Earth Connection
 School of Wilderness Survival and Ancient Skills

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[Courses for Military, Gov. & Law Enforcement]

Earth Connection would like to take this opportunity to thank the men and women of our Military, Government and Law Enforcement for your service to our country and our citizens.  We hope you will consider allowing us to serve you by training your personnel with strategies to stay safe.

• Earth Connection is a small, streamlined business with the ability to provide priceless, lifesaving skills at prices well below our competition.
   
• The courses can be scheduled at your convenience, Mondays thru Fridays, year round.
   
• Our curriculum is compartmentalized, to allow our patrons to select and combine the subjects that suit their needs.  The One Day and Two Day long courses may be run consecutively, to allow multi-day training periods.  Two Day long courses have an overnight camping option, to allow real practice of the skills taught in that course.
   
• Even if our students have received extensive survival training, Earth Connection's innovative survival techniques will provide them with additional new survival strategies.  These new skills will give our patrons even more tactics to come back from operations alive and in one piece.
   
• All of our courses provide patrons with a written manual on the skills covered in that course, so that everyone has consistent information to study during the course and to review afterward.
   
• Earth Connection's curriculum is designed to introduce survival strategies or build on previous Survival-Evasion-Resistance-Escape (SERE) training to prepare military aircrew, high-risk of capture DoD personnel both military and government civilian, law enforcement personnel, search and rescue teams, professional wilderness guides, instructors for outdoor intervention programs, and anyone else to survive under any conditions.  We teach simple and effective principles, techniques and procedures necessary to survive worldwide.  Best of all, you don't have to take a pretest, pass a physical or jump out of a plane; you only have to be reasonably fit and have an eager mind.
   

Course Length - 9am to 5pm
Course Cost - $150 per person

The Modern Survival Strategies - One Day course uses modern outdoor survival techniques as the system of self sufficiency and preparedness using the latest modern gear and techniques along with the best historic outdoor skills.  Students of this course will learn the Priorities of Survival; What to put in survival kits; How to build tarp shelters and hammocks with a variety of materials; How to collect and purify water with several modern methods; The basics of making fire with Matches, Lighters and Flint & steel; How to build a smokeless fire; How to sharpen knives with a stone; Knots; and How to make string from indigenous plant material.  We recommend this course for all outdoor conditions.
 

Course Length - 9am to 5pm each day

Students also may opt for overnight camping on our site between the two days of this course for survival practice and skills implementation - this is optional

Course Cost - $250 per person, $300 per person with overnight option

The Modern Survival Strategies - Two Day course is designed to instruct students in a wide variety of year-round life saving wilderness survival skills.  This is a more in depth version of our One Day course using the latest modern gear and the best historic outdoor skills.  Students of this course will learn the Priorities of Survival; How to avoid getting lost; How to signal for rescue; What to put in survival kits; How to build tarp shelters and hammocks with a variety of materials; Collecting and purifying water with several modern methods; The basics of making and utilizing fire with Matches, Lighters, Flint & steel, Batteries, Magnifying lens, How to waterproof your matches and tinder; How to build a smokeless fire.  Food gathering instruction will include Survival fishing with only a few pieces of modern tackle. How to sharpen a knife with a stone, Knots and String making from indigenous plant material will also be covered.  We recommend this course for a complete set of Wilderness Survival Strategies.
 

Course Length - 9am to 5pm
Course Cost - $150 per person

The Primitive Survival Strategies - One Day 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 camouflaged 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; How to build a smokeless fire; Primitive tool making; Primitive water gathering and purification; Primitive cooking, food preservation and storage; and How to make plant and tree bark string.  This course is designed to provide skills for living primitively in the wilderness. This curriculum has long been a student and staff favorite.
 

Course Length - 9am to 5pm each day

Students also may opt for overnight camping on our site between the two days of this course for survival practice and skills implementation - this is optional

Course Cost - $250 per person, $300 per person with overnight option

The Primitive Survival Strategies - Two Day course teaches a complete system survival skills using only stone age technologies.  Students will learn How to build a camouflaged 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; How to build a smokeless fire; Primitive tool making; Primitive water gathering and purification; How to make a rabbit hunting stick; How to skin, clean and cook small game (typically squirrel); Primitive cooking, food preservation and storage; Plant and tree bark string; and Burning out wooden bowls and vessels to purify water.  Food gathering instruction will include Primitive fishing with hand made string and thorn hooks.  This course is a complete system of survival strategies designed to provide skills for living primitively in the wilderness. This curriculum has long been a student and staff favorite.
 

Course Length - 9am to 5pm
Course Cost - $150 per person

This Wild Edible Plants course will focus on the different plants and plant uses of each season, coast to coast.  The course is a guided examination of different habitats - identifying, collecting and frequent sampling wild plant foods, and pointing out harmful plants to avoid.  The course will cover approximately 40 plants, shrubs and trees, depending on the season in which the course is scheduled.  We will cover proper identification and use of these plants, whether plants are native or introduced, when and where to safely collect plants, and which plants will be found elsewhere in the world.  Each student gets an Earth Connection plant handout with full color photos and written plant information.
 

Course Length - 9am to 5pm
Course Cost - $150 per person

Few things are as valuable in the wild as fire.  And few things give away a person's position like fire.  This course is designed to provide for the need of fire and the need to conceal it.  Our Friction Fire And Concealed Fire Use course will teach the skills of making fire with wood friction using the Bow Drill, Hand Drill and Fire plow methods of friction fire making.  Fire safety, tinder, fire wood selection, and setting up a primitive fireplace will be covered in addition to some of the physics of friction fire making.  Proper construction, materials 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.  The concealed fire use portion of the curriculum will include techniques for creating a smokeless fire during the day, and a lightless fire at night.  The concealed use information will also include tricks for boiling water to purify it, and survival cooking.

Our Friction Fire course teaches the Hand Drill and Fire Plow friction fire making methods because they are the easiest fire kits to make, with wide use through prehistory and world cultures.  The Bow Drill method is also taught in this course because it is the easiest method for beginners to make friction fire, and the most likely to work under any conditions.
 

Course Length - 9am to 5pm
Course Cost - $150 per person

Earth Connection�s Primitive Trapping And Fishing Strategies course will teach you how to construct simple and complex traps to secure wild animals for food. Trapping is typically the most efficient way to gather high calorie food in a survival situation - as traps conserve your energy and hunt for you while you work on other survival tasks, or even while you are asleep.  Students will learn the basic principles behind traps and how to construct them focusing on the deadfalls and snares including the figure-four, Paiute deadfall, wire snare, and their variations. In addition, more complicated trapping methods using kinetic engines 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 create simple fish traps, and demonstrate how to catch fish with a thorn for a fishhook. We also demonstrate non-lethal trapping techniques to allow you to legally test your skill for practice.

This class will cover a wide variety of trap styles from the snare and dead fall groups.  Learn the tricks of natives from all over the world to satisfy the need for meat.  Several traps will be unique to our curriculum, and not found anywhere else.  Concealment of traps and fishing equipment will also be covered to help prevent the student from giving away their position.
 

Course Length - 9am to 5pm
Course Cost - $150 per person

Our Native Camouflage Strategies - One Day course will teach the remarkably effective techniques in camouflage used by Native peoples all over the world.  Mud, clay, charcoal and other natural materials are used as color and texture for concealment of personnel and gear. These extremely versatile materials provide a unique camouflage system allowing the user to match their surroundings from elements gathered in those surroundings.  Campsite concealment and concealed movement will also be components of this course.