While most people may think of primitive skills/bushcraft in purely practical terms (e.g. making a shelter to stay dry, firemaking to cook and keep warm), an often overlooked aspect of learning and practicing these skills, is the community and sense of empowerment that comes from being in nature. When I began working at the Wood Wise ...

What does the word awareness bring to mind for most people? Maybe…Time management skills, a good sense of social etiquette, quick reaction time while driving? The demands of our busy lives may give us a different idea of the “aware” human, but try to think of instinct, on more animal terms. In the forest, we have a ...

Ancestral Knowledge Receives 2022 Best of Greenbelt Award Greenbelt Award Program Honors the Achievement GREENBELT October 19, 2022 — Ancestral Knowledge has been selected for the 2022 Best of Greenbelt Award in the School category by the Greenbelt Award Program. Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2022 Greenbelt ...

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Nature empowers females (Notice that we call her Mother Earth, not Father Earth.). Although there are certainly laws of nature that must be “obeyed,” we generally don’t think of the planet in paternalistic terms. It’s difficult to behold the ...

  Teaching Kids to love the winter Teaching kids to love the winter is not that hard. We at Ancestral knowledge have been guiding children for over ten year in winter camp outs and outdoor activities. Most kids naturally love playing outside no matter what the weather. When given the chance children learn not to fear the ...

We encourage everyone to get out and enjoy the outdoors during the winter time.  However everyone responds to cold temperatures differently. Keeping feet, hands, and clothing dry is very important because toes and fingers are most susceptible to damage from the cold. Whenever possible carry an extra pair of socks in case your feet get ...

The bow making is underway.  We are running at maximum capacity in both the Spirit of the Hunt Apprenticeship and the upcoming Self Bow Making workshop. There is a great group of guys in the apprenticeship program who are eager to learn and working really hard at finding and following a single growth ring on their ...

We just finished our largest ever Wilderness Survival Weekend class, and from my point of view as an instructor it was a resounding success.  Our goal as instructors is always for our students to learn and practice physical skills, but also to find or recover new parts of themselves, and to develop new relationships with ...

Our main goal here at Ancestral Knowledge is to bring the inner-city youth back to nature through programs like the ancient skills demonstrations we have held at the Washington D.C.’s Capital Hill Day School and other youth focused programs.  In addition, we help maintain connections to nature with adults through our partnership with the Wilderness ...

This year has brought to the Mid-Atlantic Region what some would say is a “treat” and others a say its a “curse”.  I say its great if you know how to enjoy it.  Depending on where you live, we have been blessed with 18-30″ of snow.  Unfortunately with a broken leg I am limited to ...

Get Dirty to Get Joy- Bacteria in Soil Acts as Antidepressant A bacteria found in soil called Mycobacterium has been found to effect the same neurons as Prozac, offering people a natural lift in mood. This is just one more great reason to get out in the garden and grow your own foods. Not a green ...

Have you ever wondered “how did the natives make such beautiful and soft leather without all the chemicals?”  We will attempt to explain the process so you can try it at home.  We are assuming that you already posses the animals skin. 1. Fleshing- with a rib bone, leg bone or hardwood stick that has been ...

Learning how to build a shelter is one of the most engaging skills for instructors and students alike. Few other skills under the “primitives” umbrella get you as much bang for your buck. The skill of constructing (and/or finding) a safe, dry, warm place to retreat should be a top priority for everyone, ranging from ...

Paw paw trees produce the largest native fruit in North America, and as you can see in the photo below they look sort of like small green mangoes. During this time of year the fruits are ripening, and the kids in our Homeschool Naturalist programs are loving them! In addition, paw paw trees bless us ...

Well it’s that time of the year we have all been waiting for!  That’s right it’s time for our summer overnight camps! We are having a blast with a great group of kids.  So far they have learned how to gather the proper sized firewood, build the proper structure, ignite it using only one match, and ...

Don’t let your kids miss out on a summer with out Ancestral Knowledge!  Look at the fun that they could be having at one of our many camps this summer!  Sign up today for one of our Day Camps or Overnight Camps!  

So many people talk about wanting to connect with nature, achieving oneness, or grounding themselves. There are so many programs and organizations advertising nature connection (we sure have them). I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but in my opinion no program or workshop can make that happen, it’s too personal of ...

We are so excited to have full enrollment in our Future Primitives program!  We are having a great time hanging out and working on our projects.  We have had three meetings and we have already accomplished so much! So far everyone has made their own personal bow drill kits and we even had a PFF! (Personal ...

On April 18th Ancestral Knowledge hosted its first animal tracking workshop. The workshops was taught along t the Paint Branch Creek in College Park MD. This area is rich with animal diversity and hosts one of the finest sand bars in the area. I spent over 16 hours a week for over 2 years tracking ...

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We were so excited to hear that one of our homeschool students loved our program so much that she wanted to host a fundraiser for the AK Send-a-Kid-to-Camp fund as her community service project. Elena was one of our original students from when we started our homeschool programs over 7 years ago.  Elena and her family ...

Over the weekend 7 people, mostly women, gathered together for a three day shoe making workshop.   We gathered with Jason Hovatter from Portland Oregon with hopes of  creating a moccasin style “turn shoe” using latigo leather for the soles and bison leather for the uppers. You might ask, “What is a turn shoe?” A ...