Starting next year we’ll be partnering with Blackwater Outfitters to offer lodging options for our programs. Owner Dick Cullins is a friend and first-rate hunting guide, and his cabins are comfortably furnished with hot showers and soft beds. They’re located just down the road in Masardis. For those interested in attending a course but don’t [...]

We’re officially changing the name of our flagship course. The Earth Skills Semester Program is now The Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. The content of the course will remain the same. The reason for the name change is to make it more descriptive of what is taught and to eliminate any ambiguity caused by the term earth [...]

Knowledge comes from using information, not access to it. It’s an important distinction to be made in the era of the web and the unlimited amount of information available. Just because someone copies a bit of how-to information onto an online forum doesn’t mean they know something. I’m not trying to be elitist, but there [...]

There are many outdoor education programs available these days, but there are huge differences in content, educational philosophy, and curriculum between them. When we explain what we do to people with no concept of bushcraft, they often remark, “so it’s just like (insert name of national outdoor company here)”. We reply, “No. In fact the [...]

I heard from a friend last night who took one of our courses a few years ago.  He’s starting a bushcraft school in Canada and wanted to know if he could use our liability release and acknowledgement of risk forms.  I told him yes, as it’s my policy to let anyone who wants to use [...]

Wanted: A mentor who can help me create a way to provide scholarships for low-income youth. Goal: To set up a scholarship fund, foundation, or non-profit wing of Jack Mountain in order to provide remote canoe trips and bushcraft courses for low income rural middle and high school boys. Need: Help figuring out the process [...]

Drawing on the philosophies of bushcraft we’ve developed over a decade of field courses, the traditions of Maine Guides that go back generations, the Cree concept of miyupimaatisiium (translated as “being alive well”) and the Scandinavian idea of friluftsliv (translated as “open air life”), the following seven elements comprise the components of our programs. 1. [...]

Eating acorns is a hot topic these days as I’ve gotten several questions about it.  If you haven’t read it, check out this page for a great essay written by my friend Dan Fisher.  He explains how he does it, and i chime it at the end with a short blurb. To answer some recently-posed [...]

If you’re a regular reader or visitor to our site, you may have noticed the small “site by Aroocom” text at the bottom of each page.  No, we haven’t outsourced our site to a Siberian media conglomerate.  Since I’m on an 8-month sabbatical from teaching extended bushcraft courses, I’ve decided to offer my web consulting [...]

We’ve updated the information on our Yearlong Bushcraft Immersion Program for 2010.  Changes include the addition of a 2-week winter survival and travel course and that the course will begin with the fall semester instead of the spring.  Although our costs will go up with adding the winter course, we’re keeping the tuition the same. [...]

I hear from people regularly who are interested in making a move to the country and want to know how much land they need.  This question has also been the impetus for many discussions around the fire.  There is no right answer, as everything depends on the land and what you want to do with [...]

During a recent course we spent some time trout fishing.  When we were paddling across a remote lake I offered some of my lures to be trolled.  As I handed one of my treasured lures to a course participant, I told him the history of the lure, that I had bought it in 1981, that [...]

People stealing other’s content (text, photos, etc.) is common on the web, although that doesn’t make it alright or any less disrespectful.  Some large companies send threatening letters from lawyers to add a consequence for this act.  Our policy is to identify the site, say that it’s both uncool and illegal, and give them an [...]

I first read this story in the mid 1990’s.  It reminds me of a line from Edmund Ware Smith’s “The One-Eyed Poacher And The Maine Woods”, where he writes that the woodsmen in his stories “have their own idea of wealth, and it’s got nothing to do with money.” “A Micmac Looks At The Ways [...]

I’ve updated our blog with some new software, one result of which is that you can once again leave comments.  I’ve had them turned off for a few years, and updating the software and reactivating them is finally off the to-do list.

I spent Saturday canoeing the San Marcos river with my son and a friend.  The section we paddled was a narrow, gentle river  that wound its way past high sandstone banks, through cattle farms, and past some big houses.  There were enormous cypress trees, herons, red-tailed hawks and a bunch of turtles who were enjoying [...]

Our new online registration process is fully operational after a day of tinkering with it.  Instead of our old system where people had to print, fill out and mail a form, we’ve automated the process with an online form.  So the process will be faster, smoother and easier.  If it all seems like too much [...]

I’ve been rereading Calvin Rutstrum’s book The Wilderness Life and am enjoying it as much as the first time.  I think his insights on wilderness living are keen, and his years of experience are evident in his writings unlike some other popular writers.  (I really dislike Nessmuk, and will write about why at some point.) [...]

It takes a long time to achieve competence approaching mastery with bushcraft and primitive living skills.  There are so many different things to learn, and real learning can’t be rushed. Consider this: Tomas Johannson, a director of the Institute for Prehistoric Technology in Sweden, has calculated that would require twelve years of schooling today to [...]

