The Woodland Ways 10 day course is designed for those who already have an understanding of Bushcraft skills and are starting to rely more on their skills rather than on modern day equipment.
Throughout this course, you will become increasingly immersed into the rhythm of the Woodland. Our instructors will enable you to make full practical use of the resources available to you and show you how to rely more on your skills and resources to sustain yourself out in the woodland environment.
You are encouraged to gradually reduce your reliance on modern equipment and food so that by the end of the course you are using only natural materials for all your Bushcraft activities and, if you so wish, are eating purely wild food, with a 3 day skills consolidation period at the end.
Food throughout the week will be provided in the form of wild game, depending on the time of year and seasonal changes this will differ from course to course. However, you are assured that there will be a wide range of game including; fish, fowl, small mammal, and deer. (Vegetarian and other dietary alternatives are available with prior notice).
1. Choose the number of places you want to book.
2. Choose to pay a deposit or the full amount.
The balance payment is required no less than 8 weeks before your course commences. You will receive an invoice shortly after booking for the balance payment.
Please pay in full if the course start date falls within that period.
3. Click ’Next’ and complete the attendee details for each place you have booked.
The Woodland Ways 10 day course is designed for those who already have an understanding of Bushcraft skills and are starting to rely more on their skills rather than on modern day equipment.
Throughout this course, you will become increasingly immersed into the rhythm of the Woodland. Our instructors will enable you to make full practical use of the resources available to you and show you how to rely more on your skills and resources to sustain yourself out in the woodland environment.
You are encouraged to gradually reduce your reliance on modern equipment and food so that by the end of the course you are using only natural materials for all your Bushcraft activities and, if you so wish, are eating purely wild food, with a 3 day skills consolidation period at the end.
Food throughout the week will be provided in the form of wild game, depending on the time of year and seasonal changes this will differ from course to course. However, you are assured that there will be a wide range of game including; fish, fowl, small mammal, and deer. (Vegetarian and other dietary alternatives are available with prior notice).
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
10 Day Woodland Immersion Survival Course
Prepare your meals using wild ingredients
You will get the chance to prepare your own meals, as an individual and as a team effort. Based around some sort of Game meat or fish, you will be shown how to extract the meat from the animal and build delicious meals from wild ingredients. Dietary requirements can be catered for.
Explore the creative topic of Traps and Snares
While we won't be setting traps to catch or snare any animals on this course, you will gain an in depth understanding of their mechanisms, and how and where to set them.
Advance your Firelighting skills
Our instructors will introduce you to the Bow Drill method of friction firelighting. We will spend some time with you one to one to iron out any creases in technique, before guiding you through sourcing materials to make your own bow drill set. You will then use this to light your fires for the rest of your course, to really drive home the method. We will also explore the hand drill method.
Course Itinerary
Our longer duration courses tend to have a more fluid approach to content and many workshops are optional to attend beyond the essential ones that must be covered. Below is a outline of what the course is based on...
Day 1
Following your introduction to the woodland and the safe use of the camp equipment; you are expected to use your own Bushcraft Knife, Saw and Fire Steel, a Basha can be issued if required. Our first objective of the course is for you to establish your temporary camp using a tarp or basha. Our instructors are on hand to provide assistance at all times.
After you have established your temporary camp with your tarp you will break for lunch. Following lunch we will move on to orientation of the woodland. We will walk round the woodland where our instructors will point out various features that will become vital to you achieving your goals of thriving in the woodland; these will include resources for building your shelter and camp, wild edibles, water and many other useful features.
We will then move on to preparing your evening meal. This will still be in the feather and so you will need to process the game to obtain the meat. Once done you will prepare and cook your evening meal as a group, again our instructors will be on hand to guide you.
After this delicious meal we will look at making a simple foraging collection bag that will prove extremely useful over the coming days to help you gather resources from the woodland.
Day 2
Following breakfast, it is time to construct your shelter. This shelter will be your home for the next nine days and will hopefully be your pride and joy. Just because we are living in the woods doesn’t mean that you will be living rough. Both the woodland and instructors will provide you with the resources to construct your own shelter the rest of the day is dedicated to you building your own shelter where you will sleep the rest of the course. Lunch will be a group effort in main camp.
In the late afternoon it is once again time to turn our minds to the evening meal. This will be in the fur and so you will be shown by our instructors how to liberate the meat to make your evening meal. Whilst the meal is cooking our instructors will show you fire lighting methods using your fire steel incorporating gathered natural materials.
