Over the past few months a bunch of unfavorable occurences have taken place amongst my circle of friends. One friend lost a child, a friend’s father lost a leg, and another friend was diagnosed with spine cancer at age 39. I’m not writing this post looking for sympathy for a few bad months. I don’t [...]

It’s tax day today.  I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the past few weeks working on ours. I always find it a little odd to have a year’s worth of work represented by numbers on a piece of paper or in a computer program. Obviously they tell a very small part of the [...]

I’m not a fan of online handles or usernames if there’s no way to find out who the real person behind them is. The anonymity of the internet allows people to be rude and take cheap shots without any accountability. It also provides people with little experience the opportunity to masquerade as full-time professionals, doling [...]

Bark Lean-To As our remaining wilderness areas are logged, mined, and crisscrossed by roads, I think it’s time to reconsider the phrase wilderness survival. The reference to unspoiled wilderness is becoming harder and harder to justify as these places disappear in the face of a growing, resource-hungry human population. A more appropriate descriptive term is [...]

Longtime readers of this blog and those who have attended our courses in person know about my fascination with, and extensive collection of miniature ceramic unicorn figurines. As anyone who also collects them can attest, it is more of an obsession than a collection. Sometimes I like to imagine I live on a magical island [...]

Most of the winter footwear on the market is heavy and doesn’t keep your feet warm. Pac boots, for example, seem to always leak in wet conditions and trap moisture and become cold in frigid conditions. Most of the big companies market their footwear by insisting that it is both waterproof and breathable (for some [...]

We’ve got a new Facebook page. In the past I was maintaining a personal profile as well as a Jack Mountain Bushcraft page. Our new page combines these, and as such there’s no need for the other two, so the’re gone. Visit us there at: http://www.facebook.com/timsmith.jmbushcraft

This blog is supposed to be black text on a white background.  If you’re reading this and it’s anything else, such as black text on an olive green background, would you please leave a comment or send me an email and say what you’re seeing?  Also, please include the operating system and browser you use. [...]

Throughout my life I’ve chased down old, obscure books on a variety of topics relevant to bushcraft. Often it was like detective work, finding references to something rare then tracking them down with the help of librarians and book dealers. When the internet came along it changed all that, making it easy to research and [...]

I got a call from Dave Wescott the other day. Dave is the organizer of the Rabbitstick and Wintercount primitive skills rendezvous, the author of Camping In The Old Style and the former owner of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School. We spoke a year ago about his plan to put together a symposium and rendezvous [...]

We’ve got a new photo gallery on the web, and I’ve been looking through old pictures for a few days and posting them.  In a few months I plan to have all of our archived photos posted.  It’s powered by the newest version of Gallery, the same software that ran our old photo gallery, which [...]

The Teen Bushcraft And Survival Course is for young men ages 13-17 and designed as an introduction to a wide variety of bushcraft and survival skills. We spend the week camping at the field school and along the Aroostook River, practicing the skills of outdoor living until they become second nature. Syllabus: Sunday, July 3rd [...]

We’ve added a new section to our online forum specifically for questions about our programs.  If you’re searching for the gear list for a course, want to know whether there is college credit for the Journeyman program, or come up with anything else you want to know that you couldn’t find on our site, go [...]

Setting up the new BushcraftNetwork.com site and having kids down with the flu has consumed all of my free time for the past week and a half.  Now that the new site is up and running, I’ll be back to blogging soon.

We’re launching a new online social network for the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School community at: Bushcraftnetwork.com I’ve heard from a bunch of people who were part of our ning network who missed it, and personally I’ve missed the community and the forums. I didn’t want to do the same thing again, though, and I’ve got [...]

We’re planning a free bushcraft course and get together just outside of Austin, Texas, for February. When: Saturday, February 12, from 11:30-2:00 Where: Russell Park, Georgetown, TX (directions) Cost: Free We’ll do a short meet and greet, look at some basic bushcraft gear such as knives and axes, show a cheap but effective sharpening kit [...]

As the term bushcraft comes into the main stream there are many people writing and defining it, none of whose definitions I agree with.  There’s an old saying that if you don’t define yourself, others will do it for you.  Here, then, is our definition of bushcraft: Bushcraft is the active component of our interaction [...]

I often hear things referred to as fool-proof. I’ve never liked this term because I’ve seen many times, despite good intentions and careful planning, where the “fools” have been able use their skills, or lack of, to wreak havok. Instead, I like to use the term idiot-resistant. The idea is the same, but it acknowledges [...]

I’ve been slow to post our 2011 schedule because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. Last summer I wrote on this blog that the 2010 fall semester course would be our last for a number of years. It was our 16th college-level, semester-length program we’ve run, and it was time for a [...]

