Wilderness Survival Village
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.
Truly seeing before taking
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
