One-Day Courses
Survival Challenge
New For 2010 - Dates TBD
24 hours - 9 am to 9 am
This new course is an Earth Connection exclusive!
Our new Survival Challenge class will put your skills, your body and your tenacity to the test. Over a 24 hour period, we will push you to your physical and mental limits. Through a series of challenges, you will accomplish the tasks of survival and be provided with the opportunity for a "Gut Check" to see what really makes you tick. If you are not sure what makes you tick - you will know after we get through with you. Just some of the tasks and challenges are as follows:
Shelter building
Fire starting under "extreme conditions"
Survival fishing, gutting and cooking your catch
Physical fitness
Wilderness Medicine and first aid scenarios
No prior experience or significant skills level is required, but it certainly would help. This will be a hands-on learning opportunity. Bring one 5x8 plastic tarp, one wool or synthetic fiber blanket, one 1 quart water bottle, and one knife - bring no food - no other survival gear. Bring suitable clothes and only the four items listed above.
Stone Tools Friction Fire
New For 2010 September 25 in Virginia
9 am to 4 pm
This new course will focus on the Bow Drill, Hand Drill and Fire Plow methods of friction fire making and use ONLY traditional stone tools and materials. This class brings a whole new level to the already tricky task of making Friction Fire. We will dig into our ancestor's tool box for the construction of the fire making equipment and supplies. Students will construct stone tools during the class, and use them to build fire making sets, all of which will be theirs to keep. Join us to learn how to primitively split out planks for fire boards, learn to make bow drill cord from bark and fibers, knap out some stone saw blades, and use these things to make fire. This is the highest level of fire making art, presented as only Earth Connection can.
Friction Fire Making
October 28 in Virginia
9 am to 4 pm
This course will focus on the Bow Drill and Hand Drill methods of friction fire making and how to easily start a fire. Fire safety, tinder, fire wood selection, and setting up a primitive fireplace will be covered in addition to some of the history and physics of friction fire making. Proper construction and use of the fire making equipment will be emphasized during the course. Students will construct fire making sets which will be theirs to keep from a variety of materials provided by us. Our one day Friction Fire Making course teaches the Hand Drill friction fire making method because it is the easiest fire kit to make, and this method had the widest use through prehistory and world cultures. The Bow Drill is also taught in this course because it is the easiest method for beginners to make friction fire.
Friction Fire Materials Identification
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
This course will focus on the skills that we consider the most important in the art of friction fire. These skills are plant and tree identification and proper material selection. We will study plant and tree families to learn general characteristics and then focus on the unique attributes of individual species. For example... did you ever try to use Hemlock pine for drills and fire boards? Did you use the trunk wood from a tree, or the branch wood? There is a surprising difference between the different parts of the same tree. That's the kind of advice we will be packing into this one day long class. Students will go through field and forest, identifying, harvesting and then using suitable woods and plant materials to construct fire making sets during the class. Beginning Fire Makers are welcome too. We will be demonstrating the assembly and proper use of fire kit materials and then using the kits during the course.
Seasonal Wild Edible Plants - classes each season - Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall
October 23 in Virginia - October 29 in Virginia
9 am to 4 pm
Our Seasonal Wild Edible Plant courses focus on the different plants and plant uses of each season. These are one day classes. Each course is a guided walk through different habitats, identifying, collecting and frequent sampling wild plant foods, and pointing out harmful plants to avoid. Each course will cover approximately 40 plants, shrubs and trees, depending on the season. We will cover proper identification and use of these plants, whether plants are native or introduced, when and where to safely collect plants and conservation techniques. Each student gets an Earth Connection plant handout with full color photos and written plant information. Wild edible snacks are a part of each course.
Primitive Wilderness Survival Strategies
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
Like the Modern Survival Strategies course, this class covers crucial skills to ensure your safety and well-being in any survival situation. But in this class, we use Primitive Skills as our ultimate back up plan. Topics include: Priorities of Survival, leaf hut shelter construction, friction fire with the Bow Drill, primitive cooking, using fire to make wooden dishes, making string from bark and using stone age tools.
