A four day class where students start with a stave and end with a beautiful and functional wooden long bow. During the class students will learn stave selection, bow design and performance, drawing and rough shaping, profiling, floor tillering, tillering, string making, and finishing. We also take a quick look at instinctive archery. Expect long days of hand tool use and a totally new understanding of wood.

Traditional hunters often spent more time perfecting their arrows than their bows. In the act of hunting it is the arrow that delivers the killing blow, and its quality and precision are of the utmost importance. Thus, the process of building primitive arrows is an intricate art that is often overlooked. In this course we will cover shaft harvesting, preparation and straightening, pitch preparation, fletching and hafting.

We will be taking a look at  bow drill, a fire by friction technique, and bring it to an elevated level both in material and technique.  To create a kit that is long term as well as beautiful we will craft a high performing flex bow out of Osage orange and peck a stone handhold that will never have to be replaced.  We will also take a look at techniques and various ways to troubleshoot and modify your kit so that you can be versatile as you coax fire from wood.

There are many ways to utilize an animals skin. One of the most easily accessible and useful techniques is crafting with rawhide. In this short one day course we will go over processing rawhide from a fresh skin and how to source materials. Then we will get into several approaches to using rawhide, from straps, to bags, to sheaths, to boxes and other containers. All materials are included.

Felling a tree, shaping a bow, digging out a canoe, and building long term shelter were all common practices to stone age people. Before metal axes and saws, primitive people had highly developed and effective stone celts, chisels, adzes, and axes. Through the process of chipping, pecking, and grinding, functional and beautiful tools were created by people throughout the world and throughout time. This process is work intensive, and requires patience and focus, yet the result is a tool fully primitively crafted, and ready to be put to work. Students in this course will have the choice to create one tool, but through that process learn how to create whatever size and type of pecked and ground stone tool they need.

The Ancient Living Skills course is built around the skills and material processes needed to thrive in long term survival or primitive living. Students will gain hands on experience with a wide array of materials and functional skills through a selection of projects such as: bone and antler knives, awls, and tools, advanced cordage, drop spindle and twined tump lines, raw hide and bentwood burden baskets, birch bark plaiting, pitch epoxy, soap stone carving and several smaller projects. This course presents a wide range of the primitive skills world. Through awareness, hard work, and ingenuity, we can provide for all of our needs with what the landscape offers first hand in our own region. The majority of materials will be local to Vermont.