After having to cancel our trip last year, We’re heading back to Oujé-Bougoumou in northern Quebec in March 2022, where we’ll spend a week in the bush experiencing Cree culture with our guides David and Anna Bosum in their ancestral homeland, Eeyou Istchee. This will be our 9th trip north, and as always we’re looking [...]

As of yesterday both of our family bushcraft weeks this summer are full. It’s great to be able to provide an outdoor experience that families can take part in together, and due to the current pandemic we’re limiting the course to four families per week. If you’d like to sign up for the waiting list [...]

We had another signup for the inaugural family bushcraft week at the SOTF campus in southern Vermont. That brings the course registration to half its maximum, so if you’re interested in spending a family vacation learning outdoor skills, cooking over a campfire, and sleeping under the stars, register soon. We’ve cut the maximum number of [...]

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

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Last week school of the forest, the Vermont huts association, Addison Central Teens and The Catamount Trail Association partnered to bring seven kids out on a cross country skiing trip to one of the cabins that VT huts has made available to the public. Addison Central Teens provides a Teen Center and after-school alternatives that [...]

This summer we’ll be bringing back our canoe expedition, but with a slightly different approach. Now that we have a line up of other short canoe and outdoor living skill programs running during the summer, we wanted to make a long term, college-accredited program available to the younger generation. So starting this summer, we’ll be [...]

We had another signup this week for our Winter Living With The Cree trip. That brings us up to eight people, two away from our trip max. If you’re interested in learning about life on the land in a northern boreal setting, from people who’ve been living it their whole lives, this is the trip [...]

We’ve finalized the details for our 2020 trip to Ouje-bougoumou in northern Quebec to spend time with our Cree friends David and Anna Bosum. The trip will take place the first week of March, and while not a course in the traditional sense, participants gain some great insight into living on the land. On past [...]

This weekend is the Snowwalkers Rendezvous in Fairlee VT, an event put on by the Northen Wilderness Travelers Conferences. I’ve spent the last week getting ready.  I’ll be presenting on open fire cooking, as well as running a workshop on burn spoon carving. There’s a lot of great presentations and workshops on the schedule for [...]

In the first week of March School Of The Forest will be teaming up with the staff of New Hampton School in New Hampshire to teach a group of students outdoor living skills. The skills and topics covered were selected by the students, and it’s been really fun to see what catches their attention and [...]

We’ve got 3 new courses running at the JMBS Folk School in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire in January: The JMBS Axemanship Course, Winter Survival in the North Woods, and The Art & Science of Fire. Each of them is a single day. They run on Saturdays in January (see the Master Calendar). I’ll be posting more [...]

If you enjoy first person narratives of life on the trail, you might be interested in a book that I just put on the Kindle store on Amazon. It’s a selection of my canoe and snowshoe trip journals from Maine, Alaska and the Florida Everglades. Most of the essays are from the early days of [...]

We’ve got an open spot left on our 2018 Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester, a four-week experience where you learn to guide wilderness canoe trips. It’s a great opportunity to take your paddling, poling and wilderness living skills to the professional level, as well as learn the rivers, rapids and campsites of northern Maine. You’ll cook [...]

A few years ago I was abducted and left for dead on top of a mountain in arctic Norway. I was forced to find my own way back to civilization while dealing with deep snow fields, freezing temperatures and raging rivers. The entire experience was recorded and appeared as an episode of the Discovery Channel [...]

Our Summer Woodsman course for July, 2018 is currently full with a waiting list. We’re not accepting any more registrations for it. The next week long course covering similar skills is the Autumn Woodsman which takes place November 4-10.

JMB alumnus Doug Dickens is hosting a Prehistoric Pottery Workshop with Keith Grenoble at Flood Creek Farm in Southern Maryland. Keith Grenoble has been a product of the Back to the Land movement and developed close ties to Native communities from an early age. Keith started his journey by making stone tools represented in the [...]

Today was the official unveiling of the new Jack Mountain Bushcraft School Journeyman Certification Workbook, a 316 page tome written by Ben Spencer over the winter. It’s big, detailed and ambitious, and just in time for the beginning of our 20th year. It’s existence has been rumored for several weeks, but was not confirmed until [...]

