Weekend Wilderness Survival Course

During the final weekend of November, students from the public participated in our 2 day wilderness survival course.  They learned skills to help them take care of the four basic needs of : shelter, water, fire and food. 

Here are some photographic highlights from the course...

Alderleaf instructor Connor O'Malley teaches students the step by step method for building a debris hut.  Here students are adding "ribs" to the "spine" of the shelter.

Here weekend survival students have fun working together to stoke the coals in the wooden bowl burning process in preparation for primitive water purification. They utilized a local native plant, common horsetail (Equisetum arvense) as natural straw to focus on the breath on the coals and encourage them to burn hotter.

Here students use primitive tongs to move red-hot stones from the fire in order to boil the water in the bowls they have just hollowed out.  It takes skill and speed to move these stones, as they are incredibly hot!

Here another student from the weekend wilderness survival course demonstrates his figure-4 dead fall trap.  This simple trap is used in survival situations to trap small game as a source of food.


This short course is an excellent introduction to the major areas of study in the realm of survival skills.  The weekend was a great deal of fun and serious learning, and we were even blessed periods of sunshine.

Here is a video made by one of the students from this course that shows some more of the highlights:



We will be offering this course and more in 2013.  To see the dates check out our Calendar of Courses.