Roots Adult Programs
Fire Making: From One Match to Bow Drill
April 5, 2025
Build your fire skills with all-weather one-match fires and bow drill friction fires. Learn More…
The Gatherer's Program: Foraging, Herbal Medicine, & Basketry
April 12- October 5 One weekend a month.
Willow gathering baskets, black ash pack baskets, fibers & dyes, seasonal foraging, herbalism and more! Spring to fall. Learn More…
Traditional Bow Hunting 8 Month Intensive
April 26-September 14 One weekend a month.
Build your own wooden bow and arrows, tan hides, track game, process animals, and scout and hunt. Learn More…
Bow and Arrow Making
April 26- May 1, 2025
Spend six days handcrafting your own Osage Orange longbow and arrow from all natural materials. Learn More…
Arrow Making
April 30- May 1, 2025
Combine a viburnumb arrow shaft with a bone point and turkey feathers using animal sinew and tree resin to create your own arrow. Learn More…
Wilderness Self Reliance
May 3-4, 2025
Take a first step into learning wilderness survival with this course that covers the basics of shelter, water, fire and food. Learn More…
Wilderness Survival Four Day
May 23-26, 2025
Dive into 4 days of survival skills focused on building shelters, making friction fire, water purification, foraging, survival hunting & trapping, stone tools, cordage, tracking & more! Learn More…
Black Ash Basketry: Workhorse Tote
May 24-25, 2025
Weave and incredibly useful, durable, and beautiful black ash basket with Penny Hewitt. Learn More…
Hide Tanning
May 30-June 1, 2025
Learn to tan hides the old-fashioned way using all natural resources and turn a fleshy deerskin into a beautiful piece of buckskin. Learn More…
Stealth and Awareness
June 14, 2025
A fun filled day of pushing your awareness and stealth skills. Learn More…
Black Ash Basketry: Berry Baskets
June 15, 2025
Join Penny Hewitt for a day of black ash weaving making a durable, beautiful, and very useful berry gathering basket. Learn More…
Tracking and Awareness
June 21-22, 2025
Learn clear print identification, gait interpretation, sign tracking, aging, trailing and methods for pushing your sensory and situational awareness. Learn More…
Willow Basketry: Stake and Strand
July 12-13, 2025 Sold Out
Join the talented Sandra Kehoe for two days of willow weaving focused on stand and strand techniques. Learn More…
Land Navigation
July 19, 2025
One of the most important survival skills, staying found. Read mapsand navigate using a compasss and the landscape Learn More…
Scout
August 3-9, 2025
Old skills that belong to everyone. Learn to defend yourself and loved ones through awareness, blending with the landscape, martial arts, and teamwork. Learn More…
Roots Rendezvous
August 30-September 1, 2025
Our annual gathering where we come together to celebrate three days of skills with tons of insructors and classes to explore. Learn More…
Animal Processing
September 13, 2025
A hands-on education in skinning, field dressing, and butchering your own wild game or livestock. Learn More…
Wilderness Self Reliance
September 25-26, 2025
Take a first step into learning wilderness survival with this course that covers the basics of shelter, water, fire and food. Learn More…
Black Ash Basketry: Pack Baskets
September 27-28, 2025
Black ash pack baskets are iconic for a reason: they are durable, functional, and gorgeous. Weave your own! Learn More…
Wild Edible Foraging
October 11, 2025
Start off with a botany lesson then head to the field and forest to learn to identify, harvest, and prepare wild edibles. Learn More…
Willow Basketry: Stake and Strand
October 18-19, 2025 Sold Out
Join the talented Sandra Kehoe for two days of willow weaving focused on stand and strand techniques. Learn More…
Course To be Announced
A Handcrafted Life
One weekend a month.