The evening is spent looking at how we can use the hide we have just taken from our meal.
Day 3
Following your first night in your own shelter, you will make breakfast at main camp then we will show you how to make your sleep even more comfortable by showing you various raised bed construction techniques, including mattresses and bedding. You will then go away and construct one of these at your shelter. Again the day is dedicated to your shelter, making your raised bed and putting any finishing touches to your shelter.
Lunch will again require you to obtain meat from the source and be a group effort to prepare.
After lunch our instructors will show you how to construct a cooking rig along with basic cooking utensils and you will be issued with your own Dutch Oven and cooking oil to use for the remainder of the course. You will then be expected to make a fully functioning set for your shelter. We will also go over the importance of correctly sighting and maintaining a campfire.
Evening meal will be a group effort where our instructors will show you and guide you through the process of butchering a deer carcass, where we will utilise the meat, and also show you how to harvest the sinew, skin and bone. The venison legs form the basis for your evening meal which will be cooked in a traditional ground oven using hot rocks from the fire to roast the venison.
Following the evening meal, our instructors will show you how to use other parts of the deer to make vital tools.
Day 4
After breakfast your instructors will take you through lighting fire by friction. The instructors will show you the bow drill technique as well as introducing you to using the hand drill. We spend the remainder of morning working with you initially in pairs and then on a one to one basis to enable you to master this very satisfying technique. You are then encouraged to go out and forage your own friction fire set. We will provide a length of cordage for those who wish to make a bow drill set. At this point we recommend you no longer use your fire steel. We will also look at making and discuss the use of smoking racks for meat.
Following lunch, we will touch on simple practical techniques for filtering and purifying your water, we will cover cordage making where you will be expected to make at least 2m of natural cord followed by weaving using natural resources, where you have the chance to weave your own willow or bramble basket or fish trap that can be used for foraging or later in the traps session.
Your evening meal will be a stew utilising the remaining venison, again this will be a team effort to produce.
Day 5
After breakfast we will look at how we would replace our factory made footwear. We will take you step by step through the process of making a pair of woodland moccasins from leather. Lunch will be lite snacks and the afternoon will be spent sewing and fitting your very own woodland moccasin footwear. You will experience the benefits of walking almost silently through the woodland in this traditional footwear.
In the afternoon if the group wishes we can build a Woodland Sauna, in which you will be able to refresh and clean your bodies, just because you are living in the woods does not mean we don’t stay clean.
Evening meal will be the last evening meal cooked as a group in main camp. You will be required to liberate the meat and prepare the meal as a team.
Day 6
Breakfast will be at your camp, and then we offer you the opportunity to join us in main camp to look at natural glues and pitches and how these could be used.
Lunch will be a cooked snack type lunch in main camp.
Evening meal will be at your camp and you will be provided with game as the mainstay, this is your opportunity to start making your knowledge work for you by adding your own wild greens.
Day 7
After breakfast at your camp we will start with an introduction to trapping and snaring. This will be demonstration and practice where you will make and test your own traps. (Due to legal and animal welfare regulations these WILL NOT be set to catch live game). But you will be expected to have an understanding of how these work and where you would set them. You will build some form of trap using only natural materials, your cordage could come in handy here.
Then we offer you the opportunity to spend the next 3 days putting into practice all the skills, knowledge and crafts you have acquired over the course. We give you the opportunity to hand in your sleeping bag, sleep mat and any other “modern” kit you wish. We will also ask you to set up and demonstrate a trap method each day and if we feel this would be a successful trap we will provide you with the relevant game, however if our instructors feel it would not be successful you will be provided with an alternative food source.
Day 8 & 9
These two days are a culmination of all your hard work and effort, you can enjoy living in the woodlands in the knowledge that you are utilising all the equipment you have made and built. A truly liberating, rewarding and life changing experience. Obviously our instructors will still be on hand to help and advices you at any time should you wish.
Day 10
On the last morning we will serve you a good old “Fry Up” breakfast before again using the woodland sauna so you can refresh before your journey home. At the end of the course you have all the equipment you have made yourself to take home, including your cooking set up, water filter, spoon, basket, moccasins, traps etc. but more importantly you will be going away with the knowledge and confidence this course and your actions have given you.
As with all of our courses, no one will be asked to do anything they are not comfortable with. Vegetarian options are always available and if you wish to retain your pieces of equipment through the week this is fine.
Please note even though this is a very demanding course this course is not an "extreme survival” course; rather it is designed to increase your confidence in your Bushcraft abilities.
