TrackersNW

You never know when you're going to be in a situation where your survival is on the line. Learn the basics to live through it alive and having fun: foraging for wild edibles, making fire with NO MATCHES, simple stone tools, filtering water, and building a warm and dry shelter to protect you from the elements. Join the ...team of TrackersNW for an informative workshop on the art and science of staying alive and even thriving in the wilderness long term. These skills have the power to save your life and also increase your enjoyment of the the doors. Are you prepared?

The Class

Through a mixture of hands on activities and presentation students develop a basic foundation of wilderness survival and primitive skills. Our goal is to have you complete the class and be well on our way to more advanced work.

Wilderness Survival & Primitive Skills Basics includes

• basic animal tracking
• navigation with map and compass, land, sun and stars
• basic survival shelters
• methods of bone and stone tools, including obsidian arrowheads
• fire methods: with no matches and for all weather conditions
• various methods of water treatment
• outdoor and primitive camp logistics
• basic wild edible plants
• effective and simple hunting tools and traps
• responsible harvesting and propagation
• natural and shadow camouflage
• trusting your instincts
• abc's of butchering
• developing your own skills after the classRead More

Do you want to grow into what is required for long term wilderness living? The Fall season can be a time to learn survival, working through the both edge of summer journeying to the cusp of winter. This is not a survival program where you find "Man vs Wild". This is about shaping your eloquent relationship to the natur...al world and community, learning how to pass on your experience as an educator and community member.

Learn more at http://www.trackersteams.com/outdoor-adventure-school/fall/wilderness-survival-and-bushcraft.php

The Wind Village

In the Wind Village we rally. It is the spirit of a team that supports you, the voice of community and the beauty or survival. While nearly every part of our TEAMS curriculum is covered in the Fall season, in the Wind Village we guide you through the awareness of the ancient Tracker, the skills of bushcraft and art of team based collaboration. Plus, we train intensive stealth and invisibility arts as part of our physical conditioning and development on your path to health and wellness.

Schedule

Fall Term September 6-December 3, 2009
Class takes place every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with a week long break for Thanksgiving. Class hours are 8am-4:30pm. The week long Nature of the Village Harvest Faire overnight (September 6-12) begins the term and each month we include a 3 day overnight at the Trackers Homestead or other location.

Nature of the Village Week Long September 6-12, 2009

3 day Overnights
September 22-24, 2009 Shelter and foraging survival
October 13-15, 2009 Intermediate shelter and fire survival
November 17-19, 2009 Tracking and nature awareness
December 1-3, 2009 Winter Welcome

Survival and bushcraft training includes

Train the basics of survival skills. Yet here survival to us takes on an entirely new meaning. It does not simply represent one individual but an entire village. Survival in the Wind Village becomes about how we move forward, remaking our world into one where people are connected to the land. We cover shelter methods both basic and advanced methods, weaving bushcraft as eloquence and art. This is a place where these skills become about community experience.

• Make a handmade bow and arrow set with leather quiver
• Learn basic to advanced survival shelters. Make them, sleep in them.
• Flintknap obsidian arrowheads and knives and work with other stone tools
• Train intensive fire methods: by friction and for all weather conditions
• Cover basic basket making and other wild crafting arts
• Look awesome in the woods, work on other textile and leather work as DIY and post civ fashion with repurposed fabric
• Refine various methods of water treatment
• Cover outdoor and primitive camp logistics
• Learn basic wild edible plants
• Get the basics of primitive trapping methods
• Helping local organic urban farmers reduce invasive nutria populations, run a legal urban trap line by bike (we will eat nutria)

Tracking, ecology and nature awareness includes

The naturalist training in the Wind Village we introduce a new language of learning we call participatory ecology. We view life through the eyes of the ancient Tracker. We train how to travel the landscape tuned to the Sun, Stars and Landscape around you. Through sensory exercises we hone what we see, hear and feel of the world. Each track, each sign not only tells us who made these marks, but how old they were, what gender, what they were feeling, and where did they go from there. Systems awareness is fostered through maps and epic stories; ones that tell us about an entirely different world moving on the edge of our awareness.

