The beautiful weather of mid-August has arrived! My two week summer break between the end of the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester and the beginning of the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester beginning August 24th has been filled with family time, but also a few folk school programs. Last Thursday, as part of the self reliance workshop series [...]

The 2014 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester was an amazing month on the river. Everyone spent the month in a solo boat, but they were our 18 and 16 foot Prospecters, not small boats designed for solo use. Everyone also used a paddle that they had carved and a pole that they had made. These were [...]

A series of videos shot on the 2014 Boreal Snowshoe Expedition. It was a stellar team out for two beautiful weeks. We had an amazing time. Boreal Snowshoe Expedition Intro Making Bannock Winter Cooking Rig Splitting Wood On Snowshoes On The Trail With Jerell Yukon’s Campsite Tour

Shot during the 2013 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester, one of the participants was adept at walking on a slackline and wanted to cross Munsungun stream where the old Oxbow Road bridge is washed out. It wasn’t a warm day. He wasn’t excited about the silly commentary. If you watch until the end, he made it [...]

Sourdough biscuits in the reflector oven filmed during the 2013 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester on a remote river in northern Maine. Topher and Dave were guide team partners for this dinner and literally steal the show. And no, we weren’t having any fun on that trip.

Photo: Deer in camp. Highlights: June began with the final few weeks of the spring Wilderness Bushcraft Semester and finished with the Woodsman course. During June we also had our new student cabin and library delivered, making the field school master plan nearly complete. As spring rolled into summer the gardens started producing fresh greens. [...]

Solar power does a lot of work for us at the field school. In this video Paul Sveum shows three of the main ways we use the sun: to cook food, heat water and generate electricity.

Shot a while back during the fall 2012 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester, join the guys as they’re cutting up moose, talking about forcing a patina on a new blade and the delicate process of making homemade wine.

Our registration process and pre-course communications are about to get a whole lot smoother. Our instructors are often away from phone and internet contact for long periods while on expeditions, so to make things work better we’re hiring a dedicated office support person. No longer will anyone have to wait for weeks before getting a [...]

Kids need outlets in nature and time spent unplugged. When they do, great things happen. Things like this. What The Mountains Tell Me Every day I go on a hill To watch the mountains calm and still They tell me stories of climbers climbing them with pride Or little kids like you and me Dreaming [...]

This guest post is by Jerell Friesen, pictured in the photo above adjusting an improvised snowshoe during the 38 days described in the post. You can download a pdf with graphics by clicking here. What I Did: During the 38 day period between February 2nd and March 8th 2013 I dedicated myself to a two [...]

Note: This is the first in a series of guest posts by our senior instructor Paul Sveum. There was a TV commercial I saw last winter while I was out in Montana that I thought of today as we are set to begin our 2014 Spring Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. The scene opened with a happy [...]

Wall tents are great portable homes. In this video Paul Sveum shows how he builds a platform and knee wall to make living in one that much more comfortable.

Photo: Rocket stoves at dusk. Highlights: These are the long, busy days of June. We had a great month and now the wild edibles are really beginning to pop and the fishing is getting good. We’ve got a bunch of garden beds in this year, as well as a variety of fruit trees. The field [...]

Recorded in the Guide Shack at the field school, join Tim Smith, Paul Sveum and Shawn Sprague as they talk about the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School certifications. Learn what they are, why they exist, where they came from and what they can do for you. iTunes Link | Play, Download Or Subscribe In iTunes Stitcher [...]

Photo: Snow at the field school in late April. Highlights: Since April 20 and until June 21 we’re busy with the spring Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. It’s been a great course so far, but not without it’s weather-imposed challenges. When we started the snowpack on our road was waist deep! But things have warmed up and [...]

We’re three weeks into the spring semester. It was a challenging start, with our road being covered with several feet of snow and us unable to drive in for the first two weeks. It meant a lot of trips hauling gear in on sleds for the 3/4 of a mile to the paved road. Also, [...]

This weekend we begin our 26th semester program. Today I’m packing up the truck and canoe trailer. Tonight I’ll be watching my kids perform in a play, and tomorrow I’ll be heading to the field school. It will be a challenging beginning to the course because the dirt road in from the pavement is still [...]

The next workshop in the Self Reliance Workshop Series is on lighting fires using a bow drill. It takes place May 14th in Ossipee, New Hampshire. You can sign up or get more information on the GALA website.

I’m packing up my gear and headed out to our fly fishing workshop in an hour.  It’s part of our monthly self reliance workshop series we’re running with GALA.  We’ll be going over gear, knots, casting and as much about fish habits and bugs as time will allow. So far this workshop series has been [...]

Our summer calendar for 2014 is much different than in years past due to moving the 4-week Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester from May to July-August. Because of this move, I’ll be out on the river during the period we usually run several week-long summer programs. As a result, the summer programs have been scaled back. [...]

