Green University® LLC otherwise took a sabbatical for the 2019 season while founder and director Tom Elpel led a five-month Missouri River Corps of Rediscovery expedition to paddle the 2,341-mile length of the Missouri River from Three Forks, Montana to St. Louis, Missouri. The expedition launched on June 1, 2019, consisting of Tom Elpel, Scott Robinson, John Gentry, Chris Dawkins, and Josiah Fischer, mostly former students of Green University LLC. The fleet consisted of the dugout canoe carved the previous year, plus a couple modern canoes, with additional guests intermittently joining along the way.
Instead of merely racing to the finish line, the crew paddled the Missouri River as a conduit for exploring the land and meeting its inhabitants. Every campsite offered a new opportunity to hike and explore the geographical landscape and geology, identify plants, and forage for wild foods. They enjoyed a leisurely pace paddling through the heart of America while diving into Lewis and Clark history and the history of Native American tribes along the route, as told in Tom's book, Five Months on the Missouri River: Paddling a Dugout Canoe.
2018 Christian, Dillon, Rebekah, Chris, Marilou
In 2018 we carved our first dugout canoe. Tom Elpel worked with Churchill Clark, the great-great-great-great grandson of Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, to whittle a 10,000-lb. Douglas fir log down to a 500+ lb. dugout canoe with Green University LLC students intermittently jumping into the process along the way.
The canoe carving project overlapped with other spring classes, including the Bison Tanning Class and the month-long Outdoor Education and Basic Skills Intensive. Later, we gathered a small group together for a week-long test run down the Marias River in north-central Montana:
In summer we acquired a starter flock of Icelandic sheep for landscape management, taking on six ewes and two rams while quickly discovering the need for improved fencing at River Camp.
In August we held our third Botany and Foraging Intensive, the first one based in Montana. Chris, Dustin, Dixie, Jason, Vikki, Axel, and Tom botanized and foraged across the state, enjoying wild plants and berries, a roadkill fawn, supplemented by a bit of dumpster diving.
September brought the tribe back to River Camp for fall activities and classes, being joined by Dillon, Rebekah, Chris, and Marilou for the Deer Processing Intensive and Fall Harvest and Celebration of the Deer. The crew insulated, sheathed, and painted another section of the camp kitchen, making it that much warmer and brighter for short, cold days of winter.
In December we wrapped up the year with a short two-day walkabout over and around the mountains to stretch our legs from Tom's house in Pony to River Camp in the Jefferson Valley. The year wrapped up with Tom researching and making plans to lead an expedition and paddle Belladonna Beaver the dugout canoe down the full length of the Missouri River in 2019.
2017 Kevin, Michael, Kelsi, Kenny, Jack, Christian
2017 was a great, busy year! Special guest instructors Lindy and Ashley spent some time at River Camp trading a pack basketry class for braintanning lessons. Jack, Michael, Kenny, and Kevin all made beautiful pack baskets and our guests went home with finished buckskins and the necessary experience to do more.
The tribe worked together on the earthlodge for a couple days, troweling on a smoother, browner finish coat. Other spring projects included adding secondhand cedar boards to the east side of the corral to hide the supply yard, plus a new sign on the front gate.
Everyone stayed well-fed on roadkill through the year, processing several deer off local roads. In addition, a moose was hit just a mile down the road from River Camp. The game warden knows the crew, so he shot the moose, enlisted help from a farmer to load it on a trailer, and delivered a full-size fresh moose right to camp. In addition, prior student Barnes came back and gave a great bison-tanning class for the class.
To further celebrate the spring weather, we went on botany and foraging walks and collected morel mushrooms and tree mushrooms. Then we went out for our annual week-long carp hunting canoe trip. Our group included staff, students, neighborhood kids, and Tom's girlfriend Janeth. (See this link for an article and video from previous trips.) On the last day, Tom and Janeth cleaned, filleted and iced nearly thirty carp and subsequently canned them at home.
In July we drove to Hells Canyon, Idaho for our second Wild Fruits Rendezvous. We spent a full week camping out with friends to pick, can, and dry feral apricots, blackberries, plums, elderberries, and mulberries.
Moving into fall, the crew attended Rabbitstick Rendezvous for a week classes and community. Christian joined us for the start of the fall semester, and we headed out to Idaho for our third annual Wild Rice Harvesting expedition with a total crew of about fifteen staff, students, friends, and guests.
Back home, Christian and Tom built a front wall with a door and window for the kitchen shed. They used all recycled and secondhand materials to make an attractive wall that would greatly improve energy efficiency and comfort through the winter months.Many other guests drifted in and out through the extended Fall Harvest and Celebration of the Deer. A great time was had by all!
2016 Neal, Dean, Derrick, Jason, Erik, Jack, Rob, Ed, Mike
2016 was a year of fun and adventure! We started out with a Botany and Foraging Intensive exploring early spring plants and digging wild edible roots in eastern Washington.
