We’re adding a new program this summer; a 3-week introductory course for those who want to learn to live and travel safely and with style by canoe in the back country. After a decade of running our 4-week Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester, we’re changing things up a bit, shortening it by a week, and adding [...]

In this episode, we chat with Jenna Rozelle. Jenna is a  homesteader, professional forager, and member of Back Country Hunters and Anglers. Through all of her work she aims to bring people to a place of greater understanding about the ecosystems they inhabit, and as we discuss in the podcast, brings a sense of art [...]

Today I put the final coats of varnish on an ash paddle I’ve been making on and off in downtime for the last few months. It’s been a joy to watch it come to life after getting the ash board from a local fellah who mills his own material for his cabinetry business. That means [...]

I’m about halfway through the book Course Design Formula by Rebecca Frost Cuevas. So far I’ve really enjoyed it and learned a lot about putting together a well-designed course, how teaching online is different than teaching in person, and a whole bunch more. Why am I reading this book? Because we’re going to be adding [...]

December 27th in the evening I had a little bit of a scratchy throat. I woke up on the 28th with zero energy. I stayed in bed, not doing anything and getting weaker, until January 8th. That night I went out for a covid test and tested positive. They told me to go to the [...]

Today I received this custom wool-lined canvas vest from my good friend Blake Towsley. Blake has been making gear for the staff at JMB and SOTF for years, and in the last few months has started up a business making all manner of custom outdoor gear. A lot of the gear I use day to [...]

I’m excited to start this year’s series of podcasts with a conversation with my friend Arthur Davis, director of the Urine Nutrient Reclamation Project at the Rich Earth Institute and coordinator of Rich Earth’s new festival toilet business. Rich Earth uses human urine to create sustainable fertilizer for farmers. Long time listeners will have heard [...]

For the last few weeks the dog and I have been following the deer tracks around our place on our morning walks. We’ve spooked a good sized buck twice. This morning we saw some blood along with the tracks and I started to worry about the big fellah. We came around a corner to an [...]

We’re about halfway through the initial Friluftsliv Forest Program at our campus in southern Vermont, and it’s been going really well. Students are building the skills and systems they’ll need for our two-week canoe expedition in July. Next session they’ll be participating in their “frozen 24”  exercise, where they use their knowledge of fire and [...]

Looking for something a little different for your family vacation? School Of The Forest is excited to bring back this old favorite from the Jack Mountain folk school. This new iteration will take place at the SOTF campus in Southern VT

This time of year is supposed to be spent with friends and family, but with the current state of the global pandemic that isn’t necessarily a reality. In the last few days I’ve talked with quite a few friends about participating in the same traditions they usually do, but the rituals feel hollow without people [...]

Today is the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year, and a day that traditionally is about being thankful for what we have, and the people we’re around. This morning, as I slipped on my snowshoes to wander around the woods at our place, I remembered a dear friend of mine showing me how [...]

We’re back after a long break for our semester programs.  Sorry for the wait, but we’re glad to be back.   You can listen to the podcast at this link, or download it on any major podcast app. In this episode, I’m joined by Nick Daniel of Dartmouth-Hitchcock in New Hampshire. Nick has taught AWLS [...]

The second article in the Bangor Daily News from my discussion with Sam Schipani is titled “How To Pick An Axe” and was published on November 12, 2020. Link: How To Pick An Ax Ms. Schipani lists six things to consider when choosing an axe. As with the first article she wrote based on our [...]

Last year I had the pleasure of helping our friend and alumni, Seth Walton with a winter outdoor living skills course for his Outdoor Leadership program. Pretty excited to do it again in the upcoming weeks. As temperatures get colder, people are going to be stuck inside more often. Programs like Seth’s provide young people [...]

News from the School Of The Forest Campus in southern VT. We’re adding a slew of one-day programming to our calendar for the winter 2020 season. These programs are geared towards the local community in Brattleboro but are open to anyone who wants to (in accordance with whatever the current covid-19 guidelines are) make the [...]

Last week I was interviewed by Sam Schipani from the Bangor Daily News about axe safety. The article went live on November 3rd, you can read it here: How To Use An Axe Safely I think she did a solid job summarizing the key points of axe safety. What do you think?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been setting up a partnership with the wilderness medicine fellows of Dartmouth-Hitchcock at the School Of The Forest Campus in southern Vermont. Students at Dartmouth Hitchcock go through extensive medical training for remote locations, but are looking to expand that knowledge base with skills like shelter building, fire lighting [...]

We just wrapped up the fall, 2020 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. 50 is the number of the day, as it was our 50th long-term program, and this week I celebrated my 50th birthday. I always get nostalgic at the end of fall semesters. As I was walking through the woods from Moose Vegas to the Guide [...]

If we have learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that you’re on your own when things get tough. Unless you give a lot of money to politicians they don’t care whether you live or die. So this is a great time to start taking control of your self-reliance needs. In northern Maine we’re sure of [...]