TBA
A series of projects designed to get students working with a variety of tools and materials crafting objects to be used in your day-to-day life. Learn More…
WSIP: Wilderness Survival Immersion Program
TBA
Eight months, one weekend a month, ends with a 4-day full survival trip. Build and sleep in shelters, become proficient at bow drill fire in all conditions, learn to purify water, find food through foraging edible plants, hunting, and trapping.
The Way of the Woods: Land Knowledge and Traditional Hand Crafts
March 22- September 14 One weekend a month.
Naturalist skills meets applied traditional crafts. Get hands on and learn to see through the wall of green! Learn More…
Winter Survival
TBA
Winter shelter building, winter hunting and trapping, survival snowshoes, winter fire making techniques, bark foods, and much more.
Pelt Tanning
TBA
Furs and pelts introduce you to the principals and processes of hide tanning while being less intensive and more approachable than tanning a deer hide into buckskin.
Flint Knapping Stone Tools
TBA
Learn the oldest know humans skills set- turing rocks into useful tools such as knifes, scrapers, drills and projectile points.
Willow Basketry: Ribbed Baskets
TBA
Learn the ribbed willow basketry style with Sandra Kehoe.
Hat Felting
TBA
Make the warmest of hats, amazing camo or pick your own design!
Diagonal Plaited Birch Bark
TBA
Take birch bark from fallen tree and weave it into beautiful containers using diagonal weaving.
Advanced Scout
TBA
The next level of scout training. A slower pace with more refined tactics and techniques and higher performance. Still type 2 fun.
Long Term Intensives
A Handcrafted Life
A series of projects designed to get students working with a variety of tools and materials crafting objects to be used in your day-to-day life. Learn More…
Traditional Bow Hunting 8 Month Intensive
Build your own wooden bow and arrows, tan hides, track game, process animals, and scout and hunt. Learn More…
The Gatherer's Program: Foraging, Herbal Medicine, & Basketry
Willow gathering baskets, black ash pack baskets, fibers & dyes, seasonal foraging, herbalism and more! Spring to fall. Learn More…
The Way of the Woods: Land Knowledge and Traditional Hand Crafts
Naturalist skills and natural history meets applied traditional crafts and wildcrafting. Get hands on and comfortable in the forest and learn to see through the wall of green! Learn More…
Custom Programs
Roots is happy to help you design the course that works for your needs as an individual or to teach at your school or organization. Sky is the limit!
Online Academy
A couple of video Master Classes produced in house here at Roots. Learn More…
Youth Programs
Roots has a variety of programs for children year round. We have a couple Summer Day Camps, a school year one day a week homeschool program, and weekend classes such as Children’s Bow Making. We also have family events that are all ages such as the Family Survival Weekend and the Roots Rendezvous.
WSIP: Wilderness Survival Immersion Program
Nine months, one weekend a month, starts with a 4 day course and ends with a 4 day full survival trip. Learn to take care of your most basic needs with just your own two hands, your mind, and your motivation. Build and sleep in shelters, become proficient at bow drill fire in all conditions, learn to purify water, find food through foraging edible plants, hunting, and trapping.
Gatherer`s program for 2025 has one spot open.
This here is the spirit of the program, but with a northeast flavor. Weave baskets, forage foods, and make plant based medicine.
We`ve been able to stay with feiend here @caribbean_earth_skills where there are loads of weaving materials to be had and fruit to eat. With the wild cats claw and Puerto Rican basket vine I wove a basket to bring to the farmers market where I picked up malay apples, passion fruits, star fruit, bananas, mango, tamarind, and tomatoes (peak season right now). Only fruits missing are all the coconuts.
We`ll be saying goodbye and heading back to mud season, starting plants and awaiting the spring to leap forward into the green part of the year.
Sarah and Ronin catching a sunset on the West End.
It`s a rare thing when some one`s passion is matched by their ability to share as a teacher. Will Nissen (one half of @thebluecartcraft) brought both to the first day of the Handcrafted program as he guided folks in carving a wooden bowl. He shared his knowledge, good nature, tools and tool use and folks learned so much. The wood has been reduced close to their final form and will be finished in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to it!