If you check out our Master Calendar, you’ll notice a change. Programs are now organized into terms, which are blocks of programs organized around seasonally-appropriate topics. For example, the 2019 Winter Term includes five weeks of winter programming. Each course can still be taken separately, but you can also take an entire term of programs, [...]

The Summer Woodsman course is almost full. As we’re out of open weeks during the summer to run another one, we’re introducing a new course: The Autumn Woodsman Course. We’ve been interested in offering seasonal variants of our popular weeklong woodsman course for a while, and this year we’re taking the leap. Next year (2019) [...]

After a whole winter of tinkering with the design, we’re excited to announce our updated Yearlong Immersion Program. The old yearlong immersion program is now our Seasonal Immersion Program, consisting of a combination of our Wilderness Bushcraft Semester, Boreal Snowshoe Expedition and Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester. This remains the foundation of the new yearlong immersion [...]

Following the trend of recent years, spots in our programs are filling earlier than ever. Here’s an update on what’s still available, in chronological order. Wilderness Bushcraft Semester, spring 2018 (April-June). 3 spots open. Bonaventure Canoe Expedition, Quebec (June). Full Summer Woodsman (July). 1 spot open. Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester (July-August). 2 spots open. Wilderness [...]

There’s always downtime on residential courses. Students and instructors need time to relax, work on academic homework, and process the experiences they’ve had so far. For some students, downtime is frustrating. They learn by doing and don’t want to stop. So along with improving our food systems on campus, we’ll be putting in two additions [...]

The dates are set for our March, 2019 trip with Cree hunters in northern Quebec; March 1-9. In past years we’ve gone in late January, but next year we’ve got a busy winter semester planned so we’re moving the trip to early March. Taking advantage of the longer days will be an added bonus. Those [...]

Next weekend, March 9-11 (2018), the 26th annual Wilderness Paddlers Gathering will take place at the Hulbert Outdoor Center in Fairlee, Vermont. It is put on by Northern Wilderness Travelers Conferences, the same group that runs the Snow Walkers Rendezvous in the fall. I’ll be attending and putting on a workshop titled “The Moveable Feast [...]

The School Of The Forest now offers an email newsletter where you can stay abreast of everything going on with the Jack Mountain youth and teen program. You can sign up at the link below. Sign Up For SOTF Newsletter Here I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with you all, and keeping you in [...]

I’m working with Field & Stream Magazine doing a question and answer segment about survival and bushcraft. Check out the first installment and submit your questions in the comments. Questions are reviewed by the editors and might be included in future editions. Here’s the link: fieldandstream.com/survivalquestions

Hey everyone, Christopher Russell from Jack Mountain and School of the forest here, This summer I got to help out with Jack Mountain’s summer woodsman course at our field school in Maine. Two fathers took part in this course with their sons, and it was really great to watch them learning together, as well as [...]

The fall, 2017 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester has been full for months, but in the past few days we’ve had 2 cancellations, resulting in 2 open spots. We’ll be contacting the folks on our waiting list this weekend, but if you’re interested give us a call Monday morning.

We’re Hiring. 2017 is the year we want to take our food production systems to the next level.  We’re looking for someone (or 2) experienced in with gardening and keeping chickens who is also interested in living a simple, off-grid lifestyle to keep us moving toward our goal of establishing a robust food production system. They will [...]

Doug Dickens, Jack Mountain alumnus and enthusiast of all things primitive, will be hosting Keith Grenoble at his farm in Southern Maryland at the end of the month for a primitive pottery class. Keith is well known for teaching primitive clay pottery techniques (and other primitive skills) across the East Coast. They will be transforming raw [...]

Our instructors have the most experience and highest level of training in the industry. Other schools have instructor training courses lasting a few days to a few weeks. Our instructor training course is a minimum of 2 years. We run the longest and most challenging courses in the industry. Fittingly, our staff have the longest [...]

What if you could do and learn the basic skills of bushcraft while enjoying a fun weekend with modern accommodations? We asked ourselves that a few years ago, and came up with our lodge-based introduction to bushcraft weekend. It’s designed to be a fun introduction to the skills of the forest coupled with a weekend [...]

