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TO BE UPDATED OCTOBER 22: please see Schedules & Tuitions for most up-to-date info

Scroll down or click here for information on the Stone Age Living Experience

If you want a real taste of this program, click here for a message from Nikki & Micah that will blow your mind.

Next available start dates: See Description Below.

The Primitive Living Experience

Scroll Down or Click for Specifics:
• Goals of the Primitive Living Experience;
• Skills Covered In This Program;
• Program History;
• Program Schedule;
• Applying & Expectations;

Overview of Costs & Benefits:

The Primitive Living Experience is free, with a prerequisite of the Wolf Journey Naturalist Survey, or a combination of the Autumn Season Primitive Skills Program and/or Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship and/or the Future Scout Trackers Training and/or Wild Healers Herbalist Exploration. Of course, if you already have extensive survival experience, then you may jump into this program after rounding out your education by attending the courses you most need to prepare for your primitive living experience, and your costs would be greatly reduced from the $6,000 Naturalist Survey tuition in that case. But believe us when we tell you that it takes at least one year of intense practice before you can walk into the wilderness with nothing from society.

While you are preparing to launch into a full primitive living situation, you will also need to give 10 hours work trade per week for camping, use of common facilities, and food supplies. Living on campus also means sharing responsibility for maintenance of all common facilities as well as your own shelter space just like if you were renting a house elsewhere and needing to spend time cleaning, etc. However, it is much more efficient to live in a community like this where you are taking turns cooking, cleaning, recycling, shopping, organizing supplies, caretaking farm animals, etc., etc., rather than having to do all that on your own, and thereby leaving more time for your studies.

Blog entries, making foods from scratch, maintenance checks and first aid drills can also take up some time, and they are important aspects of your learning program. However, many community living projects are counted toward work-trade depending on your prior skill level, such as gardening, mechanical repairs, seasonal grounds maintenance, building improvements, etc., as prioritized by your program facilitator.

Health insurance is required, but you shouldn't need to spend another dime while living here except for entertainment, travel, emergencies, etc. It’s a great way to live simply, learn greatly, and lay a foundation for your future. We have availability for just 4 individuals or families in this program for 2008.

Goals of the Primitive Living Experience

This is the ultimate way to learn earth skills in our opinion, and your participation will help make the new Wolf Camp a great place. In addition to learning in-depth earth skills at any of the courses we offer to adults plus attendance at any of the youth programs you want to assist, there is one main objective for this program: Remain living around primitive camp for a year. When you are ready for this challenge, we will provide the “safe container” from which you will strive to live primitively, alone or in a small group. When you return, we’d love to have such a true survivor stay with Wolf Camp as long as your relationship with staff and students remains healthy and happy. We encourage you to caretake the land and primitive camp facilities for as many seasons as you choose to remain, in an effort to make Wolf Camp as healthy, abundant and beautiful a place as possible, and similarly, to make you as healthy, strong, and self-sufficient as possible. Spend the first part of your program ensuring that shelters will be finished, meat smoked and dried, hides prepared for warmth, and all the other tasks completed in preparation for the coming season. This is a mild climate, however wet, and it does snow periodically at our elevation, so it's a great place to learn to thrive through a variety of conditions. We think we'll be able to succeed in creating a purely primitive, year-round camp where you can interact with any others in the program, but spend much of your time alone. Those who decide they don't want to live fully primitive will be encouraged to remain one of our other cooperative residential intensives.

Shed more and more of the store-bought gear we tend to depend on in order to live naturally in an earth lodge that you build. Learn to rarely let the fire die completely, multitask to ensure that the next meal is constantly being prepared, and build natural tools to make life in the lodge more pleasant. Construct animal-proof storage sheds for your foods, improve your lodge so that your winter is dry and warm, continue gathering foods and medicines so that your health is better ensured, and when needed, guide novices who visit primitive camp.

There is no better way to allow the skills you learned in previous earth skills course sink into your bones, while at the same time, you will learn countless truths about shelter, fire, water, food, and primitive life in general. Most challenging is food. You may choose to have a ration of grains or other staples upon which you can add whatever you can forage. But most critical will be developing your hunting and fishing abilities. Once you become skilled at harvesting such foods from the wild, and efficient at processing and storing them, life tends to become easy – lots of free time to do artwork, make baskets, and enjoy the central fire with others sharing the experience. But getting to that point is challenging, and we will work to make everyone who participates acheive success. Study herbal health cures to prepare for the absense of modern medical intervention, and pay attention to the medicine wheel to help maintain happiness and well being in general.

Program participants will be asked to volunteer additional time to give tours and assist students who visit primitive camp, as long as it doesn't get in the way too greatly with your daily tasks. You graduate from the program when you have completed 12 months in the program and reached the learning objectives you set at the start of your program. No matter your previous experience, you will be expected to fully participate in every possible opportunity to push your skills to a higher level of excellence, although your health, including rest and rejuvenation, will be the priority. The goal is to always develop ourselves into better and better naturalists.

