I recently vacated Texas and made the jump for home in Aroostook County, Maine. We have a 15 passenger van for getting people onto canoe trips, hauling trailers, etc. Last fall I took out a bunch of seats, put a cot in the back, and lived like a king while traveling. #vanlife I took it […]
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Recorded on November 20, 2023. We just wrapped up the field school season, and in this episode I look back and reflect on the experiments we ran during 2023. I discuss the Expedition Instructor (XI) as a continuous 6-month, residential program, moving the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester back to May and the high waters of […]
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– Ago Puteus Foris –
We’re a bushcraft, guide training and wilderness expedition school and traditional Maine Guide service founded in 1999. We help people become more skilled, more knowledgeable, more experienced and more confident by using traditional wilderness skills, a few simple tools and field-based experience. This is our media hub. For information on our programs, go to JackMtn.com, and check out our Calendar to see all upcoming programs.
Sometimes you get to a campsite on a remote river and the firewood has been picked over. Especially if it has been used for a while. But there is almost always firewood on the other side of the river. In this (grainy) photo, I’m transporting a canoe full of firewood for the night’s cook fire […] Continue Reading...
From the spring. We went up to our local lake for some paddling and Maine IFW was stocking remote trout ponds by float plane. They would load the young trout from a stock truck into the floats of the plane, then it would fly off and dump them in the ponds. Since I was a […] Continue Reading...
My wood canvas canoe, rigged up and ready for the carry around Allagash Falls. Notice this canoe has a center thwart, not a carved yoke. Notice how the paddles are tied to the thwarts so that when it is carried, the weight of the boat is distributed by the paddle blades onto the shoulders as […] Continue Reading...
I recently vacated Texas and made the jump for home in Aroostook County, Maine. We have a 15 passenger van for getting people onto canoe trips, hauling trailers, etc. Last fall I took out a bunch of seats, put a cot in the back, and lived like a king while traveling. #vanlife I took it […] Continue Reading...
An evening camp scene from our first night on the Rio Grande lower canyons trip. It was a big stone beach that backed up to a small field, and only a few miles from the put-in. We had great sunset light here, as well as room to spread out. Because the water contained a lot […] Continue Reading...
Recently I joined up with two almuni in west Texas to canoe the 83-mile lower canyons of the Rio Grande river. We put in at Heath Canyon Ranch near La Linda, and paddled/poled/dragged 83 miles downriver to Dryden Crossing. It was a hard trip, marked by low water levels and headwinds, but the scenery was […] Continue Reading...
I was off the grid for a while recently, came home to finish some documentation for an ongoing project, and had to do some research on outfitters in Maine. Several had listed themselves as the “premier” outfitter in Maine. What does this mean? I don’t begrudge anyone for a bit of self-promotion; it comes with […] Continue Reading...
I’m en route to west Texas to rendezvous with a few old friends. We’re going to meet at Monahans Sandhills State Park (where one of our party is the honcho), spend the night discussing tales of derring-do around a fire, then get up and head south to the border. The put-in for the trip through […] Continue Reading...
We’ve had a bunch of registrations recently and I wanted to let people know where we are with regard to available spots in our spring, summer and fall immersion programs for 2024. 2 Spots Remaining. Spring Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester (4-weeks) 2 Spots Remaining. Summer Wilderness Bushcraft Semester (9-weeks) 4 Spots Remaining. Fall Wilderness Bushcraft […] Continue Reading...
I have updated my contact info our our Contact page. As time has gone by, the phone has become less and less useful to me. Spam texts, spam calls, dealing with Google Voice, etc., have all made it a less-than-pleasant experience. More like an annoyance. So in a bid for simplification and to avoid the […] Continue Reading...
It can be expensive to buy all the gear you need to participate in outdoor activities, especially when you’re starting from scratch. If you’re coming to the field school, you can rent most of the camping gear needed to participate. This is a great option for those coming for a few days to a few […] Continue Reading...
Recorded on November 20, 2023. We just wrapped up the field school season, and in this episode I look back and reflect on the experiments we ran during 2023. I discuss the Expedition Instructor (XI) as a continuous 6-month, residential program, moving the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester back to May and the high waters of […] Continue Reading...
Recorded on June 26th, 2023, this is a stab at a new format for the JMB Podcast; doing it solo. The topic for the day is differentiating between professional training and personal enrichment. We embrace both styles of program, but they are definitely not the same thing. The student has to decide what they want […] Continue Reading...
Recorded on June 3rd, 2023 at the headquarters of Full Tang Outfitters in Tracy, New Brunswick, Canada. Tim and returning guest Blake Towsley discuss scheming for winter trips, dishonesty in marketing knives from people who have been on the tv show “Solo, By Myself, Without Clothes”, and the currently trending topic of Wild Pooping, or […] Continue Reading...
Recorded on May 25th, 2023 in the Guide Shack, with an outside temperature of 43 degrees F, Tessa and Tim talk about the spring, 2023 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester and making hard decisions. It has been a long month and we were both tired while recording this, and we’re still looking forward to the weather […] Continue Reading...
We’re back on the grid for two days in the middle of the spring, 2023 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester. In this episode we discuss our recent canoe expedition and the challenges we have been facing on the course. We also discuss not believing the hype about rankings and which school or outfit belongs on the […] Continue Reading...
More good times on the Texas/Mexico border, video 5 of 6. We are on the lower portion of the river now, and the canyons are not as tall. We haven’t seen any sign of people since the put in. #FullTangLifestyle Continue Reading...
Sorry for the excessive wind noise as I know it is annoying. It can also be a bit annoying to paddle into that wind for 7 days. #FullTangLifestyle Continue Reading...
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