With Wildkind Jess & Guest Instructor Nathan Donnelly, Season 6 ALONE (History Channel)

Olympia Washington | 9 AM to 4 PM

Sunday October 8, 2023 | $150 | 9 am to 4 pm

Blade School & Fire School offers all the skills training needed to be successful to work with your cutting tools & create combustion, two of the 5 essential skills listed in the 5 C’s of survival. 

We will begin the morning with Blade School. Learn safety, carving techniques, bushcraft applications, woods work and of course one of the most important skills often overlooked, how to properly sharpen your blade which will include a few different methods that can be used. Instructor Nathan will bring a variety of blades to show and tell including axes and machetes, and each student is encouraged to bring their own knife to class as the format is hands-on instruction. The training from this course will offer students a working knowledge that can be applied at home or in the field for maximum utility of their blades.

In the afternoon we will move into Fire School! In this invaluable course, you will learn the fundamentals of fire. What to gather for natural tinder using native materials, how to build lightweight, waterproof fire kits to keep with you and why this is so important, how to harvest fire-making materials in the backcountry (even if it’s raining), fire mechanics and what makes a reliable fire in nature.  We will focus on modern techniques that will be relevant for the applications of wilderness survival and backcountry camping. We will review flint and steel, fire by friction, the use of ferro rods and why the Bic lighter is a classic and should be kept everywhere you might have storage, a pocket or backpack.