Specialty Skills Learned
• 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)
• 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)

Experiential Skills Introduced
• Natural Selection Forestry (chopping and chainsawing, wood splitting and moving)
• Sustainable Building & Permaculture
• Organic & Biodynamic Gardening
• Farm Animal Care & Cultivation
• Human Tracking
• Backpacking & Camping
• Land Mapping & Water Navigation (orienteering with and without modern aids)
• Sailing, Kayaking, Canoeing, Raft Making
• 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)
• Music and the Arts (flute making, drumming, songwriting, poetry, clay sculpting, natural paints, singing and pianos/guitars on hand)
• Rock Climbing & Alpine Mountaineering

Earth Skills Educational Skills
• Best skills to introduce to each age group (3-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, 16-18, 19-21, young adults, parents, elders)
• Most effective methods to use with each age group (didactic/wolf, questioning/coyote, imitation/ant)
• Delivery of age appropriate stories (personal, european, african, persian, chinese, other eastern, indigenous)
• Risk Management (assessing sites, planning activities, mitigating hazards)
• Emergency Rescue, Advanced First Aid, CPR (wilderness and water settings)
• Influences of Nature on Spirituality (buddhist, christian, hindi, indigenous, jewish, muslim) including opportunities of retreats and quests, sweat lodges and fasts
• Health & Organizational Strategies (western lineal and medicine wheel use for self, lessons, projects)
• Incorporating Earth Skills & Starting New Schools (examples of non-profits, partnerships, sole ventures, and communities)
• Political Environmentalism (left and right wing strategies, legislative and artistic strategies)

History of the Primitive Living Experience and where graduates are now:

Melva van Schyndel was the first Wolf Camp apprentice in 2000, before it was an official program, after attending our adult classes in 1999. She became the most advanced student we ever had at Wolf Camp and a lead instructor in 2001. She has been the most inspirational teacher most students have experienced here. In 2004, she went on sabbatical to test her primitive living technology skills and survival skills for a year and a half before emerging from the wilderness safely this past autumn, probably as one of the most skilled people anywhere in the field of earth skills. Micah Fay graduated from our apprenticeship after our pilot year in 2003, and then he embarked on a wilderness survival trek in the western wilderness in February of 2004. His feats were amazing and we are looking forward to hearing about where he takes his skills in the future. Everyone enjoyed Micah's diligence, sensetivity, humor, intelligence, and all-around personality while he was here, so we hope that we will be able to hire him to consult with Primitive Living Experience participants over the coming year.

We moved our facilities in 03-04 and did not promote our Primitive Living Experience last year due to our focus on getting the camp and farm up and running. This is the first year we are promoting the Primitive Living Experience since its pilot year, which was by word of mouth only. We wanted to wait until we were sure we would be able to logistically support any participant who was ready to do it. Now we're ready, and we look forward to having the first participants begin living at our new primitive camp location, or nearby in the wilderness, beginning this fall.

Schedule & Tuition Breakdown

See our 2007-2008 Calendar of courses for a visual perspective, and take a look at the Adult Course Index and then click on the links to read descriptions of each course. But as you can imagine, once you have taken the courses you need to prepare for you primitive living experience, you schedule will be set by you, with guidance from Chris Chisholm and other Wolf Camp staff. International Students: The INS just added some extra hurdles, so please inquire as to the latest status on obtaining a visa for study with us.

Applying & Expectations

This internship program requires a lengthy application process to ensure that this is the right choice for you, and that you are the right choice for us. To apply, first call Chris Chisholm at 360-319-6892 or 360-799-1997 or email us with your mailing address to request a copy of our flyer.

Print and fill out the registration form, and adults include your driver's license number, 5 year driving record and police background check if you will be spending overnights here, and copies of all past relevant certifications you have received, particularly in Wilderness Medicine and water-related rescue training. Also include your most recent educational transcripts. If you do not have a recent 24 hour or longer Wilderness First Aid training, then you will need to show that you have registered for such an upcoming course (regular first aid is not sufficient). If you have recent documented training in open water rescue or lifeguard training, that would be an added benefit. Your application should also contain:

• A cover letter detailing your passion as an earth skills specialist, and your intention to complete this opportunity.
• A description of any previous environmental education you have received, including academic work, mentoring during your childhood, personal dirt time, and trainings at other earth skills schools.
• A letter of recommendation from a recent employer, and a letter of recommendation from a recent teacher.
• $1,000 deposit, which will be refunded (only) if your application is not accepted and you do not wish to attend any of the scheduled training courses.
• Your balance will be due the day after you arrive at Wolf Camp. Please request an exact price quote from Chris on what your costs will total, and after your application is accepted, he will include that on your 2 page program contract. If at any time you decide against completing the program after applying, you will receive a full credit (not a refund) toward the cost of any Wolf Camp programs you wish to attend in the coming year for which you meet the prerequisites. In addition, like all students being required to follow our behavioral agreements, our policy is that if Chris asks you to leave Wolf Camp for breaking the agreements and not being able to prove that you won't break them again, you will receive no refund or credit for any payments you have made. Please ask Chris to clarify this policy if you need a better sense of its context. Thanks!

