Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
3.
Cattail roots.
Native Americans used to grind the starchy lower stalk and
roots into meal. The leaves, besides making great weaving material, can be
thrown into salads.
4.
Violets.
The leaves on this plant can be tossed into a salad or cooked as a
green and have three times more vitamin C than an orange.
5.
Day lilies.
The leaves can be eaten as a green, the flowers can either be boiled
and seasoned as a vegetable or be used to thicken soup, and the roots taste
a little like potatoes, only crisper and sweeter.
National Outdoor Leadership School,
284 Lincoln Street, Lander, WY 82520,
800-710-6657 or 307-332-5300, www.nols.edu.
Tom Brown Jr.'s Tracker School.
Since 1978, Tom Brown has been teaching backcountry
self-sufficiency to students—including a
Survivor
cast member—at his farm in New Jersey's
Pine Barrens. Everyone starts with Brown's seven-day Standard Course, which teaches such
skills as foraging for edible violets, making tools from stone, navigating by starlight, and
building shelters from mud and debris. “After this class,” says Brown, “you'll be able to sur-
vive in any condition, track a mouse across a driveway, and no longer be an alien in your own
environment.” Brown, who first learned these skills from Stalking Wolf, an Apache elder
whom he's known since he was seven, incorporates Native American spirituality into every
lesson. The school has four full-time instructors and charges $850 for the seven-day course
($950 for courses in California and Florida).
Tom Brown Jr.'s Tracker School,
P.O. Box 927, Waretown, NJ 08758, 609-242-0350,
www.trackerschool.com.
