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 [...]