Wilderness Skills Intensives
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Containers, Baskets & Natural Fibers
March Break Nature Retreat – Earth Mentoring
Empowering Ancient Ways
Empowering Ancient Ways – Advanced Skills
Intro to Wilderness Survivals & Ancient Living Skills
Tale of the Track – North Bay Intro to Wildlife Tracking
Tale of the Track
The Art of Fire Making – Adventures in Friction Fire
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Containers, Baskets & Natural Fibers
Sunday June 20 / 10:00am to 4:00pm / $75 – Located in Algonquin Park
Join Chris Gilmour from Earth Mentorship Programs in exploring the world of natural fibers. You will spend an afternoon making rope from plant and tree bark and learning various techniques for making natural containers: birch bark, pine needle coil baskets, weaved dogwood ribbed baskets, burnt bowls, and more. Take home your day’s creations.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
March Break Nature Retreat – Earth Mentoring
- A Nature Retreat for Teachers, Parents, Educators & Nature Lovers-
This retreat will offer you a chance to rejuvenate in nature’s beauty, deepening your connection to, and understanding of, the natural world. We will be expanding our awareness & knowledge, while exploring some of the many uses of nature’s gifts. Come learn new skills to bring back to the classroom or integrate into your life outside of work.
Activities Include:
- Studying Wildlife through the Eye of a Tracker
- Snowshoeing and Camp Fires
- Basket and Container Making
- Wilderness Awareness Games/Activities
- Story Telling
- Wilderness Crafts with Natural Materials
- Intro to Earth Based Mentoring (coyote mentoring)
- Good Food & Good Fun
- And Much Much More
When: March 16 – 19, 2010 (March Break)
Where: Wolf Den Bunkhouse, Oxtongue, ON, 8 min West of Algonquin Park. Each participant will sleep in a beautful log cabin.
Food: We will provide healthy, wholesome dinners.
Participants bring & prepare thier own lunch & breakfast in the Wolf Dens communal kitchen.
Price: $360/person – Includes 3 nights accomodations,
3 dinners, course materials, snow shoes extra if required
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Empowering Ancient Ways
– Deepening our connection with nature through
Ancient Wilderness Living Skills -
The core skills of this course have been brought together after much preparation and introspection as to how to incorporate the most well-rounded and universal wilderness wisdom and teachings into one week-long experience. This course provides the ingredients to enrich the life of anyone who lives on planet Earth, from the most seasoned wilderness guides to wildlife biologists, busy professionals who yearn for the sanctity of the wild, or anybody interested in being thoroughly introduced to wilderness living skills.
Our Passion to teach has evolved from our experience as passionate students, learning to integrate the wisdom found in pure wilderness, and emulating that firm sense of connection. Our approach has evolved out of learning to help our students to create intentful routines from the skills that have lasted through all time. We set students up for success by helping them to become aware of the wilderness that surrounds them all the time. Here begins the journey to understanding the difference between Wilderness Survival & Wilderness Living. The choice is yours, when you make it.
Course Topics Include:
- Shelter, Water, Fire, Food
- Wildlife Tracking
- Bird language, concentric rings and base line symphony
- Stone, bone, and antler tools and usage
- Tree and Plant Fibers- Harvesting, Processing and Preserving
- Tanning and Preserving Hides and Animal Skins in various ways
- Stalking, Natural Movement, and Camouflage
- Stewardship and Caretaker Ethics Emphasized
- Empowering our ecological footprint (your tracks)
- Traditional cooking and food preservation
- Container making, and More!
Student Testimonial
“My experience at Empowering Ancient Ways really helped to clarify the direction I want to take in my life. The awareness skills and sit spot exercise helped me acquire my summer job last year and reinvigorated my interest in pursuing post-graduate studies at university. The teaching and support given by Skeet and the rest of the crew was incredible and really helps you strive for success. The bow drill was personally the most difficult skill that I succeeded in performing and gave me the greatest sense of accomplishment I’ve had as far back as I can remember. The people that you meet there are great and the sense of community that develops exceeds the duration of the courses. I would highly recommend Sticks and Stones Wilderness School to anyone who loves the outdoors, wants a challenge or wishes to experience something new. I am definitely looking to take more classes.” ~ Chris Deduke, student
When: April 25 – May 1 & Sept 5 – 11, 2010
Where: Kimbercote Farm, Grey Bruce County, ON
Cost: $650
Includes: Instruction, 3 hearty meals/day, dorm style accommodation or camping and materials for duration of the course.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Empowering Ancient Ways II
– Advanced Skills -
Prerequisite: Empowering Ancient Ways
Empowering Ancient Ways – Advanced Skills continues where we leave off in the first EAW class. Participants expand upon the previously-learned skill set, and also learn diverse new skills that pertain to long-term wilderness living/survival. This course is designed to help you ground your connection with the natural world, and increase your ability to move through and live in the wilderness without the aid of modern camping gadgets. These abilities comes together as an art form.
