loaded canoes through rapids.  We managed to break one pole when it got stuck in the rapids, then was hit by another canoe, [...]

This morning we’re heading out for a weeklong canoe and bushcraft trip on the St. Croix river.  I’ve been looking forward to this week for a long time, as I’ve always had a great time on the St. Croix and we’ll be there during peak foliage.  Along the way today we’ll stop at a used [...]

Our latest video, Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal 12: Earth Skills Semester Program Week 5, is live on our video page. It’s also on our Youtube channel and will be on our Blip.tv channel in a few days.  This week’s video chronicles our hiking trip in the White Mountains and gets you current on our projects.  [...]

Our minimal-gear hike in the White Mountains was fun and a great learning experience.  We covered a decent amount of ground, with the students carrying everything they needed on homemade pack frames and using their homemade rope as pack straps.  They built their shelters as we went, and experienced what it’s like to travel with [...]

Our new video, Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal 11: Earth Skills Semester Program Week 4 is live on our video page. It’s also up on our Youtube channel, and will be on our Blip.tv channel in a few days. Enjoy!

This morning we’re off to the White Mountains for a walkabout, or limited gear hike.  We’ll be there for several nights.  The point of the exercise is for the students to put into action the skills they have learned thus far, as well as to explore some new and beautiful country.  We’ve planned several routes, [...]

Some of our students made a music video on braintanning last week to share with their friends and family. I had no role in the production, or editing.  It looks like they were having fun to me. See it on youtube. Enjoy.

We had a great day poling on the upper Saco river yesterday. We were joined by writer/photographer Christopher Percy Collier, who was working on a magazine story about canoe poling. From the put-in we poled upstream for several mies. It was slow going as the river was running at 175 cubic feet per second, which [...]

Today we’re off to pole and fish the upper Saco river. The weather is supposed to be beautiful, and although brisk, the water will still be warm enough for a midday swim. I’m bringing my fly rod and the video camera, so hopefully we’ll shoot some footage that will make it into this week’s Bushcraft [...]

We spent the entire day yesterday exploring the woods and looking for plants and mushrooms to identify and collect, as well as tracks to cast and scat to examine.  Our travels led us a few miles into the woods, around an old beaver pond, along a stream, and through a variety of habitats.  We found [...]

Today marks the start of week 4 of the Earth Skills Semester Program. This week we’ll be working on a new shelter, finishing our braintanned buckskins, and roughing out longbows. We’ll also spend a day poling and fly fishing a nearby river, and continuing with our studies of the natural world. Yesterday morning we put [...]

Our new video, Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal – Episode 10, is live. You can see it at jackmtn.com/video. Have a look and let us know what you think.

Our semester students all passed their hunter safety tests, so each of them can now legally purchase a hunting license. We encourage all of our students to take a state-sponsored hunter’s safety course, which is a basic firearms course in addition to the content on hunting. We also recommend that they take a bowhunter safety [...]

This is turning into the season of the porcupine for me.  While we were on the edge of a swamp looking at some of the semester students’ shelters yesterday I heard a commotion of crow calls.  I looked in their direction, and while I didn’t see them or what had gotten them so riled up, [...]

This Sunday we’ll be continuing our series of sustainability workshops with one on sourdough baking. The workshop starts at 2 pm. If you’re planning on attending, be sure to bring a container or plastic bag so you can bring home some of our sourdough starter. Our sustainability workshops are free, but there is a suggested [...]

Another busy week (week 3 of 10) is near completed in the Earth Skills Semester Program.  Early in the week we havested a tree for bow staves.  We felled it with an axe, sectioned it with a crosscut saw, split it with wedges, and debarked it using draw knives.  Yesterday we started scraping deer hides [...]

Our new video featuring the second week of the Earth Skills Semester Program is live on our new video page. You can also see it on youtube. Yesterday we had torrential rains which slowed us down a bit, but last night I picked up a bunch of frozen deer hides which we’ll be tanning as [...]

Pepe the porcupine has been sleeping on our stone oven.  It seems as if he thinks it’s a cave and a good place to den.  Yesterday morning someone watched him come out of the oven and have his morning stretch.

The Earth Skills Semester Program week 1 video is live on youtube.  We’ll get them onto our site soon, but for the time being you can see all of our videos on our youtube channel.