• Track animal and human tracks and sign with finely tuned hyper sensory awareness
• Learn intensive systems awareness and mapping
• Train navigation with map and compass, land, sun and stars
• Track and trail over challenging terrain
• Develop familiarity of geology, weather and other earth sciences
• Study local birds and their language, mapping the forest and animal movement by bird song
• Finely tune your hyper sensory awareness

Stealth skills, martial arts and conditioning includes

Be the ghost in the woods. You become what goes bump in the night. This is not your dorky camo paint stealth training. The physical conditioning that comes form becoming silent and stealthy is also an unique and engaging philosophy. How does a 300 pound black bear really disappear through the thicket or the red fox walk just along the edge of everyone's awareness, rarely seen but always present? The answers are more wild then many can ever imagine. At the core of our stealth program is fun and intensive cross training and conditioning that leaves you feeling healthy and truly alive!

• Cross train intensively by bike, path and boat
• Cover natural and shadow camouflage
• Train wilderness and urban techniques of silent and flow movement for invisibility to see more wildlife
• Experience the "hall of mirrors"
• Train animal forms, movement and martial art for healthy and efficient forest travel
• Develop your "spidey" sense
• Communicate by body language and non-verbal signals with wildlife to lower disturbance in any setting
• Train with martial arts play
• Throw swords with your team

Harvesting activities includes...

These skills are best learned through connections that truly feed the body and soul. When you grew and live by what you harvest from the land, you reach level of connection theory cannot touch. Harvest also needs to be sustainable. Through being nourished through wild foods we also give back, addressing and planning how we harvest to actually further propagate and create abundance of years to come.

• Go fishing with your team, gut and eat fish
• Learn and stock your own larder by canning, drying, pickling and other preservation methods
• Sojourn on urban fruit harvests during the "season"
• Make wine or cider and practice other methods of fermentation
• Learn to identify and harvest fall edible and medicinal plants
• Practice responsible harvesting and propagation
• Do a traditional and homestead butchering (options for those who opt out) with traditional sausage and meat preservation

Team leadership and collaborative skills includes

Collaboration the new paradigm for learning and leadership. We look at family, village, and community as a team where everyone has gifts to share. Many team models and organizational facilitation skills are presented. Using open space, agile teamwork, improvisational group building to a highly refined awareness of natural ecological systems; we have combined modern and traditional cultural awareness into a highly effective way of getting work done. In other words: We're a lean, mean, communicating team. If you've ever been in mind numbing 2 hour meetings, this is the cure for you! Our meetings are brief and our time working, playing and learning together is maximized.

• Work with iterative development processes
• Develop clarity and eloquence in communication with a focus on function, not being "right or wrong"
• Learn agreement processes that are efficient, timely and functional, not long winded, boring or dramatic
• Experience the power of the "15 minute meeting"
• Structure collaborative teams that get work done well, quickly and competently
• Write a simple business plan
• Develop collaborative teaching skills as an educator, mentor and guide: especially pertinent to working in the out of doors

Art and Theater Skills includes

We explore functional ways of making music and art that really tell our story. Many of our instructors are well known Portland artists, designers and theater teachers. In the art of improv and performance we learn to spontaneously move together. We think and act on our feet and actually celebrate being "caught off guard" as opportunity to be creative. You learn to read your "partner" with subtle, intelligent and silent communication. In visual, writing, and verbal arts you develop the craft of storytelling. Every student works from a blog and other media of documenting their experiences. Whether through writing, photography or video, we recognize culture change is borne from the true artists…ourselves.

• Build team rapport with theater and improv training (all experience levels apply, we walk folks through any fears of public performance)
• Develop your creative skills through training professional level wildlife illustration (all experience levels apply, we walk folks through any fears of art)
• Make traditional and DIY musical instruments. Jam with your friend (all experience levels apply, we walk folks through any fears of jamming)Read More