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Introduction to Wolf Journey Volume I Trail of the Neighborhood Naturalist

Wolf Journey is currently being re-written but in the meantime, we are providing the Volume I unedited version freely online. Books and other resources which you will need for successful completion of field exercises throughout Wolf Journey can be purchased through Granny's Country Store or by calling them at 406-287-3605 to order. You can work through Wolf Journey independently, but we recommend this book series as part of our Correspondence Course, Academic Year Class Series, In-Depth Apprenticeships and Summer Training Camps, but if you would like an instructor from your own area to guide you while studying these skills, we recommend clicking on PrimitiveSkillsLinks.Com to find an earth skills specialist near you who can personally review your field exercises and journaling work, which you can keep track of on your Student Transcripts. Other schools and outdoor instructors who would like to use this curriculum for their own programs are free to do so. We would appreciate donations, or having your students donate as described above. While we are revising Wolf Journey, we also recommend considering the Kamana Naturalist Training Program through the Wilderness Awareness School which inspired Wolf Journey Volume One. Kamana takes naturalist training to a deep level, bit it also includes an overt metaphysical component that is wonderful for spiritual people. Please note that Kamana is a naturalist training program, as opposed to a full-scale earth skills curriculum, so you may be introduced to tracking, herbalism, and scouting, but it does not include the full professional tracking, ethnobotany, scout survival, ancient artisanry, hunter-gathering, sustainable pioneering, or outdoor educator field exercises found in Wolf Journey. Contents of Introduction: Forward & Dedications. Approaches you can take to use this book series, including time commitments. Setting Goals - preparing your field journal or blog page and work station. Resources Necessary for Success. Your First Journal Entry. Go to Chapter 1 - Your Study Site. Go to Chapter 2 - Fears & Hazards. Go to Chapter 3 - Sensory Awareness. Go to Chapter 4 - Sketching & Journaling.

Ready? Here goes!

In Part One of Wolf Journey we welcome you into great secrets of the natural world. While you are working through these chapters, you can consider yourself a naturalist. It is your lifestyle which reflects who you are, and since you will be studying the natural world regularly, your lifestyle will be that of a naturalist.

Some think you need a degree, others feel that years of "dirt time" are necessary, or that only elders can teach as naturalists. Yet we are all walking along the infinite path of nature, and although some people are further along than others, every person possesses a bit of the knowledge.

Do your feet touch the natural surface of the earth every day? When was the last time you splashed free-flowing water on your face? Have you recently shown a companion something you discovered in nature? Can you develop a personal relationship with a wild animal?

At times you will be a great naturalist, and in other phases of your life you may become more distant from nature. Be prepared to accept this ebb and flow even while you work to make your naturalist lifestyle as consistent as possible. Coming to know nature is a lifelong and intimate journey, and you are always welcome.

The first chapter in Part One of the book series guides you to find the private study site you will be visiting regularly, a prerequisite for every naturalist. Chapter two makes you aware of the many hazards a naturalist must respect in nature. Chapter three helps you see, hear, smell, taste and feel nature more intimately.

The last chapter in Part One teaches you to document wildlife as a naturalist, and then you will be ready to study the skills of The Tracker. If you would like to work toward a specialization as a naturalist, check out recommendations in the Handbook for Students & Teachers which also includes more Wolf Journey background information, transcripts for students to document their progress, and checklists for teachers to use when guiding classes through these skills.

Forward & Dedications

My journey to study nature using the methods included in this book series was inspired in part by the Kamana Naturalist Training Program in 1995. Kamana was written by Jon Young who founded the Wilderness Awareness School, and it was a book by his childhood mentor, Tom Brown, Jr., that helped me begin serious training in the arts of nature awareness and survival skills. That was 1992 - after a childhood phaffing around the backwoods of northern Minnesota. Like everyone, I still have an enless amount to learn, but I am encouraged by the growing number of people, of all ages, who are traveling together on this path.

