Registration will open in the summer of 2025. Sign up through the link below to receive notification when registration opens for the next cycle of the Earth Skills Are Easy.
Earth Skills Are Easy is a 12 month program that meets one day a month for a workshop on various overlapping bushcraft, ancestral, and survival skills. These are skills that are often perceived as something only a hard-core wilderness survival skills expert can do or learn to do. In reality, it is quite easy to learn the foundational basics, and grow your skill level from there. Each class goes through many of the basic crafts of earth skills and focuses on showing just how easy these skills actually are. We focus on one or two skills per workshop. These classes are designed to be a quick, easy, and painless introduction to earth skills for the timid beginner. As foundational skills, they are also good for someone who already has a little bit of knowledge and simply would like to level up or round out their skillset. We provide all the materials you will need–although a good knife and hatchet is ideal.
Want to know how to safely use and care for knives and axes? We got you covered. Want to know how to start and tend a fire from scratch? This is the program for you. Do you want to learn to craft containers with your hands from the materials you find in the forest? Sign up and level up. These are core skills that all humans should know. Immerse yourself in a cohort of students dedicated to becoming more human through this ancient birth rite.
We Focus on Fluency
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee (Emphasis added)
These days people have conflated the experience of doing something, with truly knowing something. Doing something once is not learned, not internalized, not fluent. We strive to build towards fluency. Our program has plenty of new and interesting skill sets to learn. However, it’s also an incubator space for conditioning and building fluency. Our mentors are always looking out for and assisting our students to take their skills to the next level, rather than jump around to too many different things. There is a plethora of bushcraft–truly an endless amount. But our goal is to create quality of individual skills first, quantity of skills second.
We have a fluency rating system we have developed for students to be able to understand just how much they know, and what to strive for. Can you start a fire with matches? How about with a bow-drill? How about with a bow-drill made from stone tools and plant fiber? How about a making a fire from scratch in the pouring rain in February in the Pacific NW? While the final example is extreme and is likely not something you’ll be able to do after you graduate the Earth Skills Are Easy class, we have created “fluency roadmaps” for each skillset, so that as students learn and grow they can see where they fall on the fluency scale of the various earth skills that we teach long after they have built the foundations of the skills at this program.
Takeaways
• Community of friends working on skills together • Build your own friction fire kit • Weave baskets and other containers • Gain skills and experience from quality instructors • Acquire the confidence that comes from minimalist survival skills • Feel engaged in building skills of resilience • Become more informed on the history and context of various earth skills • Fluency charts for each skill to be able to see how far you have come–and where to go next
Program Dates and Themes for 2025-2026
OCTOBER: KNIFE & AX
October 11, 2025 Blade craft is the starting point for any and all bushcraft skills. Rather than evolve biological adaptations like claws or fangs, humans made a leap and evolved technologically. These days metal blades are the primary tool of bushcraft, but it comes with a responsibility and a need for safety, care, and awareness. We break this down in a way that is fun and easy to understand.
NOVEMBER: CORDAGE & KNOTS
November 8, 2025 Binding things together is necessary for many skills: shelter building, carrying items, making traps, and so much more. In this class you’ll learn what local plants make the best cordage and how to spin it into strong fiber for all your needs. We’ll cover the best knots and lashings for all the bushcraft necessities.
DECEMBER: FIRE BASICS
December 13, 2025 Fire is one of the ultimate technologies that separates humans from other animals. Over hundreds of thousands of years humans have learned to master the arts of fire. In this intro class, you’ll learn what fire is, how to start with modern tools, how to tend it to keep it going–even in the rain, and extinguish it properly. While tending the fire you will learn some rudimentary cooking techniques.
JANUARY: FRICTION FIRE KIT
January 10, 2025 In this class we will make a bow-drill set, one of the most classic methods for making a fire by “rubbing two sticks together”. Participants will each make a set to take home with them at the end of class. We will also go over the proper form for drilling and perhaps get a fire or two before the day is over!
FEBRUARY: STONE TOOLS
February 14, 2025 While arrowheads are the pretty stone tools that dazzle the eyes, there are more practical stone tools that take priority over the eye-catching ones. The “Oldowan Industry” was the first stone tool technological innovation by human hands. These tools, while crude, are still practical today for bushcraft and survival. While basic, these tools take time and practice to be able to produce at will. In our class, students will walk away not with just a few new tools, but with an understanding of how to reproduce the tools on their own.
MARCH: BONE TOOLS
March 14, 2025 Once upon a time in history, the bone awl was one of the most important multi-purpose tools that people would carry with them wherever they went. Bone is one of the hardest natural materials. It breaks down over time and is eaten by animals. For this reason, stone receives more credit as a household tool of our “Stone Age” ancestors. Like most natural materials, bone is shaped through abrasion: scoring, scraping, snapping, splitting and sanding. In this class we will make a bone awl and a bone needle out of deer bones.
