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 a pre-trip training phase at the field school to ensure that when we go off the grid, people are ready.

Here’s a link to the course: 3-Week Summer Bushcraft & Canoe Expedition

The goal of the program is to give people the skills and confidence to run their own remote canoe expeditions, as well as to pass along the traditional canoe skills handed down from generations of Maine Guides.

The course starts with Phase 1: a week at the field school preparing you for life in on the river with no infrastructure. You’ll learn what you need to know to be safe and live well on the trail: axemanship, wet weather fire starting, campfire cooking, thermal cooking, navigation, intro to paddling, poling, lining and canoe rescue, tree and plant id, knife use, making rope, knots, and much more. A crash course on bushcraft and the back country skills of a Registered Maine Guide.

At the beginning of week 2, we enter Phase 2 and put our canoes in on the headwater lakes of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Then, we paddle north to Allagash Village, learning and exploring along the way. But the time we reach our destination, participants will have significant experience paddling, poling and lining canoes. They’ll be skilled at campfire cooking, managing a remote campsite, and the technical skills of canoe rescue. They’ll experience, first hand, the freedom of the woods life.

The course runs July 11-31, 2021. Tuition is $3150. Questions? Get in touch.