My journey was also inspired by my favorite animal, the wolf, and I detail its significance in the Handbook for Students & Teachers. But it is important to emphasize that the wolf is considered a pathfinder and teacher in many traditions, and like the dog, very loyal to its family. These are vocations and values I strive to embody, but the journey into nature for a naturalist is long. Maybe you, too, are a lone wolf seeking a pack to run with, but we must focus on the present, and enjoy wherever we find ourselves along the way.

As inspiration, let me tell you the story of one of the first wolves ever fitted with a Global Positioning System collar. She was found to have covered thousands of miles in less than a year while in search of a mate. The she-wolf began her journey north of Grand Rapids, Minnesota where I grew up, and traveled as far south as Madison, Wisconsin where I attended college.

The trip used to take me 8 hours in a car one way, but she ran a zig-zag pattern down and back, losing herself to each moment, running through farmer's fields and behind houses in the suburbs before returning home to the boreal forests of northern Minnesota. That wolf's journey in life was amazing, and I pray that yours, too, will bring blessings of joyful, profound understanding about the world as it was originally created.

As you embark on this Wolf Journey, I do think it's very important that you know where much of this information originates. One of the lineages is recorded by Tom Brown, whose childhood mentor was a Lippan Apache scout he calls Stalking Wolf. Caught between raiding tribes of Apache, compounded by hundreds of years of harrassment by the Mexicans, and finally pursued by the American Calvary, the Lippan Apache hid for many decades before capitulating to the warring invaders.

While in this precarious situation, the Apache scouts were forced to bring the level of knowledge about nature to its keenest development. As an example of the expertise of the Apache scouts, it is helpful to learn about Geronimo, as the Mexicans named him after he seemed to pose as St. Jerome (Gerónimo in Spanish) during a village's celebration of that patron saint. Geronomo posed as St. Jerome as a strategic set-up to massacre the Mexican village as revenge for these Mexicans having done the same to his tribe.

Geronimo was never captured, despite a lifetime of persuit by all sides, including fellow Apaches. In fact, he caused the abandonment of more American military outposts than any enemy the U.S. government ever faced. How? The list of reasons are many, including the Apache's ability to understand the language of the birds, which I pass on to you in Part 2 of this book series.

Fellow Chiricahua Apache scouts finally did convince Geronimo to surrender, whereupon all the scouts, including those loyal to the U.S. Calvary, were shipped to a prison camp in Florida. With that, knowledge such as bird language may have gone extinct, were it not for people like Tom Brown's mentor. Interestingly, he chose the way of peace rather than war, and unlike Geronimo, whose legacy is past, you might say that Stalking Wolf's legacy lives on. He may even "win" the Apache wars through peaceful education of those of us who are studying nature the way he presented it.

However, many fans of Tom Brown don't realize that although he was probably America's greatest outdoorsman spanning the 1980s and 1990s generation, he's also quite a storyteller, and there are other founding segments of the earth skills community. Bringing just as many into the field were Larry Dean Olsen who was a founder of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School which gained the greatst mainstream respect for earth skills education during the same generation. Larry Olsen was also a founder of the Society of Primitive Technology which became the best source of research and information on the survival and primitive living portions of the earth skills field.

The Society of Primitive Technology has been publishing a biannual Bulliten of Primitive Technology for over a decade, and its experiential and scientific content has brought the earth skills field to a level of respected professionalism. There are now a couple other excellent magazines with incredibly helpful earth skills articles, including the widely distributed Wilderness Way published by Christopher Nygeres from the School of Self Reliance.

Back on the nature awareness and tracking portions of the earth skills field, Jon Young elevated Tom Brown's tracking and birding curriculum found in to a highly effective teaching style which relies on understanding how animals move and communicate, while James Halfpenny raised the initial animal tracking research done by Roger Tory Peterson and Olaus Murie for the Peterson Field Guide series to a scientifically impeccable level of expertise, and published the first highly accurate, easy-to-use tracking field guide called A Field Guide to Tracking in North America.