A commodity is a product that is the same no matter where you get it.  A bag of flour is a commodity, because it is the same whether you get it from your local store, through a fancy cooking store, or order it over the web.  Those who sell commodities compete on price because the [...]

During each field school program, we always take a few hours to visit the Ashland Logging Museum.  It’s a great place to learn more about the woods life lived by loggers before the chainsaw and the logging road.  There are replica cabins, a Lombard log hauler, a king’s pine, and numerous other items of interest.  [...]

Where did the widespread idea about surviving in the bush “with only a knife” come from?  I can tell you that it didn’t come from people experienced with living in forested regions.  If I could have only one tool for a trip of a 1-100 days, it would be an axe, not a knife. But [...]

This year we won’t be running a fall semester course for the first time in six years, as I decided a month ago that it was time for a sabbatical.  My apologies to all of you who applied only to have the course postponed for a year, but it was time for me to take [...]

I’m incommunicado no longer, and once again can join the conversation. Jack Mountain has a new phone number, and this one’s a keeper.  207-518-8804. We’re also changing our email to:   jmbushcraft@gmail.com The email change will be gradual, and we’ll still be using our old address for a year or two more. There’s a pile [...]

It’s been a fantastic summer and we had a lot of fun running a wide variety of programs. Yes northern Maine has had a lot of rain. But it led to people perfecting their wet-weather fire skills, and allowed me to run a bunch of whitewater that can usually only be run in early May. [...]

I got an email from my friend Stephen Marshall today about the launching of his new site, Backwoods Adventures (backwoodadventures.com) in Nova Scotia.  Stephen and I worked together a few summers ago and he’s doing great things with first nations people in the Maritimes.  I’m hopeing to get over there one of these days so [...]

This morning I’m wondering where the idea about surviving in the bush “with only a knife” came from?  If I could have only one tool for a trip of a 1-100 days, it would be a full-sized axe, not a knife.  The reason is that an axe makes a better knife than a knife makes [...]

Most survival advice available in the press is dubious at best, written by professional writers and not seasoned instructors with field experience.  Thankfully Outside Magazine decided to hire Tony Nester of Ancient Pathways to answer their  reader’s questions on their Survival Guru blog. Tony’s got two decades of experience teaching in the field, has written [...]

I came across this graphic on Keith Johnson’s Permaculture And Regenerative Design News blog.  Keith used it to support the idea that the production systems that sustain major urban areas lie far the urban boundary.  The term we use for this is displaced impact, and we’ve written about how it applies to minimum impact camping.  [...]

It’s looking like I’ll be trading our white, 15 passenger van, aka the white tube of misery, in for another vehicle later this month. The name was coined by Jeff Butler on our now-infamous roadtrip to Canoecopia a few years ago.  We were driving through Chicago on our way back from Madison, Wisconsin and were [...]

The book of poetry titled Pine Tree Ballads was published in 1902 and has some great pieces about the north woods of Maine.  The Knight Of The Spike-Sole Boots by Holman Day tells the story of a sport who tried to run the Hulling Machine on the East Branch of the Penobscot River.  I’ve run [...]

Our new podcast is coming together, and the first episode is live on the web.  There is a bit of work left to do getting everything set up and integrated. Note: In December, 2013 we moved our podcast to it’s current place on our own site.

This morning after dropping my son off at preschool I was walking down the stairs to the house and I heard a bunch of crows making a ruckus.  After looking towards the lake for a few moments, I spotted a shape in one of the white pines, about 20 feet from our deck.  It was [...]

I wrote up a document on helping people prepare for their field school course recently, and put it online with a link from our Registration page.  You can read it at: http://www.jackmtn.com/PDF/JMB_field_school_preparation.pdf The text is below. ———————————————————- ———————————————————- 1.    Food, meals and cooking 2.    Drinking Water 3.    Electricity 4.    Gear And Gear Lists 5.    Sleeping [...]

I’m back from the field school after a great spring semester.  The weather is perfect, the perennial edibles are coming up in force, and we’ve got an edible plants of early summer workshop tomorrow.  More to come, including thoughts about the spring semester, are coming soon.

We’re taking a resupply break at the field school today and made the trek to Presque Isle.  We just finished week 4 (of 6) of the spring semester with a trip on Mooseleuk Stream and the Aroostook River.  We did some fly fishing on the stream and I caught a beautiful 11″ wild brook trout.  [...]

There has been a lot of interest in simplifying and preparedness recently as a result of the economic circumstances many are facing.  Knowing how to take care of your family, even if the modern conveniences stop working for a while, is something at least one person in each household should know.  The good news is [...]

Things have been busy with a new baby and getting ready for the spring semester.  I’ve been working on a white ash bow, and today I cut the handle and thinned the stave using a draw knife and spoke shave. There’s a strip of open water along the lake shore a few feet wide, and [...]