Modern Wilderness Survival Strategies
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
Do you know what constitutes a survival situation and how to properly navigate it? In this course we go over both modern and primitive skills necessary in any survival situation. Topics of instruction include: priorities of survival, survival kit construction, fire strategies, modern water purification, signaling for help and building tarp shelters.
Tracks and Sign
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
Our Tracks and Sign class is the special project of instructor "Hue" Hueston. Learn the beginning "steps" for the ancient art tracking. Clear foot print identification; animal scat and sign identification; and animal behavior will be taught just for starters. This is a great class for anyone interested in seeing the great outdoors through the eyes of a tracker.
Primitive Trapping
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
Earth Connection's Primitive Trapping class will teach you how to put your hard earned tracking skills to task by constructing simple traps to secure wild animals for food. Trapping is probably the most efficient way to gather food in a survival situation as they conserve your energy and hunt for you while you rest or work on other survival tasks. Students will learn the basic principles behind traps and how to construct them focusing on the more familiar (and using less cordage) deadfalls and snares including the figure-four, Paiute deadfall, wire snare, and their variations. In addition, more complicated trapping methods using kinetic engines (and much more cordage) will be demonstrated including many variations of the toggle stick and spring pole traps. We will cover sign tracking as it applies to trap location, baiting and trap camouflage. We will also look into simple fish traps to add more variety to your primitive diet. This class harms NO animals and all local trapping laws are adhered to.
Land Navigation
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
You'll never be lost again with navigation expert Rick "Hue" Hueston at the helm. Hue spent a lot of his venerable 20 year military career learning, using and then teaching land navigation. Now you can learn the skills of map and compass orienteering. Navigating cross-country from point A to point B takes more than walking the distance and in the primitive is sometime more art than science. This class provides the basic skills required to navigate cross-country day and night using modern (sorry no GPS) and primitive techniques of direction finding, and how to use these skills in the field for day hikes or long-range outings. The class includes basic navigation principles (maps, compasses, declination, the forms of navigation, and route planning, day and night land navigation techniques), as well as advanced instruction in the skills of intersection and resection (triangulation), hand-drawn maps and using terrain features like "road signs." We will provide a compass for the class, but you can bring your own provided it is a well-crafted one. We recommend basic compasses from Silva/Brunton and Suunto.
Wild Brew 101
August 21 in Virginia
9 am to 4 pm
This class is a great introduction into the art of Home Brewing wine, mead and beer, with Earth Connection's own twist - wild edible plants for flavor! Students will learn the basics of fermentation for alcoholic beverages and home made soda. Materials will be provided by us, and supplemented by materials that we show you how to gather during the course. Each student will go home with several unique brews in process which we will have made during class that day. 21 and older only! ID's will be checked on arrival.
Basketry
September 26 in Virginia
9 am to 4 pm
Our Basketry course covers several styles of traditional basketry from around the world. The course includes information on basket material selection, harvesting techniques and seasons, how to make wicker basketry from vines, how to make coil basketry from grasses and twigs, and how to make bark baskets from sheets of bark. Materials will be provided by us, and supplemented by materials that we show how to gather during the course. Each student will go home with several primitive baskets of different styles, that they have made.
Emergency Fire Skills
Wes makes fire look easy at ECNC's Emergency Fire Skills Half Day
Dates TBD
2:30 pm - 5:30 pm
A well constructed fire can dry your clothes; increase your core temperature, cook your food, purify your water, and light your way. This course will cover skills including fire safety, proper fire materials, fire lay construction, and many methods of starting and maintaining fires, with modern and primitive techniques. This class will run from 2:30 pm - 5:30 pm at Earth Connection North Carolina near Raleigh.
Organic Gardening
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
Our Organic Gardening course will show you the ins and outs of certified organic gardening for the home gardener. Whether you have a farm, backyard or just a sunny patio or balcony, you can grow your own food in the safest way available. Learn about location, soils, soil amendments, composting, animal free gardening (no blood, crap or ground up bones in your soils), tools, garden beds, container gardening, irrigation, seed selection, growing your own seedlings, transplanting, garden plans, crop rotation, pest control, seed saving and much more!!! Each student gets an Earth Connection gardening handout with full color photos and written plant information. If you care about the food you are eating and want to grow your own, then this class is for you.
