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NatureSkills.com : Blog Home : October 2006
October 3, 2006 10:46 - Dana here!
Hello everyone!
This is my first entry on this site, and my first blog entry ever! I hope I can allow you all an accurate and entertaining view of the adventures we at the Residential Program are scheduled to have.
 First, let me introduce myself. I’m 21 years old, and if you asked me where I was from, I would say New Hampshire, since I’ve lived there the longest I’ve lived anywhere, though it isn’t where I have lived most recently. I’m pursuing an individualized liberal arts degree from Goddard College and taking this year “off” to attend the Wilderness Awareness School. My intent is to transfer credits received for my work in this program back to Goddard where I plan to finish my degree.
I was originally introduced to the world of the naturalist and the life-skills of indigenous peoples during my last trimester of high school. I went to a small private school called High Mowing in southern New Hampshire, and through the “Naturalist Program” taught by Keith Badger, found a passion that has occupied my time since then.
My college program is an individualized, distance-learning program. Basically, I design my own curriculum and do my studies on my own away from campus. Because there are no college programs that offer courses in primitive technologies and wilderness survival/awareness skills (yet!), Goddard’s program is excellent for me, as it allows me to study these things. The only drawback for me is the lack of community and direct mentoring, which is a large part of why I decided to come to WAS.
Making the decision to move all the way across the country, and take a year off from college was a choice that took me a while to make. I actually applied for the Residential Program last year, but for numerous reasons decided not to go then. In a way I feel as though it took me that year of getting used to the whole idea of the Residential Program to really commit to it for this year.
It takes a lot of effort and time to uproot and move anywhere, especially across the country. My move involved a number of packing and unpacking sessions, some stressed freaking out about small but important details overlooked, and a very, very long five days of driving in a tiny, hot (no air conditioning) two-door Honda civic with almost everything I own, plus a brother, his gear, and my cat (and no cruise control)… come on guys, doesn’t that sound fun! J
That said, it was a beautiful drive, through the cornfields of western Illinois and the dry open hills of Wyoming and Montana, and finally into the evergreen forested mountains of northern Idaho and the Cascades of Washington, my new home state!
October 3, 2006 11:01 - Animal Eating Form
In this photo from the first week of the Residential Program, Laura is showing an Aplodontia feeding sign on a vine maple. We jokingly called it the "Aplodontia animal form." –Filip
October 8, 2006 16:50 - Two weeks of school have gone by already!
Hey again!
Two weeks of school have gone by already! I’ve already made some really good friends, human, plant and animal, and am starting to feel more comfortable in this environment.
Our first week of school was a full week (class is usually only three days a week) where all 21 of us camped out on the school property. Each day we were introduced to one or two of the six areas of study we will be focusing on this year; Ethnobotany, Nature Observation & Bird Language, Tracking, Naturalist study skills, and Wilderness Survival/Primitive Technology, and indigenous methods of Mentoring. We also played a lot of hilariously fun games together that required us to be more aware than we are used to!
We were also introduced to some of our core routines for the year, exercises that we practice each day to help us create new brain patterns and learn faster. These include going to our sit spot every day, holding in our minds and giving thanksgiving each day and at the beginning of gatherings, walking softly and silently (fox-walking), extending our hearing (deer ears), and widening our vision (owl eyes) whenever possible. We are also checking and recording the weather four times a day, and researching and journaling various animal and plant species of the area.
It’s awesome to be exposed to all of this stuff and then have people to share it with. We’ve all been going out to our sit spots and coming back to look things up and compare notes, having Kamana parties (a lot of our homework comes out of Kamana II right now), and quizzing each other, “close your eyes!...how many windows are in this room? How many people are wearing a hat?” Having people to do this with makes all the difference for me. As far as I know, knowledge of the natural world was learned for thousands of years from and with other people of one’s community. Being surrounded by the natural world and people who are drawn to and know about it to varying degrees is one of the most powerful aids for learning, for me anyway.
Our second week was a normal Wednesday, Thursday, Friday schedule. We went to Bob Heirman Park, about 30 minutes from the school. It’s on a tidal river and I saw a salmon swim by!
