Mors Kochanski is a man who needs no introduction to people in the bushcraft community. My friend Dragan Uzelac from Niko Wilderness Education and The More You Know Podcast recently posted a 2 hour, 7 minute podcast interview where Mors discusses many things that will be of interest to the student of survival training and [...]

Episode 46 of the Jack Mountain Bushcraft Podcast is about the path to becoming a reputable instructor. We discuss the necessary steps, finding your voice as an instructor, overcoming imposter syndrome, and the role of being an assistant instructor or teaching assistant as part of a long-term development plan. PHOTO: Poling practice on the river. [...]

Today is our first day of poling canoes during the fall semester. It’s hot and sunny, a nice bonus for enduring the cold water of the pond. We worked through the first five poling exercises, and also covered lifts, carries and canoe rescue. Tomorrow we’ll be poling on the river.

On episode 45 Christopher and I are joined by Allison Figueroa, a student on the fall Wilderness Bushcraft Semester who is taking a semester off from her studies at Boston University to attend Jack Mountain. We discuss how she’s settling into the semester, how the experience of being here fits with her expectations, her take [...]

On episode 44 of the podcast I’m joined by Christopher and Colin, recorded during our morning instructors meeting on Wednesday, August 22nd. We cover four topics: welcome to the fall semester, our systems-based approach to outdoor living at the field school and on the trail, some points about our educational philosophy, and the wild bounty [...]

Yesterday we began the fall, 2018 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester, our 45th long term program over the past 20 years. Our team for the course consist of myself and Christopher Russell as instructors and Colin Clifford as the teaching assistant. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years on the trail with both [...]

Plants Of Baxter State Park. The plant book I’ve been waiting for years to find. Amazing resource. Full post with link coming soon.

Paddling big lakes with big tailwinds is a skill that I haven’t seen discussed in the books, but it takes a certain knack to not get spun by the waves. Once you get spun, it’s easy for the waves to come over the gunwhales and fill your boat with water. In most cases it’s really [...]

From time to time I mention our amazing alumni. Tonight I want to say congratulations to Sam Larson for winning Alone, season 5 in Mongolia! You’re an inspiration for the young and young at heart everywhere! If you don’t know Sam, he runs Woodsong Wilderness Outfitters, has a great sense of humor, and is now [...]

Paddling the East Branch of the Penobscot is a lot of work. There are 4 big carries around waterfalls in the first ten miles of the trip, and there are also some rapids that require solid paddling skills. But the views are amazing, such as this photo of a few canoes paddling downriver with the [...]

Grand Pitch, on the East Branch of the Penobscot river, is not an easy place to get to. In our world where almost everything is accessible via automobile, I think it’s great that there are still places you need to sweat and bleed a little to get to.

Allagash Falls, 2 different viewpoints. It’s a special place, not reachable by road. Shot on the recent Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester.

On Eagle Lake at the Smith Brook campsite, Allagash Wilderness Waterway. We saw this bull moose who was not the slightest bit interested in us. Smith Brook is the site of the 1976 Allagash alien abduction, the focus of this book.

We’ve been out on the land and off the grid for a month and a half, so this is the first podcast in a while. In it I talk with Christoper and Ed about what we’ve all been up to. For me, it’s been the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester, from which I just returned. We [...]

Our first night on the water of the 2018 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester, camped on Telos Lake on the Allagash. I had the camera on autofocus, so you weren’t able to see the high peaks of Baxter State Park in the distance.

Our alumni do awesome things, so it’s a pleasure for me to keep in touch with many of them. This past spring I got an email from a guy named Ezra, who participated in a summer program a while back. He has since received a bachelor’s degree, worked as a teacher, and had many other [...]

It’s been a long, hot, low-water summer full of challenges, and we’re finally back from the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester (WCES). Since mid-June we’ve spent seven weeks on the rivers of Maine and Quebec guiding. That’s a lot of rapids, carries, and meals cooked over the fire. Today we said farewell to our WCES crew, [...]