APRIL: SURVIVAL BASKET
April 11, 2025 The more technology we need, the more things we have to carry. This basket is a simple container that will hold all the things we need to carry with us in our travels. It can be made relatively quickly and last a while. You will learn how to weave it and what local materials are best.
MAY: TRAPS, TRACKS, AND AWARENESS
May 9, 2025 Traps are an important tool for acquiring protein. You will learn to make a deadfall and a snare. We will also teach you the various animal tracks and sign that you may come across in the NW, as well as techniques for increasing your awareness of your environment while in the outdoors. The landscape can tell you much about the place you are in, if you know how to read it.
JUNE: SHELTER & CAMP SETUP
June 13, 2025 Shelter is one of the most important survival skills. In this class we will build survival shelters, bushcraft tarp shelters, as well as how to properly set up a camp for a survival scenario or for a basic bush camp. Learn how to stay alive on a cold night, how to reflect fire, and what the needs of a camp are.
JULY: HAZARDS & HYGIENE
July 18, 2025 Knowing the hazards of your environment, and how to avoid or mitigate them is important whether you are just at a bush camp or in a serious survival situation. This class covers the classic dangers we face outdoors, but also methods of water purification and avoiding infection through good hygiene.
AUGUST: CONTAINERS
August 8, 2025 This class will focus on several containers for holding different things. We will make bark buckets and hand felted bags.
SEPTEMBER: FOOTWEAR & NAVIGATION
September 12, 2025 In order to move through the landscape, we need proper footwear and good navigation skills. In this class we will make sandals from leather and then go on a navigation journey learning to use maps and compasses as well as natural ways to navigate through the forest. We will also cover the basics of how to not get lost, and what to do if you end up lost anyway.
INSTRUCTOR
Peter Michael Bauer’s first merit badge in the Boy Scouts was basketry. From there he went on to receive his Eagle Scout rank. He has traveled the country attending programs such as Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School, Wilderness Awareness School in Washington State, Rabbitstick Rendezvous, Echoes in Time, Wintercount, Lynx Vilden’s Stone Age immersion program, Boulder Outdoor Survival School and the Columbia Basin Basketry Guild.
Registration will open in the summer of 2025. Sign up through the link below to receive notification when registration opens for the next cycle of the Earth Skills Are Easy.
Earth Skills Are Easy
A Yearlong Program in Bushcraft Basics!
A 12-month (October–September) bushcraft program, 1 days per month, 9 am–5 pm.
TUITION: $2,400 (Materials Included, read our Refund Policy here)
Registration will open in the summer of 2025. Sign up through the link below to receive notification when registration opens for the next cycle of the Earth Skills Are Easy.
Earth Skills Are Easy is a 12 month program that meets one day a month for a workshop on various overlapping bushcraft, ancestral, and survival skills. These are skills that are often perceived as something only a hard-core wilderness survival skills expert can do or learn to do. In reality, it is quite easy to learn the foundational basics, and grow your skill level from there. Each class goes through many of the basic crafts of earth skills and focuses on showing just how easy these skills actually are. We focus on one or two skills per workshop. These classes are designed to be a quick, easy, and painless introduction to earth skills for the timid beginner. As foundational skills, they are also good for someone who already has a little bit of knowledge and simply would like to level up or round out their skillset. We provide all the materials you will need–although a good knife and hatchet is ideal.
Want to know how to safely use and care for knives and axes? We got you covered. Want to know how to start and tend a fire from scratch? This is the program for you. Do you want to learn to craft containers with your hands from the materials you find in the forest? Sign up and level up. These are core skills that all humans should know. Immerse yourself in a cohort of students dedicated to becoming more human through this ancient birth rite.
We Focus on Fluency
These days people have conflated the experience of doing something, with truly knowing something. Doing something once is not learned, not internalized, not fluent. We strive to build towards fluency. Our program has plenty of new and interesting skill sets to learn. However, it’s also an incubator space for conditioning and building fluency. Our mentors are always looking out for and assisting our students to take their skills to the next level, rather than jump around to too many different things. There is a plethora of bushcraft–truly an endless amount. But our goal is to create quality of individual skills first, quantity of skills second.
We have a fluency rating system we have developed for students to be able to understand just how much they know, and what to strive for. Can you start a fire with matches? How about with a bow-drill? How about with a bow-drill made from stone tools and plant fiber? How about a making a fire from scratch in the pouring rain in February in the Pacific NW? While the final example is extreme and is likely not something you’ll be able to do after you graduate the Earth Skills Are Easy class, we have created “fluency roadmaps” for each skillset, so that as students learn and grow they can see where they fall on the fluency scale of the various earth skills that we teach long after they have built the foundations of the skills at this program.