Right after the kids programs finished up, we went on a two-week vacation, paddling the Tongue River in southeastern Montana. Our group included staff, students, neighborhood kids, guests from California and Australia, and Tom's girlfriend Janeth.
Back at home in June, we renovated an old cedar strip canoe, then drove to Hells Canyon, Idaho for our first Wild Fruits Rendezvous. We met with other interested folks and spent a full week camping out and picking, canning, and drying feral apricots, blackberries, plums, elderberries, and mulberries.
Moving into fall, the crew attended Rabbitstick Rendezvous for a week classes and community. Afterwards, Neal organized a Wild Rice Harvesting expedition in northern Idaho.
Intermittently throughout the year, we prepared the modernized earthlodge for a permanent structural shell of shotcrete. We poured footings and wrapped the earthodge in a cage of metal reinforcing bar. And finally, in October, we rented a shotcrete machine and air compressor to spray a cement-based mix on the structure. Now we have a permanent facility at River Camp for lodging and classes!
We finished the earthlodge work just in time for the November Deer Processing month. Jack, Rob, Ed, and numerous former students joined the fun, skinning and processing deer and tanning hides.
2015 Kenny, Lydia, Jerry, Janeth, Dave, Sue, Wren, Jamie, Ken, Neal, Mike, and Terry
2015 started out with lots of meat, as Kenny and Lydia picked up four roadkill deer in one week. They cut the meat into strips and dried it over the stove to make jerky. Lydia joined the crew at Buffalo Bridge in February, skinning bison shot by native hunters, and processing the hides, meat, and organs. In early spring, Kenny took his jerky and headed out on a 1,000-mile walk on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Jerry arrived in May in time to jump into our OWLS Ancient Skills programs for the public schools. Afterwards, we paddled down the upper Missouri River on a week-long carp hunting expedition with bows and arrows, taking along friends, students, neighborhood kids, and Tom's girlfriend Janeth from Sweden. Janeth became an unofficial student, eagerly diving into the skills throughout the year.
Green University hit the road in July, with Tom co-teaching a month-long Botany and Foraging Intensive in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. Students practiced their skills at keying out plants in Tom's book Botany in a Day, until they could identify virtually any plant they encountered, from flowerbeds in town to desert canyons and alpine mountaintops.
Neal arrived in late summer, and we headed out on another road trip, harvesting wild rice and catching salmon in northern Idaho, connecting with friends and prior students along the way.
Back at home, we closed in the long-term earthlodge project with slabwood and tarps to make a functional winter shelter in time for the November Deer Processing month. Mike, Terry, and numerous former students joined the fun, skinning and processing deer and tanning hides.
Green University® LLC started rolling in May, when Kenny arrived for the year-long program and jumped right into learning and teaching as an assistant instructor in our Outdoor Wilderness Living School programs for public schools, including our always epic junior high camping trip. Afterwards, we rounded up friends and neighborhood kids and went on a fun carp hunting adventure on the upper Missouri River.
Lydia arrived later in June for the year-long program, followed days afterward by Alex. Kris Reed taught the crew how to braintan hides and make clothing. In July we took a break and went on a week-long adventure paddling the Bighorn River. In August, it was back to hde tanning, as we journeyed out to Twisp, Washington to make braintan buckskin clothing and tan buffalo hides with Katie Russell. We all had a great time at Rabbistick Rendezvous in September.
Fall brought a big bustle of activity as Bobby, Wiley, Dave, Suzie, Ryan, Barnes, Wendell, Alexander, and Betsy joined the crew for the month-long Deer Processing Intensive, led by Kris and Bartle, followed by a wonderful Thanksgiving feast.
During the summer, Tom and Kris Reed led a fun and free walkabout sixty-five miles through the Madison Range in southwestern Montana. Kris and Tom's son Edwin also did a Lord of the Rings adventure across the Tobacco Root Mountains. Tom got a horse and spent much of the summer riding all over the mountains. In the fall, Kris and Katie Russell skinned deer and Kris taught a class on braintanning hides.
Green University® LLC started rolling in April with a big hide tanning class taught by Katie Russell. Grant stayed on after the hide tanning class for the immersion program and was soon joined by Logan. They assisted Tom Elpel, Kris Reed, and Katie with the primitive skills programs for public schools, including the 2012 Harrison School Junior High Camping Trip.
Intermittently throughout the summer, we worked on a small castle guest house out of mostly recycled materials. We hopped back and forth between Montana and Washington a few times through the course of the year. We also took time off from teaching and building for some canoe trips, carp hunting, and walkabouts. With the fluid nature of the Green University®LLC program, Grant and Logan intermittently took off to other commitments and then returned.
