Outdoor Education in Seattle, Snohomish, Bellevue & Beyond

Wilderness Survival Training including Bow Drill Fire-by-Friction

Sat, Mar 21 · 9:30 AM PDT

Wolf Camp and the Conservation College, 1026 14th St SW, Puyallup, WA, US

We'll start the workshop with the most critical information everything else flows from: an overview of our order of emergency survival – with or without gear in town or wilderness. We’ll also discuss the most essential tools to carry with you depending on your skill level. For a primer, read our article on the Critical Order of Emergency Survival, and remember, survival requires multi-tasking, so during this time, we will also pass out materials for you to learn the “reverse wrap” method of making rope which you can work on during the powerpoint.

We will also discuss a big dilemma in survival situations: when to stay and when to go. We have a formula for you to decide, taking into consideration the amount of daylight, your available gear, your position relative to where you are and who you notified about your trip, and how “hungry, angry, lonely, tired and thirsty” you are. Depending on your score, you will either have to make shelter or navigate your way out of a mock survival scenario. Additional skills will include the the Top 10 Hazards to avoid, so that you never experience a survival situation.

The Bow Drill & Fire by Friction portion of the workshop runs in the afternoon and begins by showing you how to gather fire making materials, and walking you through the Best Way To Make A Fire which is critical for starting fire in the rain. We’ll view a variety of materials to see how they burn as tinder: various barks, seed down, leaves, laundry lint, and grass are used for different circumstances, and you can choose your own materials for a tinder bundle. The reason we always emphasize basic fire-making skills along with traditional fire-by-friction is that there’s no reason to bother making a bow-drill coal, let alone striking a match, unless you’ve prepared materials that will sustain your fire. The scenario will require you to choose the best natural shelter and fire location in the area, then see if you can start and maintain a fire.

To build your bow drill kit, we’ll start with a knife safety/efficiency training while reflecting the symbolism of the parts of the bow drill kit. In so doing, you may come to realize why this method of fire-by-friction was preferred (and superior even to matches) for lighting fires in cold and wet climates. It should only take 10 seconds to create a coal if your kit is well constructed. You will be using your knife to split a 3 inch piece of cedar to make your hand-hold socket, and do the same with your 12 inch piece to create a bottom board and 2 spindle “blanks.” You’ll carve a spindle to the perfect shape, mold your hand-hold into a comfortable socket, prepare points on your hearth in preparation for drilling, and carve one of those points into a perfect-sized notch where your coal will later be born. We will also stop to show you alternatives you would have to look for in the wilderness to make your fire kit without a knife, but again, it is critical that you use good material for your first kit in order to develop excellent form.

## FAQs


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.

COST is $165 for one person, or $130 per additional friend/family member registering with you in advance. Reserve your spots via one of the following methods, or click on specific programs for FAQs:

• Zelle is preferred using our email address with that extra “e” on skye plus try to add a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine if system doesn’t allow sharing email) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us;
• Or use Venmo to @Chris-Chisholm-13 or • CashApp to $wolfschool but again, try to add your contact information, camper name, program theme and dates, or follow up right away with that via email;
• Or use Credit Card, PayPal or Apple Pay;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 with a credit card to register over the phone;

Wild Edible Foods Foraging & Herbal Medicine Making Workshop

Sat, Apr 4 · 9:30 AM PDT

Wolf Camp and the Conservation College, 1026 14th St SW, Puyallup, WA, US

Learn when and where to look for the Top Wild Foods and Top Medicinal Plants of our region, and practice honorable harvesting methods as we select the plant parts we need for wild crafted recipes later in the day. We’ll also cover poisonous look-a-likes and wildcrafting safety. When we return to Blue Skye Farm, we’ll process and cook what we’ve collected into yummy treats, and prepare herbal remedies, with stations including:

• Station 1: Herbal Oil, Alcohol Intermediary & Salve Options: Plantain, Poplar Buds, Yarrow, Calendula, Lavendar
• Station 2: Alcohol Tincture Options: Vanilla, Oregon Grape, Usnea Lichen
• Station 3: Glycerite Options: Mints & More
• Station 4: Vinegars/Oxymel Options: Nutritional Dock Root, Pickled Garden Veggies
• Station 5: Teas/Infusions: Pine Family Needles for Vitamin C, Dried Nettles for Allergies/Immunity, Pineapple Weed as American Chamomile, Various Blue Skye Farm Medicinal Herbs
• Station 6: Syrup & Soda Options: Elderberry, Lemonbalm, Catnip
• Station 7: Sautes & Chip Options: Cattail Rhizomes, Dandelion Flowers, Nettle Leaves, Pine/Oak Bark
• Station 8: Nut Milk & Dessert Options: Cashew Milk, Hazelnut Milk & Truffles
• Station 9: Cooking Options: Nettle Soup, Nettle Pesto, Wild Edibles Gathered
• Station 10: Ethnobotany Books & Wildcrafting Supplies