Now there are new stars in the earth skills field, including Mark Elbroch who has taken wildlife tracking to another high. His full incorporation of experiential tracking with academic research has finally given our field the respect of mainstream biologists. One look at his books will tell you why, including his first book, Bird Tracks & Sign, his second, Animal Tracks & Sign, and now his third cutting-edge publication, 40 Days of Survival. Mark has also edited the new edition of Peterson's Animal Tracks.

With the advent of reality television, the other stars of earth skills education include the Crocodile Hunter, i.e. Steve Irwin, who tragically died of a sting-ray spine to his heart while filming underwater, but now also his wife Terry and his daughter B, with credit to Steve's father who is a legend of the Australian outback. Also, while the hit show Survivor, and the Man vs. Wild series are very popular, their approach to nature runs a bit contrary to that of the earth skills field, especially when considering the unnecessary hazards these shows promote. However, the Survivor Man series is quite excellent for learning.

Also critical to the earth skills field was the unorthodox research done in the middle of the past century by Euell Gibbons who published Stalking the Wild Asparagus amongst other books, and without which we would be sorely lacking in information about wild edibles. Further, the rise of herbalism as a focus of study over the past generation has been critical to the earth skills field, so much so that we'd like to think of it as part of our own field, although it's not right to say it is because herbalism is possibly larger and more established than earth skills.

Although there are many, many fine herbalists throughout North America, a person can only get to know a few. My dearest herbalist is Linda Quintana whose herbal apothocary is located in Bellingham, Washington, while Karen Sherwood of Earthwalk Northwest is the most respected herbalist within the earth skills field. Karen was a huge support for me personally when I first drafted Wolf Journey in the late 1990s. The most known herabalist in the country is probably Susun Weed who popularized the Wise Woman Tradition which now seems to embody the herbal movement.

Related to earth skills is the field of permaculture, with its penchant for sustainable agriculture, appropriate building technologies, and community politics. The principles of permaculture are key aspects of the Wolf College itself, and I would like to thank Michael "Skeeter" Pilarski and Sego Jackson for educating me about this important lifestyle. permaculture itself was founded in the late 1970s by David Holmgren and

Finally, I want to honor those in the earth skills field who have always strived for harmony between those of us with oversized egos (without which we would never have founded our schools and helped to popularize this approach to nature). My special thanks goes out to Thomal J. Elpel who was the first to place a directory to all the earth skills schools he could find onto his own website, who promotes all the other good earth skills books right alongside his own Book & Video Series associated with his Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School.

Please help me try to honor these leaders in the earth skills field as well as the spirit of the wolf which inspired me as a child to embark on this journey, and follow the field exercises I pass along from these honorable lineages. Together, we will bring modern biology out of the 19th century, and environmental education out of the 20th century, into a future where everyone participates fully in nature to the depth that honors the greatest naturalists like Stalking Wolf and his people.

Happy Trails! - Chrism

Approaches You Can Take

You may choose to read straight through this book as if it were just a series of short stories or a thesis on naturalist skills. Go ahead and read it that way if you wish, but know that you will not really learn the material, for these skills must be embodied – practiced over and over – so that you may reach a deeper understanding of them which no one could possibly give you vicariously.

To use this book and really capture its lessons, complete its field exercises in the order presented. Your field exercises will revolve around visits to your study site, which is a "peaceful place" that you choose, usually within walking distance of your home. Plan for at least one hour every time you visit your study site, but it is also critical that you also plan a half hour to journal about your field exercise after returning home.

You may wish to complete these field exercises alone, and this book series is designed for you to do just that. However, many people need some support to make it all the way through the chapters. If you wish, take classes from Wolf Camp or any of the other fine schools in the earth skills field to learn the skills quicker, and to get support when challenges arise.