Green University® took a giant step forward in the fall, with the purchase of our new 21-acre outdoor skills field site, dubbed "River Camp." Kris set up his 18-foot diameter felt Mongolian yurt and moved in, soon joined by students Libby, Ryan, and Will. Kris and Katie led the immersion program with an intensive focus on animal processing. The animal processing crew skinned more than three hundred deer, fleshed, and salted the hides, and did some hide tanning, before departing for the holidays. We are very excited to move forward now that Green University® LLC has a permanent home!
2011 Jonathan, Forest, and Trenton
Green University® LLC is slowly finding its way again after Tom Elpel's marriage ended in 2010. Jonathan joined Tom, Kris Reed, and Katie Russell in the spring for some primitive skills experience. He helped out with the primitive skills programs for public schools, including the 2011 Harrison School Junior High Camping Trip.
Katie Russell spent the summer doing a 1200-mile horseback ride across Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Tom showed up and offered backup assistance periodically along the way.
Katie led the immersion program in the fall, with an intensive focus on animal processing. We were joined for the fall session by students Forest and Trenton as well as a handful of other individuals that came by for quick classes. The animal processing crew skinned more than two hundred deer, fleshed, and salted the hides, and did some hide tanning. We had the junior high students up for a day of hide tanning. It was good to feel the energy and community spirit returning to Green University® LLC!
2010 Brandon, Laura, and Sky
After his arrival in September of 2009, Brandon helped build the garage then stayed over the winter in the student house, mostly working on his own writing and poetry. Brandon also started work on a botany database key for plant idenfitication, which is presently under continuing development. Kris returned for his fifth year, but as an instructor, rather than as an student. Sky and Laura arrived at the beginning of May, and we all worked together with the kids programs, doing day-long outings with the elementary kids, as well as the three-day, two-night junior high camping trip. Just before Brandon took off in June, we assembled friends, family, and students for a six-day carp-hunting trip on the Missouri River and Canyon Ferry Reservoir. That was lots of fun and we caught numerous carp with our bows and arrows and some by hand.
On the downside, the immersion program was cut short as Tom and Renee separated and initiated a divorce after twenty-one years of marriage. The preceding three years of trying to keep the marriage going were hard, and now they were ready to move on. They remain friends, co-parents, and work partners. Renee moved into the student house continues to own and operate Granny's Country Store, while Tom plans to relocate and continue growing and building Green University® LLC.
2009 Kris, Joseph, Ginny, Jake, Mike, and Brandon
2009 was a pretty low-key year. Kris returned and took Tom's son Donny on a three-hundred mile canoe trip down the Colorado River. Joseph flew out from Missouri and stayed for six weeks to help build the masonry fireplace in the student house. Kris helped out with the primitive skills programs for public schools and joined the Elpel's on a week-long canoe trip down the Musselshell River in central Montana. Jake and Ginny stayed for a few weeks in July for some canoeing, hide tanning, and other primitive skills practice. Then Tom disappeared for most of August to participate in an all Stone Age Living Project. Students Brandon and Mike arrived in September, after Rabbitstick Rendezvous, and helped build the garage attached to the student house. Although many small projects remain, the garage was the last major project on the student house.
2008 Kris, Sholei, Matt, and Lauren
Tom and Renee took a break from the immersion program through most of 2008 to focus on quality family time after Tom wrapped up two years of writing his newest book, Roadmap to Reality. Although the immersion program was temporarily suspended, previous students Kris and Sholei returned for brief stays at Green University® LLC and joined us for an early walkabout in Arizona. The immersion program started up again in the fall when Matt bicycled to Montana from New Jersey. Lauren also joined us for the last couple months of the year. We tanned hides, wrapped up some projects on the student house, and went out on some short walkabouts.
Green University® student Bonnie Andrich illustrated Tom's book Roadmap to Reality.
Kris returned early in the year and built most of the frame walls inside the student house, and did much of the rough plumbing and wiring as well.
After our chilly walkabout the previous spring, we officially started 2007 with trip down south for the Virgin River - Lake Mead Canoe Trip. Sholei joined us for the canoe trip, and stayed on through the end of June, helping out with house-building projects, such as plastering the interior, wiring outlets and switches, and pouring the footings for the greenhouse and porch. We also hired Sholei part-time to work in Granny's Country Store.
Lisa and Bonnie arrived in July, along with Bonnie's two-year-old daughter Vidahlia. Lisa and Bonnie were very enthusiastic about house-building, and helped to complete the stonework on the porch and greenhouse, terra tile the main floor of the house, and poured concrete countertops. They took turns watching Vidahlia, so that one of them was always available to help out with projects. Vidahlia was a great joy everyday and loved playing on the sand pile. Besides house-building, we made lots of apple cider, went canoeing, and spent a few days car camping in Yellowstone National Park.