For a year in the mid-2000’s we ran a small online store. It was never our desire to make the Cabela’s brothers nervous, but selling a few items that were of use to our students seemed like a good idea at the time. It worked out well, but there was one issue that made us [...]

This is the winter that won’t give up.  Although the weather has warmed in the past week, we’re still under its thumb.  There’s an ice storm forecast for tonight, with freezing rain continuing until mid-morning on Saturday.  Because of this I’m cancelling the Bushcraft Fundamentals class scheduled for tomorrow. If you haven’t already gotten a [...]

Right after I finished high school I played in a summer hockey league at Hockey Town, USA on Route 1 north of Boston. If you’re familiar with the area, it’s in Saugus just down the hill from the Hilltop Steakhouse’s giant cactus. On my team, the Cossacks, there was only one other guy my age, [...]

We’ve got two last-minute open spots for the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester starting April 20th and running through June 21st. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to contact a person who had registered for the upcoming semester, and someone dropping out of the course, I’ve opened those spots up. So although we’ve been full for several months, if [...]

Royalex, the tough and forgiving plastic material that has become a standard with canoe manufacturers everywhere, is no more. They stopped making it a year ago, and the canoes for sale now are the final ones that will be available. There will be Royalex boats available used for the foreseeable future because it’s so tough [...]

With the exception of a few short stints in school I’ve spent my entire life living on private roads. Before you think I’m getting uppidy, I need to explain that there are two different types of private road. In fancy and affluent places such as Palm Beach or the Hamptons, a private road means pavement [...]

Photo: Sunset on a chickee in the Everglades. Camp for the night. Highlights: Upon returning from the Boreal Snowshoe Expedition in mid-February, I immediately started packing for the trip south. My departure was delayed by several snow storms, but I made it to Florida and my wife, kids and I had family vacation, after which [...]

I’m cancelling the School Of The Forest class, scheduled for Saturday, March 15th. Even though the most recent storm didn’t drop the predicted ten inches of snow, there’s still too much of it to run an effective class. The combination of nowhere to park (because of snow), inability to get to the outhouses without snowshoes, [...]

I just returned from our 14-day Boreal Snowshoe Expedition. It was a fantastic trip with the best weather I’ve ever had when out for more than a week in the winter. Constant cold, clear skies, and one big snowstorm. Most importantly, there was no thaw, that bit of winter weather I dislike the most when [...]

Highlights: We’re starting February with the School Of The Forest on the first of the month. When the class is over, we’re loading up the truck with sleds, tents, stoves and other gear and heading to the county for the Boreal Snowshoe Expedition. We’ll be in the woods for 2 weeks. When the course ends, [...]

We’re running the February School Of The Forest class on Saturday, February first. We’ve added the class handouts to the SOTF page. Click on course date from the yellow box on the left to download a pdf about that day. For the February first class, you can also get the information sheet by clicking this [...]

In this podcast I’m joined by Robbie and Yukon to talk about our upcoming Boreal Snowshoe Expedition, their plans to continue on to Minnesota for another snowshoe expedition, trip preparations, whether we’ll have cable tv in the bush, and if so, what size tv we’ll have. During the podcast we mention the video these two [...]

In the February, 2014 issue of DownEast Magazine there’s a big article on the military veterans that attended the fall, 2013 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. The article focuses on their transition from active duty to civilian life. There’s a bunch of stuff on Jack Mountain, such as the quotation below, but the focus is squarely on [...]

It’s no secret that I love the winter. When the mercury drops and the snow falls, most people leave the forests, not to return again until spring unless taken there by a gas-powered contrivance of some sort. It makes even a few acres of woodlot feel like a vast wilderness when the wind is howling [...]

In 2004 we had a few (fewer than 40) oilskin baseball caps made up. They’ve since become highly sought after collector’s items. I hadn’t thought about getting any more made, but was contacted this summer by the wife of an old friend, who was also one of the few to have an original hat. She [...]

What would you do after a 2-week, northern Maine snowshoe expedition? If you answered head directly to Minnesota to go on another multi-week snowshoe expedition, you think just like the guys doing our yearlong immersion program. Paul Sveum, one of our instructors, is leading a trip across Minnesota’s Boundary Waters immediately following our trip in [...]

Just ten days until our 2-week Boreal Snowshoe Expedition. We’ll be taking to the woods of Aroostook County, Maine and traveling by snowshoe and hauling our gear on toboggans along the frozen waterways. Home will be several woodstove-outfitted canvas tents. This year we’ll be joined for a few days by guest instructor and my old [...]

Eleven years ago I bought a rain jacket from Tentsmiths. They call it a Watchcoat and it’s made out of oiled cotton. I’ve always hated nylon rain gear because of it’s noise, and this one is quiet. I wear it with a wide-brimmed rain hat, and have used it hard every year I’ve had it. [...]