I’ve been dragging my feet in making this decision, hoping there would be a vaccine or a change or something. But as people are trying to make travel plans for our February programs, it’s time. I’m officially cancelling the 2021 Winter Woodsman and Boreal Snowshoe Expedition due to the covid. I have been confident we’ve [...]

Hello everyone, it’s been a while. We’ve been pretty busy this year with our semester programs at Jack Mountain, as well as getting our southern Vermont campus set up for the FFP. Last weekend I took a break from the fall semester to run the first weekend of the friluftsliv program. For folks that don’t [...]

During the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester we do two-night solos where participants head into the forest alone with very minimal kit. For many people it isn’t easy to unplug from the modern world and be alone with themselves. We can get so distracted with life, the internet and everything that our minds are almost never where [...]

This morning we’re starting week four of the fall, 2020 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. We spent last week camped on a nearby lake working on canoe skills. This week students will be building their second shelter and spending four consecutive nights in it. We’ll also be working on crafts such as building a bucksaw when you [...]

Yesterday people trickled into the field school. We enjoyed a campfire and conversations about past experiences, future plans, what they hope to get out of a few months in the woods, etc. This morning the real work starts. The particulars, where all the details matter. A group of future instructors honing their craft. Today it [...]

After 12 years of scheming to do so, I finally purchased the remaining 19 acres in the block of land at the field school. This gives us a block of 80 acres and about a half a mile of riverfront on the Aroostook river. Although this area is not being developed and is losing population, [...]

It’s been a long, hot summer, as well as a while since I’ve published anything on the web. Lots of changes have happened, and life looks a bit different than it did before starting the spring semester in early May. We had a busy summer of programs, running a Summer Woodsman, Advanced Boreal Summer Survival, [...]

The Friluftsliv Forest program that Tim and I talked about on this episode of the JMB Podcast is now open for registration. There are professional training programs where you can travel to and immerse yourself in the long-term experience of living, teaching, and guiding outdoors. We’ve been running long term immersion programs at Jack Mountain for [...]

Being on the trail is physically taxing, whether traveling by canoe, hiking or snowshoeing. Once it isn’t, the magic we as human beings find in the outdoors starts to fade away. I wrote most of this essay sitting at a remote campsite in the North Maine woods that we drive into for solos. We do [...]

We’re wrapping up week 5 of our spring semester today. After a late start to the course, we had a late start to spring as winter held on in northern Maine through mid-May. Then we had two days of spring weather. Then a five-day heatwave. And now it’s June. We had the field in Moose [...]

Over the last few months, we’ve been helping to build a research database for a friction fire study. If you’ve been following along with this process, either on our online network at Bushcraftschool.com, or on the School Of The Forest Podcast you’ve seen the basic outline of what our friend Richard is aiming for with [...]

Our next live video event is scheduled for Wednesday, 4/15/20, at 11 am eastern time. It is a live video event on BushcraftSchool.com – a virtual office hours for those people taking our online courses. If you’re a member of Bushcraftschool.com, click on the Events tab. If you’re not a member, it’s free to join. [...]

We’ll be doing our first live video event on BushcraftSchool.com – a virtual office hours for those people taking our online courses – on Friday, April 10th from 7-7:30pm EST. If you’re a member of Bushcraftschool.com, click on the Events tab. If you’re not a member, it’s free to join. This will be our first [...]

If you’re taking part in our online community at bushcraftschool.com, you likely saw our first youth track course about backyard botany. It’s the first in a series of programs that will guide young people (and adults too if they’re interested) through the basics of real-world, hands-on nature studies. Another set of those courses is going [...]

We’re finishing up the preparations for our next online course: Introduction to outdoor cooking (Skill 117), available for free in our online community at BushcraftSchool.com. The goal is to make you an efficient outdoor cook capable of feeding yourself under a variety of conditions, NOT to make you a professional cook or chef. This will [...]

I’m coining a phrase today and calling it The YouTube Effect. It’s about how watching experts do something makes us overconfident, but does not make us more skilled. I was listening to the Hidden Brain podcast, specifically the episode titled “Close Enough: The Lure Of Living Through Others.” One of the segments was based on [...]

A lot of families are stuck indoors these days, and parents are looking for interesting things to do with their kids. Here are two things you can do right now. First, watch the Local Living Video Project from our friends at Koviashuvik Local Living School. They are posting a series of videos on outdoor skills [...]

Have you joined our online community at BushcraftSchool.com yet? We’re currently live with our weather understanding and observational forecasting course and adding a lesson every day. We are also about to add a few more online courses. We’ve pushed our spring semester back a few weeks due to the virus, and as such should have [...]

I’ve been thinking about these last few weeks as “the worldwide solo”. The current pandemic is forcing people to spend time with themselves, and if there’s a good side to this situation, that time for self-reflection and introspection is it. All of our courses have a solo aspect, and it happens in two parts. First, [...]