"Really deep powdery snow, lots of animal tracks, and the method of camping was beyond compare. We hauled all our gear by toboggan, which, after you pack down a float with your snowshoes, glide almost effortlessly over the snow. We were able to carry in much more weight than a heavy backpack, using only a fraction of the energy. Our tent was a 4 oz. cotton octagon that looks like a big circus tent, with standing headroom. We laid a bough floor over the snow, which kept everything inside smelling fresh, and dry, and made for a nice springy bed. The woodstove inside the tent heated the inside up to a balmy 80 degrees or so at ground level (despite it being -20F. outside in the mornings), and we cooked all our meals on it. The food was absolutely fantastic! We would spend an hour or so each day felling dead spruce and bucking them into firewood, haul a few pots of water from a hole in the ice, and that was the extent of our work for the day. The rest of it was ours to enjoy! We would track and learn animal habits, go for a snowshoe hike, read, cook, and look at the stars and observe the weather."
                                                                - Peter Frost, Winter Semester, 2004

Two Weeks In The Winter Bush

Winter in the bush is a magical time, when all the bugs and people have settled down for the season. For peoples of the north, winter was the traveling season. When frozen and covered with snow, the waterways and low-lying areas make ideal routes for travel. Burdens are easily transported by toboggan or sled and the whole of the frozen north suddenly becomes within walking distance.

Our techniques and philosophy for the winter trail come from those who routinely spent entire winters in the bush, and differ dramatically from what is currently known as winter camping. It is better described as winter living. It isn't carrying everything you need for a short sojourn in the backcountry. Instead, it's learning the skills and techniques for an entire winter in the bush, and doing so in style. It is understanding winter's wisdom, and living in the cold with a grace and economy unheard of in the modern, high-tech style of camping that has spilled over from mountaineering.

But winter can also be cruel to those who don't know its ways. It is a season of narrow margins, and the effects of mistakes and bad judgements are magnified exponentially. Learning traditional winter bushcraft skills is the antidote to such events. Knowledge gained from experience guides you and keeps you safe.

The Winter Bushcraft And Snowshoe Expedition Intensive is a two week immersion into these skills and lifestyle. Students learn traditional living and travel skills of the northern forest, not in a static classroom setting, but by actively living them. Because of length and schedule of the course it offers college students a unique opportunity for thier January Term, especially for those majoring in outdoor education looking for a practical, real-world learning experience.

Course Components

The Winter Bushcraft And Snowshoe Expedition Intensive draws from numerous disciplines to give the student a thorough education. They include:

1. Wilderness Survival - What it takes to stay alive in the forest.
2. Bushcraft - Shelter design and construction, primitive firelighting, knife and axe use, saw construction, netting, making cordage, knots, etc.
3. Traditional Winter Travel - Snowshoes, toboggans, canvas wall tents with wood stoves.
4. Naturalist Studies - Tracking, edible/medicinal wild plants, weather forecasting, bird and mammal studies.
5. Navigation - Barehand, map and compass, GPS.
6. Traditional Crafts - Woodworking (pack frames, friction fire kits, assorted carving projects), leatherworking (mukluks, moccasins, etc.), and making useful items such as pack frames, emergency snowshoes, etc.
7. Outdoor Cooking - Stone ovens, pot suspension systems, primitive grilling, sourdough baking, etc.
8. Outdoor Leadership - Trip preparation and planning, provisioning, safety, etc.
9. Environmental Education

Course Curriculum

Phase 1: Advanced Winter Bushcraft, Survival And Wilderness Living Skills. Phase 1 is an immersion into winter living skills and survival. Students learn winter survival from the ground up, initially focusing on the core skills that make the difference between life and death in the frozen environment. The 5 stages of fire, building all-natural shelters as well as those using survival kit components, the safe and efficient use of appropriate tools, clothing to protect you from the elements, and a crash course on living and working while wearing snowshoes.

Phase 2: Traditional Winter Skills Snowshoe Expedition. Phase 2 is a 6-day snowshoe trip where the students are actively living in the forest. We snowshoe into the bush pulling our gear on hand made toboggans. Using our wall tents as a base camp, students learn to see the frozen landscape as home, making numerous crafts, traveling and setting up camp, and experiencing life in the bush as it's been for thousands of years.