There’s lots of sandy shore by the river, which is great for tracking. A bunch of people from the community, elders, Rez graduates, staff and friends volunteered to help us learn a bit about tracking. We studied, measured, and drew a number of tracks, made our best guess as to what we were looking at, and then went over what they actually were afterwards. We saw Otter, Great Blue Heron, Rabbit, and Coyote tracks all in one small area of the shore! It was a beautiful sunny day in a beautiful place, and it even got hot enough to encourage a few of us to jump in the water afterwards!
The next two days we spent with Jon Young. We learned about how he was trained, how the school came about, and did a fabulous exercise with bird language. All 21 of us fanned out along Linne Doran (the pond on the school property) and sat there for 30 minutes or so, recording every bird call we heard, where it was coming from, how frequently it occurred, etc. Now remember, this is only our second week, so most of us don’t know many of the kinds of birds that even live around here! Nonetheless, we all recorded doggedly away, and when we came back in, we conversed about what we heard, with Jon pulling all the pieces (what we thought were random bird noises) together, showing us how the sounds of the different birds were related and ending up with a picture of an invisible event. After an hour and a half of discussion, we had determined that some kind of predator on the northwest end of the pond had been caused to move northeast from it’s spot by the disturbance we created making our way down to the pond! All that just from the birds! It was amazing to see what it is possible to know from just listening to the birds, but it was equally amazing to see everyone, students and instructors alike, mimicking bird noises, making theories, adding observations and working together to figure out this small mystery. The process was just as exciting as the product.
October 9, 2006 16:52 - Back from the Dunes, photos by Filip
Chris Laliberte, Joe and Luara H. investigate a latrine. After 10 minutes of synchronized poking with sticks, we decided the scat was most likely from a gray fox.
Joe measures one of the mysterious holes found in the dunes. Called "the Devil's stove pipe," this one measured 8 feet 4 inches deep!
Intreped trackers struggle to answer the age old question, can raccons pace? Well, can they?
October 11, 2006 12:20 - Introducing Filip!
For all of you interested in a little background on me, here yah go. I am a recent graduate from University of Washington in Seattle, with a degree in Wildlife Science. I am 24 years old. The first place I have set down real roots would be Issaquah, so we'll just say for the sake of time that I'm from Issaquah. :)
I am elated with my time as a Rez student with Wilderness Awareness School and look forward to learning more about native awareness and understanding of the natural world. One of my passions is photography, and you're bound to see some of my work here along with Dana's writing. I usually focus on wildlife, but have been presented with the opportunity to tune-up my people-photo skills this year. Hope you enjoy what you see.
My interests also span into philosophy, world religions and other cultures. Despite my strong scientific background, I am fascinated with shamanism and the nature of reality. I considered working towards a degree in psychology while at the University but instead focused on Wildlife, and studied psychology and beliefs on my own time. Learning about brain patterning and awareness with Wilderness Awareness School has been right up my alley. Not to mention the cool survival skills... :-)
Also, on a final note... One of the things I am most excited about for this year is the opportunity to be part of a community. It’s my first real community, and already I feel so tight with my fellow students. The instructors and elders are accessible, approachable and very down to earth. Very unlike many of the college professors I am was used to at the University. The people of this community are a real pleasure to be around, and I am excited to comeback and continue to learn from them anytime I am away.
I am excited to get up and go to school everyday, who would have thought that was possible?!
Filip Tkaczyk, Seattle, WA
October 11, 2006 12:22 - Back from the Dunes! -Dana
Hi everyone. Last week we all crammed into two fifteen-passenger vans and Chris, Jason (our awesome instructors) and Marcus our awesome apprentice instructor, drove us 8 hours south to the Oregon Dunes. They told us the trip was to learn tracking on the open sand of the dunes, but I suspect it also had to do with the inevitable bonding that happens when you squeeze so many people into a smelly vehicle and make them stay in it for most of the day!!! ;-) hahaha!
Regardless of what their true intentions were, we enjoyed both the getting to know each other, the tracking, and the pure physical beauty of the dunes. Each day we woke early and packed up lots of food, then headed out into the sandy vastness in three groups (or clans as we like to call them) to see what animals had moved in the night. We saw many tracks, including coyote, dog, fox, porcupine, rabbit, raccoon, river otter, bobcat, nutria, and plover! We measured and drew tracks, helped each other work out mysterious, unclear prints and patterns and practiced moving like the animals, making our own ridiculous looking marks in the sand.
