Monday Afternoon 1:00-3:00 Lostproofing, Navigation, Map & Compass – This class will be a fun and informative way to learn how to exponentially increase your senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing to get your bearings in the wilderness. We will introduce you to some of our 30 ways to navigate in the wilderness, including our special Wolf College 4 Step Methods of using map and compass. Register on our Meetup Site.
Tuesday Morning 9:30-11:30 Wildlife Safety & Bird Language – Practice what to do in case of encounters with bears, wolves and mountain lions. In this class, you will also learn about how birds communicate, both with other birds as well as animals and humans. In so doing, you’ll know where those big animals are moving through the forest! Register on our Meetup Site.
Tuesday Afternoon 1:00-3:00 Tracking & Trailing Wild Animals – We will start class with an overview of wildlife tracking to help you recognize tracks and other signs of animals, including track characteristics of mammal families present in our bioregion. Your instructors will arrange a “tracking scenario” consisting of track “cut-outs” to solidify your understanding of track identification, plus educated interpretation of what animals are doing based on their tracks. We will also choose some volunteers to demonstrate “animal forms” which are the way animals move, as this is critical to really understand how tracks get laid on the ground. Finally, we’ll embark on a real-life tracking expedition into the depths of the park, trailing what we find. Register on our Meetup Site.
Wednesday Morning 9:30-11:30 Wilderness Survival including Best Emergency Shelter – The world can be a dangerous place sometimes; one never knows when they may end up in a survival situation. This class seeks to give you a run down on all the skills needed for any short term survival event, whether that is a day hike gone wrong, a disaster emergency or a fun two hour class for the whole family. Register on our Meetup Site.
Wednesday Afternoon 1:00-3:00 Old School Fire Making including the Bow Drill & Fire Steel – We will walk you through the best way to make a fire and view a variety of materials to see how they burn as tinder. We will start the bow drill portion of the workshop by reflecting the symbolism of the parts of the bow drill kit, and you will realize why this method of fire-by-friction was preferred (and superior even to matches) for lighting fires in cold and wet climates. It should only take 10 seconds to create a coal if your kit is well constructed. Register on our Meetup Site.
Thursday Morning 9:30-11:30 Wild Edible Food Plants & Critters – We’ll start this class by practicing honorable harvesting methods and plant stewardship as we select the plant parts we need and carefully collect and store them for later use. You’ll learn when and where to look for the Top 10 Edible Plants of our region, and how to identify and prepare them. We’ll also spend some time examining poisonous look-a-likes and we’ll discuss safety in the forest. Finally, we’ll go on a foray for wild edible insects! Register on our Meetup Site.
Thursday Afternoon 1:00-3:00 Wild Plants for Medicine & Craft – In this class you will be introduced to the myriad wild medicinal plants in Clark’s Creek Park, plus go deeper into neighboring state land to harvest a variety of materials that can be used for basketry and rope making. You will learn techniques for creating strong natural cordage, learn about gardening herbs and turning them into medicine. Join us in an herbalist’s paradise where we hope this will be just about the best intensive learning experience you can find on utilitarian plants anywhere. Register on our Meetup Site.
Friday Morning 9:30-11:30 Skills the Artisan: Knife Training, Making At-Latls & Working with Hides. Would you like to make the principle tool that helped humans dominate the landscape and expand across the globe? Have you ever wondered how to make beautiful leather traditionally, and how to honor animal hides with a plethora of uses? Have you wondered by your hands get overly tired when using knives and other tools, or wondered how to keep others from cutting themselves? Today, we’ll practice the traditions of our ancestors with a class that provides you with generous information, hands-on experiential learning, and heart-felt inspiration. Register on our Meetup Site.
Tuition & Location
Classes cost $20 per person and take place at Clark’s Creek Park – South Shelter, 1700 12th Ave SW in Puyallup. Some classes will also include field trips to neighboring farms and forests. Enrolled youth must be accompanied by enrolled adult. No charge for children under 5 with the understanding that enrolled adult may need to step aside briefly if “info download” times are too long for toddlers.
Register on our Meetup Site, thanks!
Check/Mail/Email Registration Option: Open our Registration Form (Microsoft Word or PDF or Google Doc) on your computer, fill out one per new participant (not needed for returning campers) and send or email it back to us. We also have a Bilingual Chinese-English Registration Form PDF or Word Doc. You can also send a check deposit payable to Wolf Camp, 1026 14th St. SW, Puyallup WA 98371 or fill out the registration form and pay deposits by calling with a credit card, or using paypal as described below.
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.
Refund Policy: Payments are not refundable unless we don’t accept your application. If you cancel 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 is needed 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 cases of natural (weather, geologic, wildfire, etc) disasters, epidemics, government shutdowns, conflicts or curfews, or other unforeseen emergencies making it unsafe 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. Reasons include the expenditure of funds (property rentals, advertising, materials, admin staff time, etc.) long before programs take place, i.e. deposits make it feasible for Wolf Camp to schedule programs in the first place, but our mutually understood agreement is that Wolf Camp will run the program at the safest available time in the future. Finally, 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.
Have you ever attended one of our programs before? Please review us on our Better Business Bureau, Facebook, Yelp & Google pages.