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To learn about our teaching style and how the courses run, go to More info about Survival and Primitive Courses
MODERN WILDERNESS
SURVIVAL STRATEGIES an EC North Carolina exclusive
September 20th � Modern Wilderness Survival
Strategies
Date and Pricing
PRIMITIVE
WILDERNESS
SURVIVAL STRATEGIES an EC North Carolina exclusive
November 1st � Primitive Wilderness Survival Strategies
Date and Pricing
PRIMITIVE SKILLS WEEK This course is a 5 day immersion in the Primitive Skills world, living much like our ancestors have lived before us. Get ready to see if you can leave the modern world behind! Students will learn how to build a leaf hut shelter, without tools or cord. We will spend an entire day learning and practicing our vital fire making skills including the ways to collect and prepare tinder and kindling; and how to do friction fire making with the bow drill and hand drill. We will primitive tool making; primitive water gathering and purification; four primitive traps; how to make a rabbit hunting stick; and the skinning, cleaning and cooking small game (typically squirrel). Primitive fishing, 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. Finally, an entire day will be devoted to Wild Edible Plants, the food source that can't run away. Limited slots available, Please call or email for more details and availability.
Dates and Pricing
ULTIMATE SURVIVAL WEEK Join us August 11-15, 2008 for our new Ultimate Survival Week. This is a brilliant 5 day combination of our Primitive Skills and Wilderness Survival classes. If you're not ready for the outdoors after this one, you weren't paying attention in class. Our information packed class will cover modern wilderness survival skills with primitive skills as the ultimate back up plan. You may not have any modern survival supplies in an emergency, but you've always got sticks and stones (and we'll give you the knowledge of how to use them). The curriculum includes The Priorities of Survival; how not to get lost in the first place; how to signal for rescue; what to put in survival kits; 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. Students will also 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; how to make a rabbit hunting stick; and the skinning, cleaning and cooking small game (typically squirrel). Primitive fishing, 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. Limited slots available, Please call or email for more details and availability.
Dates and Pricing
The 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. Dates and Pricing
This class is available year-round as a Private Class, see the bottom of the Course Description page for Private Class info.
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. Dates and Pricing
This class is available year-round as a Private Class, see the bottom of the Course Description page for Private Class info.
PRIMITIVE
VILLAGE
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| Dates in 2008 | Length | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| March 7-9 September 26-28 |
3 Days | $150 |
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.
| Date in 2008 | Length | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| February 10 | 1 Day | $80 |
This class is available year-round as a Private Class, see the bottom of the Course Description page for Private Class info.
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. We also demonstrate non-lethal trapping
techniques to allow you to legally test your skill on your own. Although
this one-day class can stand on it�s own, the class is a great companion to
Earth Connection�s basic tracking class and is highly suggested as a
prerequisite.
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 of our own or our friend's devising, and not found in
any books.
| Date in 2008 | Length | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| May 17 | 1 Day | $80 |
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.
We are also currently making plans to add an optional cross-country course in the Shenandoah Mountains as a group the next day, Sunday April 27. This extra day of training and experience may include possible diversions like wild edible foods, water procurement, and sight seeing. There will be an addition fee for this additional learning opportunity. We'll post more info as soon as we finalize our plans.
| Date in 2008 | Length | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| April 26 | 1 Day | $80 |
See the forest and field as never before. Learn about the big and little worlds around you. Our non-mystical, reality based Nature Observation class will sharpen your senses and show you the little things that we miss in the great outdoors.
We are always amazed at how many of people lack basic nature observation skills and are essentially operating in an impaired state of awareness or �tuned out� of what is going on around them. This Nature Observation class will return you to your senses and to the vivid experience of living in the moment, experiencing nature with a sense of awe and wonder. The skills taught in this class are the foundation for all nature studies and primitive skills classes that we offer. The class includes nature observation through heightened senses, self awareness/observation, methods of immersing oneself in nature, natural movement techniques, camouflage and blending, understanding animal senses, animal/plant transition zones, pattern association and life long learning exercises. Not only will we provide instruction on improving observational skills, but also as an essential part of this class we will practice making field notes and basic sketches in a field notebook. Our goal is to help our students immerse themselves fully in nature to help them fully understand the interconnectedness of natural and cultural communities.| Date in 2008 | Length | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| July 26 | 1 Day | $80 |
Avoiding Nature�s Dangers class is like a mini how to survive anything class. We face a multitude of dangers every minute of our life, but recognizing and avoiding them takes education and, sometimes, active mitigation. Earth Connection students by practicing primitive and wilderness skills activities in nature�s wild areas voluntarily face higher dangers than the normal mundane person. This class highlights the dangers/risks found in nature and how to mitigate through Risk Management (the human activity which integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment, developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources). The class covers a variety of risks from poisonous plants, insects and animals, contaminated water, animal attacks, knife/axe/machete safety, wildlife diseases, surviving extremes (hypo/hyper-thermia), fire behavior, and much more. Although not a first aid class, it will provide information that may save your life or reduce your chances of gaining additional pain, anguish and suffering.
| Date in 2008 | Length | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| July 27 | 1 Day | $80 |
Never. We are not that kind of school. This is not some gross out reality TV show. No one will be forced to do anything that they don't want to do. That goes for all of our courses, not just survival and primitive courses.
Students will make their own shelters during the Wilderness Survival, Primitive Skills and Primitive Village courses, and a sleeping bag will be required equipment on the first two of these mentioned. We want the shelters to be used and enjoyed, but we also want students to set their own comfort level. If uncertain about staying in a shelter of your own making, you may bring a tent and sleeping bag to any class.
You won't eat bugs and snakes during our courses, unless you want to go get your own. We do serve deer meat during some of these courses, on the side, if any students prefer not to eat deer meat. We do gut, skin and cook small game as part of our Primitive Skills course. The small game used in this course are typically Grey Squirrel, legally taken in Virginia during season, frozen and then thawed for each Primitive Skills course.
If you don't want to participate or even watch these things, you will not have to, and you will certainly not be treated disrespectfully for it.
The Wilderness Survival, Primitive Skills and Primitive Trapping courses deal with trapping and trap construction, but no animals will be trapped during these courses. However, everyone in these classes will have the opportunity to make traps and to set a non-harming trap to test their skill at setting traps. The traps in the Primitive Skills class are different than the ones taught in the Wilderness Survival class. The traps from both of these classes are taught in the Primitive Trapping course, plus many others.
Since we have moved, we do not have a pond anymore. Classes that had fishing in the curriculum will still include fishing information, but we will not actually be able to go fishing. Very sorry.
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