Primitive Cooking
August 22 in Virginia
9 am to 6 pm
Join us for our very ab-original cooking class; often imitated, but never duplicated! Our Primitive Cooking course will teach the food preparation skills of our ancestors as we use traditional cooking skills to create a feast for the mind and belly. Cooking techniques will be taught and during the course students will construct and use a stone fireplace with reflector, a stone oven and a steam pit. Other cooking methods to be covered are rock frying, coal baking, rock boiling in wooden bowls and a deer hide, clay baking and an Algonquin style green wood grill "Barbecue". Eating utensils, cooking containers and other subjects will be covered. A lunch, snacks and a dinner will also be part of this course. The menu for this course uses some modern ingredients and some traditional ones; and will include many kinds of meat prepared in different ways.
Emergency Preparedness
Dates TBD
9 am to 4 pm
Finally, a PRACTICAL and reasonable study in personal safety for emergency and disaster preparedness.
The class will cover the priorities of survival and help you determine the necessities you need during weather events, utility outages, and numerous other upsets that could occur in our daily lives. We will focus on the three main places you would need to be prepared for an emergency - your vehicle, your workplace and your home. The class will address both skills and supplies needed for shelter, first aid, water gathering and purification, food storage and rotation, fire making with modern devices, safe lighting and heating options, how to utilize many household objects for survival, and much more.
Weekend Courses
Wilderness Survival
September 16-17 in North Carolina - September 23-24 in Virginia
9 am on the first day until 4 pm on the second day
Our Wilderness Survival course is a 2 day course designed to instruct students in a wide variety of year-round life saving wilderness survival skills using the latest modern gear and the best historic outdoor skills. Students of this course will learn the priorities of survival, how not to get lost in the first place, how to signal for rescue, and what to put in survival kits. Skills will include building and camping out in one of the many tarp shelters to be covered; collecting and purifying water with several modern methods; and the basics of making and utilizing fire including flint & steel, batteries, magnifying lens, waterproofing matches and tinder. Food gathering instruction will include collecting and preparing nutritious edible plants, four different traps unique to this course and survival fishing. How to sharpen a knife with a stone, knots and string making will also be covered. We recommend this course for all outdoor persons.
Firepalooza
Dates TBD
9 am on the first day until 4 pm on the second day
The two day long Fire Palooza course has been designed to further enhance a student's friction fire making techniques and understanding of advanced variations of construction and technique. Fire making methods include the Bow Drill, the Hand Drill, and other friction fire making methods such as the Pump Drill, the Fire Saw, the Fire Plow, and the Arctic Mouth Drill. Advanced subjects will include plant and tree identification and use; the use of wet and difficult materials; Bow Drill cordage construction; the use of stone age tools more. Students will also have the opportunity to make and use a Pump Drill, Fire Saw, Fire Plow and an Arctic Mouth Drill. This course is also designed to show many of the primitive uses of fire and explain the importance of fire in many different cultures and time periods. Fire lore, legends and stories from all over the world will also be an important part of this course. We recommend that students have completed our one day Fire Making course and be proficient in the skills presented there, or have comparable skills, to be eligible for Fire Palooza. But come on anyway if you want to!
Hide Tanning
December 4-5 in Virginia
9 am on the first day until 4 pm on the second day
In our Hide Tanning course, we teach the ancient skill of tanning animal skins with animal brains under both modern and primitive conditions. The tanning method used in our courses is the dry scrape brain tan method. Hides tanned in this natural way are beautiful looking; and pleasant to smell, touch and wear. This course will cover all of the tanning steps that transform a fresh, raw deer skin into finished brain tanned leather. These steps include fleshing, drying, scraping, braining, stretching, and smoking. Students will have the opportunity to work a hide through all of the tanning stages and go home with the hide that they have tanned. All tools, materials and a hide will be provided by us.
The Hide Tanning course for 2010 has no currently scheduled rain date. If the weather causes the course to move to another date and a student cannot make it to the rain date, they may transfer their tuition to another course or receive a refund.