We stopped using sandpaper for smoothing wood on field courses years ago. Sandpaper is sand, or grit, glued to a piece of paper in a thin layer. It doesn’t last very long, which precludes it from being taken on long trips. A simple alternative is to take a piece of fabric (denim or cotton duct [...]

I’m putting the our final schedule for 2011 together this morning. This includes crunching dates on a calendar as well as flipping through the Maine Atlas And Gazetteer. The pages of my current copy are loaded with notes, campsite reviews and landmarks that I’ve added. Flipping through it and seeing the notes is a trip [...]

After describing what a simple, outdoor life was to several people over the holidays, I decided to change the subtitle of this blog to something they would understand without an explanation. The subtitle of this blog is no longer “Bushcraft, Guiding And A Simple, Outdoor Life”. It is now “Bushcraft And Self Reliance”.

My friend Dick butchered a road kill moose, saving the good meat and giving it to the person who totalled their car as a result of the impact. I took a chunk of the “spoiled” meat. I had been seeing this weasel around for a few days and I wanted to see him up close. [...]

I’m just getting over a 48-hour bout of food poisoning (or an acute flu). I don’t get sick very often, and sick to where I’m confined to laying around has happened just a handful of times in my life. But this one knocked me out. We’re still unsure what the offending piece of food was, [...]

I just got a call from Greg Averill, a past student and friend, who informed me that he passed the written and oral exams this morning and is the newest Registered Guide in Maine.  It takes a lot of work and studying to pass the tests, for which he is to be commended.  Expect to [...]

I put up a new page on the JMBS site last night, a program overview. It lists all of the programs we offer broken down into different categores: Field School, Folk School, Short Courses, Wilderness Trips and Other. Check it out at jackmtn.com/courses.html.

I’ve owned and stayed in a variety of different types of canvas and egyptian cotton tents over the years. Outfitted with a wood stove, they allow you to be comfortably nomadic in any season. This photo gallery shows some of these. [slickr-flickr type=”galleria” tag=”canvas tent” delay=”5″]

One benefit of a simple outdoor life with minimal inputs, such as at our field school or on extended trips in the bush, is that there is less stuff. This gives more meaning to the stuff you have, but also eliminates the clutter that gets in the way so often in modern life. When you [...]

Wilderness Bushcraft Semester students who get college credit must write a final paper about their experience. I just received one from this fall’s semester course. If you’re curious about our programs, you should read it as it gives you the student’s persepctive on what we do.  The paper, as well as one from 2007, are [...]

The culture we’re raised in teaches us what things we do ourselves, and what we get others to do for us. This is a deeply powerful psychological force, but it is a herd instinct, not a rational and reasoned deduction. We do things a certain way because that’s how our parents did them, that’s how [...]

Home is where you hang your hat. The benefits of being able to build a comfortable house in the woods are immeasureable. For it to be useful, any shelter then must have a designated hat-hanging spot. Here are a few of ours. [slickr-flickr type=”galleria” tag=”shelter gallery” delay=”5″]

Here are a few of my favorite canoe photos from the last few years. [slickr-flickr type=”galleria” tag=”2010 canoe favorites” delay=”5″] You can see these and others on our Flickr page.

At the Maine Lumberman’s Museum in Patten is a cabin built with only 2 tools: an axe and a froe. The axe was used to fell and limb the trees, as well as to cut the notches. The froe was used to split out boards to be used as a roof. The froe is used [...]

I’ll be spending this winter and spring in the Austin, Texas area with my wife and kids. This means we won’t be running any winter courses or snowshoe trips in the coming months, but we may run some short programs in Texas.  It will be interesting learning about new plants and habitats.  If you’re in [...]

We’ve done a lot of things in our 12 years, but there has always been something missing. No longer. We’ve finally got a latin motto.  Ago Puteus Foris.  It means Live Well Outside.

“Craft teaches our dependence upon the natural material world directly and practically – not as an abstraction.” –  Zabe MacEachern, from her article Crafting as a practice of Relating to the Natural World in the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE), Vol 5, No 1 – 2000. Crafting is often seen as a way to [...]

The dates and details are set for our June, 2011 Woodsman and Bushman courses.  You can get the dates on our calendar. Woodsman: June 12-18 Bushman: June 19-25 Last year these courses ended on Friday afternoon.  This year they’ll end on Saturday morning. Last year the Woodsman course filled early, so if you’re interested register [...]

We’ve had kids join their parents on many of our courses, even semester courses.  It’s been a great experience for the kids, and great bonding time for the families.  As a result, we’ve put together a new kids policy. Kids Policy – We are a family-friendly business, and understand the value of parents and kids [...]

I’m not a peak bagger.  I don’t care about rushing to the top of a mountain, then rushing down, all so I can check it off on my life list of hikes.  I’m the same way with river trips.  I realize that peak bagging, as a philosophy, is the norm in outdoor recreation.  It’s a [...]