Returning in 2023
Travel to glaciated alpine meadows and experience rare medicinal wildflowers bring you untold numbers of wild edible and medicinal plants. Make herbal tinctures, oils, salves, glycerites, and infusions, and poultices as part of herbal first aid training. Then, enjoy an herbal spa, complete with clay masks, facial steams, and more.
Course Goals & Skills:
The goal of this expedition is to provide participants with hands-on learning about Wild Edible Foods & Herbal Medicine. Skills covered include:
- Harvest, process and store the Top 10 Edible Plants.
- Understand the meaning of plant characteristics (astringents, etc.)
- Ability to harvest, process and administer the most important medicinal herbs of the northwest.
- Ability to honorably harvest and process plants (decoctions, oils, tinctures, etc.)
- Ability to make fire, cook over an open fire, and to “rock boil.”
- Harvest and cook with cattails, hazelnuts, and more
- Ability to make rope from nettles, cattails, fireweed, and other natural materials
- Make a medicine pouch to fill with your personal herbs.
- Dry and store herbs to take home, make herbal chocolates, and more.
- Purify water naturally for cleansing wounds and making teas.
- Using a map and compass so as not to get lost when wildcrafting.
- Practice wilderness medicine emergency response scenarios.
- Make and maintain fire in any weather, and witness traditional fire by friction.
- Learn Easy Plant Drawing and complete Journal Entries on your healing plants, and on corresponding poisonous plants.
Click Ethnobotany Expedition Sample Itinerary for a detailed weekly sample itinerary.
Course Availability:
Open and geared for young adults with no prerequisite, although we recommend attending at least one of our weekend workshops or other camps and expeditions in the past for greatest success in the course. Youth may attend the Wild Chefs & Herbal Medics camp running simultaneously.
Course Instructors:
Kim & Chris Chisholm are on hand all week directing our professionally-trained instructors who make up our hallmark 6-1 average student-instructor ratio critical for high-level outdoor educational programs. Read our FAQ’s for more details and check out our testimonials and dating back to 1997.
Location, Pick-up, Drop-off and Airport/Bus/Train Transportation Options:
Sunday 4:30 Starting Point: Sahara Creek Horse Camp, Ashford WA with additional transportation options from the Seattle Ferry/Bus/Train, SeaTac Airport, and the Puyallup Wolf Campus.
Friday Ending Points: Sahara Creek Horse Camp, Ashford WA with additional drop-off options at the Seattle Ferry/Bus/Train, SeaTac Airport, and the Puyallup Wolf Campus.
Tuition
Training Camps & Expeditions are $795. To reserve your spot, make a $200 deposit and your balance will be due upon arrival. Cost includes everything from Sunday-Friday including survival knife, firesteel or field guide depending on topic. The only additional expenses you may incur for our courses are for travel and specific gear, although we have extras in case you can’t acquire something. You will also need to show you have health insurance, or check with us for recommendations on inexpensive temporary insurance if necessary.
Registration:
Credit/Debit Card Registration Option: Just call us at 425-248-0253 and we will take your registration securely over the phone.
Check/Mail/Email Registration Option: Print out and complete our Microsoft Word or PDF Registration Form for each participant and send with a check deposit payable to the Wolf College, 1026 14th St. SW, Puyallup WA 98371. You can also email us a completed registration form and pay using your preferred method.
Or Use PayPal to register online securely with a credit/debit card or via direct withdrawal from your bank account. Use the link below (might not be visible if you are using “reader view” on your phone or other device) or sign into paypal.com and “send money” to our email address: (we’ll get back to you with any additional information we may need)
Or email us to be put on our our list for this program in the future. We always keep your information absolutely private, and will never share it. You can also like our facebook page to keep in better touch, and once you’ve attended a program, please review us on our Better Business Bureau, Yelp & Google pages.
Refund Policy: Payments are not refundable unless we don’t accept your application. If you cancel in advance of the program start time for any reason, you may receive a full credit good through the following calendar year on appropriate and available programs listed on our schedule, although an additional deposit may be required to secure your spot in the future program. If a program you sign up for is canceled and not rescheduled at a time you can attend, you may receive a full refund except in case of natural (weather, geologic, etc) disasters, government shutdowns, conflicts or curfews, or other unforeseen emergencies making it impossible for staff and/or attendees to reach or use program locations, in which case all payments made will be held by us without expiration date for your future use in appropriate/available programs of your choice. No refund, nor credit, is given if a participant is asked to leave a program for inappropriateness as determined by our kids, youth and adult agreements for participation.
Course Preparation: Agreements, Packing List and FAQ’s
Click here for our Expedition Agreements