We’re organizing a yearly trip for alumni of our bushcraft semester courses.  Our goal is to create avenues for continuing education and group learning.  The 2009 trip is still in the planning stages, but will likely take place on the Penobscot and Allagash rivers and be 2-3 weeks long. More of a practicum than a [...]

I was at the library in town tonight and found out that there was an article in the local paper about a recent edible and medicinal plant walk I ran. It’s in the July 17th edition of the Granite State News in the Home and Garden section. Titled “Finding edible plants and medicines in your [...]

Knowing we’d be far from the power lines this past semester, and knowing I’d want something to use as a generator to charge camera/camcorder/cell phone batteries, I bought a Freeplay Weza before the start of the course. I’ve had great luck with one of their other products, a hand-cranked LED lantern, and the way the [...]

One of the challenges of an extended stay in the bush during the warm (no snow or ice) seasons is planning meals that don’t require refrigeration. Of course, there is always the option of storing food in a cooler with store-bought ice, but this is a hassle as well as being expensive. There is also [...]

Times are tough, and they’re getting tougher. Gas prices keep going up, as do the costs for basic necessities. Many people are being squeezed. But what can they do? First, they can learn how to take care of themselves and their families. A good survival course can go a long way toward this goal of [...]

I’m inconvenienced by modern conveniences much of the time. They break, they suck up money, and when their full cost and upkeep is taken into account, they don’t seem make my life much more convenient. I like pumping and carrying water more than I like dealing with tempermental plumbing systems. I like composting toilets more [...]

Longer canoe trips, those of the mulit-week and mulit-watershed sort, have intrigued me for some time, but there has always been the problem of long carries. Not everyone who participates in our programs is fit enough to carry an 80 or 100 pound boat several miles. So to facilitate these types of experiences, I just [...]

We’re in the August issue of Men’s Journal with a write-up of our northern Quebec canoe and bushcraft trip with the Cree. Jesse Huffman wrote about some wilderness trips for August, including our trip, a course with BOSS, and trips with Outward Bound and NOLS in the Adventure section of the magazine. Included is a [...]

The 2008 fall bushcraft semester will be our 12th semester course, and the first one to run from start to finish at our new location in northern Maine on the banks of the Aroostook river. We’ve put together a schedule that takes advantage of our new location, with lots of time spent living and traveling [...]

We’re running a bushcraft canoe expedition in northern Quebec with native Cree guides again this year. It’s an amazing experience traveling with David Bosum, his wife Anna, and Lawrence Capissit, our other guide from 2007. Canoeing the historic waterways of their people and learning how they have lived off the land for thousands of years [...]

As the result of numerous requests for a small bushcraft kit of core components that people can bring to our courses, we’ve partnered with Ben’s Backwoods and put together a bushcraft kit of the most useful items. It consists of a Mora knife (you choose whether you want a wood or plastic handle), metal pot [...]

After 8 weeks living at our bush camp, I’m back for a short while enjoying creature comforts such as bug screens and electricity.  It was a great spring, and there is lots of work left to do there, but things are coming along well.  Look for more posts soon about our recent experiences.