The Conservation College Wilderness Survival & Traditional Technologies instructors training internship position is an exclusive summer focus of our Earth Skills Apprenticeship with only two positions available in this, our 20th Anniversary Year. Check out all the general program details for 2017 on our main Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship page.
Our two Traditional Technology & Survival Instructor training positions are available for those who want to move beyond a general overview of the skills we teach, and to challenge themselves with skills like navigation and orienteering, fire and shelter, wild edible foods foraging, and traditional craftwork such as tanning hides for leather, making bows and fishing gear for the fall harvest, working with stone to make knives and arrowheads, and practicing survival scenarios in case of emergency or catastrophe.
Each week of the summer is an intensive training on a different aspect of wilderness survival, wild edible and medicinal plant crafting, ethnobotany, wildlife tracking, ancient scouting skills, hunting and fishing, plus traditional crafts like hide tanning, bow and arrow making, flintknapping, and more. In one summer, you can become a professional survival instructor and traditional technologies specialist through this full time, residential apprenticeship at Wolf Camp and the Conservation College. By the time you are done with this course, you will know how to harvest plants, animals and minerals with confidence about how to honor their gifts. You will never waste resources again, while becoming a utilitarian artist, and a person people will look to in times of need.
FAQ – What is the Earth Skills Apprenticeship Mission and Who is the Ideal Intern?
The mission of the internship is to guide you become a wilderness survival expert and an excellent teacher of traditional technologies, so it is more than an internship, it is an apprenticeship designed for:
1) aspiring survivalists and traditional skills specialists to teach youth these subjects while becoming versed in them simultaneously; or
2) experienced outdoors-people learn to teach their crafts to students of all ages; or
3) experienced teachers of other subject matters become versed in survival in a familiar fast-paced educational setting.
Check out all the general program details for 2017 on our main Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship page, and click here for supplemental FAQs received from applicants.
FAQ – Which Outdoor Skills will I specialize in as a Traditional Technology & Survival Instructor intern/apprentice?
Specialty Skills
• Emergency Shelter & Primitive Shelter (debris hut, lean-to, wickiup, thatch hut, earth lodge, split cedar cabins, including fire drafting strategies)
• Wet Fire Maintenance & Fire by Friction (bow drill, hand drill, fire plow, flint & steel)
• Flintknapping & Primitive Tool Making (from harvested stones, bones, wood)
• Bow & Arrow Making (survival bows, self bows, lumber bows, fletching, lashing, etc.)
• Primitive Fishing (wiering, netting, spearing, bow fishing, hand fishing, hook and line, gorges, bullfrogging)
• Natural Water Purification (seeps, filters, rock boiling, and locating natural springs)
• Bowls & Cordage Making (double and triple reverse wrap using nettle, fireweed, cedar, kelp seaweed)
• Primitive Hunting (bow and arrow, rabbit stick, at-latl, ethics, strategies, butchering)
• Hide Tanning (wet and dry scraping, brain and other high-tannin methods, hair on and off)
• Wildlife Tracking & Animal Surveying (identification, trailing, aging, interpretation)
• Birding & Bird Language (academic and song-to-alarm interpretations)
• Naturalist Sketching & Journaling (using sit spots, drawing instruction, quick journaling strategies)
• Skills of the Ancient Scout (sensory awareness, stealthy movement, camouflage, games)
• Wild Edible Foraging & Preparation (Herbs, Nuts, Roots, Flowers, Fruits, Insects)
• Primitive Cooking & Food Storage (pit cook, clay oven, ash cakes, smoking, jerkying, pemmican)
• Medicinal Herb Collection & Preservation (drawing from knowledge of area herbalists)
• Preventative Health & Herbal Spas (from daily health routines, to our special spa treatments)
Experiential Skills
• Natural Selection Forestry (chopping and chainsawing, wood splitting and moving)
• Human Tracking
• Backpacking & Camping
• Land Mapping & Water Navigation (orienteering with and without modern aids)
• Trapping
• Clay Harvesting, Molding & Firing
• Parfleching (carrying cases, drum making, sheaths and quivers with fur and tanned hide)
• Bioregional Ecosystems (old growth temperate rainforest, glaciated alpine meadow, intertidal and estuary, river and lake, wetland and bog, desert and sagebrush steppe, mixed pine and subalpine forest)
• Storytelling, Music and the Arts (flute making, drumming, songwriting, poetry, clay sculpting, natural paints, singing and pianos/guitars on hand)
• Risk Management (assessing sites, planning activities, mitigating hazards)
• Emergency Rescue, Advanced First Aid, CPR (wilderness and water settings)
Ready to Apply?
Check out all the general program details for 2017 on our main Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship page, and click here for supplemental FAQs received from applicants, and after deciding whether this apprenticeship focus most interests you, click here to check out our application process. We always keep your information absolutely private, and will never share it. Not quite ready yet? Email us to be put on our our list for future years.
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