MDMOUNTAINEER
Glock, AR, Savage Junkie
I know this isn't firearm training per se, though the topic of firearms will come up. I'm trying to guage interest in a 5 day class that focuses on comprehensive fundamentals of survival.
The class would be extremely immersive and would deal with a ton of information as well as hands-on work. Subject matter would include:
Search and Rescue Considerations
Shelters
Water Procurement/Filtration/Treatment
Food Procurement (edible wild plants)
Trapping (snares, deadfalls, etc.)
Fishing (improvised)
Signaling
Communications
Mechanical adaptation (small engine repair/generators/windmills/pumps)
Medicinal plants
Basic security concerns
Firearm selection, deployment, and troubleshooting/maintenance
Basic reloading
Improvised weapons
Tracking
Stalking
Orienteering
Cooking
Firestarting
primitive blacksmithing
primitive farming
food
First Aid/Medical
Food preservation
Buckskinning (leather)
Basic bowyer (bow making)
The class will be held off-grid, lodging will be in a primitive cabin. Dates will be Sunday, March 3 to Friday March 8. I know many of you would like a weekend type arrangement, but the subject matter is such that we will need a 6 day stretch for this one. Depending on how this goes I may be able to get additional weekend classes organized. This is supposed to be a immersive experience and setup/tear-down times really cut into the learning experience in a weekend class. The cost will be $350 and will include food. The reason for this arrangement is that travel time is about 4.5 hours from the Baltimore Metro area and a Sunday arrival will allow members to pack adequately on Saturday and travel Sunday. You are going to need the following weekend to recuperate.
Instructor Bio – Justin (tss1004)
I began my journey in primitive skills at a young age. When I was nine years old my father purchased a blackpowder rifle just before Christmas. He had taken to that rifle quite readily and was quickly enamored with the trappings of buckskinning. We soon began attending rendezvous in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. By 10, we were both hooked. We spent countless hours researching everything that had to do with the bygone era of the fur trade. The brave mountain men that ventured into the unknown, seeking fortune in the most basic and renewable resource available, embodied an independence that I yearned for. We began to take weekend workshops together and we sought advice and instruction from professionals and accomplished amateurs alike.
My interest in the fur trade always took a slight back seat to Native American teachings. As cool as the blackpowder guns were, and guns in general, I was always drawn to the beautiful handmade recurves, longbows, and flatbows of the American Indian. Their customs, traditions, and most importantly their respectful utilization of natural resources drew me in. I was even more hooked.
I read books by the likes of Brown and McPhereson. Perused every foxfire book until it was dog eared and battered. I took to the woods every day after school and would spend weekends practicing my craft. I was fortunate to have a mentor in both my father and my cousin, who was an accomplished naturalist working at a Baltimore area nature center. Through my cousin I was introduced to other professional naturalists and survivalists and quickly developed a network of support and instruction. I began volunteering at a nature center, which I continued through high school. As a high school senior I was asked to instruct some primitive skills camps, I signed on as a compensated instructor in various fields, this included week long primitive skills camps.
While working my way through volunteer positions and internships, I continued to hone my skills. I would spend weeks and occasionally months living off the land in (then) rural Carrol County on my uncles farm as well as a friends farm in Pennsylvania and occasionally several weeks on the AT, residing in shelters I had built and eating food I foraged or killed. I continued to instruct and eventually had a group of interested friends who became enthusiastic about survivalist teachings and together we continued to develop our skills.
My father unfortunately died shortly after I graduated high school and my view on survivalism became very personal. I was a young adult with a good job in a time of perceived prosperity. Most of my old survivalist buddies were caught up in normal young adult life and had little interest in traipsing around the woods in moccasins any longer and I was left on my own. This coupled with the loss of my survivalist buddy (Dad) was terribly painful for me and I had a hard time talking about any of it, or including anyone new so I just continued solo.
My interest and practice of survival skills never waivered. In fact, it’s the very reason why I bought my property in WV, the same one I will share with some of you. Until recently, this idea never even crossed my mind, the one to formally teach others. But I have some good friends now that had little experience in these types of things and over the last couple of years I’ve done quite a bit of instructing with them and unanimously they came up with the idea that I should offer a class. I was reluctant at first. I was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough credibility, or hadn’t attended the right classes myself. The sentiment amongst them remained unwavering, they thought that I possessed the knowledge and teaching ability to do this and they had the utmost faith that I could succeed in helping others learn these skills.
