Tracker School
December 17, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
If you’re looking for a place to really learn forest skills- tracking, awareness, shelter, hunting, gathering food- Tom Brown’s Tracker School is where you want to go. I went there for the first time in August 2007. I’d been scouring the Internet for months before I ever heard of it for a place I could go to live with a hunter-gather tribe cause I wanted to learn how the natives lived. I wanted to get involved and learn the skills and learn what they did on a daily basis. Since I’m native myself, I thought it’d be a good way to connect with my roots. To learn how my ancestors lived.
But I didn’t find a tribe to live with. Instead I found Tracker School. It’s what first piqued my interest in learning primitive skills. And it’s the foundation for all the skills I’m learning and everything I’m posting on this website.
Me on a path in the Pine Barrens
The story is this:
Tom Brown Jr, met an Apache Indian, who he called Grandfather, when he was 7 years old. Grandfather taught him everything he knew about the wilderness, survival and tracking until Tom Brown was 18 years old. Then he wandered the Earth for 10 years before coming back and opening up Tracker School. Obviously, there’s a lot more to the story, but that’s the gist. And now he’s passing on the skills that Grandfather taught him to other people.
Practicing throwing stick- I hit the target. Yes, we can eat tonight!
I went. And it was an amazing experience. It changed my life and changed the way I see the world. It was that powerful. I’ve talked to other people since who have had similar experiences. The details are different, but the experience of profound change is the same. I’ll tell you more about it in my next post.
The roaring fire that was always lit