Word to the Wise: All those who have kept their applications concise and focused have been successful at Wolf Camp, without exception. Those who wrote rambling essays or thought we weren't completely serious about our drug policy, for instance, are no longer with us. Suggestions for your biography may include any previous training, skills or experience in earth skills, and/or a list of any nature awareness and survival skills you know and your level of study with them, and a description of your method of continuing education in these skills.

You will also need to read our whole web site to understand Wolf Camp offerings and its full schedule, plus read the Wolf Journey Handbook for Students & Teachers before arriving, then be in volunteer attendance at Wolf Camp except when your school year or other critical commitment interferes, and continue afterward if you add additional residential program opportunities (at no additional cost) to your experience.

Potential for paid work will depend on the amount of camp and farm business, your progress on improving your earth skills, the number of programs for which you assisted in the past, your previous education and work experience, and your future interests. Remember, this is a program designed for people who really want to learn earth skills in depth. Beyond the training period, you will be learning the skills somewhat according to our even schedule, but mostly on pace with your own will forces. Ultimately, it is up to you to practice during the off-season to become accomplished in these earth skills. During the summer, the needs of our youth campers will be our focus. If you simply want to learn the skills without the "distraction" of children at camp in the summer, we encourage you to attend our training period and then live elsewhere during the summer, coming back in the off season if you like.

The most important behavioral expectations while enrolled in the internship programs include: pouring your greatest effort into learning these earth skills; following the guidelines described in the hold harmless section of the application form; maintaining professional hygiene (including appearance and smell of body, hair and clothes) and behavior (including the very same agreements which youth campers must uphold during camps and contracts guaranteeing the physical and emotional safety of all participants - see youth camp pages to read these agreements - obvious exceptions include provisions for married persons, for example) throughout the summer youth camp season; remaining free of drugs (including alcohol, tobacco, and illicits); never harboring any illegal items, people or behavior on or in the vicinity of Wolf Camp; never having participated in child abuse or workplace sexual misconduct, nor having any impulse to do so; not unfairly discriminating against anyone based on color, ethnicity, origin, sex, sexual orientation, religious preference, or handicap; and performing in a professional, safe manner to help make Wolf Camp the most excellent outdoor educational program possible.

I’m looking forward to receiving your application, and helping us celebrate our wonderful, new camp location on Woods Lake. It’s gorgeous, full of big trout, surrounded by lush forests, and backed up against state land and vast wilderness. We’re just 30 minutes from Puget Sound in one direction, and the Cascade Mountains in the other. We’re also just 90 minutes from sagebrush country. How could it get any better? With you joining us! There is so much to gain and to give with this program - I'm looking forward to sharing a wonderful time together.

Until then! - Chris

The Stone Age Living Experience

Goals of the Stone Age Living Experience

This level of expertise is what everyone in the earth skills field wishes they could attain. It usually takes a minimum of two years of intensive, full time training to reach this level, and most people who lived in the stone ages seemed to have thrived best in groups of 20 or so. That means if you want to go it alone, chances are slim that you will thrive. However, a couple of our senior staff have pretty much accomplished this feat, and this is what we recommend:

To prepare, you should do something like both the Ultimate Naturalist Caretaking Journey, and the Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship. Then you will need to live at least one year doing a hard core Primitive Living Experience here at Wolf Camp, as described above. Once you have built all your primitive artisanry apparati and learned to gather and preserve all the animal products you will need to survive on top of all of your skills with plant materials that you learned previously, we look forward to watching you walk into the wilderness with nothing, and we mean nothing, from modern society. Your blades you made from indigenous rock, bone, wood and cordage. You retrofitted your shelter to remove any modern support. You have two seasons worth of firewood that you gathered without modern blades, and two seasons of food preserved and primitively chached away from scavengers. You can go out and get all the food you need with completely stone age tools in case your food is spoiled. You can keep yourself healthy with herbal medicine, and you can heal your basic wounds with primitive medicine. You have an abundance of bent cedar boxes, water tight baskets, tanned hides for clothing and preserved furs for bedding. You have a dougout canoe that you made for transporting yourself and what you harvested in Puget Sound and in the Skykomish River back to your primitive camp.

You get the idea. No charge. In fact, we will give you a scholarship to cover all your expenses back home, and a financial bonus when you are ready to come out of the woods, in order to help you integrate back into society again.

Cooperative Ownership Opportunity: Click here if you would like to invest in our cooperative as a worker owner.

Employment: We only need instructors with experience running camps and teaching in the field of Earth Skills, including Permaculture, Tracking, Primitive Artisanry, Advanced Herbalism, or Wilderness EMT training with real outdoor survival practice. If you would like experience as a teacher and learn skills of the Naturalist, Tracker, Herbalist, Scout, Hunter, Artisan, or Permaculture Pioneer, apply to become an instructor through our Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship.

SITE MAP This site is updated often, so be sure to tell us if you find a missing link, erroneous information or other problem. Thanks!