The video from our recent canoe and bushcraft trip in northern Quebec is live on youtube. We’ll be adding the video to our website soon, but for the time being you can see all of our videos on our youtube channel.

Yesterday the ESSP students carved axe handles under the tutelage of Don Merchant of Pole and Paddle Canoe. Starting with pieces of white ash and using draw knives, spoke shaves, and rasps, they shaped the blanks and carved the eye to just fit the axe head. It was a long, hot day in the sun, [...]

We had a busy first day of the fall semester building shelters and going over our routines. We shot some time-lapse video of building a shelter as a group, but we haven’t watched it yet to see if it was any good. It was a long, hot day in the sun but we got all [...]

After weeks of preparation, today we start the tenth semester course that we’ve run. I’ll write a summary at the end of the day to keep our readers informed as to what we do. And we’ve got a video intern, so expect to see a bunch of footage of the course available on the web [...]

Photos from our recent canoe trip in Quebec, including this one of David Bosum cleaning the night’s catch and getting it ready to smoke, are now in our photo gallery. The video we shot on the trip will be available soon.

I’m back from Quebec after a great trip.  It was a long drive – 635 miles and 14 hours – but well worth it.  I’ll write up the trip soon, but I wanted to report on the yellow jackets that made a ground nest in our garden.  In the rush to get packed and on [...]

The van is packed and we’re set to roll out of here at 5 am for the long drive to Oujé-Bougoumou. After a long week of working on and around our new cook house, I’m ready for some time in the bush. I’ll blog about the trip when we get back.

I’ve noticed some of the leaves of our strawberries have had their edges nibbled, and last night I met the culprit.  I was working in the barn just before dark yesterday when I noticed one of the young porcupines (one of this year’s babies) in the field eating clover.  I watched him for a few [...]

Our canoe and bushcraft trip with David and Anna Bosum in Quebec is just a few days away, so getting a phone call from one of the participants saying they couldn’t go because of a medical issue wasn’t what I was looking forward to hearing, especially after having another late cancellation.  But last night I [...]

Duane Hanson gave me a copy of Lindsay’s Technical Books catalog when I was up at his place in June. It’s a great resource for obscure how-to books on a variety of subjects such as blacksmithing, building, crafting and science. From the cover of the catalog; “Exeptional technical books for experimenters, inventors, tinkerers, mad scientists, [...]

The Fall 2007 Earth Skills Semester Program will mark the tenth semester course that we’ve run.  It’s been neat to watch what started as an idea turn into reality and develop from there.  And the fact that this semester filled early has been a strong validation that we’re on the right track.  So thanks for [...]

My good friend Steve Marshall was quoted in a New York Times article recently. He’s a rafting guide on the Shubenacadie River in Nova Scotia, where they run the tide as it rushes into the river. I’ve never been, but it sounds like a wild ride. Steve and I spent several weeks together this summer [...]

This Sunday we’re offering the second in our series of sustainability workshops – a plant walk of the local woods focusing on common edible and medicinal plants. We’ll also look at some of the poisonous plants of the area, and talk about creating a collection of plant pressings and how to take your knowledge of [...]

The last week has been busy around here.  We built our new cook shack (with the roof still to be completed), ran a full Summer Survival Weekend Course, and ran a private 2-day survival workshop.  Today will be the first day I’ve had a chance to write (and take a deep breath and sit still [...]

Over the years I’ve used a wide variety of lanterns and lights in camp. For winter trips I’ve just used candles to light up the inside of the wall tent. On solo or non-guided trips I carry a small headlamp to read with, but for guided trips I like to have a lantern of some [...]

I told the people in our sustainability workshop yesterday that I’d post a link to an article on lasagna gardening so they could have a reference for what we did. It’s from Mother Earth News and located here.

The first in our series of sustainability workshops took place yesterday, and despite strong thunderstorms that caused us to start a little late it was a great success. We built a raised lasagna garden bed on a section of ground where the limited amount of soil was compacted, and talked about a few related skills [...]

I do a lot of reading and came across something on how old-time farm internships worked in the book “The New Organic Grower” by Elliot Coleman, on page 5; “The student received room and board but was expected to pay the farmer a monthly fee for the first three months. After three months, if the [...]

