Wilderness Skills Immersion

Saturday: Kicking Off!

• Essential outdoor gear and survival kits

• The psychology of survival situations and strategies for avoiding them

• Key routines and awareness practices for wilderness living

• Knife safety and skills, including techniques for crafting tools for bushcraft, fire-starting, and survival

• Barehand navigation, map and compass skills, and signaling techniques to build confidence in staying oriented, getting rescued, and navigating to safety when lost

Sunday: Wild Plants

• Wild edible and medicinal plants: how to identify, ethically harvest, and use local species, and be aware of toxic species to avoid

• Tree identification and use for bushcraft and survival-related projects

• Ethnobotany projects, including making natural cordage from various plant and tree sources and creating quickie baskets from wild materials

Saturday: Trailing, Tracking and Bird Language

• Overview of wildlife trailing skills and their application to long-term survival situations

• Trailing field practice, focusing on optimal conditions for tracking

• Visit a site rich with tracks and signs of game species to learn about survival trap placement

• Overview of bird language skills for survival

• Observation of bird behaviors and vocalizations, focusing on increased activity towards dusk

• Discussion on the five bird voices, alarm patterns for detecting hidden wildlife, and observation techniques for awareness and stealth

Sunday: Hunting, Trapping and Fishing

• Overview of primitive survival techniques for hunting and trapping

• Discussion on primitive projectile implements

• Review of various traps and snares, including the figure four deadfall trap and the rolling snare

• Make a survival trap and snare to take home (learn carving techniques and knots needed)

• Survival fishing techniques

• Construct a survival fish spear/frog gig to take home

• Discussion on safety, ethics, and placement of survival traps and snares

• Overview of steps for processing wild game

Saturday: Fire Basics

• Fire fundamentals

• Short hike to gather materials, while discussing the best fire materials in the area

• Master fire starting with matches

• Other fire-starting methods: flint and steel

• Build and practice on your own friction fire kit

Sunday: Burn Crafts and Fire Practice

• Focus on burn crafts (bowls and spoons)

• Additional friction fire practice

• Boiling water in a burn bowl using hot rocks

Saturday: Shelter-making

• Modern and primitive shelter options for camping, wilderness living, and survival

• Practical tarp uses for a variety of situations, including knot-tying and cordageless variations

• How to make primitive shelters, including debris hut style, lean-to, and fully enclosed shelters with a fire for heat

Sunday: Culmination

• Basic wilderness first-aid skills

• Cooking with and without camping gear on a fire

• Building a bushcraft camp

• Exercises to put all of the skills learned in the course into practice

Dates:
September 20 and 21
October 11 and 12
November 8 and 9
December 13 and 14

Time:
9:00am–5:00pm

Tuition:
$1,245+$115 materials fee

Ages:
18+, or 16+ with parent enrollment

Locations:
Port Townsend and various locales on the Olympic Peninsula

Kyle Schultheis

Kyle grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, where he spent much of his time exploring the oak savanna landscape. He earned a BS in Geology from Chico state university before spending four years in the military, serving overseas and in snowy upstate New York. Upon exiting the Army, he spent several years living off-grid in a canvas wall tent in the Pacific Northwest and began a new path exploring nature-connected and holistic ways of living.

Jason Knight

Jason is passionate about helping people learn wilderness survival skills. Since 1997 he's taught thousands of people, including training hundreds of adults to become survival instructors. He has consulted as a local wilderness skills expert for the Discovery Channel and has been featured on NPR. He is a co-founder and instructor at Alderleaf Wilderness College, where he has offered courses on wilderness survival to the general public and a broad range of clients including the US Forest Service, the Seattle Mountaineers, and the cast of the award-winning film Captain Fantastic.

Ramzy Berbawy

Ramzy began his naturalist journey stargazing in a football field while wondering if he could ever live somewhere the air didn’t smell like fast food. Since quitting his banking job in 2015, he has worked on several small farms around the Olympic Peninsula and the Methow Valley. He is currently in his fourth year as a nature studies instructor with CedarRoot.