You can also approach this book series as a correspondence course, and your can read about that process by clicking on this link. Basically, you can email us your blog page, or send us a copy of your written field journal. Then, Chris or another staff member will review your work, and provide you with feedback. There are costs for these services which, again, you can read about by clicking on the previous link.

Deciding On Your Goals

The first goal you should think about is your ultimate motivation. You may be studying nature for your well being, just for fun, or perhaps to earn a certification as a naturalist, tracker, herbalist, scout, hunter, or artisan. Whatever it may be, keep your goal in the forefront of your mind to help push through the times when your motivation wanes.

Before you start the first field exercise in Chapter One, write your primary motivation and other goals in your field journal or blog page. For now, just take some time to dream about them. You may be able to generate a list of several goals associated with your study of nature, but remember that it is best to focus the goals into a few, well-articulated points.

The second goal to consider is the amount of time you plan to take with this process. Think about the issues discussed above, and consider all the ramifications that changing your lifestyle will have, particularly the effect your new schedule will have on those around you. Decide when you can start, and then determine how many field exercises you can realistically complete each week.

There are many other goals to consider, such as which skills you most want to accomplish, or how often to get together with others doing the same work. As you dream now about your goals, and as you prepare to write them on the first page of your field journal or blog page, remember that you will have a chance to amend your goals at the end of each chapter.

Considering Some Ramifications

Since following the prescriptions of this book makes you a naturalist, you should consider that your life may change significantly. Think long and hard about how much time you may be putting into this, and how it will change your schedule and even your relationships. Take into consideration your current responsibilities, and talk with the people in your life to get their opinions on how much time to spend with this book and its field exercises.

For couples, both individuals need to understand what changes this book may bring. Be sure that both of you read it, even if only one of you is completing its field exercises. The saddest thing I have seen is when conflict arises between couples after one of the pair gets deep into these field exercises, while the other doesn't understand what's going on. Don't let that happen to you. Communicate now, and help your relationship grow stronger through this experience.

If you are a parent, school teacher, business owner, or if you have a project that forces you to work at home, consider the challenges you will face by adding yet another obligation that requires self-discipline. Remember how your life tends to change over the seasons, and begin reading the book when the easiest time of year arrives for you. Set your expectations realistically, and consider how the pace of your life tends to ebb and flow with the seasons.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have plenty of time for this book series, your rewards will be great. If you are in high school or college, you may be highly successful since you are so accustomed to studying. For anyone to be successful, he or she must truly desire to learn the material in this book, and complete its field exercises with vigor. No matter your situation, I hope you enjoy this book and learn a great deal from it.

Choosing Your Time Commitment

After you have decided to begin delving into this book, think about how often you can complete its field exercises. The once-a-week approach is perhaps the gentlest way to move through this book at a consistent pace. You will finish each chapter in approximately a month and a half, taking about 6 months to complete Part One. This approach may be the most enjoyable if you have other pressing obligations in your life, especially obligations which make your schedule inconsistent.

The twice-a-week approach allows you to finish a chapter every three weeks or so, bringing you to completion of Part One in three months. Visiting your study site and journaling twice per week, in addition to attending classes or events related to your naturalist studies, is probably the best option for those who want to create a naturalist lifestyle while still engaged in other life obligations.

The every-day approach to this book creates a true naturalist lifestyle. With this approach, you will finish a chapter every week, completing Part One in a month. You will probably spend two hours with this book daily if you take the every-day approach. If you go to school or work full time, be careful to avoid burn-out. However, if you do take the every-day approach, your rewards will be great.

Preparing Your Journal & Work Station Before Your First Field Exercise

Visiting the study site you choose in Chapter One is the most important aspect of your journey through this book, but your study site is not where you should do the bulk of your journaling. For that, you need a nice work station at home where you can leave your journal (certainly leave your laptop home if you are journaling on a blog) and where you can display all the neat stuff from nature that you collect.