Evaluation and Certification

        There are no certifications in bushcraft, wilderness survival or primitive skills that are accepted universally. If any school offers a certification, it's likely a result of their marketing department and probably isn't transferable. None are recognized here. I've crossed paths with numerous people who were "certified" in one thing or another, but in the real world were incompetent, incapable of completing some of the most basic tasks. Thus certified doesn't necessarily mean qualified or competent. Neither does how many courses you've attended, regardless of the school or instructor. What you've accomplished and the experience you've accumulated does. We don't want to certify people. Instead, we seek provide training and field experience and let what they accomplish speak for itself. The way we do that is through our logbook and portfolio assessment system. It records what a student has accomplished instead of placing them in competition with their peers. Students keep a daily logbook during the program to record what they've done. These, along with crafts they've made, projects they've worked on, photographs they've taken, and everything else they've done during the program, are assembled into individual student portfolios.

        The portfolio is a factual record what you've done. This way, if someone were to ask if you knew how to start a hand drill fire, instead of saying you took a course on how to do it you could volunteer your logbook and state that you've done it "X" number of times. In this era of people being over-certified and under-qualified, this type of assessment system offers a route back to reality.

Our Educational Philosophy

        Knowledge is power, but knowledge is constructed, not received. It is built incrementally, over time. If teaching were simply telling, then anyone who excelled in a field would be an effective teacher of it. But this transmission model of teaching isn't effective for most learners. Standing in front of someone and telling them what they need to know isn't facilitating learning. Especially when you consider the differences between visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles. We subscribe to the learning model of teaching, where the role of the teacher is to create situations where learning takes place. Students build upon their knowledge daily, and by the end of the experience they've accumulated a storehouse of information and experiences. But the instructor must also make it relevant. It's easy to scoff at friction fire since matches and lighters are so readily available. But remove them from the equation and it's instantly relevant, and the desire to learn the subtleties of the hand drill takes on renewed importance. Our students are actively learning, immersing themselves in the curriculum by necessity. An example of this is how we teach shelter building. You can learn something about a shelter by making one. You can learn more about it by sleeping in it. But to truly know that specific shelter, you need to spend four consecutive nights in it. In this way you're forced to deal with the consequences of shoddy construction or not paying attention to details. Maybe the first night is rough, but it teaches you what you need to do before the second night in order to shore it up and get some sleep. The second night is spent learning some of the subtleties that would make it more comfortable. The third night is fine-tuning it to your specifications, and the fourth night is enjoying the fruits of your labor. If you were to build the same shelter again, you could eliminate the learning curve because you'd know what to do from the outset. That's experiential education.

"Experiential education is the process of actively engaging students in an authentic experience that will have benefits and consequences. Students make discoveries and experiment with knowledge themselves instead of hearing or reading about the experiences of others. Students also reflect on their experiences, thus developing new skills, new attitudes, and new theories or ways of thinking."  (Kraft & Sakofs, 1988)

        In addition to passing on traditional skills, we focus on using them to foster critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, curiosity, and a concern with ethical issues.

        Summed up in a single word, our educational philosophy is this:  CAN

Housing, Meals, College Credit and Other Information

        During the first half of the course students stay in our wall tent and group shelter, as well as spending several nights in the forest in shelters of their own making. The second half of the course is spent traveling through the bush by snowshoe and toboggan and staying in our winter tents outfitted with wood stoves.

        Information on meals, as well as other background information, is located on the Background Information page. Past students have received college credit for their work in with us. For more information on how to set this up visit the credit information page.

To Apply

Our programs open to anyone, from anywhere, with a strong interest in learning the traditional bushcraft skills of the northern forest. The minimum age for our semester programs is 18. No previous outdoor experience is required or assumed. To apply, go to our registration page.

Get More Information - Media And Student Work

        To get a better idea of what takes place during the semester, check out these resources:

• Photo albums of past semesters
• Student testimonials
• Student papers, logbooks and field journals
• Slideshow
• Online videos - Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal episodes 8-16 were shot as a video diary of the fall, 2007 semester course.

Also don't hesitate to contact us anytime with questions. The winter program is a component of our Yearlong Immersion Program.

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