Still unsure, I spoke with my boss. He and I have become friends in the three years I’ve worked for him as a Critical Care Paramedic and I trust his objectivity. When I presented the idea, he was nearly speechless that I had any reservation about the endeavor. He pointed out how I had done this very instruction, albeit in smaller compartmentalized doses, hundreds of times in the three years he’s known me. I had become somewhat a mentor in things survival with many of my co-workers, and even himself, and that it was a natural progression for me.
Well, needless to say, I thought about it some more. Slept on it for a few nights, then a few weeks, and never once did I think I was unprepared or that this was a bad idea. I finally presented it to the final arbiter, my mother, who is probably the most critical person I know, and she agreed with what everyone else had affirmed.
So, I’ve given a brief synopsis of my life. A life steeped in every detail of survivalism and self reliance. I bring forth 20 years of learning and experience with the humbleness that I still do not know everything. I’m patient and understanding in my teaching style and have a knack for making pieces fit, especially with those that have a hard time grappling complex concepts in emergency medicine (my chosen career path) and teaching principles that I apply to simpler concepts in survivalism.
So in forming the final stages of my plan I had originally wanted to go big. Give away a bunch of survival gear and pull out all the stops with presentation. This has proved challenging in that the cost was too burdensome and I’ve modified the original plan to keep cost down in an effort to encourage more participation, but I’ve also kept with the original spirit of the class in order to make it extremely dynamic to reinforce the basic tenets of survival, while maximizing the students ability to put into practice a ton of information.
I will have a support staff, though that list is still in the works. I can tentatively say that I’m trying to work with my cousin and mentor, the one who is the naturalist and helped foster my early growth in survivalism. He has become quite accomplished over the years as both a naturalist and an illustrator for NatGeo and his expertise will be invaluable. The only issue is that his health is failing. He was diagnosed with MS a few years ago and I need to be careful how his expertise is utilized.
My other tentative support staff includes one of the survivalist friends mentioned in an earlier paragraph. His name is Chris and he is an expert with anything mechanical and is a genius with adaptive methods to accomplish any mechanical task. In addition to his survivalism skills and mechanical skills he is a farmer and his knowledge of agriculture and livestock is invaluable.
Bill is the final current tentative member of the support staff. He is a retired Marine Colonel who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also a staunch survivalist with a keen eye for planning and security measures. He is a firearms instructor and remarkable with woodcraft.
The class would be extremely immersive and would deal with a ton of information as well as hands-on work. Subject matter would include:
Search and Rescue Considerations
Shelters
Water Procurement/Filtration/Treatment
Food Procurement (edible wild plants)
Trapping (snares, deadfalls, etc.)
Fishing (improvised)
Signaling
Communications
Mechanical adaptation (small engine repair/generators/windmills/pumps)
Medicinal plants
Basic security concerns
Firearm selection, deployment, and troubleshooting/maintenance
Basic reloading
Improvised weapons
Tracking
Stalking
Orienteering
Cooking
Firestarting
primitive blacksmithing
primitive farming
food
First Aid/Medical
Food preservation
Buckskinning (leather)
Basic bowyer (bow making)
The class will be held off-grid, lodging will be in a primitive cabin. Dates will be Sunday, March 3 to Friday March 8. I know many of you would like a weekend type arrangement, but the subject matter is such that we will need a 6 day stretch for this one. Depending on how this goes I may be able to get additional weekend classes organized. This is supposed to be a immersive experience and setup/tear-down times really cut into the learning experience in a weekend class. The cost will be $350 and will include food. The reason for this arrangement is that travel time is about 4.5 hours from the Baltimore Metro area and a Sunday arrival will allow members to pack adequately on Saturday and travel Sunday. You are going to need the following weekend to recuperate.
Instructor Bio – Justin (tss1004)
I began my journey in primitive skills at a young age. When I was nine years old my father purchased a blackpowder rifle just before Christmas. He had taken to that rifle quite readily and was quickly enamored with the trappings of buckskinning. We soon began attending rendezvous in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. By 10, we were both hooked. We spent countless hours researching everything that had to do with the bygone era of the fur trade. The brave mountain men that ventured into the unknown, seeking fortune in the most basic and renewable resource available, embodied an independence that I yearned for. We began to take weekend workshops together and we sought advice and instruction from professionals and accomplished amateurs alike.
My interest in the fur trade always took a slight back seat to Native American teachings. As cool as the blackpowder guns were, and guns in general, I was always drawn to the beautiful handmade recurves, longbows, and flatbows of the American Indian. Their customs, traditions, and most importantly their respectful utilization of natural resources drew me in. I was even more hooked.