Topics include:
- Advanced Tracking-Pressure Releases
- Continued study of concentric rings, bird language and the baseline symphony.
- Advanced fire making techniques
- Advanced basketry and container making
- Bow and arrow making
- Advanced stone and bone tools
- Advanced camoflage, stalking and natural movement
- Parfletch and rawhide
When: 2011
Where: Sticks and Stones Workshop- Caledon ON
Cost: tba
Includes course instruction, 3 hearty meals/day, tent style accommodation and materials for course.
——————————————————————————————–
Intro to Wilderness Survival & Ancient Living Skills
Join us for a few days of getting back to the land and reconnecting with the ancient ways of our ancestors. Throughout the days we will touch on the essentials of survival and how to accommodate them without modern day implements in a wilderness setting. Topics wil linclude: natural shelter building, water purification, friction fire making with the bow and hand drill, and a introduction to local ecology, plants & survival trapping.
When: Aug 3 – 5, 2010
Where: Algonquin Park
Cost:$180, includes 3 nights campin and all materials
More info and registration at: http://www.algonquinpark.on.ca/programs/workshopcalendar2010.pdf
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Tale of the Track – North Bay Intro to Tracking Workshop
Friday April 16th 6-9 p.m. Indoor lecture and slide show. $15 for night or $10 if you attend Saturday as well.
Saturday April 17th 9:30 – 4 p.m. Outside experiential workshop. $60 for day or $50 with Friday registration.
Canadore College Room C357 – Meet at the Education Center Entrance
The study of the art and science of tracking opens up a whole new way of looking at the natural world that surrounds us. At this workshop we will begin to learn the basics of wildlife tracking and how it can be used as another tool for the beginner or seasoned naturalist, wildlife biologist and nature enthusiast in discovering the many mysteries of the natural world.
Through the development of our tracking skills we can learn about our local wildlife in a detailed manner and how they relate to the environment in which they live. Learn the basics of tracking, including track identification and analysis, gait patterns, sign tracking, scat identification, how to follow a trail and how to develop your naturalist skills. This process opens up a greater awareness of our environment and the inter-connectedness of each part of the eco-system as a whole. Together we will begin to see the world around us with a new perspective, and gain a greater understanding of the place in which we live.
This workshop is offered by Alexis Burnett of Earth Tracks and Chris Gilmour of Earth Mentorship
For more info please call Chris at 705 788 1210 or
Alexis at 519 217 4921
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Tale of the Track
- Intro to Algonquin Park Wildlife Tracking & Studies -
Join Chris Gilmour of Earth Mentorship Programs for an interactive evening of exploring the deep and ancient art of tracking. Come learn to turn lifeless depressions in the ground into living stories of the past, present, and future and interpret the many other signs left around Algonquin Park and your backyard.
This workshop will interest the novice outdoors enthusiast and the seasoned naturalist as we learn to deepen our understanding of the natural world and learn what the forest is doing when we are not watching!
When:TBA
Where: The Wolf Den Bunkhouse, Oxtongue, ON, Hwy 60 (8 min West of Algonquin Park)
Cost: tba
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
The Art of Fire Making – Adventures in Friction Fire
When: Aug 8, 10am – 5pm
Where: Algonquin Park
Join us as we explore the ancient arts of fire making. Learn about efficiant all weather fire lighting techniques with only natural materials, make fire by friction with the bow drill and hand drill, learn about the different burning properties of different woods and learn all about natural tinders.
For more info and registration see: http://www.algonquinpark.on.ca/programs/workshopcalendar2010.pdf