If a man goes out in the woods and just sets down in one place for long enough, all of nature and everything he needs to know will eventually pass before him like a parade.

--Zoro Guice

What's Happening

The Wilderness club meets monthly to explore the local area. For the last four years we have met in the Haskell Baker Wetlands, an area near Lawrence, Kansas rich in plant and animal life. We practice various primitive skills as well as share our knowledge about the land with each other.

In time we plan to hold weekend classes, summer camps, and learning intensives.

Want an overview of what's planned? Check out the events calendar.

Fresh Tracks

Looking for a New Location

The wetlands have been rich and wonderful and served us well as a meeting place for years, but there are some things that are hard to do out there. We are very cautious about harvesting things there and we avoid things that might alter the environment, like lighting fires or building survival shelters. We don't try our hand at flint knapping because we don't want to leave bits of stone around there. We can't hold overnight events there.

We would like to find some private land open to hosting Plainscraft events. We would like a place convenient to Lawrence (within a 15 minute drive) with a variety of areas to explore, including running water like a creek, some woods, some prairie. It would be great if we also had an area in which we could build a natural shelter.

Right now we would settle for just a good alternative to the Wetlands for the Wilderness Club events: a place with good animal activity, a variety of plants and trees and open to a bit of primitive skills work like lighting small fires.

Contact Stephen at 785-766-0113 if you have something you think would work and he'll come out and walk the land with you.

Regional Primitive Skills Events

Mark your calendars for September 25-27th, because that's the Bois D'Arc Primitive Skills Camp and Knap In! Held in southwest Missouri, this weekend event features many primitive skills workshops and some of the best flintknappers around.

First Earth Wilderness School, LLC, holds it's next Basic Skills Workshop on October 24th and 25th. The Advanced workshop is October 31st - November 2nd. This is a great way to learn some survival skills in a beautiful location. They feed you some great food while you are there as well.

Plainscraft Journals

Stinging Nettle

Brushing this plant can give you a painful sting, but don't let that put you off. It is one of the most useful and nutritious wild plants you can find in the woods.

Medicinal Plants of Kansas

Looking for information on Soapwort, I ran across an 1882 reference for Medical Flora of Kansas.

Snowy Blessing

Though some tracks baffled us. We felt thankful for the snow. The wetlands provides some good opportunities to track in mud, but we often lose trails in the woods or to the dry land between puddles. Often we can only clearly trail an animal a few steps. Sometimes only one step.

Wahoo

Wandering along the Wakarusa on Nov. 6th, we happened upon this lovely bit of color in the very brown and open woods. These beautiful crimson berries grow on an opposite branching tree/shrub. It didn't look like any of the usual suspects for opposite branchers. Not a maple, ash, dogwood, horse chestnut or honeysuckle (Caprifoliacea.)[..]