At the end of each day we came back to camp for dinner and then gathered around the campfire to tell the story of our day. The story came out in skits, dancing, and singing and we all ended the day with lots of laughter. The very last night, the moon was almost full and the night was clear. After eating and gathering around the campfire, many of us went back out onto the dunes and adventured for the rest of the night. It felt like what being on the moon might feel like, with the light reflecting off the sand, mist rolling in, and the big open expanses of hills of sand. We were all very sad to leave, and are already talking about going back on spring break! After leaving we couldn’t close our eyes without seeing tracks or dreaming about them, and it’s sad to be in a place that doesn’t lend itself to such clear, long, tracking as the sand dunes. We will return!
October 14, 2006 12:37 - Skinning acorns!
Nothing brings people together like husking and skinning acorns. Thanks to Karen Sherwood for showing us how.
Pondering and looking up, looking up and pondering. So is it a hawkweed or a nipplewort? -Filip
October 17, 2006 10:41 - Plants!
The highlight of this week at school was the day we spent with Karen Sherwood, founder and teacher at Earthwalk Northwest. Karen is a local expert on ethnobotany and wild and medicinal edibles of the region. With her we processed acorns into pancakes, harvested dandelion heads and leaves for salad, ground some of the leaves into pesto for pasta, gathered dock seeds and ground them into flour for crackers, picked and de-seeded rosehips to mix with honey for a delicious fruity sweet topping on the acorn pancakes, and made a warming tea out of douglas fir needles. We spent most of the day learning and working with these plants and combined them all at the end of the day into a fantastic and beautiful meal that we all enjoyed together. Though we used a fair amount of modern ingredients, it was amazing to see how much we could receive from the natural world when we took the time to patiently seek out, harvest, and process the plants. The day was sunny and warm, and we ended the day truly thankful for the knowledge, company, sun and plants we had been given. -Dana
October 24, 2006 13:28 - Give me shelter!
Hey people!
After Wednesday’s primitive fire workshop with the WAS community school students, we set out early Thursday to the Sultan Sandbar. We walked through the thick tangles of blackberry and knotweed, following our elusive instructors until we came to the Cedar Grove. Here “the tribe” (our class) gathered around a fire as we were briefed on our mission: one day to build a shelter, one night to sleep. Guess which one was the harder part!
Unlike previous residential programs, we were building our shelters early on in the year. Consequently, there were huge stands of Japanese Knotweed nearby that each clan made copious use of. In fact, each clan’s shelter was mostly a big knotweed nest! We didn’t feel bad about using this plant because it is a perennial invasive species taking over the natural habitat.
The shelters were conical with an opening at the top for smoke and just enough room for everyone to fit inside (hopefully). Once they were completed, we kindled fires inside and crawled in to a night of spooning for warmth. The shelters effectively kept out rain, but even with the fires and 7 or 8 people inside a tiny space, were still quite cold. Some clans were organized and did “synchronized” sleeping positions, each using the person next to them as a pillow, switching at designated times. Other clans weren’t quite so smart.
The following morning when we emerged from our nests, we all attempted to focus on amazing guest instructor and trapper Mike as he told us stories of growing up trapping in Alaska, and showed us how to set a trap he had invented. We were all quite interested but had a hard time recovering from the night’s lack of sleep.
We learned a lot from our first night out, and many of us are planning on returning to the Sandbar to continue our shelter education on our own time.
That’s all ‘till next week…special thanks on this entry to Steven who helped get the words on the page!!!
–Dana
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
October 24, 2006 13:46 - Primitive fire making & debris shelters
Heather works hard to produce her first coal with the bow-drill friction fire kit.
The red cedar clan sits in front of their cozy, completed “debri-pee” shelter. The Sultan Sandbar treated us very well. From right to left: Chris, Laura, Colin, Linda, Laura, Joe and me (Filip).
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
October 31, 2006 09:49 - Bird Language Theater!
This week, we worked on Bird Language...
Two male winter wrens (Todd and Mike) fight over territorial boundaries while Alexia and Steven look on.
A towhee (Colin) raises the alarm as a dangerous predator (Becky) moves through the area. Chris and Jan cheer them from a safe distance.
–Filip
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
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