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Wolf Camp and the Wolf College

College Programs

• Apprenticeships
• Expeditions • Classes
• Weekend Workshops
 

Artwork by Wolf Journey alumn Joanna Colbert dedicated Wolf College program director Chris Chisholm in a willow tree surrounded by birds of the forest. We chose this piece to symbolize Ethno-Zoology, which starts with tracking animals and leads to the utilization of gifts animals provide for human survival.

 

Wildlife Tracking & Ethno-Zoology

Part-Time Semester Apprenticeship

The Part-Time Semester of Wildlife Tracking & Ethno-Zoology is an Animal Research Apprenticeship with an ethic of bird, mammal, insect, arachnid, reptile, amphibian, arthropod, fish and game conservation, and may be repeated for an additional semester to earn an Ethnozoologist Certification. No prerequisite. For an explanation of these fields of study, check out the Wikipedia Definition of Ethnozoology and our Essay on Earth Skills Education. Apply Now for Fall Semester starting September 15, 2012 and running through January 31, 2013. Spring Semester of 2013 runs February 1 - June 15th. Click here for Tuition Information which includes all of the following:

• Attendance at your choice of any 1 of our scheduled Training Camps per semester (all expenses included except travel to-from the course site and any nights requiring indoor lodging); additional Training Camps charged at a discount from the listed price. If you cannot attend one of the 2 scheduled training camps taking place during your semester of study (or if one is canceled due to weather, etc.) then you may substitute another during the semester or summer immediately following your semester.
• 5 monthly Apprenticeship Field Trips per semester running from 9-5 on Saturdays;
• 5 monthly Wolf Journey Classes per semester running on weekdays evenings in the location nearest your home, plus optional complimentary attendance/assistance at Wolf Journey classes running earlier in the day and at locations further away from your location if space is available;
• Feedback from your instructors Kim & Chris Chisholm after every field exercise you complete as you procede through Book III of the Wolf Journey Earth Conservation Course - Trail of the Wildlife Tracker; expected progress is one field exercise per week, or a minimum of 16 chapter lessons per semester, although you may do as many as one per day if desired;
• 1 Mentoring Visit from Chris & Kim to your personal Study Site;
• 4 Study Days normally taking place on Sundays at the Wolf Campus in Puyallup;
• 4 Saturday or Sunday Wolf Tracking Workshops taking place around the Northwest, with additional Wolf Tracker Trainings & Practices Sessions charged at $5 each;
• 2 all-day Saturday Workshops of our choice per semester taking place in the mid-south Puget Sound area, with additional optional Saturday Workshops charged at just $25 each;
• Optional Ethnozoologist Certification evaluation upon graduation which requires a $200 fee for contracted evaluators.

Kim collecting edible clams.

Wolf College Survey of Ethno-Zoology: Honoring the Animals

Part-Time Semester-by-Semester Apprenticeship

The Part-Time Survey of Ethno-Zoology: Honoring the Animals is a focused Ethnozoology Apprenticeship that features an Ethnozoologist Certification upon graduation. For an explanation of these fields of study, check out the Wikipedia Definition of Ethnozoology and our Essay on Earth Skills Education.

Scroll Down or Click for Specifics:
• Application Deadlines, Tuition & Enrollment Capacity;
• Schedule Breakdown;
• Mission & Who Would Attend This Program;
• Program Instructors & Benefits including Certification;
• Program Goals & Skills Covered;
• How to Prepare & Apply for this Program; Responsibilities at Camp; Notes from Chris
• Program History & More Depth

Tuition, Credit, Cost Breakdown, Refund Policy

Click here for tuition, credit information, cost rationale and refund information. Program Capacity will be limited to 20 students between all our apprenticeships during the 2011-12 Academic Year. No prerequisite, but see our application page for suggested preparation.

Academic Year Apprenticeship Schedule:

• Fall Semester - Click Here for Full Schedule running Sept 10, 2011 - January 21, 2012 which focuses on Mammals, Game Birds, Fishes, Insects, Arachnids, Annelids, Crustaceans & Cephalipods. No prerequisite.

