Article: Wilderness skills courses, taught for hikers

[Tha Wookie]

The Athens GA paper (Banner Herald) wrote a pretty good story about our wildskills classes we've been doing with some AT/PCT hikers and regional survival experts. I thought some of you might enjoy. The link requires a free registration to see the pictures. I've posted the full text below.
http://onlineathens.com/stories/0926...60926011.shtml


AIMING FOR A SPARK
By Erin Rossier Story updated at 9:04 PM on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
The Athens Banner-Herald, Living


Somewhere inside of you is a set of living skills hearkening back to the Stone Age.

Nate Olive didn't find them until he traded his Bic lighter on the hiking trail for two sticks and a spark.

Since then, his handiwork in the wild has increased tenfold, along with his appreciation for the environment. He can make twine from poplar and yucca parts, knap arrowheads and identify plants that nourish and heal.

Now Olive is planning to help others in Athens learn how to make do off the land - for fun.

"We don't all live in the woods and wear loincloths or anything [well not all the time]," Olive said. "As we each have been introduced to these skills individually, we've found that they've connected us with our local environment in ways that were impossible before."

He was nowhere near his Athens home in 2004 when he first encountered this way of getting by in nature.

Trekking through trails on the West Coast [actually it was a year earlier, in the Arizona wilderness], someone [Ray Jardine] introduced Olive to a handmade tool called a bow drill and its use to make fire by friction.

"I already have a Bic lighter," Olive said, recalling his thought at the time. "Why would I need that?"

An adventurous man, he gave it a shot. More than heat generated.

Olive learned to think differently with each glance to a tree, forest bed and flower.


Want to know more?

For more information about wild skills workshops or the Virgin Island Bush Skills week, e-mail [email protected] or log on to www.nateolive.com.

"You see all these valuable items in the forest. What that does is it completely changes your perspective on how you live in your natural landscape here," Olive said. "It breeds this inherent responsibility and stewardship."

He continued tending his interest at home, joining with Athens-area musician and naturalist Carl Lindberg, who co-owns the organic Roots Farm in Winterville.

They attended workshops taught by instructors advanced in "primitive" skills know-how, later deciding to connect people in Athens who care about practicing such earthy approaches. Teaching others through beginner and advanced sessions followed. So did building a network of like-minded "hobbyists."

"All of a sudden these very knowledgeable people started to emerge in town. Also, we wanted to learn ourselves," Olive said. "We thought, 'Why don't we do something to pull out these great elders?'"

Bill Burt was one of those men contacted. A former teacher of survival and primitive skills at Georgia Perimeter College, Burt formerly guided students through hands-on activities on topics reaching far beyond basic direction and smoke signals. Leather-, pottery- cloth-, basket- and shelter-making are among the potential areas of study, he said.

"I like to say, 'You need a blade, a flame and something to wrap it up in ... fire, a sharp edge and cordage,' " Burt said. "With those three things our ancestors got along in the wilderness."

Getting along are key words, said Scott Jones, and the main difference between real practice outdoors and what's exhibited on television in reality shows such as Survivor. Contrary to what's presented, those who actually practice wild skills are not cut-throat camper types with chiseled abs and model looks.

Building items from scratch takes cooperation and patience, themes running in contrast to the exaggerated shows that "pit people against people," Jones said.

Through his business Media Preshistoria, Jones works as a self-employed prehistoric educator and archaeological consultant. He often finds groups interested in learning about how their Stone Age ancestors lived arrive with all sorts of backgrounds and interests.

What typically does hold true are younger men's abiding interest in forging arrowheads without much mind to the artistry of the craft, he said.

"There is no way to really cubby hole the people who really take these courses. They are from all walks of life in this," Jones said. "We get people who are academics, sort of a subgroup who we affectionately call the 'bush hippies' and the modern everything in between. We get housewives whose children have grown up and they just want something different."

Proving the wide appeal last fall and this spring were the successful series held at Sandy Creek Nature Center, the first host site for Olive's wild-skills workshops. The classes attracted a number of men and women, including several from out of state [like Sgt. Rock and his boys], said volunteer coordinator Carly Robinson.

Olive and friends followed it up this summer with several workshops at Lindberg's farm, which included a campout and advanced skills session taught by Burt, Jones and others.

The group's next adventure will include a preparatory class in November followed by a field trip to the Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute.

Whereas the focus here often gravitates around the Native American experience and techniques, in the Caribbean setting, exercises will be geared around the water-based geography. Making nets, harvesting fish, coconut and stone craft and cooking tropical fish and plants are among the activities planned.

"There are some schools that really push their students to the edge. We're not about that at all," Olive said. "We're about gently passing along some knowledge ... the whole point is you can learn from all these skills that have survived for more than 10,000 years."


Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 092606

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 092606

http://www.thawookie.com/wildskills.htm <--Here's the link to our course page about our Nov 11th class

http://www.visfi.org/cms/index.php/programs/skills2 <------and the Dec 9-16 Bush Skills week in the Virgin Islands

[Bloodroot]

Cool....you gonna team up with Survivorman on the next episode?

Just kidding! I think it's great that people have the opportunity to learn and connect with the environment with programs like this. Too many people fail to realize what life would have really been like without the evolution of the human brain.