Your work station may become surrounded by all the feathers, bones, herbs, stones, insects, pressed leaves and other super things you find at your study site. When you find these things, think about whether it is best to leave them where they lay, or if bringing them to your work station will help you learn. Check with your spouse or roommate before entering the house with these things!

Besides having space for your study site "finds" and your field journal, it is also very important that you create a comfortable space for yourself at your work station. Have a nice chair that encourages you to sit up straight and tall. Make sure your desk or table is the perfect orthopaedic height for you, and make the area visually appealing for yourself, so that you like being there.

Remember that in most instances, you will have just come in from your study site to journal, so dress in layers in order to add or peal off pieces of clothing as your body adjusts to your stationary posture. Finally, create the time to journal where you will not be distracted by other responsibilities. An obvious one is child care. Get a baby-sitter and make an appointment with yourself at a regular time for your study site visits and journaling.

A less obvious distraction is the phone, or if you journal with your computer, all those email messages. Getting lost in cyberspace or in a conversation will eat away your time, and lead to difficulty in accomplishing your goals. Instruct your answering machine or housemates to take a message, unless it's an emergency. Prepare these details well, and your success with the field exercises will be tremendous.

After creating your work station, it will be time to make your field journal. Here at Wolf Camp, we're not completely savvy about how to create an online blog for your journaling, so we'll leave that up to you to figure out. We do suggest that you do prepare an old-fashioned field journal just in case you find that more rewarding. Using unlined paper for your journal has worked best for most students, and putting the pages in a 3 ring binder helps you organize your work most effectively. Not only will you want to place your journal entries and sketches in the binder, but you also may want to place into it the copies of research material you find elsewhere.

While unlined paper is obviously best for making maps and sketches, writing your journal entries on unlined paper may also be a superior choice. It forces you to be more disciplined about your handwriting, and watching your handwriting tilt and turn is very telling about the kind of mood you are in. You will find in the stories and field exercises that it is very important for you to monitor your mood as you progress through this book. For example, messy or downward-sloping handwriting might tell you when you are overloaded and in need of a break.

You will regret criptic blog entriees and messy handwriting the further you progress into this book series, so when you are journaling, take the time to write complete sentences and make it neat. If you are hand-writing your notes, you may not like having to worry about how straight your lines are when you are writing, so lined paper may be necessary for you. Lined paper may also help you organize your thoughts better so that when you look back to reference your material, you understand it. And do consider creating an online blog because it does create excellent organization, and then the whole world can also learn from you if you are ready for that.

The best thing is to buy 8.5 x 11, unlined, spiral notebooks with perforated pages. It is easiest to write and draw in a spiral notebook, and then tear out the pages when they are ready to be organized into your binder. Get a three-hole punch to help you insert any pages that are not pre-punched for you. Also, colored pencils are the most versatile journaling tool you can possess, so have some of those on hand along with a regular pencil, a sharpener, and a pen.

If you are creating a nice, old-fashioned field journal, these are the study materials you'll need:

•8.5 x 11 white paper to fill your journal. Try a perforated, spiral notebook with unlined paper.
•Three-ring binder to hold your completed journal entries and sketches.
•Three-hole puncher for adding pages to the binder, and re-enforcement tabs for pages that rip.
•Pen, pencil, colored pencils and a pencil sharpener.
•Ruler, preferably clear, for measuring tracks and drawing lines.

Necessary Resources for completion of Wolf Journey Part One - Trail of the Neighborhood Naturalist:

You will likely need some of the resources included in the Wolf Journey Handbook for Earth Skills Students, Environmental Teachers & Outdoor Leaders including the following contents:

• Journaling Cover Page
• Wildlife Recording Form
• Student Transcripts
• Glossary & Rescources
• Taxonometric Classification
• Outings Guide
• Teaching Guide
• Outdoor Leader Program Policies
• More TBA

Botany in a Day: Tomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families (HOPS Press) is pretty necessary to help you complete Chapter 4. Another GOOD field guide to plants, specific to your region or good for identifying poisonous plants will also be key. Check Tom Elpel's web site first, www.hollowtop.com, for currently recommended books:

The absolute best field guide plants you can find, such as:
Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Lone Pine) is the best book out west.
Plants of the British Columbia Interior (Lone Pine) is also great for central WA & OR.
Plants of the Rocky Mountains (Lone Pine) also covers a wide region.
(Peterson's) Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North (Houghton Mifflin)

Books on the hazards in nature are always recommended, such as:
(Peterson’s) Poisonous Plants, both published by Houghton Mifflin, may prove critical, while a field guide to poisonous animals: insects, spiders, snakes, etc. is also required for your safety.
Medicine for the Outdoors by Paul S. Auerbach or another Wilderness First Aid reference book is important to complete Chapter 2, and some good internet research to keep you safe.

To feel successful recording astronomical events on the Journaling Cover Pages found at the start of Chapter One, it may be important to look up information on the internet, especially if you are in a place where it is difficult to see the skies. Also, you may need to educate yourself if you are starting from scratch regarding astronomy by buying/borrowing books like (Peterson’s) Skies and A New Way To See Stars as good examples. However, my favorite resource for this purpose is the Biodynamic Agricultural Calendar Stella Natura published by Kimberton Hills - for celestial events which is available by calling (800) 516-7797.

To feel successful sketching wildlife, especially in Chapter 4: Drawing from the Book of Nature, Dennis Klocek, Rudolf Steiner College Press

Tom Brown's Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children (Berkley) is written for parents and it will help you so much to understand what this journey is all about, and it is the best field guide available that overviews all the most important skills of nature and survival.
Seeing With Native Eyes cassette by Jon Young, wildernessawareness.org/tapeindex.html can also help a lot with Field Exercise 1A
Ishi - Last of His Tribe (Bantam) by Theodora Kroeber, is a nice read alongside Chapter One.

Readers Digest Guide to North American Wildlife is a good reference at all times, and helpful to begin classifying animals and plants taxometrically beginning with Field Exercise 4D.
(Golden Guide) Birds of North America – A Guide To Field Identification is the best for the money, but most field guides to birds of your area are fine to start with.

Check out our other recommended resources to help you begin your journey. Also, take a look at the Necessary Resources section at the start of each part of Wolf Journey which are actually also extremely helpful to appeasing curiosity while completing Part One.

Your First Journal Entry: Now You Begin

Once you have created your journal and acquired the your study materials, make a copy of the Journaling Cover Page - Word Version, an d also the Wildlife Recording Form - Word Version. Or make a Journal Cover Page of your own if you like. Then fill one out of those forms out and take the Earth Skills Self-Assessment without looking up any answers so you can reflect on where you are now, and look back later at how far you've come.

Begin writing your goals. This will be the start of your field journal. Write "GOALS FOR MY TIME AS A NATURALIST" plus your name and the date. Then write down the goals you've been thinking about as you've been reading through this introduction. Remember to limit the goals to just a couple or a very few, and keep them succinct. Place the page in your binder when you are done.

To make journal entries in the future, just read the instructions for each field exercise, then return home and fill out a Journaling Cover Page - Word Version cover page of your own design, and supplement/replace it with the Wildlife Recording Form - Word Version if you wish. Following that, write a summary of your experience while out in the field. If you want to journal extensively about tangential issues, put that type of lengthy entry in your diary. Consider that writing many pages of notes after every field exercise could easily start to overwhelm you, and it may even deter you from completing more field exercises. Keep it as simple, yet as fulfilling, as possible.

Go on to Chapter 1 - Your Study Site.

Click Here to learn how to begin using Wolf Journey as a CORRESPONDENCE COURSE

Employment: We only need instructors with experience running camps and teaching in the field of Earth Skills Education, including skills of the Naturalist, Tracker, Herbalist, Survival Scout, Primitive Artisan and Sustainable Pioneer. Apply to become an instructor through our Earth Skills Teaching Apprenticeship.