• Spring Semester - Clicke Here for Full Schedule running January 21 - June 12, 2012 which focuses on Mammals, Song Birds, Raptors, Reptiles, Amphibians, Bivalves, Gastropods & Echinoderms. No prerequisite.



 

Artwork by Wolf Journey alumna Joanna Colbert. Note the cultural use of the rawhide drumhead as an example of applied ethnozoology.

 

Program Mission & Participants

The mission of this Ethno-Zoology Apprenticeship is that you become an versitile wildlife tracker and honorable harvester. Ethnozoology means that 1) you understand and can track down most Vertebrate animals and some Invertebrates, both wild and domesting, and 2) when you harvest an animal, you honor all of its gifts such as preserving its meat for food, brain tanning its hide for leather, making bone tools and gut cordage, fletching arrows with feathers, crafting water bladders and hoof rattles, for example through artisanry skills.

Vertebrates are animals that generally include fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. Invertebrates are animals without a backbone, and trackers limit their pursuit to those which can be readily seen and followed, including Annelids (earthworms, leeches), Arthropods (insects, arachnids, crustaceans), Mollusks (bivalves, snails, squid/octopus), Echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars). and Cnidaria (jellyfish, anemonies). To further your wildlife tracking skills even further, we recommend that you also check out our Summer Wildlife Trackers Teaching Apprenticeship for a follow-up program.

This Part-Time Apprenticeship is designed for aspiring naturalist, zoologists, artisans and trackers learn to further their understanding of the animal world, especially with 1) full-time high-school and college students, 2) working adults who only have evenings and weekends available to study. No matter your previous experience, you will be expected to fully participate in every possible training opportunity to push your skills to a higher level of excellence, although your own health will be the priority, and we hope that each participant becomes a person to whom anyone could turn for learning about tracking and wildlife in general.

No prerequisite, but please see our application page for suggested preparation.


Chris Chisholm with cutthroat trout on Woods Lake. Honoring every aspect of a fish, from food to bones for gorge hooks, is critical for healthy ethnozoologists.

Heron track we studied in early June 2010, just a week after the new great Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest by David Moskowitz was published, and it is one of the required texts for this Ethno-Zoology Apprenticeship. Books and travel are the only expenses associated with this program not covered by your tuition.

Program Instructors, Benefits & Certification Options

Program Instructors: Chris Chisholm will be your mentor through this experience, with assistance from Kim and guidance from Seasonal Faculty.

Benefits of the Program: Your transformation into an excellent tracking instructor is the greatest of benefits, but for every semester you complete, you will receive $250 off additional apprenticeship semesters, and $500 off your choice of Summer Teaching Apprenticeships. Training in each Ethno-Zoology semester includes:

• Attendance at your choice of any 1 of our scheduled Training Camps per semester (all expenses included except travel to-from the course site and any nights requiring indoor lodging);
• 5 monthly Apprenticeship Field Trips per semester running from 9-5 on Saturdays;
• 5 monthly Wolf Journey Classes per semester running on weekdays from 7-9 p.m. in the location nearest your home, plus optional complimentary attendance/assistance at Wolf Journey classes running earlier in the day and at locations further away from your location if space is available;
• Feedback from your instructor Chris Chisholm after every field exercise you complete as you procede through the Wolf Journey Earth Skills Training Course chapters of your choice; expected progress is one field exercise per week, or a minimum of 20 field exercises per semester, although you may do as many as one per day if desired;
• 1 Mentoring Visit from Chris & Kim to your personal Study Site;
• 4 Study Days normally taking place on Sundays at the Wolf Campus in Puyallup;
• 4 Sunday Afternoon Wolf Tracking Workshops taking place around the northwest;
• 2 all-day Saturday Workshops of our choice per semester taking place in the mid-south Puget Sound area, with additional optional Saturday Workshops charged at just $25 each;
• 4 Optional Sunday Afternoon Permaculture Workshops taking place at the Wolf Campus in Puyallup at $15 contribution each;
• Optional Ethnozoology Certification evaluation upon graduation which requires a $200 fee for contracted evaluators.

