Outdoor Survival Skills with Christopher Nyerges

This event is full. Please be sure to use the REGISTER link below or at the bottom of the page to sign up for the waiting list. Spaces that may come up will be filled in the order of receipt of registration forms.

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Join me and famed author/forager/survivalist Christopher Nyerges on Saturday, March 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Ojai for an Outdoor Survival Skills workshop based on the book of the same name by Larry Dean Olsen. Christopher recently edited the new 2021 7th Edition of this classic.

Christopher writes of Olsen: “Anyone who has been teaching outdoor survival skills for any length of time has undoubtedly heard of Larry Dean Olsen…After Olsen graduated from Brigham Young University, he began teaching survival field trips through the college’s Continuing Education Division in 1968, sharing his love for the outdoors, and his intense interest in the skills of the local indigenous peoples…As part of his outdoor training, he would take students into the desert of the Great Basin area and live off the land for a week or longer. They had to learn how to eat wild plants, trap small game, make fire with local materials, build a shelter, weave sandals, find water, and more. It was a grueling adventure. He wrote Outdoor Survival Skills, first published in 1967, which described all the survival skills he’d been teaching. His book has long been considered the definitive classic book on the subject. The book has been updated every few years and remained in print all these years.…Larry was perhaps the most visible person teaching and sharing the extreme art of living off the land.  It is not an overstatement to say that everyone today teaching these skills has some lineage, direct or indirect, that leads back to Larry Dean Olsen.”

Participants will:

• learn to identify edible and medicinal plants of the season
• practice making cordage and soap from yucca leaves
• learn the most basic primitive fire-starting method: the hand drill
• learn principles of finding and purifying water, especially in dry areas

Time permitting, participants may also:

• learn a few simple animal traps, such as snares and deadfalls
• learn some very basic shelters for emergencies

There may be other activities, depending on seasonal foods and supplies available.

The workshop will begin with a morning plant walk on Euterpe Farms, overlooking the Ventura River Preserve. The afternoon workshop will take place under oak trees. Everyone will have a chance to participate in all activities.

Christopher Nyerges is an author, forager, survivalist and ethnobotanist with a lifelong interest in how native peoples lived off the land. He has been teaching classes and leading field trips since 1974 to over 40,000 students. Nyerges has authored nearly two dozen books, including Foraging California, Guide to Wild Foods,  Nuts and Berries of California, How to Survive Anywhere, Extreme Simplicity, and many others. As mentioned above, Chicago Review Press, the publishers of Larry Dean Olsen’s Outdoor Survival Skills, asked Christopher to lightly edit the 7th edition of this classic book and add color photos and a new foreword. He most recently was the editor of American Survival Guide magazine, and served as editor of Wilderness Way magazine for 7 years. He has written several thousand newspaper and magazine articles in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Pasadena Star News, Pasadena Weekly, Whole Life Times, Countryside, Mother Earth News, Acres USA, American  Survival Guide, and others.

Christopher has appeared on the late Huell Howser’s public television series, KCET’s “Life and Times,” and National Geographic’s “Doomsday Preppers.” For two years, he appeared on Fox TV’s “X Show,” where he demonstrated survival skills on the streets of Los Angeles. He currently serves as a consultant to the “Naked and Afraid” show on Discovery.  Christopher Nyerges’ web site is SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.

REGISTRATION INFO:
Please note: This workshop will go on RAIN OR SHINE with the exception of a heavy downpour in the morning and/or a 100% chance of heavy rain that day. No dogs (other than service dogs) and no smoking, please.

Paid registrants will receive a confirmation email with all necessary info, including weather forecast and parking directions, a few days prior to the workshop.  They also will receive a follow-up email afterwards with a list of all plants identified, recipes, valuable links and more.

The cost for the workshop, including all materials, is $85 for adults and $45 for children under 18, one child per adult.

This event is full. Please be sure to use the REGISTER link below or at the bottom of the page to sign up for the waiting list. Spaces that may come up will be filled in the order of receipt of registration forms.

REGISTER