Primitive Tool making
Dates TBD
9 am on the first day until 4 pm on the second day
In our Primitive Tool Making course, students will learn to make a wide variety of tools of stone, wood, bone and antler. This course will cover the percussion flaking and pressure flaking foundations of flint knapping (stone tool production) and some of the stone tools that will be produced are knives, scrapers, pecked hammers and projectile points. Wood working skills will be covered in order to produce digging sticks, a variety of vices, mallets and wedges. Fresh deer legs will be worked with stone blades to yield sinew, hide glue materials, bone projectile points, fish hooks and punches. Antler will also be used to make composite pressure flakers, chisels and more. Cordage; making and using hide glue and pitch glue; and using fire as a tool will also be covered. All materials will be provided by us. Each student will have the opportunity to make their own primitive tool kit which they can keep and even use during future courses.
Primitive Skills
September 13-15 in North
Carolina - September 20-22 in Virginia
October 25-27 in Virginia - November 12-14 in North Carolina
9 am on the first day until 4 pm on the third day
The Primitive Skills course teaches valuable wilderness survival skills using the stone age technologies that were common to of all of our ancestors. Students will learn how to build a leaf hut shelter, without tools or cord; how to collect and prepare tinder and kindling; how to do friction fire making with the bow drill; primitive tool making; primitive water gathering and purification; four primitive traps unique to this course; how to make a rabbit hunting stick; and the skinning, cleaning and cooking small game (typically squirrel). Primitive fishing, Edible plants, primitive cooking, food preservation and storage, wicker basketry from vines, plant and tree bark string, and burning out wooden bowls and spoons will also be covered. This course is designed to provide skills for living primitively in the wilderness; and this course is a student and staff favorite.
Weeklong Courses
Ultimate Survival Week
September 13-17 in North Carolina - September 20-24 in Virginia
9 am on Monday until 4 pm Friday
This very popular class is a combination of our 3 day Primitive Skills course and our Wilderness Survival 2 day course. For those who cannot make it to the whole week, there is the option to take just the Primitive Skills portion or Wilderness Survival portion of the week. But we highly recommend that you take the whole week to get the full spectrum of modern and primitive survival skills. In the Primitive Skills portion, Students will learn how to build a leaf hut shelter, without tools or cord; how to collect and prepare tinder and kindling; how to do friction fire making with the bow drill; primitive tool making; primitive water gathering and purification; four primitive traps unique to this course; how to make a rabbit hunting stick; and the skinning, cleaning and cooking small game (typically squirrel). Primitive fishing, Edible plants, primitive cooking, food preservation and storage, wicker basketry from vines, plant and tree bark string, and burning out wooden bowls and spoons will also be covered. This course is designed to provide skills for living primitively in the wilderness; and this course is a student and staff favorite. The Wilderness Survival section is designed to instruct students in a wide variety of year-round life saving wilderness survival skills using the latest modern gear and the best historic outdoor skills. Students of this course will learn the priorities of survival, how not to get lost in the first place, how to signal for rescue, and what to put in survival kits. Skills will include building and camping out in one of the many tarp shelters to be covered; collecting and purifying water with several modern methods; and the basics of making and utilizing fire including flint & steel, batteries, magnifying lens, waterproofing matches and tinder. Food gathering instruction will include collecting and preparing nutritious edible plants, four different traps unique to this course and survival fishing. How to sharpen a knife with a stone, knots and string making will also be covered.
Fire Week
December 6-10 in Virginia
9 am on Monday until 4 pm Friday
This weeklong journey into Friction Fire Making is a combination of our one day Friction Fire Making class, our Friction Fire Materials ID class, Firepalooza, and with a whole day devoted to "abo" fire making. Fire making methods include the Bow Drill, the Hand Drill, and other friction fire making methods such as the Pump Drill, the Fire Saw, the Fire Plow, and the Arctic Mouth Drill. Advanced subjects will include plant and tree identification and use; the use of wet and difficult materials; Bow Drill cordage construction; the use of stone age tools more. Students will also have the opportunity to make and use a Pump Drill, Fire Saw, Fire Plow and an Arctic Mouth Drill. This course is also designed to show many of the primitive uses of fire and explain the importance of fire in many different cultures and time periods. Fire lore, legends and stories from all over the world will also be an important part of this course. The week will culminate in a whole day spent on the art and skills of true stone age fire making - just rocks, sticks and homemade string to make fire - the real deal!
