"Graduating from college with a piece of a paper that says you know something no longer guarantees that you can get a good job. Getting a job no longer guarantees that you can keep it for life, and having a fat retirement fund one day is no guarantee that it will still be worth anything when you actually need it. Welcome to the new era of self-sufficiency."
The winter of 2022 - 2023 was a doozy, with more snow and colder temperatures than we've seen in a long time, but camp life continued throughout, with folks crafting, hanging out, or hibernating through the depths of it.
As the sun started its northward arc for spring, we returned to basic skills, diving into friction fires, discoidal stone knives, and other essentials. Gary Steele came back to give us a four-day class on Beginning Bow Making and atlatls. Then we dived into our annual spring Bison Tanning Class, this time with a record number of students and an international cast of students to compliment the Immersion Program.
Immersion students helped out extensively with OWLS programs through the Outdoor Education and Basic Skills Intensive in May, learning new skills while having a blast working with local school kids. Together we engaged in shelter-building, primitive fire-making, burn bowls, wild food foraging, campfire cooking, and tons of wild games.
Several students, instructors, and friends joined Tom for a recreational day off to go Carp Hunting in June. Afterwards, the crew migrated to Tom's house for a weeklong Bow Building / Master Archer Class with guest instructor Tony Pike.
The annual two-week Botany & Foraging Intensive was the main event of July, this year featuring a caravan across Oregon from Tillamook on the northwest coast to Steens Mountain in the southeastern corner of the state. We were joined by special guest instructors John Kallas, Tom Brown III, and Rob Miller for a great adventure of plant identification, exploration, and foraging.
We welcome new Immersion students in September, beginning with a ten-day Paddle Back in Time on the Jefferson River, which included canoeing, camping, basic skills, great hikes, and lots of moose and other wildlife.
After that we jumped into our first-ever fall Bison Tanning Class with a great new group of students, followed immediately afterwards by our annual two-week Deer Processing Intensive, this time led by Mark Hay and Shelby Kolar.
Tom was given an old plywood yurt, which he assembled in the spring, then finished in the fall with a steel roof, woodstove, electricity, lights, and internet to serve as a camp library and crafting space. He was helped especially by Raye to put the roof on and Collin to assist with the wiring.
We had one big, early snowstorm in October, followed by unseasonably warm weather through the end of the year. The annual Fall Harvest Celebration included many feasts on roadkill deer, and mountains of hide tanning, as students prepared skins for a buckskin sewing class in the new year. On Sundays we enjoyed outdoor game days to play traditional games such as kubb, corn hole, skittles, molkky, bocce, along with soccer and double ball, the official game of Green University LLC.
Green University is constantly evolving as students and staff collaboratively grow the program. Winter is naturally a quiet time for the school when participants focus on crafting and sewing projects. This year most of the crew opted for a February break where most of the students and staff went to the Winter Count Gathering in Arizona. Tom and Linda afterwards extended winter break with a 300-mile hike on the Arizona Trail, joined by Evan and Vanne, who continued onward to complete the 800-mile trail.
An unseasonably warm, dry winter gave way to a cool, wet spring, starting with a major snowstorm during the Bison Tanning Class. But the students worked double time when the weather improved and finished some beautiful braintan bison robes.
We overwintered the sheep in the stockyard to help build up the soil with hay and manure, as well as to help smother or graze off any grasses and weeds in preparation for creating a garden. In April we held our first Practical Permaculture class in collaboration with Broken Ground and Sage Mountain Center where students created a permaculture design, followed by a four-day Applied Permaculture blitz where we implemented the new plan, building a greenhouse, two layered "lasagna beds," four raised beds, compost bins, planted fruit trees, and started constructing a cob chicken house. The first-year garden proved to be a huge success over the summer!
In May we held our Outdoor Education and Basic Skills Intensive in collaboration with OWLS, where GU Immersion students have the opportunity to hone their skills at primitive fire-starting, campfire cooking, stalking and bird language skills, and much more while mentoring young people from local schools.
Long-time GU instructors Kris and Bartle paddled down the Jefferson River from River Camp on vacation in early July, joined by former student Luke, for a seven-week canoe adventure. Tom and Linda met them downstream on the Missouri River on August 1st to assist them in portaging around Great Falls. August is the official GU summer break, and we were accompanied by Evan and Lisa for the remaining two-and-a-half week adventure on the Upper Missouri National Wild & Scenic River.
Afterwards we rallied the troops to stucco the exterior walls of the tire palace, doing a scratch coat followed by a finish coat. Many hands make for light work, and we finished the job in only three days. The surrounding garden was already producing bountiful greens and tomatoes.