“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

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

COST is $195 for one person, or $165 per additional friend/family member registering with you in advance. Reserve your spots via one of the following methods, or click on specific programs for FAQs:

• Zelle is preferred using our email address with that extra “e” on skye plus try to add a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine if system doesn’t allow sharing email) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us;
• Or use Venmo to @Chris-Chisholm-13 or • CashApp to $wolfschool but again, try to add your contact information, camper name, program theme and dates, or follow up right away with that via email;
• Or use Credit Card, PayPal or Apple Pay;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 with a credit card to register over the phone;

Wildlife Safety, Bird Alarms, Animal Tracks & Trails

Sat, Apr 11 · 9:30 AM PDT

Orting Bell Tower, Train Ave S, Orting, WA, US

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.


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

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

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.

COST is $135 for one person, or $110 per additional friend/family member registering with you in advance. Reserve your spots via one of the following methods, or click on specific programs for FAQs:

• Zelle is preferred using our email address with that extra “e” on skye plus try to add a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine if system doesn’t allow sharing email) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us;
• Or use Venmo to @Chris-Chisholm-13 or • CashApp to $wolfschool but again, try to add your contact information, camper name, program theme and dates, or follow up right away with that via email;
• Or use Credit Card, PayPal or Apple Pay;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 with a credit card to register over the phone;

Backcountry Safety, Natural Navigation, Map & Compass Workshop

Sat, May 2 · 9:30 AM PDT

Chris Chisholm, 28514 WA-706, Ashford, WA, US

Complimentary transportation available from Puyallup departing at 8 AM en route to our favorite backcountry navigation site in the Tahoma State Forest near Ashford WA on the road to Paradise, Mt. Rainier.

This workshop will give you great teaching tools for use when hiking and backpacking. If you are “navigationally challenged,” then we hope the simple way we teach these skills will open a world of understanding for you in the wilderness. If you are ready to guide others, we hope this workshop will give you the tools to lead.

Top 10 Lostproofing Skills: The most important skill for lostproofing is awareness. In fact, some people say there is no such thing as being lost, just in being unaware, so we will practice skills to improve your spacial recognition including wide-angle vision, expanded hearing, and new ways of walking appropriate to various environments, among other skills such as reviewing the 10 Packing Essentials and risk management tips shared from our Search & Rescue background.

Top 10 Orienteering Skills: You will be amazed by some of the incredible ways to find north-south-east-west in order to walk in a straight line toward your destination on a map. One of our favorite is floating a leaf in water, and placing a pin on the leaf. Amazingly, it points to magnetic north. We’ll demonstrate that, and some other ways to orient yourself to the cardinal directions in city and wilderness, from GPS to the stars.

Top 10 Navigation Skills: There are some very important skills to learn in order to negotiate your way through nature without map or compass. For instance, do you know how to follow the contours of a hill in order to stay above thick brush and away from steep cliffs? How about lining up landmarks in order to go straight? We’ll talk about these skills and practice others as allowed by time and location.

Map & Compass Field Training: No matter whether you have GPS or not, the crux of these skills is understanding map and compass. Our method of using map and compass should allay your fears, even when it comes to contour lines and magnetic declination. We are going to transition to a big, near-by commuter parking lot to practice navigating with compasses, as well as we helping you test to see if you are “right or left dominant” because when walking in nature, most people continually veer left or right when they actually want to go straight. Key to navigating in nature is learning how to compensate for your dominance.

## FAQs


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? To get a jump-start on the skills we cover in this class click here for our blog post on the subject but otherwise, prepare as you normally would for a hike, including snacks, lunch, water bottle, 10 Essentials, etc. – all that a safe hiker or any leader should bring, plus hats, warm clothes, proper footwear, and rain gear as necessary for the outdoor portion of class.

Also bring an Orienteering Compass if possible, but please note that “surveyor’s compasses” and other non-map-compasses won’t work. If you don’t have a hiking compass yet, we have the Rothco Orienteering Compass Item #337 for sale at $15, or buy in advance the Brunton 15TDCL Compass in the $35 price range for precise mirrored sighting and adjustable declination, or the Silva Ranger 515 Compass at about $45, or the patented Suunto “global needle’s unique ability to handle tilts up to 20 degrees makes it perfect for hikers that don’t want to break their stride.

COST is $165 for one person, or $130 per additional friend/family member registering with you in advance. Reserve your spots via one of the following methods, or click on specific programs for FAQs:

• Zelle is preferred using our email address with that extra “e” on skye plus try to add a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine if system doesn’t allow sharing email) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us;
• Or use Venmo to @Chris-Chisholm-13 or • CashApp to $wolfschool but again, try to add your contact information, camper name, program theme and dates, or follow up right away with that via email;
• Or use Credit Card, PayPal or Apple Pay;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 with a credit card to register over the phone;