One of the shelters students spend the night in on the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester is one with no insulation, just a fire to keep warm. This image is from that night a few weeks ago. It is a great learning experience with regard to the use of fire to keep warm, the science involved with [...]

I’m currently in Austin, Texas for a week visiting family. My son is a freshman in the film program at the University of Texas at Austin. Today a film of his is being shown at the Austin Film Festival as part of their Young Filmmakers Competition. So I’m spending the day as a proud father [...]

I was interviewed on CNN last night, on the show Laura Coates Live. They wanted a Registered Master Maine Guide and survival instructor perspective on the fugitive from the Lewiston shootings, potentially hiding out in the woods. It was an interesting experience. Here’s how things like this work, or at least how it worked for [...]

The parking lot is empty. The people are on their way to Austria, England, Thailand, California, Colorado, Illinois, etc., A day to clean up camp a bit before I hit the road for Texas to see my family. We had a great finish to the fall, 2023 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester with three new Journeyman certificate [...]

It is Friday of week 8 (of 9) on the fall, 2023 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. Everyone has been hard at work and the finish line is coming into view. What remains to finish are some practical exams, the solo, and a night spent in front of a fire with no sleeping bag or blanket. The [...]

We’re at peak foliage in northern Maine right now. The nights are cooling off and it feels like fall. I have been seeing a lot of animals as they get ready for the cold season. Yesterday morning I jumped a deer while riding my bike, and in the evening I saw a lynx crossing the [...]

I picked up a new piece of software called Retrobatch that batch processes photos and went through all the old hard drives full of photos to make an archive. My rough count is around 37,000 images that I’ve shot over the years. Not all of them are mine; maybe 1000 were taken by others, but [...]

Last week we were out on the St. Croix river, which forms the border between the USA and Canada. We had a great week of high water, peak foliage, and warm water. It isn’t often that you get to swim every day of an October canoe trip, but we did. As we begin week 8, [...]

Congratulations to the newest Registered Maine Guide, our own Tessa Storey. Wear that patch with pride because it was earned. We are all proud of you. #fulltanglifestyle

Today is halfway day for the fall, 2023 semester. To celebrate it we are heading out on the Aroostook river for a few days in canoes. We have had the wettest September I remember, and the rivers in northern Maine are near or at spring flood levels. This means that traveling downstream will be easy, [...]

Dutch ovens have been difficult to find since the pandemic took over American life. Because we design our gear list to provide you with useful items, not just things that will get put in an “outdoor gear” box and collect dust, we’re changing our recommendation for a dutch oven for students. In short, we’re removing [...]

We’re adding the Autumn Woodsman, session 2, to our schedule for this November. This course is a great introduction to living in the cold, but without the difficulties that deep snow and deep, midwinter cold can bring. The weather in northern Maine in November can be quite cold, but usually we do not have enough [...]

This morning the parking lot is empty for the first time in 14 weeks. We finished the summer Wilderness Bushcraft Semester with three people receiving their Journeyman Certification. It was a challenging course. June started cold and rainy, then got very hot, humid and buggy. But it was a solid group of people and they [...]

We bought an inexpensive drone this past winter and have been getting some aerial photographs. This image is shot directly above Moose Vegas, looking toward the pond, Guide Shack, big field and the river on the right. We are excited to get better at using it so as to get some great canoe expedition photos.

On expeditions and long courses there are many things we have no control over. These include, but are not limited to, water level, weather, wind, bugs, etc., and the list goes on and on. I frequently tell our students that we are not in control when we head out into the woods or on the [...]

We’ve reached halfway day on the summer Wilderness Bushcraft Semester course. We’ve been busy with camp projects and making things, and today everyone will be bringing their newly-made canoe paddles and poles out on a three-day trip. I love it when a group of individuals become a team, and that’s the point of the course [...]

I’ve guided a lot of trips over the years, and some stand out in my mind, often because everything didn’t go as planned. Like the one in this picture. It was the second week of June, 2018, and a small group of friends and I were on the Gaspé peninsula in Quebec, coming down the [...]

This time of the year days are long here. First light this morning was at 4:01 am, and last light is at 9:10 pm. That is a great thing, because there is a lot of stuff to get done. We’re starting week 3 of the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester (session 1) today, and have a full [...]

In the photo is my kit for snowshoe expeditions and winter camping excursions in northern Maine and further north. Starting in the bottom right is my axe, a 3.25 lb. head on a 30″ handle. Moving clockwise to the left is my 3-strake toboggan for hauling everything. I made this one a while back out [...]

“These legends and these men are true and alive, and are known throughout the big woods north of Katahdin. They are men of the forest, and they smell of woodsmoke, fly dope, hard work, tall mountains and pine spills. Given a junk of salt pork, some dry beans and flour, any of these men can [...]