Ancestral Skills Week
Dates TBD
9 am on Monday until 4 pm Friday
This week of skills includes our 2 day Hide Tanning course, our 2 day Primitive Tool making course and our one day Basketry course. During the week, we teach the ancient skill of tanning animal skins with animal brains under both modern and primitive conditions. The tanning method used in our courses is the dry scrape brain tan method. Hides tanned in this natural way are beautiful looking; and pleasant to smell, touch and wear. This course will cover all of the tanning steps that transform a fresh, raw deer skin into finished brain tanned leather. These steps include fleshing, drying, scraping, braining, stretching, and smoking. Uses for the hides, brain extraction with stone tools and storing un-tanned skins and brains will also be demonstrated. Students will have the opportunity to work a hide through all of the tanning stages and go home with the hide that they have tanned. All tools, materials and a hide will be provided by us. In our Primitive Tool Making section, students will learn to make a wide variety of tools of stone, wood, bone and antler. This course will cover the percussion flaking and pressure flaking foundations of flint knapping (stone tool production) and some of the stone tools that will be produced are knives, scrapers, pecked hammers and projectile points. Wood working skills will be covered in order to produce digging sticks, a variety of vices, mallets and wedges. Fresh deer legs will be worked with stone blades to yield sinew, hide glue materials, bone projectile points, fish hooks and punches. Antler will also be used to make composite pressure flakers, chisels and more. Cordage; making and using hide glue and pitch glue; and using fire as a tool will also be covered. All materials will be provided by us. Each student will have the opportunity to make their own primitive tool kit which they can keep and even use during future courses. The Basketry section will cover several styles of traditional basketry from around the world. The course includes information on basket material selection, harvesting techniques and seasons, how to make wicker basketry from vines, how to make coil basketry from grasses and twigs, and how to make bark baskets from sheets of bark. Materials will be provided by us, and supplemented by materials that we show how to gather during the course. Each student will go home with several primitive baskets of different styles, that they have made.
Primitive Skills Week
October 25-29 in Virginia
9 am on Monday until 4 pm Friday
The Primitive Skills Week is a combination of our 3 day Primitive Skills course, our one day Friction Fire Making course and one day of Wild Edible Plants specific to that season. For those who cannot make it to the whole week, there is the option to take just the Primitive Skills portion or the Fire Making portion, or the Wild Edible Plants portion of the week. The Primitive Skills section teaches valuable wilderness survival skills using the stone age technologies that were common to of all of our ancestors. Students will learn how to build a leaf hut shelter, without tools or cord; how to collect and prepare tinder and kindling; how to do friction fire making with the bow drill; primitive tool making; primitive water gathering and purification; four primitive traps unique to this course; how to make a rabbit hunting stick; and the skinning, cleaning and cooking small game (typically squirrel). Primitive fishing, Edible plants, primitive cooking, food preservation and storage, wicker basketry from vines, plant and tree bark string, and burning out wooden bowls and spoons will also be covered. This course is designed to provide skills for living primitively in the wilderness; and this course is a student and staff favorite. The one day Friction Fire section will focus on the Bow Drill and Hand Drill methods of friction fire making and how to easily start a fire. Fire safety, tinder, fire wood selection, and setting up a primitive fireplace will be covered in addition to some of the history and physics of friction fire making. Proper construction and use of the fire making equipment will be emphasized during the course. Students will construct fire making sets which will be theirs to keep from a variety of materials provided by us. Our one day Friction Fire Making course teaches the Hand Drill friction fire making method because it is the easiest fire kit to make, and this method had the widest use through prehistory and world cultures. The Bow Drill is also taught in this course because it is the easiest method for beginners to make friction fire. The Seasonal Edible Plant section will focus on the different plants and plant uses of each season. These are one day classes. Each course is a guided walk through different habitats, identifying, collecting and frequent sampling wild plant foods, and pointing out harmful plants to avoid. Each course will cover approximately 40 plants, shrubs and trees, depending on the season. We will cover proper identification and use of these plants, whether plants are native or introduced, when and where to safely collect plants and conservation techniques. Each student gets an Earth Connection plant handout with full color photos and written plant information.