The Immersion program encourages participants to collaborate in the development of Green University, and out-going student Li Leung gave a stellar presentation on how to structure the program in more autonomous cells, with less need for oversight. Staff and students agreed to cooperate on implementing the new plan.
Winter came suddenly and didn't go away, as snow and cold brought on a different season of activities, with half the crew opting to work two days a week at a local wild game processor. Special guest instructor Bruce Benedict did a talk and demonstration about hand-crafting muzzleloaders, and each person had the opportunity to fire off a round. Personal projects, crafting, and tracking continued through the end of the year. The crew enjoyed weekly potluck parties at Tom and Linda's house, including animal language seminars and a photography class while continuing to co-envision the future of Green University.
2021 Cameron, Wren, Luke, Raye, Jake, James, Lena, Li, Michael, Mark, Margaret, Sydnee, Evan, Jesse, and Ryan
No two years are the same at Green University LLC. 2021 began with a bumper crop of nineteen lambs from the River Camp flock of two rams and twelve ewes. The flock helps manage weeds and grazes down the grass to reduce fire danger at camp. Students raised the sheep, worked on fences, herded them home if they escaped (more than a few times), and ultimately culled surplus lambs for their meat and hides, nourishing the tribe through winter.
At the beginning of March the group took a field trip to Gardiner to join Buffalo Bridge for a couple days, learning about the Yellowstone bison hunt.
Braintanning is an ongoing activity as weather and time permits throughout the year. Veteran hide tanner Melvin Beattie intermittently dropped by to check on the crew and offer advice. Students tanned buckskins over the winter and made shirts, pants, shorts, moccasins, and bags under the guidance of special guest instructor Kerr Duson. Mel dropped off a huge pile of beaver hides for all to tan.
We were honored to have Gary Steele spend an early spring week at camp giving classes on quickie bows and arrows and atlatls. Mel and friend George dropped by for an additional impromptu class on arrows and atlatl darts.
The April Bison Tanning Class was our biggest ever, with nine people racking, scraping, softening, and smoking hides for buffalo robes this year.
Tom Elpel and students finished carving the cottonwood dugout canoe the group started back in September of 2020. It took nearly seven months of part-time work over the winter to finish the job, but the finished product is a real beauty:
We brought the new canoe, dubbed "Star Turtle," or simply, "Startle," down the Jefferson River for her maiden voyage as we assisted with the Jefferson River Canoe Trail clean-up of a metal contraption that had crashed and been abandoned on the riverbank.
An unexpected opportunity arose when a television production company rented Startle and hired Green University students as extras for the fur trade era docuseries, Into the Wild Frontier. The studio rented paddles and gear from the students, including a custom-built wagon with wooden wheels to transport dugout canoes overland. Michael and Mark gained several weeks of employment in the acting biz, including some spoken lines, and for Mark a bit of horseback riding on camera.
In May we resumed kids camps with the public schools through our Outdoor Education and Basic Skills Intensive , where Green University LLC students had the opportunity to practice and teach skills from flint & steel and bowdrill fire-starting to making coal-burned bowls and cooking a stir-fry dinner with hot rocks in a bark pan. There was no shortage of fun with games like Coyote Tails, Scout Sword, and marshmallow blowgun wars.
At the beginning of June the crew opted to attend the Between the Rivers Gathering in eastern Washington, with everyone taking different classes and learning new skills.
Later in June Green University embarked on the fifth two-week Botany and Foraging Intensive, this time starting at Tom Elpel's home in Pony, Montana. A total of twenty students joined the botanical adventure, touring northwestern Montana and into Idaho to hone plant identification skills, learn herbal basics, and forage for wild foods. Several alternative home and permaculture tours rounded out the experience for a truly packed Intensive.
Returning home to Montana, Green University held a graduation ceremony for our Immersion students. The school shut down for summer break, but Tom Elpel and several former students and friends launched a short trip down the Yellowstone River through Montana's Paradise Valley. Borrowing the theme from the spring docuseries project, the crew brought mostly fur trade era gear and put both dugout canoes to the test on the lively waters and wave trains of the upper Yellowstone. The adventure was ultimately cut short to five days due to back troubles for Tom, but is back on his agenda for 2022.
September brought us back to Rabbitstick Rendezvous three hours away in Idaho to gather with the larger primitive skills community and learn new skills. All had a great time gaining new friends and making memories to last a lifetime.