I`m not always right? WTF? Knapping with stone, vs antler, vs copper, one what stone, when? Breaking rock is such a key skill that too few put the time into...they call it the stone age for a reason!
More on me hating on Micro Pressure Releases! This was a fun exchange where Matt and I share our thoughts and even some feelings about different aspects of Tracking....Full Episode Tracking Fact vs Fiction: https://youtu.be/d8LCKm26Mi0
We`re just a lonely little island...😭
Leave No Trace has a place, but that really only were human traffic is high like national and state parks, the rest of the wild lands can benefit from human interaction if people take the time to get to know it.
Know the tree.
Pound the wood.
Shape the splints.
Weave the basket.
There is more to this act. The tools, the nuance, the time and physicality, the understanding of function.
Come join Justin @back_to_the_earth_wilderness as he guides you through the steps to weave your own basket.
This is a part of the Handcrafted Life program. It starts in a couple of weeks! There are a few spots open and we would love for you to join up if interested.
Next Skillist Episode is out on our youtube channel. EP 9 Scout Skills- The What and the Why....
Check out the full episode here: https://youtu.be/SZLw3E8fBV0
EP 8 Wilderness Survival Fire Skills. In this Episode Matt and I talk all things fire, building them, using them, making them with bow drill and teaching them. Check the link in bio for our youtube or look for Skillist on you favorite podcast app.
Spoons and spatulas. They get used everyday. I have my favorites that delight me. I also have the first ones I carved that are awkward chunky straight sticks with a bowl that`s too big. Well, I`ve likely burned those by now but they have a place in the evolution of someone learning to make a lovely spoon. We want to help catapult you beyond that initial rough stage into making a utensil that is beautiful that you`ll cherish.
We are very excited to have @teeter.bradley come up to the school and teach the art of spoons and spatulas. (His work pictured here) Him and Will Nissen, who will be teaching bowl carving, have jointly created @thebluecartcraft
This is a part of the long term program; Handcrafted Life. Come elevate your carving game, understand wood in a new way, appreciate elegant transitions in a spoon and walk away confident in your ability to carve beautiful utensils.
📷 @teeter.bradley
Ep 7 Skillist Podcast- Arrow Making is up on You tube and your favorite podcast apps. In this one Matt and I get into the nitty gritty of making arrows, broadheads, blunts, nocks, shafting, fletching, and tons of other details!
Tools of daily use.
A broom.
Fashioned in both beauty and quality by your hands. With a thread and needle, broomcorn and a young sapling. Led by Hannah Mitchell @therowdysprout
Handcrafted Life program begins in one month.
This, and baskets, knives, spoons, bowls, blacksmithing, hat making and more. Jump on in!
Lovely pictures by @therowdysprout
Crafting takes courage. -Matisse
Get to know metal as a material as a part of the Handcrafted Life program and forge yourself a tool.
The Gatherer`s program.
This little skeleton resides as the program mascot, a wee memento mori as we hustle and bustle during the growing months. Summers here are fast and we only so many in our life to embrace. With winter here, I`m dreaming and planning this coming year`s Gatherer`s program. What to keep, to change, to compost, to bring forth. We do so much over the seven months, learn so many different skills so that folks have a really comfortable relationship with plants that they can go forth and expand from. We forage and prepare foods, make medicine from plants we gather, weave baskets from willow, black ash and willow bark, and learn so much from the skills and talents of others in the class. This is the biggest win of meeting up in person as there will be classmates that have talents beyond the scope of the program who are talented in fermentation, fizzy drinks, seeds, lotion bars etc. and we get to learn from everyone.
We love this. Maybe you do too.
The baskets are the same in form yet all different reflecting how each student executes the process and carries their personal touch.
Guided by @lazymillhillfarm
Picture by @sandra.kehoe.5