This course is designed for educators, guardians, outdoor guides, youth leaders, parents, and families—anyone who wants to create a community for children rooted in nature connection and lifelong learning. It offers an opportunity to build a foundation for a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural world.
Nature Connection
Nature connection can be found by exploring our human roots. On this journey, we train in Tracker Skills—crafting shelters, creating fire from friction, hunting crawfish knee-deep in a stream, and tending forests through mindful caretaking and harvesting wild foods. These connections are remembered through stories about tracking a bobcat, cougar, or deer and are shared by guiding children, sharing food, and caring for elders.
Trackers Education
The Trackers framework benefits teachers, mentors, parents, and youth leaders by drawing on natural principles refined over 20 years with hundreds of thousands of students. These principles go beyond instruction—they inspire, energize, and empower youth to become self-directed and independent, with the community and the land as their primary teachers.
Tracker Skills
Mentors with a deep connection to nature are essential for cultivating this learning community. In this program, they enhance their skills in nature awareness, adaptability, stewardship, and leadership. These abilities not only strengthen them as Trackers but also empower them to guide children in discovering their own paths in nature.
Four Guilds
The Tracker Skills we teach are divided into Four Guilds. Each guild plays a part in developing a learning community rooted in the seasons, natural cycles, and place-based awareness:
Rangers Guild: Rangers skills focus on wilderness survival, learning about shelter, water, food, and fire. They train in the Art of Tracking, beginning with animals and expanding to broader natural and intuitive awareness.
Mariners Guild: Mariners skills focus on aquatic and marine species, exploring the bounty of our waters through seasonal harvests. Training includes boating safety, paddling skills, and orienteering.
Wilders Guild: Wilders skills delve into animal husbandry and homesteading, with a focus on foraging and wild food preparation. Seasonal botany studies support stewardship and caretaking of the land.
Artisans Guild: Artisans skills teach folk crafts like woodworking, ceramics, and blacksmithing. They also train in martial arts to enhance fitness and blend stealth and invisibility with live-action storytelling.
The guilds act as timeless archetypes, offering a unique curriculum to train in core routines essential for deeper nature connection.
The Game of Tracking
The Game of Tracking functions like a role-playing game, recreating a learning community that thrives through connection to friends and family. It’s a community where generations play and work together, respecting the wisdom of elders and caring for the more-than-human world. It’s about sharing stories of real adventure and insight into the natural world.
Our Place
Staff meet at Camp Trackers, our 100-acre overnight campground in the foothills of Mount Hood. It features an archery range, areas to train in wilderness survival skills, and a farm with donkeys, goats, chickens, and more. For Mariner skills, we may also transport to local waterways.
Tuition
Free to Trackers Staff.
Our Program
Each day features new skills from the Guilds:
Day 1 - Morning Rangers: Wilderness Survival & Tracking
Day 1 - Afternoon Wilders: Animals, Farms & Wild Plants
Day 2 - Morning Mariners: Fishing & Foraging
Day 2 - Afternoon Storytelling: Applying the Skills to Education
Times
9:00 AM: Day 1 - Check-In @ Camp Trackers
4:00 PM: Day 2 - Check-Out @ Camp Trackers
Have Questions?
For any questions, please feel free to contact our Family Success team.