Our spring and fall Wilderness Bushcraft Semester courses this year are both full. The fall course has been filled for while, and we just filled the last spot on the spring course this week. There are just a few spots left on the Summer Woodsman and Riverman courses, and they probably won’t last long. We’re [...]

Mud season is in full swing, so fly fishing season is right around the corner. It’s a great time to learn to tie your own flies. With this in mind, Paul Sveum and Derek Faria are hosting a fly tying workshop on Tuesday, March 28th at 6pm. Bring your own vise and tools. $10 covers [...]

Start the new year off right with the annual wild game dinner hosted by our friends at The Woodsman School. Located in Wakefield, NH, a short drive from the seacoast. I’ll be in attendance and hope to meet some new friends there. If you’ve ever wanted to start eating wild game, this is a great [...]

We’re adding a second Boreal Snowshoe Expedition session for 2017 running February 20th to March 3rd. It’s a 12-day remote snowshoe expedition with a focus on guide training and winter bushcraft. If you want to learn how to live out on the trail in the cold, learn to lead and teach others in winter, and [...]

We’re consciously shrinking. In 2017 we’re lowering the number of participants on almost all of our programs. It’s the opposite of growth, but our focus is on the experience. After years of experimentation, these are the numbers we find work the best for our immersion programs. The new maximum course sizes are: Wilderness Bushcraft Semester: [...]

We’ve been working on it for a while, and now we’re finally able to accept federal financial aid through consortium agreements, opening our immersion programs up to more college students than ever before. If you know a college student who wants to immerse themselves in bushcraft and outdoor living for a semester, please pass this [...]

Our giveaway of a signed copy of The Woods Cook recently came to an end. I’m happy to announce that Mark N. from Illinois is our winner! I sent out the book a few days ago, and he should be receiving it soon. This was our first foray into giveaways, and we expect to do more [...]

On Wednesday, July 6th from 5-7 pm we’re offering our popular campfire cooking workshop in Wolfeboro, NH, in partnership with GALA as part of our Self Reliance Workshop Series. This time around we’re adding a special treat; we’ll be joined by instructor Derek Faria of The Woodsman School. Derek’s an old friend and Registered Maine [...]

Our 4-week canoe expedition for 2016 will run from the Jack Mountain Bushcraft Field School in Masardis, Maine, to the Atlantic Ocean at Calais Maine. Along the way we’ll paddle the Aroostook, St. John, Eel and St. Croix rivers. We’ll also be tracing the ancient Maliseet Trail. More information on the trip and the route [...]

We running our first giveaway. Win an autographed copy of The Woods Cook; Outdoor Cooking With A Professional Guide by Tim Smith. You can read more, throw your name in the hat and get the complete rules at: http://jmbnews.com/giveaways/woodscook/

I’m excited to announce the recipient of our Wilderness Bushcraft Semester scholarship for the spring, 2016 semester; Christopher Russell! You’re going to be hearing a lot about him over the coming months, but for now let me introduce you to his blog, PrimitiveAddictions.com,  and Facebook fan page. We have another scholarship opportunity for the fall [...]

January 21-24, 2016 : 2 Spots Available (4 total) Part of our new lodge-based workshop series, spend a long weekend learning traditional northern forest skills while staying on-site in our modern, comfortable lodge.  The course content draws on the curriculum for our Winter Woodsman course. Topics include snowshoes and snowshoeing, fire lighting, axe use, knife use, knots, ice safety, ice fishing, animal tracking [...]

After a recent post announcing upcoming lodge-based courses, a few of our readers contacted me wanting more information. Before I could provide it, I had to publish the new site about our camp for rent in New Hampshire where the courses will be based. I got it online today. More information on the lodge-based courses is coming [...]

Beginning in January, we’re offering something new at our folk school in New Hampshire; lodge-based programs. They combine our popular bushcraft and outdoor skills programs with housing in our modern, comfortable lodge. These programs are limited in size and allow people to participate in our bushcraft programs without having to live outdoors. We’re still offering [...]

Saturday, 11/21 from 9:30AM-4PM On our expeditions fire is a necessity; it warms us and cooks our food. We’re often faced with extremely difficult firelighting challenges. These must be overcome for the success of the expedition. What participants of the this one-day workshop will take away are the skills and confidence that they can get [...]

