Material Culture Of Origins Program

The Origins Program is a journey over nine months where we practice and build a variety of traditional skills, with the goal of going on a weeklong trip into the woods and utilizing them.  The rules for the final trip are simple; no metal, no glass, no paper, and no...

Winter Tracking I

Tracking in the snow is cheating right? It can feel that way when much of the year you can struggle to find any clear prints to identify, any gait patterns to decipher, or trails to follow. You learn pretty quickly to look in track traps along wet areas, in protected...

Flint Knapping – Spalling

Stone tools! I love stone tools, and what started with an obsession with making pretty arrows heads has turned into a life long journey to understand how to make and use effective tools that can be used to meet my wilderness living needs. Sure I have cases of pretty...

Avoid Dying in the Cold, Be Comfortably Cool

The Cold Realities of Hypothermia…A few Tips For Staying Safe in the Winter Sorry. Couldn’t resist.  Hypothermia- Basically your body cannot maintain its core temperature and it sucks heat from your extremities to your core until your organs shut down and...

Bow Drill – Ancient Secrets Revealed!

Or, some basic tips… No, really, after 15 years of making, using, and teaching bow drill I have not tired of it’s awesome simple magic. Lighting a fire from pieces of wood you carved yourself is a truly remarkable experience for anyone who is conscious and...

Soapstone Bowl with Stone Age Tools

Over the years I have worked to start incorporating more stone tool use into my skills projects. This can be challenging and a little nerve wracking because some of the tools take days of hard work to make, and putting them to the test can certainly result in critical...

The Art Of Trailing

The question that a lot of people always want to ask but don’t when it comes to trailing: Is this real? Can a you or I really learn to follow a trail, track by track, without the aid of sand or snow or mud? It is common in myths, books, and movies to see...

Natural Camouflage

Roots intern Gifford Walsh, 19, of Shrewsbury, Vt. is camouflaged using mud, clay, sand and dirt as part of a demonstration on tracking animals through the woods Thursday, May 28, 2009 during the Roots School core skills I wilderness survival course in East Calais,...