The Fall Semester at Green University began immediately after Rabbitstick. Several of our graduating yearlong students opted to stay on for another semester or longer. Tom Elpel led an eight-day Paddle Back in Time canoe trip down the Jefferson River as an introductory class for incoming and returning students. The group paddled the river, picked up trash, practiced primitive skills, and soaked at Renova Hot Springs along the river bank.
The class transitioned into fall projects, including cutting and hauling a mountain of firewood to stay warm through winter. A Sheep Processing Class transitioned into a sheep tanning class, followed by the Deer Processing Intensive and the Fall Harvest Celebration as River Camp once again swung into winter mode.
The previous winter had been exceptionally dry and warm, enabling Green University student Michael Morgan to begin construction on an earthship-inspired circular tool shed built of tires packed with earth. We were joined in the spring by students from Visions Service Adventures for a few days work on the project, then moved onto other things during the spring and summer. Michael and Tom resumed work on the Tire Palace in October, finishing the walls and getting the roof started and tarped over before winter set in. Student work-trade helpers kept the project going, and the inside was fully stuccoed before work quit for the winter.
Another year in the books. It is astonishing to realize how much we do each year!
The year of the pandemic started with cancellation of our Immersion Program as Montana went into lockdown days before the Spring Semester began. However, classes cautiously resumed over the summer, starting with our two-week Botany & Foraging Intensive in Colorado with twenty students in attendance, basic social distancing protocols for the first few days, and fortunately no Covid-19 outbreaks.
We began the fall season with a four-day camp makeover, splitting into smaller work groups to tackle different projects. One group cleaned out the kitchen and finished insulating the walls with secondhand insulation, sealed over with plywood sheathing and a fresh coat of paint, plus a new secondhand countertop and a propane kitchen stove. Fill dirt was delivered and leveled to make suitable pads to erect a new yurt and another big tent. Students patched the leaky roof of the tool shed, and everyone participated in building raised sleeping platforms around the inside perimeter of the earthlodge, providing students with individual cubby holes with closet space under the beds. Then we were ready for some fun!
Starting at River Camp, we launched canoes down the Jefferson River for a four-day journey to meet the fallen cottonwood tree we would carve into a new dugout canoe. Time on the river offered the opportunity to experiment with friction fires, forage for wild greens, cook a steam pit dinner, and enjoy Montana's beautiful scenery and fall weather.
Our destination was Shoshone Landing on the Jefferson River Canoe Trail where a massive cottonwood had fallen over the year before. It was 4 1/2 feet in diameter at the base, big enough to carve a nice new dugout canoe. We camped there for nearly two weeks while whittling the big tree down with adzes and chainsaws, taking off enough weight to have it shipped back to River Camp.
With an ambitious year long program, students dived into skills right away, making cedar bark baskets, tule mats, bow and drill fire sets, wooden spoons, and learning to process roadkill deer. We were joined for three days by students of Visions Service Adventures who came for an introduction to hunter-gatherer skills, culminating in an epic game of double ball between their students and ours.
Next up was the two-week Deer Processing Intensive led by instructor Kris Reed. Students learned to butcher roadkill deer, make jerky, can meat, braintan buckskin and sheep hides, and sew it all together. That was followed by a felting class with Bartle, where the class made wool pads, wraps, and bags.
With unseasonably warm weather, camp settled into a routine of hide work, meat processing, and crafting through the Fall Harvest Celebration. The whole tribe joined Tom Elpel for Thanksgiving and a slumber party at his home in Pony. Winter preparation remained an ongoing endeavor as the group cut and hauled firewood to camp. Classes continued on shelter, fire, navigation, and signalling right up to the holiday break, when half the class went home for Christmas.
I remember on the way to the airport you asking me to express what I thought about the immersion program. I can't recall what I said but i have more to add because I didn't realize most things till I left. I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to be innovative. When I returned home and was helping my cousin with his construction business I was much better at my job. Like you said. When you build, you are always going to run into problems you've never had before. Its learning how to deal with whatever is thrown at you that will make you successful. It was awesome how Brandon and I were allowed to come up with our own ideas and then get to implement them if they made sense. My cousin was also quite impressed with how well I could use all the tools. I've found the experience to benefit me in other areas of my life not related to construction.
Take it easy Tom,
Michael S.
Looking for life-changing resources? Check out these books by Thomas J. Elpel:
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At the beginning of March the group took a field trip to Gardiner to join 
An unexpected opportunity arose when a television production company rented Startle and hired Green University students as extras for the fur trade era docuseries, 
Later in June Green University embarked on the fifth two-week 
September brought us back to 