Tomorrow night’s campfire cooking class is full, but if you’re in the area and want to come we could probably squeeze in one more.  We’ll be covering a variety of topics applicable to the woods cook, including: Building a tripod Gear – wannigans, pots, frying pans Grilling meat in a raquette Dutch oven cooking with [...]

“We are now reveling in the indescribable freshness of the Antarctic that seems to permeate one’s being, and which must be responsible for that longing to go again which assails each returned explorer…”  Ernest Shackleton on his Nimrod expedition to Antarctica This year the Jack Mountain Alumni Winter Expedition, assailed by the memories of the [...]

We’re creating a scholarship for college outdoor education students to make our immersion programs more affordable.  Beginning with the spring, 2016 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester, we’re offering a $5100 scholarship. There are some rules and a specific application process, all of which you can read about at: Bushcraft Leadership Scholarship

My new book, The Woods Cook: Outdoor Cooking With A Professional Guide, is now available from Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. As a guide I’ve been leading trips and cooking over an open fire professionally since the late 1990’s. This book details the approach, methods and recipes that have helped me be be successful [...]

We’re adding a second Boreal Snowshoe Expedition session in 2016.  It’s our winter bushcraft immersion; a twelve day traditional northern winter wilderness living and travel expedition.  We’re on the trail living on snowshoes, hauling our gear on toboggans, staying in woodstove-outfitted canvas tents and learning to be at home and comfortable in the bitter cold. [...]

The 2015 Woodsman course is full and registration is closed.  We’ve received numerous inquiries, so we’re opening another week long course in August.  There’s been a two year gap since we’ve ran the Bushman Course, a primitive skills and primitive survival intensive, but we’ve got it on the calendar for August 8-15.  If you’re looking [...]

We’re just over four weeks out from the start of the spring Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. We’re making some changes to the course this spring, most notably planning more time out on the trail canoeing the remote waterways of northern Maine. We’ll be all over the Aroostook drainage and I’m leaving the door open for the [...]

The GI Bill covers 100% of tuition and fees for our immersion programs. I get asked this question often, so I added it to the FAQ on our GI Bill page. We’re changing our deposit policy for those on the GI Bill beginning beginning after the fall, 2015 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester. Going forward, we’re adding [...]

Open spots on upcoming winter and spring courses are dwindling. We’ve been adding people here and there and the result is that all upcoming programs are 60% or more full. Here are the current available spaces per upcoming program as of December 4th. Winter Woodsman:  3 Wilderness Survival Weekend Course:  4 Boreal Snowshoe Expedition:  3 [...]

We’re adding two new bits of information to our program descriptions: physical challenge and technical challenge. Each of these operate on a 1-5 numerical scale with 1 being the easiest/lowest and 5 being the most challenging. Physical challenge refers to how physically challenging a particular program is, as well as whether or not a person [...]

Although we’ve managed to keep our tuition frozen for a number of years, we’re increasing the tuition on our immersion programs for 2015.  Tuition for the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester and the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester will increase by $250.  Tuition for the Boreal Snowshoe Expedition will increase by $100. But it isn’t all bad news.  [...]

We’ve got a new forum up and running, and we’ll be using it for the next few weeks to see if it works for us. I found some great looking software called muut that, without going into a lot of detail, looks like it will be a good fit. Most, if not all, of the [...]

Our forum recently took it’s last breath and is no longer with us. It wasn’t a sad parting. 100+ new spam users per day, old and clunky interface requiring lots of time and input, not viewable from a mobile device; let’s just say no tears were shed on our end. We did lose some content, [...]

I’ve been playing around with a new kind of blog post for a few months now. I’m calling them updates, and they are short bits and photos that aren’t complete ideas. They’re the type of thing that end up on social media sites, but as I’ve always had a healthy distrust of social media I [...]

Are you looking for a cheap, fun night out this Wednesday? For the November installment of our Self Reliance Workshop Series with GALA, we’re having an instructional campfire cooking dinner. Learn to cook over a campfire, build a sturdy pot suspension system, and use a dutch oven and a reflector oven like a seasoned professional. [...]

