About the Course
BWS Level 1 introduces participants to the foundational skills and competencies of wilderness survival. You will learn practical and technical skills that are essential in emergency contexts, many of which are relevant in urban and non-emergency situations as well. Participants will leave the course equipped to provide fire, shelter, water, food, and basic medical aid to themselves and their communities, and will develop a range of competencies immediately applicable in their daily lives, including the safe and effective use of edged tools, a core foundation of 9-12 practical knots, proper application of a tourniquet, identification of important edible, medicinal, and poisonous plants, and much more.
Subjects Included:
Reading the landscape & core resource identification
Field expedient shelter construction using tarps and / or found materials
Finding, carrying, and purifying water
Core temperature regulation (including hypothermia and heat exhaustion prevention)
Knots, lashings, and rigging
Safe and proper use of edged tools (knife, axe, saw)
Basic fire skills – lighting, sustaining, managing, quenching, including wet weather fire protocol (one-match & percussion ignition techniques)
ID of common edible, medicinal, and poisonous plants
Foundations of navigation (map, compass, barehand)
Strategies, tools, and techniques for emergency signaling
Strategies, tools, and techniques for concealment, camouflage, & invisibility
Fundamentals of first aid
And more!
With the exception of our expedition programs, most of our courses are hosted within a 30 mile radius of Charlottesville, VA. The diverse nature of our programs is best served by a constellation of sites that includes both public and private land. To protect the safety and privacy of our host site partners as well as the safety of our participants, we do not disclose the addresses or coordinates of our sites online. Upon registering for a course — or no later than 2 weeks prior to its start date — all participants will receive details and directions to the public, pre-course meetup location, from which we will caravan to the host site.
Instructor(s)
Chris Grataski
As a naturalist, wilderness guide, farmer, and grassroots educator, Chris Grataski has spent nearly two decades working at the intersection of social and ecological issues. Rooted in a reverence for the mystery and complexity of the living earth, and with an enduring commitment to justice and decolonial futures, his work revolves around sowing seeds for a world beyond crisis and collapse. As a guide and educator, and as the founding director of SRI, he is passionate about weaving connections between ecology and embodied practice that help folks discover their innate kinship with the wild. He and his 12-year old son live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where they can often be found looking for animal tracks, swimming in local rivers, or hanging out at the skatepark.