This Sunday marks the first in our series of workshops on sustainability. We’ll be building a lasagna garden bed, which is an effective way to turn a section of lawn into a food production zone in less than an hour. We’ll meet at 2pm and put together a lasagna bed or two, then plant them [...]

We completed the Earth Skills Summer Program, and it was a great success. We covered a lot of material, had a lot of fun, and only had to endure one knife cut which took place the first day. Like all extended courses, there were low points, like the bow that broke during floor tillering and [...]

It’s been a busy two weeks with the Earth Skills Summer Program.  We’ve focused intensively on bushcraft and nature studies, and this morning we’re doing a segment on wood canvas canoe building.  We’ll examine the process, look at molds and how they’re built, then pull a hull that’s been planked off of a mold and [...]

We’re putting together a series of community-oriented workshops on sustainable living, self-reliance and sense of place to begin this summer and run year-round. Although all the details haven’t been worked out, it will be based around low-cost, low-tech things people can do such as composting, gardening, food storage and emergency preparedness, as well as developing [...]

We took a family paddle around Rust Pond today and much to my consternation I saw numerous docks built with pressure treated lumber. Pressure treated lumber is infused with preservatives and chemicals that can leach into the water. The state of NH has a document on the web about pressure treated lumber use for docks. [...]

We’re in the midst of a heat wave here in New Hampshire, with the high temperatures today and tomorrow adding up to over 180 degrees (F). My friends in Canada are always telling me their temperatures in Celcius, but they might well be trying to teach me to conjugate verbs in Mandarin Chinese – I [...]

We’ve been busy from sun-up to sun-down with the Earth Skills Summer Program, so I haven’t been blogging or posting photos.  But since I have a minute this morning, here’s some of what we’ve been up to.  We started last week with an immersion into bushcraft starting wtih firemaking and the related skills.  We’ve identified [...]

If you read my last post you already know about the snapping turtle that was hanging around on the wall tent platform yesterday. We shot some video of her getting off the platform that’s more like a fall, and I put it on YouTube tonight. See it on the Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal Channel.

Tomorrow morning marks the beginning of the Earth Skills Summer Program. I’ve been busy getting things ready with the help of Paul Sveum, who arrived after finishing the academic year at Northland College in Wisconsin. Paul took the ESSP two years ago and came back last year as an TA and instructor. This year he’ll [...]

I had a great time making knives with Duane Hanson last week.  I forged three knives and a crooked knife and learned a lot along the way.  Spending time with Duane is always fun and educational for me.  He’s always got a bunch of interesting projects going, so in addition to whatever I’m there to [...]

This afternoon I’m off to the woods near Jackman, Maine, to take Duane Hanson’s knife-making class.  I put a box of fishing gear in the truck just in case.  Look for a post about the trip in a week or so.   In the mean time, enjoy the warm weather and the bugs – especially [...]

I’ve heard the terms bushcraft and wilderness survival used interchangably, and defined by those who base their understanding on what they saw on a tv show. Needless to say I disagree with most of the common definitions floating around these days. The terms are not the same thing, although one is contained within the other. [...]

I put the first five episodes of Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal on YouTube last night, which should make it easier for people to view and share them. We’ve gotten a bunch of emails from people who’ve had trouble the interface on our site, so hopefully this will help.  We’ll continue to maintain our own video [...]

After a weekend of solid rain that included a birthday party for my 3-year-old son, a cold front came through last night and today is crisp, clear and windy. A perfect morning to weed the garden. Everything I put in this year is doing well, and all the rain has things growing at a fast [...]

Starting in 2008 we’ll be changing the age range of our summer programs to focus on teens instead of adults.  We’ll still offer several programs for adults, but the Earth Skills Summer Program and several trips will reflect the change.  So if you’ve been thinking about participating in the Earth Skills Summer Program but have [...]

As we’re into the season where more people will be recreating outside and heading to lakeside summer camps, today’s post is a friendly reminder to never use soap, regardless of whether its label features buzzwords such as biodegradable, natural or organic, in lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, or any other water source. The stuff printed on [...]

A guy called me yesterday with questions about our Summer Survival Weekend Course. We spoke for several minutes about what the course covers, what he could expect, and other related topics. Then said he had a question about religion. He asked if we incorporated spiritual teachings or Native American ceremonies in the course. I immediately [...]

