Frequently Asked Questions
How do you teach Wilderness Survival Skills?
The Wilderness Survival Village is the core project of our 9-month program. Students synthesise what they learn by developing and designing a working hunter-gather village over the course of one year. At the end of Spring Term, before they graduate the program, every team implements their Wilderness Survival Village for 1-week or more on the actual land the student agree upon.
The Difference Because they will have cultivated a deep relationship with this one piece of Earth, we distinguish the Wilderness Survival Village from the "drop 'em somewhere random" survival trips used by wilderness schools and businesses as a yearly graduation or team building courtesy. Another difference is our Wilderness Survival Village works with an intensive perspective on conservation and caretaking of resources. Compare this to the slap-dash effort of foraging and living that often comes with "emergency mode" survival.
Interestingly enough, when students take the time to cultivate long-term relationships with the skills and land they are learning, they hone the most relevant capabilities in both short (emergency) and long-term (village) survival situation.
This Wilderness Survival Village is where we truly blend the regenerative principles of permaculture design with the wild awareness of the hunter-gatherer. Our Wilderness Survival Village becomes an articulate synthesis of a life changing year.
We begin in the Fall Student teams select an appropriate site for a 1-week wilderness survival expedition at the end of the year. With this exercise students gain an honest understanding of the ecological diversity required to healthfully support a hunter-gatherer community. For the students training to be outdoor guides and nature educators, this is invaluable mentoring for planning and logistical skills.
In the Winter We intensively study the site through the eyes of a tracker. With a key observation and journal process we call the Lens, all plant and wildlife habitats are intensively mapped. This truly lets you reflect on what impact your trip will have on all the life around you.
By Spring We begin to more deeply delve into our Wilder curriculum as we study permaculture and regenerative design. This is where we take all our experiences in traditional craft and the connection we humbly forged with our village site to truly shape the story of how we will survive with flow and care for all life.
Finally, at the end of Spring we run the trip. The only rules, are that you can only take in what you have made from scratch and from the Earth. Through the ecology of team leadership, every student team decides their own boundaries within those limits.
What you get Most schools send you out on a survival expedition to a random location. We feel this can be irresponsible. While this may give you a personal trial of what you might do in the "what if" scenario, it does not truly reflect how wilderness living can be a long-term practice of caretaking and revival of life around us. Survival of a village is about personal responsibility and mutual respect of the community to the land.
Outcomes of the Wilderness Survival Village project...
• Direct experience in coordinating complex outdoor education expeditions
• Truly having a relationship with the land that feeds and shelter you
• Training for the "what if" scenario through an intelligent grasp of the skills
• Permaculture design applied in the most fundamental and wild context
What does a "typical day" look like?
Regular Class Days While there are no "typical" days at TrackersTEAMS, our way of learning and working does have a familiar rhythm, one that moves with the seasonal rounds. Hands on activities and harvest of food make up the largest portion of what we do. We often wrap up with group storytelling and discussion of how our experience applies to our greater lives.
Some core components of our immersion program includes...
The Trackers Shuttle Every week we offer a shuttle that leaves our Portland TrackersHQ to our permaculture and wilderness site on the Oregon Coast.
Ecology of Team Leadership We focus on fun collaborative skills and arts that actually get work done. NOT overlong meetings about pretending to create consensus at the expense of everyone's time and experience.
Project of the Week Each week has a focus or theme to develop particular skills, crafts and awareness. This could be tracking, fire tools, shelter, rain catches, wild plants, bow making, and more.
Dinner Harvest and Preparation We make it a point to harvest and preserve mostly wild and locally grown foods for our dinner meals. The timing of this will often change as we flow with the tide for ocean harvest and seasons for local foods. See below to learn more about our wild and local harvest meals.
Seminars Seminars are where we get together in the evening to explore the over arching themes for the week. While many schools and gurus lecture at students we specialize in engaging them in a conversation. Your opinion and discourse is vital to us as you build personal ownership of what you learn.
Tracking & Stealth Scenarios These are not lessons that require you to be best tracker or expert in invisibility. These are well designed learning scenarios and high paced games that let us intensely experience the heightened awareness and life of a deer, fox and all the wild animals we follow through tracking.
3-day Overnights The core of our program is an immersion of weekly 3-day overnights at our Oregon Coast location in Manzanita, Oregon. There you find the program garden, the bounty of the ocean and a slow, quiet seaside town.
To truly derive the most from our time together, many days are fully experiential and field based. Everyday week we work with our hands, harvest and care for the land and take the time to fully immerse ourselves in the natural world. See below for a sample 3-day overnight.
