Why Learn Tracking and Survival?
Why learn tracking?
Advanced Tracking
We can spot our tracking graduates, outdoors or in the city, because they exhibit a passionate curiosity, an openness and versatility in the way they perceive things, that many other people don't have.
Tracking teaches detail, focus, commitment, quietness. It helps shed the veneer of artificiality deposited by modern culture, allowing you to discover things with fresh eyes.
And of course it teaches a lot about wildlife, in the dynamic way that only an ongoing "conversation with the animals" can produce. In our tracking classes, we give you the tools to make every future experience in the outdoors richer and more vivid. We train you to be more present and aware.
Some assume that only hunters would have an interest in tracking animals, but in fact most of our students are simply people with a solid or developing interest in the outdoors, however that is expressed.
Tracking Clinic
Tracking is challenging. In track identification and interpretation, you will have to work things out by analyzing, experimenting, role playing. There are many possibilities and you often go to the edge of the unknown. Furthermore, following tracks across difficult terrain forces you to focus intently on detail while also allowing your intuition to work. Tracking draws out the best in you, and yes, its lessons apply to other parts of your life.
We are committed to developing well-rounded trackers with much experience, so beyond the Basic Tracking class, we continually offer Advanced Tracking, and Nature Awareness classes, as well as Dirt Time Workshops that cover track interpretation, animal movement and the biology of mammals. Also I wrote The Tracker's Field Guide for beginners as well as advanced trackers to learn in the field.
Why learn survival?
Not many of our plant uses and survival class graduates have had to use their new-found skills in an emergency. So why learn edible plants, shelters, fire-making and all those other techniques?
Making Fire
Because a transition occurs when you have slept in a debris hut, or started a fire without matches, or made a wild edible meal. You are no longer an outsider to the wilderness; you know that you belong there, because you have reclaimed that essential and "primitive" knowledge within you. You feel more basic and connected.
Beyond the philosophical, we find that our wilderness skills graduates hike with a little less gear and a lot more confidence - freeing them up to notice and enjoy nature more and to try new experiences. There are also new hobbies spawned: some take up primitive archery, basket making, stone tool work. Others treat their friends to wild edible dishes or start a native plant medicine cabinet by collecting local herbs.
Rabbit Stick
Basic wilderness survival blends naturally into the "traditional skills" of Native Americans, so beyond the Wilderness Skills and Plant Uses classes we offer an always changing curriculum, from baskets to bolas, from duck decoys to footwear. Working with one's hands, creating things that have a long history, creates a spark, and allows you to carry on the old rhythms in the midst of modern, chaotic life.