Tying a fly on an island campsite Last week I went on a great paddling trip through some lakes in Washington County, Maine. I’ve done numerous river trips on the nearby St. Croix river, but the lakes above Grand Lake Stream are an area I’ve been meaning to explore and fish for a while, and [...]

I finally got a copy of the May/June issue of Paddler Magazine, and my article on canoe poling titled “Pole Position” appears on pages 74-75.  So if you’re looking for some tips on poles and poling go out and get a copy.  And let me know what you think.

After watching someone swing an axe a few times I can tell if they’re an expert or a beginner. My friend Don Merchant is as good with an axe as anyone I’ve ever seen. He grew up on a rural farm and has been using an axe since he was seven. He wields it like [...]

I recently typed-up an old handout about the 27 laws of ecology (collated by Pierre Dansereau) and posted it on the web. It’s a .pdf file located here, and is also linked through our Online Articles page under the Recommended Resources heading. Below is a list of the laws. For their definitions and explanations, read [...]

Yesterday at dusk I took my wife and son out in the canoe for the first time this year. We paddled along the edge of the pond and watched the smallmouth bass who are up the beds this time of year. We paddled into the lagoon at the end of the lake and spooked a [...]

The Maine Wilderness Guides Organization 2nd annual rendezvous is taking place on June 16-17 at The Birches in Rockwood. On the 16th there will be a series of free workshops put on by the membership. I’ll be running two bushcraft and survival workshops: from 9:45 to 11:00 and from 11:15 to 12:30. There will be [...]

Making edged tools with steel is a specialized skill with which I have little experience. In order to learn more about this process I’ll be taking a knife making class next month with my friend Duane Hanson, the owner of Moose River Handcrafts. In the five-day class we’ll start with raw materials and make a [...]

Thursday 5/10 I’ll have an information table at MUB at the University of New Hampshire from 10-3.  I’ll have information and will be able to answer questions about our programs.  If you’re in the area come down and say hello!

I was quoted about the waterways being the traditional highways through the northeast in the section about the Northern Forest Canoe Trail in Ethan Gilsdorf’s article “10 Things Not To Miss”. Read the article here.

I spoke with a travel writer from the Boston Globe yesterday who was writing a story about the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT), a water route from Old Forge, New York in the western Adirondacks to Fort Kent, Maine on the St. John river. I’ve never traveled the sections in New York or Vermont, but [...]

Yesterday I finished building the 20-foot canoe mold I’ve been working on since late December. Everyone I talked to said that building a canoe mold is a lot of work, and I didn’t doubt them. After building one, I can say that they were all correct – it was a lot of work. It’s the [...]

Following up on Paul Sveum’s paper about the ethics of modern camping and the reality of leaving no trace, I typed up an essay I had in an old book titled “The Myth of the Non-Consumptive User”. Many modern recreational groups see hikers and photographers, amongst others, as having no impact on the natural world [...]

Even though winter is finally over (well, almost as there is still a remaining snow pile behind the barn), I wanted to pass along an informative site and how-to manual on ski pulks. A pulk is a sled pulled behind a skier or snowshoer with a rigid pole system. They’re really useful, but the ones [...]

Knowledge of identification, harvesting, processing and use of edible, medicinal and otherwise useful plants makes up a vast amount of practical and intellectual knowledge that was highly valued by cultures living off the bounty of the land. In our modern culture, where many people can’t identify the trees in their yard or the ones they [...]

We’ve added a new service that allows you to get The Moose Dung Gazette delivered to you as an email. It is emailed once a day on days that we post. Subscribe, get more information and read our privacy policy here.

We’ve added a new way to stay current with our programs; The Jack Mountain E-News. It has current events, coming attractions and last-minute specials. It’s available both as a feed and as an email newsletter to make it as easy as possible to keep up with what we’re doing. The feed is here and email [...]

Although the leaves have yet to show themselves, the maples are budding out and the peepers are singing each night. At dusk last night I heard the hermit thrush’s song coming from the woods, and this morning I watched a beaver as it swam by. Life has returned to this part of New Hampshire that [...]

This morning I posted information on our video intern position on our site. Here’s the info: Video Intern – Plan, Shoot And Edit Documentary-Style Films Dates and Positions Available: We’re currently seeking one person for the fall semester. The deadline for applications is June 1st. There will be future opportunities for the winter, spring and [...]