Nature of the Village Week Longs Every term begins with a week-long skill shares focusing on a Guild (Rangers, Wilders, Artisans or Mariners). Depending on the season, these may be overnights or day programs with transportation and dinners included. Seasonal themes in include...
Rangers Guild: Rabbitstick Rendezvous (Fall)
Artisans Guild:
DIY & Fine Folk Craft (Winter)
Wilders Guild: Permaculture and Relationships to Plants (Spring).
Sample 3-day Overnight...
Please Note Themes and timing of activities will vary depending on the season and the week.
Tuesday
8AM Shuttle leaves from our Headquarters in Portland, Oregon
10AM Arrive at our site on the Oregon Coast in Manzanita, Oregon, set-up.
11AM Ecology of Team Leadership Work: Intensive Improv Theater
NOON Lunch & Beach Exploration (students responsible for their own lunch)
1PM Theme or Project of the week: EXAMPLE Leather working & Shoemaking
*Informational history of ancient shoemaking techniques
*Begin Project: 9th century German shoes
4PM Dinner Harvest & Prep: Crab, Mussel & Seaweed Harvest on the Coast
6PM Dinner with Community and Free Time
7PM Evening Seminar on reading material: The Benefits of Craft
9PM Bed or Free Time (night life in Manzanita, cedar sauna, baking cookies)
Wednesday
Early Morning Mapping wildlife movements by Bird Calls
8AM Breakfast (students responsible for their own breakfast)
9AM Continue shoe and leather working projects
NOON Lunch & Exploration (students responsible for their own lunch)
1PM Meet in Houses to design Wilderness Survival Village & plan Theater of the Week
2PM Project and Harvest Time
5PM Dinner Prep
6PM Dinner with Community and Free Time
7PM Community Campfire and the "Theater of the Week"
Thursday
Early Morning Yoga & Animal Forms
8AM Breakfast (students responsible for their own breakfast)
9AM Live Action Tracking & Stealth Scenario
NOON Lunch & Exploration (students responsible for their own lunch)
1PM Weekend Independent Study Agreements
2PM Cleaning as a Thanksgiving to the Land
4PM Leave Manzanita, Oregon for TrackersHQ
About Meals We do our best to have all programs dinners comprised of almost entirely wild and local foods. This means a large portion of the program is actually wild harvesting from the land. Students are responsible for their own breakfast and lunch. A place for personal food storage is provided.
The Wild Holding the program on the Oregon Coast greatly improves the bounty available to us. From fishing to seaweed harvest, from crabbing to abundant maritime forests, the sea offers a wealth of living with the land. We also encourage local off-time urban harvest for those residing in Portland. Every Fall our small green city abounds with rich fruit trees, acorns and chestnuts. There is always a Trackers community member ready and willing to embark on an urban forage with you!
Our Larder Natural food preservation techniques form a core of the program. We begin to create a pantry and larder that can truly feed an entire village. Even if you just begin in the program, there will always be food created for you by alumni and community members who came before. You in turn give back to the village by helping stock the larder for future students.
We also yield food from the local permaculture farm we work and play at. Fresh vegetables and fruits will be relative to the season. We become part of the cycle of planting and harvest at the farm.
Every season we work with a large animal from a responsible local rancher (often from our own farm itself) and practice traditional forms of butchering and meat preservation: including corning, sausage & bacon making and drying.
Since being a hunter-gatherer and horticulturist (a Ranger and a Wilder) is all about living with the local diversity of the land, all of our meals could contain a full range of fruits, meats, spices and vegetables. We will happily accommodate all dietary needs by leaving a key station in our full kitchen open for students who find they may need other options. This additional food must be planned and brought ahead of time by the student or students.
Please Note Since harvest laws limit us and we do not have a full yearly cycle to stock up on every staple, we will may often buy a grain staple with a focus on quinoa (a whole protein grain).
How much does the program cost? Are there scholarships available?
Because you can attend in 3-month terms or in 9-month to one-year options our Wilderness Immersion program is one of the most accessible and affordable available.
Program Tuition...
9 Month Program (all 3 terms) $9500, Scholarships Available
The 9-month requires a deposit of $1200 (including $500 non refundable application fee)
3 Month Seasonal Terms (Fall, Winter or Spring) $3950
Each 3-month seasonal requires a deposit of $500 (including $250 non refundable application fee)
You Can Pay in Full Immediate full payment gives you a 5% discount off all tuition. Half of this amount is non-refundable immediately upon payment.
You Can Pay With A Plan After the initial deposit, the balance remaining after deposit can be paid acros the term or 9-months in seperate payments.
Scholarships We have scholarship or work study awards available of up to 10%-50% or tuition. Due to limited funds of awards we recommend you apply early to increase your chances of acceptance.
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