The Snow Walker’s Rendezvous is this weekend in Fairlee, Vermont. If you’re interested in traditional winter gear and techniques in the north, it’s one that you shouldn’t miss. I’ve been going for 15 years, and it keeps getting better. This year I’m traveling with Paul Sveum, who will be presenting on the 21-day Boundary Waters [...]

After seven busy years, we will no longer be offering programs at our 41 acre field school. Today we’re closing on an adjacent piece of property, and now we’ll be offering programs at our 61 acre field school. If you know the lay of the land around here, the purchase includes the land from the [...]

I heard a while back that there are no other places named Masardis in the USA or Canada. A quick internet search led me to a page that said there are no other places named Masardis in the world. As such, I’ve decided to refer to it as simply Masardis, and no longer Masardis, Maine. [...]

What: New and coming to the folk school November 10-14, we’re taking a bunch of make your own gear projects specific to winter and combining them into a weeklong class called The Winter Craftsman. The focus for 2014 will be making your own plastic trail toboggan and sewing your own braintan mukluks. Other options will [...]

The Frozen 48 is a winter survival challenge where participants head into the boreal forest of northern Maine for 48 hours with minimal gear. It’s not easy. Many people have done a night in the winter woods without a tent or sleeping bag. It’s the second night that gets you. That’s where training, skill and [...]

Our registration process and pre-course communications are about to get a whole lot smoother. Our instructors are often away from phone and internet contact for long periods while on expeditions, so to make things work better we’re hiring a dedicated office support person. No longer will anyone have to wait for weeks before getting a [...]

I’m packing up my gear and headed out to our fly fishing workshop in an hour.  It’s part of our monthly self reliance workshop series we’re running with GALA.  We’ll be going over gear, knots, casting and as much about fish habits and bugs as time will allow. So far this workshop series has been [...]

This is the winter that won’t give up.  Although the weather has warmed in the past week, we’re still under its thumb.  There’s an ice storm forecast for tonight, with freezing rain continuing until mid-morning on Saturday.  Because of this I’m cancelling the Bushcraft Fundamentals class scheduled for tomorrow. If you haven’t already gotten a [...]

We’ve got two last-minute open spots for the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester starting April 20th and running through June 21st. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to contact a person who had registered for the upcoming semester, and someone dropping out of the course, I’ve opened those spots up. So although we’ve been full for several months, if [...]

I’m cancelling the School Of The Forest class, scheduled for Saturday, March 15th. Even though the most recent storm didn’t drop the predicted ten inches of snow, there’s still too much of it to run an effective class. The combination of nowhere to park (because of snow), inability to get to the outhouses without snowshoes, [...]

We’re running the February School Of The Forest class on Saturday, February first. We’ve added the class handouts to the SOTF page. Click on course date from the yellow box on the left to download a pdf about that day. For the February first class, you can also get the information sheet by clicking this [...]

In 2004 we had a few (fewer than 40) oilskin baseball caps made up. They’ve since become highly sought after collector’s items. I hadn’t thought about getting any more made, but was contacted this summer by the wife of an old friend, who was also one of the few to have an original hat. She [...]

As of today, the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester running from April 20 to June 21 of this year is full. We could still have some cancellations, so if you want to be on the waiting list for the spring course let us know. The fall course is about half full, meaning there are 5 open spots [...]

I wrote a while back that I was changing the format of the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Semester, our four-week Maine canoe expedition. I’ve felt for a long time that there needed to be more of a challenge involved. This year, there will be plenty of challenge. The Route We’ll be making a giant (about 270 [...]

Beginning in 2014 we’re moving from email to a forum-based communication system for enrolled students. Email has become unreliable for us due to the volume of it that we receive, messages not being received due to filters, etc. Communication regarding future courses will take place on the forum. You’ll have to register to view anything [...]

This year we’re partnering with GALA ( a local non-profit) to offer a monthly workshop series on self-reliance. Workshops run the second Wednesday of every month and are $15. More information is our Self Reliance Workshop page. The upcoming workshops are: 1/8 – Traditional Winter Gear, Snowshoes And Snowshoeing 2/12 – Soap Making 101 3/12 [...]

