What we’re about
Meet people practicing Earth Skills, which includes the study of nature, survival, wildlife tracking and birding, herbal medicine and wild edible foods, natural arts and music, traditional technologies and permaculture. We welcome you and hope to see you soon!
This site is maintained by The Conservation College and we welcome any individual or organization in the area to post classes, camps and workshops taking place in the South Sound, Central Cascades, Olympic Mountains & Washington Coast. For events taking place in King, Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom & Kittitas Counties, see the Outdoor Education in Seattle, Snohomish, Bellevue & Beyond meetup group.
Upcoming events (2)
See all- Wild Edible Foods Foraging & Herbal Medicine Making WorkshopWolf Camp and the Conservation College, Puyallup, WA$95.00
Saturday, March 23, 2024 from 9:30-4:30 at Blue Skye Farm in Puyallup WA and continuing into the wilds to learn when and where to look for the Top Wild Foods and Top Medicinal Plants of our region. For an additional $5 off to register friends and family members, use Promo Code ADDITIONALFRIENDSFAM
On our journey, you’ll learn key plant families, discuss and practice honorable harvesting methods, and form closer bonds to plant allies as we select the plant parts we need for wild crafted recipes. We’ll also mention poisonous look-a-likes and discuss safety in the forest.
In the afternoon, we’ll return to Blue Skye Farm to process and cook the plants for yummy treats and prepare a couple of herbal remedies such as teas and tinctures. Although there will be tasty samples of wild edibles, please pack a lunch and/or snacks to supplement what we collect.
![img](https://i0.wp.com/www.wolfcollege.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/paleo-3-224x300.jpg?resize=217%2C290)
“It was a relaxed group of participants with varying degrees of outdoors experience. Throughout the day, we learned about the uses of local plants for survival. Chris encouraged active learning among the group with his careful explanations on how to harvest and consume plants on the trail in a sustainable way. We spent the second half of the day at Chris and Kim’s farm, where we saw how to make a fire, soup bowls, and boiled nettle stew using nothing but wood and stone. We also used freshly harvested ingredients to make tinctures and balms that we took home in sample jars. As another eloquent attendee put it, learning how to survive in nature makes it possible to walk out of your home and feel like you’re walking into your living room. By the end of this meetup, sitting by our fire and drinking nettle soup, I had tasted the possibilities of living in the wilderness, and was ready to come back to learn survival skills in more serious detail.” – Samual Wan 2010/03/05## FAQs
![img](https://i1.wp.com/www.wolfcollege.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LorienChrisKim-copy.jpg?resize=187%2C153&ssl=1)
Who are the instructors? Wolf Camp directors Kim & Chris Chisholm are leading the workshops this weekend.
What ages can participate? Workshops are designed for adults, but youth may enroll with a parent/guardian.
How should we prepare for the workshop? Please prepare as you normally would for a hike, including snacks, lunch, water bottle, 10 essentials, etc., but especially with appropriate clothing including rain gear and waterproof footwear. Also, if you don’t already have any plant field guides, consider the following that we’ll also have on hand:
– Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar and MacKinnon, et al
– Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel
– Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs – A Beginner’s Guide
– Picture This app to supplement Seek for plant identification - Wildlife Safety, Bird Alarms, Animal Tracks & TrailsOrting Bell Tower, Orting, WA$95.00
##### Saturday, March 30, 2024 Workshop from 9:30-4:30 in Orting WA, just 45 minutes south of SeaTac. For an additional $5 off to register friends and family members, use Promo Code ADDITIONALFRIENDSFAM
Join us for a great day tracking and trailing wild animals. Learn to know when cougars, coyotes, bears or other critters are around by listening to the birds on the trail, and learn what to do in case you run into them. Learn to view nature like a detective, following clues and solving mysteries that others neglect to see. Amazingly, animals reveal themselves to all who can read their stories in the earth. As you will see, tracks can even tell us about the size, health, emotions, history and even intentions of animals which would otherwise remain hidden all around us.
![img](https://i0.wp.com/www.wolfcollege.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/NikkiCougarTrack-300x231.jpg?resize=240%2C185)
We’ll start with a safety overview for living, hiking, hunting and foraging in wolf, cougar and bear country. It is important to understand large predators and their prey in order to keep yourself safe, and to keep them safe in the wild. That’s the crux of the matter: everyone wants to protect nature and themselves at the same time. The key is knowledge, and taking right action based on that knowledge. Each species has particular triggers to become aware of, and you should learn their “language” in order to avoid problems.The workshop takes place where sign of all the big and little wild animals found in our bioregion are concentrated. Whether you hunt with a camera, bow or gun, or if you just love northwest wildlife, you are welcome you to join us for a special day of tracking. Learn specialized tracking and trailing skills as we venture to get close to elk, deer, bear, and a host of other critters as well. In addition to learning what to do in case you run into bears on the trail, you will gain skills to help you become the first to know where to find (or avoid) their hidden dens.
![img](https://i0.wp.com/www.wolfcollege.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Cougar-Tracks-Found-While-Wolf-Tracking-224x300.jpg?resize=240%2C321)
The most important skill in nature is awareness, whether it be for safety or discovering animals. We will start by practicing “wide angle vision” like owls do, plus “expanded hearing” like deer use to decipher whether sounds they hear in the forest are predators or friendlies, and the “stealth walk” like foxes teach us in order to move undetected in nature so we see more animals and experience their behavior as if we weren’t there. We like to say that if you bring home just one set of skills from tonight’s class, that these awareness activities are it. They will help you see more wildlife, and keep you safer, in city and wilderness, better than any other set of knowledge.In order to help you open to a world of evidence that animals leave wherever they move, we’ll look for and discuss scrapes, lays, burrows, latrines, larders, nests, partial tracks, pressure releases, vegetative cuttings, and everything else we can find – even the condition of feathers to determine exactly how or if a bird might have been killed or injured.You also have to be able to trail animals if you want to find them, so now that your eyes are adjusted to seeing sign, we’re going to train you in the kind of trailing that real animal trackers use, keeping your head up and walking fast, identifying voices of the birds to know what is up ahead!
##### FAQs
![img](https://i0.wp.com/www.wolfcollege.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LorienChrisKim-copy.jpg?resize=187%2C153&ssl=1)
Who are the instructors? Wolf Camp directors Kim & Chris Chisholm are leading this workshop.
What ages can participate? Workshops are designed for adults, but youth may enroll with a parent/guardian.
How should we prepare for the workshop? Please prepare as you normally would for a hike, including snacks, lunch, water bottle, 10 essentials, etc., but especially with appropriate clothing including rain gear and waterproof footwear. Also, bring along a set of binoculars, digital camera, and if you don’t have a birding field guide yet and wish to purchase one, we recommend: Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest by David Moskowitz, among others.