NatureSkills Weeklong
"I signed up for Wilderness Awareness School’s NatureSkills course expecting to receive an introduction to a smattering of primitive skills. Instead, through the medium of nature skills, I was guided to discover a way of engaging with nature that was joyful, playful, inspiring, connecting, affirming and, quite frankly, soul-quenching. The result was that for the first time in my life, I came home to myself. I’ve been through several universities and attended many seminars and trainings. This was, by far, the best learning experience I’ve ever encountered. The instructors were professional, passionate about their subjects, highly skilled communicators, and genuinely interested in their students. The Wilderness Awareness School mentoring style is in a class of its own."
- Mindy Weck, Atherton CA
Spend a week exploring the natural world and learning outdoor survival skills with Wilderness Awareness School’s most experienced instructors.
Classroom instruction will be paired with mentored dirt time in the field where we take theory into practice tracking, birding, studying plants, and exploring the natural world. It’s a wonderful mix of nature awareness, outdoor survival skills and wilderness survival skills training.
A full day will be spent exploring each of the following areas...
Wilderness Survival & Outdoor Living SkillsA skilled naturalist must be comfortable traveling and living in the natural world. Learn shelter construction, fire making, crafts for primitive outdoor living and other wilderness survival training basics.
Edible and Medicinal Plants Develop your identification skills and learn to use plants for food and medicine. Collection and processing techniques are covered. We will guide you down the path towards a deeper relationship with wild plants.
Field Observation Refine your physical observation skills and learn to integrate intuitive awareness into your study of nature. Hear us weaves stories, current research on human perception and brain patterning in with concrete practices for learning to see and hear more in nature, while expanding both your awareness and ability to retain new learning!
Wildlife Tracking Practice track and sign location, identification, interpretation, aging, ecological tracking, and trailing. A mix of technical skills training and dirt time provides the opportunity to both build skills and work through challenging mysteries with a mentor looking over your shoulder to guide you.
Bird Language Interpretation As the master tracker Olaus Murie wrote "One should always listen to the warnings of the birds." Learn to recognize the different calls and alarms of the birds and a whole new world of awareness opens up to you. A day in the field will transform your awareness of what’s going on in the forest around you.
Although class will be held in the beautiful forests of the Pacific Northwest, you will leave with a set of invaluable core routines you can take anywhere. This class covers indispensable skills for naturalists!
NatureSkills.com, our content web site with numerous free articles, is a great supporting resource for this class!
You can also a week experiencing the wilderness and learning survival skills in our Walkabout Wilderness Survival Skills Expedition!
Register for NatureSkills Weeklong
| Call to Register | Ages Adult $785 Food and camping included. July 15-21, 2012 4:30pm Sunday-12pm Saturday Our land in the foothills of the Cascades, near Duvall, WA Airport shuttle available. |
Instructor Biographies
Dan Corcoran is the Adult Programs Director and Coordinator of the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, and an instructor with our Youth Programs and Adult Programs as well. After receiving his B.S. in Biology from Indiana University in June of 2000, Dan moved to the Pacific Northwest to pursue his love of nature with Wilderness Awareness School. He graduated from the Anake Outdoor School in 2003. As a Kamana graduate, he aspires to inspire more people to finish the program. He continues to push his edges with attempts to touch a deer, flintknap a clovis point, and hear a cougar bird-alarm sequence. Dan is also a Wilderness First Responder.
Nate Summers coordinates the Anake Leadership Program, and serves as a staff specialist for the Anake Outdoor School. He has been mentoring adults and youth in the outdoors since 1995. Nate's journey with ancient living skills started as a teenager at the Ancient Lifeways Institute in Southern Illinois. This exposure to stone age living at a young age sparked a life-long interest in anthropology, hunter-gatherer lifestyles, and indigenous cultures. In the past, Nate has served as both Youth Programs Director and Adult Programs Director for Wilderness Awareness School, and has worked with such organizations as King County Parks and Recreation, Seattle Parks Department, and Outdoor Connections/WildLore.
Nate is an internal martial arts enthusiast, a practitioner of Chinese Medicine, and a the proud father of his pre-school age daughter Katie. He holds a Master's of Acupuncture degree from the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, as well as Bachelors of Arts Degrees in both Anthropology and Asian Studies from the University of Illinois. He has also served as faculty for the Desert Insitute of Healing Arts, the Asian Institute of Medical Studies, Earthwalk School of Energy Healing, and as adjunct faculty for Prescott College. Nate likes to fish, practice internal martial arts, go on Daddy-adventures with his daughter, and gather wild foods to supplement his diet.