I read books by the likes of Brown and McPhereson. Perused every foxfire book until it was dog eared and battered. I took to the woods every day after school and would spend weekends practicing my craft. I was fortunate to have a mentor in both my father and my cousin, who was an accomplished naturalist working at a Baltimore area nature center. Through my cousin I was introduced to other professional naturalists and survivalists and quickly developed a network of support and instruction. I began volunteering at a nature center, which I continued through high school. As a high school senior I was asked to instruct some primitive skills camps, I signed on as a compensated instructor in various fields, this included week long primitive skills camps.
While working my way through volunteer positions and internships, I continued to hone my skills. I would spend weeks and occasionally months living off the land in (then) rural Carrol County on my uncles farm as well as a friends farm in Pennsylvania and occasionally several weeks on the AT, residing in shelters I had built and eating food I foraged or killed. I continued to instruct and eventually had a group of interested friends who became enthusiastic about survivalist teachings and together we continued to develop our skills.
My father unfortunately died shortly after I graduated high school and my view on survivalism became very personal. I was a young adult with a good job in a time of perceived prosperity. Most of my old survivalist buddies were caught up in normal young adult life and had little interest in traipsing around the woods in moccasins any longer and I was left on my own. This coupled with the loss of my survivalist buddy (Dad) was terribly painful for me and I had a hard time talking about any of it, or including anyone new so I just continued solo.
My interest and practice of survival skills never waivered. In fact, it’s the very reason why I bought my property in WV, the same one I will share with some of you. Until recently, this idea never even crossed my mind, the one to formally teach others. But I have some good friends now that had little experience in these types of things and over the last couple of years I’ve done quite a bit of instructing with them and unanimously they came up with the idea that I should offer a class. I was reluctant at first. I was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough credibility, or hadn’t attended the right classes myself. The sentiment amongst them remained unwavering, they thought that I possessed the knowledge and teaching ability to do this and they had the utmost faith that I could succeed in helping others learn these skills.
Still unsure, I spoke with my boss. He and I have become friends in the three years I’ve worked for him as a Critical Care Paramedic and I trust his objectivity. When I presented the idea, he was nearly speechless that I had any reservation about the endeavor. He pointed out how I had done this very instruction, albeit in smaller compartmentalized doses, hundreds of times in the three years he’s known me. I had become somewhat a mentor in things survival with many of my co-workers, and even himself, and that it was a natural progression for me.
Well, needless to say, I thought about it some more. Slept on it for a few nights, then a few weeks, and never once did I think I was unprepared or that this was a bad idea. I finally presented it to the final arbiter, my mother, who is probably the most critical person I know, and she agreed with what everyone else had affirmed.
So, I’ve given a brief synopsis of my life. A life steeped in every detail of survivalism and self reliance. I bring forth 20 years of learning and experience with the humbleness that I still do not know everything. I’m patient and understanding in my teaching style and have a knack for making pieces fit, especially with those that have a hard time grappling complex concepts in emergency medicine (my chosen career path) and teaching principles that I apply to simpler concepts in survivalism.
So in forming the final stages of my plan I had originally wanted to go big. Give away a bunch of survival gear and pull out all the stops with presentation. This has proved challenging in that the cost was too burdensome and I’ve modified the original plan to keep cost down in an effort to encourage more participation, but I’ve also kept with the original spirit of the class in order to make it extremely dynamic to reinforce the basic tenets of survival, while maximizing the students ability to put into practice a ton of information.
I will have a support staff, though that list is still in the works. I can tentatively say that I’m trying to work with my cousin and mentor, the one who is the naturalist and helped foster my early growth in survivalism. He has become quite accomplished over the years as both a naturalist and an illustrator for NatGeo and his expertise will be invaluable. The only issue is that his health is failing. He was diagnosed with MS a few years ago and I need to be careful how his expertise is utilized.
My other tentative support staff includes one of the survivalist friends mentioned in an earlier paragraph. His name is Chris and he is an expert with anything mechanical and is a genius with adaptive methods to accomplish any mechanical task. In addition to his survivalism skills and mechanical skills he is a farmer and his knowledge of agriculture and livestock is invaluable.
Bill is the final current tentative member of the support staff. He is a retired Marine Colonel who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also a staunch survivalist with a keen eye for planning and security measures. He is a firearms instructor and remarkable with woodcraft.
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