Takeaways
• Community of friends working on skills together
• Build your own friction fire kit
• Weave baskets and other containers
• Gain skills and experience from quality instructors
• Acquire the confidence that comes from minimalist survival skills
• Feel engaged in building skills of resilience
• Become more informed on the history and context of various earth skills
• Fluency charts for each skill to be able to see how far you have come–and where to go next
Program Dates and Themes for 2025-2026
OCTOBER: KNIFE & AX
October 11, 2025
Blade craft is the starting point for any and all bushcraft skills. Rather than evolve biological adaptations like claws or fangs, humans made a leap and evolved technologically. These days metal blades are the primary tool of bushcraft, but it comes with a responsibility and a need for safety, care, and awareness. We break this down in a way that is fun and easy to understand.
NOVEMBER: CORDAGE & KNOTS
November 8, 2025
Binding things together is necessary for many skills: shelter building, carrying items, making traps, and so much more. In this class you’ll learn what local plants make the best cordage and how to spin it into strong fiber for all your needs. We’ll cover the best knots and lashings for all the bushcraft necessities.
DECEMBER: FIRE BASICS
December 13, 2025
Fire is one of the ultimate technologies that separates humans from other animals. Over hundreds of thousands of years humans have learned to master the arts of fire. In this intro class, you’ll learn what fire is, how to start with modern tools, how to tend it to keep it going–even in the rain, and extinguish it properly. While tending the fire you will learn some rudimentary cooking techniques.
JANUARY: FRICTION FIRE KIT
January 10, 2025
In this class we will make a bow-drill set, one of the most classic methods for making a fire by “rubbing two sticks together”. Participants will each make a set to take home with them at the end of class. We will also go over the proper form for drilling and perhaps get a fire or two before the day is over!
FEBRUARY: STONE TOOLS
February 14, 2025
While arrowheads are the pretty stone tools that dazzle the eyes, there are more practical stone tools that take priority over the eye-catching ones. The “Oldowan Industry” was the first stone tool technological innovation by human hands. These tools, while crude, are still practical today for bushcraft and survival. While basic, these tools take time and practice to be able to produce at will. In our class, students will walk away not with just a few new tools, but with an understanding of how to reproduce the tools on their own.
MARCH: BONE TOOLS
March 14, 2025
Once upon a time in history, the bone awl was one of the most important multi-purpose tools that people would carry with them wherever they went. Bone is one of the hardest natural materials. It breaks down over time and is eaten by animals. For this reason, stone receives more credit as a household tool of our “Stone Age” ancestors. Like most natural materials, bone is shaped through abrasion: scoring, scraping, snapping, splitting and sanding. In this class we will make a bone awl and a bone needle out of deer bones.
APRIL: SURVIVAL BASKET
April 11, 2025
The more technology we need, the more things we have to carry. This basket is a simple container that will hold all the things we need to carry with us in our travels. It can be made relatively quickly and last a while. You will learn how to weave it and what local materials are best.
MAY: TRAPS, TRACKS, AND AWARENESS
May 9, 2025
Traps are an important tool for acquiring protein. You will learn to make a deadfall and a snare. We will also teach you the various animal tracks and sign that you may come across in the NW, as well as techniques for increasing your awareness of your environment while in the outdoors. The landscape can tell you much about the place you are in, if you know how to read it.
JUNE: SHELTER & CAMP SETUP
June 13, 2025
Shelter is one of the most important survival skills. In this class we will build survival shelters, bushcraft tarp shelters, as well as how to properly set up a camp for a survival scenario or for a basic bush camp. Learn how to stay alive on a cold night, how to reflect fire, and what the needs of a camp are.
JULY: HAZARDS & HYGIENE
July 18, 2025
Knowing the hazards of your environment, and how to avoid or mitigate them is important whether you are just at a bush camp or in a serious survival situation. This class covers the classic dangers we face outdoors, but also methods of water purification and avoiding infection through good hygiene.
AUGUST: CONTAINERS
August 8, 2025
This class will focus on several containers for holding different things. We will make bark buckets and hand felted bags.
SEPTEMBER: FOOTWEAR & NAVIGATION
September 12, 2025
In order to move through the landscape, we need proper footwear and good navigation skills. In this class we will make sandals from leather and then go on a navigation journey learning to use maps and compasses as well as natural ways to navigate through the forest. We will also cover the basics of how to not get lost, and what to do if you end up lost anyway.
INSTRUCTOR
Peter Michael Bauer’s first merit badge in the Boy Scouts was basketry. From there he went on to receive his Eagle Scout rank. He has traveled the country attending programs such as Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School, Wilderness Awareness School in Washington State, Rabbitstick Rendezvous, Echoes in Time, Wintercount, Lynx Vilden’s Stone Age immersion program, Boulder Outdoor Survival School and the Columbia Basin Basketry Guild.
Registration 2025-2026
TUITION: $2,400 (Materials Included, read our Refund Policy here)
Registration will open in the summer of 2025. Sign up through the link below to receive notification when registration opens for the next cycle of the Earth Skills Are Easy.