In addition, those students who begin to take responsibility for assisting Wolf Journey classes and workshops may be hired to lead those courses in the future. By the end of two semesters, we hope you will fully embody your title of Certified Ethnozoologist.

Click here for a complete description of all our Wildlife Ecology & Tracking Certification options.

 


Apprentice Nicco Minutoli scraping a deer hide in 2010 in preparation for tanning it into leather.


Artisanry Specialist Andrew Twele leading students in an honoring of the final tanned buckskin.

 

 

Program Goals & Skills

It is important to realize that it is your lifestyle which reflects who you are, and since you will be studying the earth regularly, your lifestyle will be that of a tracker, so you will immediately be considered a tracker as soon as you start. Trackers are constantly aware of the entirety of a situation. They use "wide-angle" vision in order to concentrate on what is around them as well as directly in front of them. Great trackers flourish due to their expanded awareness. Trackers also recognize patterns in every situation, and they come to anticipate that animals, and even humans, will behave in the same way over and over.

Later, you can think about learning ethnozoological skills of the artisan. Artisans are training in many crafts, and some go on to become specialists in a skill such as hunting. Even one year cannot do justice to the many skills of the hunter and artisan must learn, but you will begin the process of craftwork as all scouts must in order to become a jack-of-all-trades.

To realize these ideals, you will need to begin to practice the tracker's lifestyle, based on the rhythms of your micro-climate and bio-region, as well as on the rhythms of the animals and plants around you. You will help develop a wall-size calendar to document the seasonal patterns of all your relations in the wilderness and society, while also developing your own personal medicine wheel of health.

Wolf Journey author Chris Chisholm already has field exercises lined up for you to complete from Wolf Journey Volume III - Trail of the Wildlife Tracker. We will also use resources by Mark Elbroch, James Halfpenny, Jon Young, Paul Rezendes, Joel Hardin, and other trackers, birders, and naturalists as our guides. You and your fellow students study field exercises, some of which you will do alone, some together with a group here, and sometimes with Chris' guidance.

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)
• Primitive Fishing (wiering, netting, spearing, bow fishing, hand fishing, hook and line, gorges, bullfrogging)
• 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)
• Human Tracking
• Backpacking & Camping
• Land Mapping & Water Navigation (orienteering with and without modern aids)
• Trapping
• Parfleching (carrying cases, drum making, sheaths and quivers with fur and tanned hide)
• Orienteering (map reading, aidless navigation, etc)
• Search & Rescue; Lifeguarding; Wilderness First Aid
• Artisanry Craftwork
• Writing & Journaling; Photography & Recording; Sketching & Drawing

Knowledge Acquired
• Wildlife Study (in-the-field biology classes, sit-spot sensory awareness exercises, etc)
• 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)
• Time Outdoors (especially growing up playing in the woods, deserts, or beaches around your home; harvesting fruits and vegetables, fish and animals both domestic and wild, as a youth; plus taking adventures on the mountains, prairies, and waterways of this beautiful earth as a young adult)
• Political Environmentalism (left and right wing strategies, legislative and artistic strategies)



Artwork by Wolf Journey alumn Joanna Colbert, depicting Wolf College instructor Nikki. As Nikki said, it all comes back to tracking. In other words, the sooner you can find good resources, the easier it is to craft everything you need.

Students tracking in 2010.


Picture Nikki took at the old Wolf Camp property on Lummi Island of Great Blue Heron catching a vole back in 2001.

Sizing up the the bear scratch marks on an alder tree at the old Wolf Camp property on Woods Lake in 2005.

Lead instructor Chris Chisholm and student enjoying a bear track during one of the first tracking workshops he held in 1997.

Black bear track up in the snow, which lingers all summer at high elevations in the Cascade mountains.

 

 

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.

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All rights reserved, with content, graphics and photographs ©1997-2010 by Wolf Camp and the Wolf College and used only with permission.