I’ve been working on putting together a new site for the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School where we can keep up with what community members are up to. We encourage our students to publish their logbooks, photos, etc., but up to this point haven’t had an easy way to keep up with one another. This is [...]

Our 2014 calendar is live on our site. We’ve added a few new folk school programs including the School Of The Forest, a monthly kids program, and the New Hampshire self reliance workshop series, a monthly adult program for which we’ve partnered with a local non-profit. We’ve also taken our weeklong winter bushcraft and survival [...]

The general route for our spring canoe expedition is set.  We’ll spend the bulk of the month on the Aroostook drainage.  We’ll be doing a good deal of upriver work, both poling and lining, to visit a few of my favorite spots.   Our second trip in on the Allagash, where we’ll be poling up [...]

On Wednesday, February 27th we’re running a short course on winter bushcraft for kids (ages 6-12) and parents in Wolfeboro, NH.  The tuition is $25 per family, which can include 2 adults and multiple kids. I’m planning on running the program from 1:30-4:00 pm. We’ll be focusing on lighting fires, snowshoe use and making bindings, [...]

As of February 14th, our 2013-2014 yearlong bushcraft immersion program and the fall wilderness bushcraft semester are both full.  Although it grows a bit every year, this is the earliest we’ve ever filled; more than 6-months in advance!  We will still accept applications for the waiting list in case their are cancellations.  If you’re thinking [...]

I’m off in a few short hours on our winter bushcraft and snowshoe expedition.  I’ll be gone for two weeks, during the first of which the weather is supposed to get cold!  Next week the forecast is for high temperatures in the negative numbers and lows nearing -30.  We’ll be in cotton tents outfitted with [...]

We run long, intense field courses in bushcraft and guide training. Over the past few years, we’ve gone to running them almost exclusively. There are many lessons that can only be learned in the field, hence the need for a field school. But there are others where the spirit of learning belongs in a community, [...]

We’re back in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. After three winters in Texas, my family and I have returned to the Lakes Region of NH. We’ll continue to run our full slate of field school programs in northern Maine. But I’m planning some new programs for New Hampshire and am excited about all the opportunities they’ll bring.  [...]

I’m headed to the Snow Walker’s Rendezvous in Vermont November 9-11. If you’ve never been and you’re interested in non-mechanized winter travel and living out in the winter, you should check it out. I’ll be teaching workshops on axemanship, ropemaking, and making low-tech crooked knives, like the one Little Justin is holding in the above [...]

We’ve had two last-minute cancellations for the fall semester course, so there are two available spots. It’s just two weeks until the semester starts. If you’re interested give us a call.

I heard from Dave Wescott last night, and the dates for Woodsmoke 2013 have been set.  It will run July 14-20.  2012 was the first year of this event, and with very little advertising it was at or just below capacity.  This combined with the fact that everyone I talked with had an amazing time [...]

The sunsets are late this time of year, and the sunrises are early. I love the colors on this picture as the sun sets in the northwest sky. The clover is thick in the field and the bees are loving it.  Nature is buzzing at the field school. We just passed the registration deadline for [...]

3 week minimum. For Immersion program students, by immersion program students. There comes a point in a person’s bushcraft education where they need to be kicked out of the nest to do things on their own and gain a level of experience that is difficult to obtain during a formal course. Once a certain level [...]

After a lot of thought and discussions with students, we’re scrapping our current Journeyman Certification Program. Instead of being based on a 4-week summer field course, the Journeyman Certification will now be based on the Wilderness Bushcraft Semester in the fall. Like the XI (Expedition Instructor Certification), it will be comprised of benchmarks, minimum competencies [...]

I just received some more information on Woodsmoke, a classic camping and bushcraft rendezvous taking place this summer and organized by Dave Wescott.  The dates are set and they’re currently accepting applications to fill the 100 slots. Date: July 8-14, 2012 Location: Tetonia, Idaho Cost: $275.00 For detailed info, check out this .pdf I received [...]

We’re adding two new certification programs to our list of courses to go along with the Journeyman course: the Expedition Instructor (XI) and Expedition Instructor Trainer (XIT). They exist as add-ons to our current yearlong immersion program. There are no extra courses that need to be taken, nor is there any extra tuition involved. There [...]