Today we begin the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester, our 59th long-term immersion program. One of the things I did with the few days of rest between programs was to go through a bunch of old photos on a few hard drives, going back as far as the fall, 2004 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester course. That was the [...]

On Friday we finished the 2023 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester with practical testing of fast-water canoe poling maneuvers at a local rip. The water was deep and fast and the black flies had just emerged, adding to the difficulty. But we had a few people pass the tests by demonstrating their mastery of the material [...]

Your old foraging and edible wild plant field guides are now outclassed and irrelevant. I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy of Samuel Thayer’s new book, Samuel Thayer’s Field Guide To Edible Wild Plants of Eastern & Central North America, while on a 2-day break from guiding river trips this spring. We have a [...]

We are back at the field school after our first expedition of the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester. It was challenging. We encountered cold air and water temperatures, strong and unyielding head winds, and a few long days of paddling. But everyone got better and everyone got stronger. On our final day we paddled 28 miles. [...]

We’re at the tail end of the first week of our spring canoe semester. I had been worried that the road wouldn’t be passable for week one, and although we were able to drive into camp it was a close call. This time of year in Aroostook county can bring a variety of weather, from [...]

Note: This post was originally published on this site in December, 2010. I was rereading it this morning and thought the modern world could use a good role model for self reliance, one that wasn’t interested in selling them guns, survival gear and an end of the world mentality. —- I’ve been writing a lot [...]

Today we begin the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester, our 4-week canoe guide training course. It is our 58th long-term program, and our 24th year. Spring has been slow to arrive to Aroostook county, but the snow has retreated and we can finally drive into the field school (it is deep snow that stops us, not [...]

We filled our spring and summer courses exceptionally early this year, and now we’re into the season of the churn. The churn is what I refer to as the season where people realize they will be unable to attend due to injury, change in life situation, etc. To date this year we have lost 2 [...]

If you want to learn to fish, there are four steps. Learn about water, specifically freshwater ecology. Learn the natural history of fish in general, as well as the individual species you are targeting. Learn about what fish eat and how to mimic these foods. Learn about tackle and techniques. In our modern world, people [...]

We are excited to announce the route for the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester coming in May. For the past decade we have been running this program during the summer, which has limited where we could go to those waterways that had water during the frequent summer droughts. By moving it back to May, it has [...]

For 25 yeas I have been guaranteed by cigarette smokers that they never leave their butts laying around. And for 25 years, I have been picking up cigarette butts off the ground, likely from the people who have previously guaranteed me that they never drop their butts on the ground. In 2023 I am saying [...]

Spring is right around the corner, and we’re looking forward to an exciting month on the remote rivers of northern Maine in May on the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester. We get a lot of questions about recommended fishing gear for our spring programs, so today I want to address this. While we do have fly [...]

If you are coming to the field school from late May through mid-July, you’re going to want to have a smudge pot. These are metal cans in which you keep a smokey fire going to deter the bugs. Now is the time to start preparing for this need by getting a metal coffee can, which [...]

I just finished a 7-day fast where the only things I took in were water and strong black coffee (because weak coffee is the devil). I have done a bunch of these, stretching back to the mid-1990’s, and while there is a renewed interest in fasting as a result of the intermittent fasting diets, it [...]

We’re welcoming a new instructor to our team for the Boreal Snowshoe Expedition. Blake Towsley has a lot experience with living out in winter. Among other things, he has worked with us in the past on summer and winter programs, completed numerous extended snowshoe treks, spent several weeks with David Bosum in Quebec, taught with [...]

Programs are filling earlier than usual for 2023. While we still have some short programs to schedule, the following programs are currently full with a waiting list: Winter Woodsman Boreal Snowshoe Expedition XI 6 Month immersion WCES – 4 week canoe expedition Wilderness Bushcraft Semester – Session 1 We still have four spots in session [...]

I had a great trip to Alberta for the Frostbite Symposium. For my keynote I talked about using instructional design principles in designing outdoor education programming. There was a lively Q and A session at the end of the talk, which always feels good if you are speaking. At least some of the audience managed [...]

I finished my Wilderness First Responder course today and have a current certification more advanced than first aid in a long time. Part of my motivation for taking the course was to learn how the protocols had changed in the 27 years since getting my WEMT. It turns out that while a few of the [...]

I am taking a wilderness first responder (WFR) class this week. I have wanted to take one for a while now, but finding the time to get away is always a challenge. As we’re still in the shadow of the holidays, this seemed like a perfect opportunity. My first medical course was a wilderness emergency [...]