Bonnie and Lisa stayed until mid-December before heading home to Alabama. Bonnie illustrated Tom's book Roadmap to Reality: Consciousness, Worldviews, and the Blossoming of Human Spirit.
We started 2006 with a walkabout in eastern Montana In Search of Spring. We didn't find it, and Phil's hair in the picture above is not gray, but white with snow. After the expedition we went to work on the student house. Kris, Phil, and Merian lived in the basement, and hung a tarp from the ceiling to redirect the rainwater coming through the floor. It was a very wet basement.
One day a wildfire blew on down the other side of the river while we were grouting the tile floor in the basement. We patrolled our side of the river for sparks, and had to put out one small fire. Kris, Phil, and Merian helped complete the stonework up to the peak in the front and the back of the student house.
Kris stayed on and co-hosted Canoe Camping on a Song and a Paddle, Volume 4 in The Art of Nothing Wilderness Survival Video Series. We worked together to put a roof on the student house. Adam stopped by to check out the project in August, and ended up staying for five weeks. It was perfect timing, as we needed the additional help to close in the roof to finally keep the house dry. Afterwards, we went out on a couple of short expeditions. It was great to get the house closed in to provide dry living space for future students and to be able to work on the project during the winter. Thanks guys for all your help!
Green University® students Mike, Robert, and Brian started at the ground floor, building the student house from the basement on up.
In the spring of 2005 we tore down the trailerhouse that previously served as the student house, and started construction on a new passive solar stone house to replace it. Unfortunately, that meant we had no place for the students to live while building the new house. Mike, Robert, and Brian moved into an eighteen-foot tipi, which kept them mostly dry, and worked their butts off to get the student house started from the ground up. They did the hardest and hottest grunt work to form and pour the footings and basement and start the stonework. It is because of their efforts that the Green University® LLC student house materialized into existence.
Mike was especially interested in building and had considerable building experience, so that helped. Robert was most interested in primitive skills, and was great working with kids on the junior high camping trip. I wish we could have done some additional walkabouts together. Brian was the first one to move into the stone house, although it had no roof. The floor over the basement looked reasonably tight, but actually leaked like a sieve. We are immensely grateful for their combined efforts to get the student house started.
We bought Granny's Country Store in Silver Star, Montana in the fall of 2003, and officially launched the immersion program in 2004 as part of Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School. Students Brian and Norm lived in the trailerhouse next door to Granny's and stayed with us for six months. Christian also joined us for a few weeks in the springtime. On the junior high camping trip, while Tom was whispering to the students about how to use a throwing stick, Christian was standing in the back of the group, saw a bunny, and killed it right then with his throwing stick.
Brian and Norm helped put a fresh coat of paint on the store, and assisted with many other maintenance projects around the place. Primitive skills and hide tanning was the primary emphasis of the year, and we all made buckskin outfits and joined Lynx Vilden (a.k.a. "Lynx Shepherd") for a canoe trip in northwest Montana. (Be sure to read Norm's Primitive Skills Journal.) Conversations with Brian and Norm led to the idea for Green University® LLC, which was launched in the fall of 2004.
Prior Immersion Students Chris, Vince, Richard, Monk, and Jim
The immersion program first started in about 1993 when Chris and Vince independently arrived at our home to check out Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School. They offered to stick around for a while and lived in a hut in our orchard. Chris and Vince designed and built an earthlodge on the property that became a teaching facility and student house for several years. We remain in touch with both of them on a regular basis.
After working with Chris and Vince, we were inspired to launch an immersion program, but needed an appropriate space to house students separate from our home, which didn't happen until we bought Granny's Country Store in the fall of 2003. Other individuals who contributed to the shaping of the immersion program included Richard, who helped us with a stone masonry project in 1998 and joined Tom for a walkabout over the mountains. At other times we were joined by Monk and Jim who stayed with us for a few weeks, learned some primitive skills, and helped take care of the place when we were away on vacation with our kids. We gradually realized that we preferred the long-term relationship with a handful of individuals versus the short-term relationship of structured classes and expeditions. These experiences gradually led to the immersion program and the founding of Green University® LLC.
Looking for life-changing resources? Check out these books by Thomas J. Elpel:
Green University® LLC Trademark
Instead of merely racing to the finish line, the crew paddled the Missouri River as a conduit for exploring the land and meeting its inhabitants. Every campsite offered a new opportunity to hike and explore the geographical landscape and geology, identify plants, and forage for wild foods. They enjoyed a leisurely pace paddling through the heart of America while diving into Lewis and Clark history and the history of Native American tribes along the route, as told in Tom's book, 
May is always our big month for wilderness skills programs with local public school kids through our sister program 
In July we drove to Hells Canyon, Idaho for our second 
Moving into fall, the crew attended Rabbitstick Rendezvous for a week classes and community. Afterwards, Neal organized a 
