Join us for a collaboration event with local conservation non-profit, Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM) Naturalist and educator Licia Sahagun from Firecraft Northwest will lead a late summer wildlife and nature awareness walk at Glacial Heritage Preserve, followed by a restoration work party with CNLM to support this vulnerable prairie habitat.

Join Licia, lifelong artist and nature nerd, from Firecraft Northwest for a flower-filled evening! During this workshop you’ll learn the basics of botanical pressing including different techniques, tips, and tricks. You’ll put together your own take-home flower press kit made with unfinished wood (so you can paint, finish, or decorate it as you’d like!) Then, we’ll do three take-home crafts (all materials included) as starter ideas for using your new pressed flowers.

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Join Licia from Firecraft Northwest for a slow meander along Capitol Lake as the sun sets. This time of year, the Chinook (King) Salmon return to our local waters. We’ll start at Marathon Park and walk along the lake to the 5th Avenue bridge to see if we can catch sight of some making their way up the fish ladder. We’ll also discuss other moon names for the month that align with other natural occurrences in September - the Moon of the Coho (Samish Tribe), the time of silver salmon’s return (Tulalip Tribe), Leaves Turning Moon (Anishinaabe), among others. Come out this evening for a walk with new friends, salmon sightings, and perhaps a quiet sit spot along the water. Thanks for your interest in this outing, but it is now full. Stay tuned for October’s full moon walk that will be posted early September

As Summer comes to a close, meander along the plant diverse trails on the east side of Capitol Forest facing Olympia. We’ll discuss the noticeable changes to the plants and local ecology, like searching for the last of the berries and fruits as well as seeking plants with nuts and other fat-rich options. On this walk, our goal will be to discover what foraging bounties are available and enrich our relationship with seasonal foraging!

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Join us at Post & Pour, grab a drink and snacks, and get ready for your next outdoor adventure. With this Pacific Northwest Survival Basics crash course, we’ll introduce the core principles and strategies of wilderness survival. Learn about prioritizing needs in an emergency situation, discuss shelter building designs, and discover tips and tricks for fire building in all weather. We’ll also discuss field-based water filtration and learn about what items you should keep in your pack for day hikes and overnight outings. This is an interactive, hands-on lecture that pairs well with drinks and new friends!

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Join Licia from Firecraft Northwest for a slow meander through the forested hills at The Evergreen College’s beach trail. This old growth trail provides access to the beach and is full of our native salal plant. This time of year the salal berries start to ripen, hence the name of the moon from the Tulalip (The time of the salal berries) and the Samish (Moon of the Salal). Come out this evening for a walk with new friends, salal berries, and a quiet sit spot down on the beach as the sun sets. This outing is free, but RSVP is required.

Join us at Wolf Haven International’s wolf sanctuary to learn about and practice the art of ancient tool making with bones, past and present human relationships with wolves, and to meet the current wolf residents at the sanctuary. Participants will make their own bone arrowhead to take home. Afterwards, a representative from Wolf Haven will guide the group through a contemplative walk through the sanctuary to visit with the wolves. $25 of your class purchase will be donated to Wolf Haven International to support their work.

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Join Licia from Firecraft Northwest for a morning of trip planning and navigation 101 for women! This in-field, hands-on course will start with an overview of resources for planning your next trip safely. Then, we’ll go into map reading 101 and do an activity to practice situational awareness and placing yourself within the landscape. We’ll go over the components of a compass, how you use them, and learn about how a map and compass pair together to help you find your way. Then, we’ll practice navigating a route and taking a bearing in the field. We’ll finish up with a quick discussion of safety and gear tips as well as resources for continued learning. This course is geared towards beginners - no experience required. Bring your own compass and/or use one of ours to practice.

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Join us and Capitol Land Trust for a morning of blackberries! We’ll spend some time harvesting parts of the blackberry plant—which will be helpful for Capitol Land Trust stewardship efforts as well as our morning together! We’ll make blackberry leaf tea, enjoy fresh blackberries, and learn how to make blackberry cordage from the stalk. You’ll learn how to harvest, prepare, and make natural cordage using the reverse-wrap method and take home your very own blackberry cord bracelet and/or stretch of cordage.

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Below the South Sound and many areas of Western Washington and Oregon remain a small fraction of beautiful Oak Prairies that once stretched far and wide. During this outing, walk the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area to learn and study the mid-summer wildflowers and plants in this incredible habitat.

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Join Licia, certified Yoga and Meditation instructor, from Firecraft Northwest, for a quiet evening of nature awareness practice.

We’ll start the evening with a brief discussion about nature awareness and an introduction to bird language (a key tool for tuning into the world around you!). Then, we’ll take a slow, quiet walk to interpret the sounds around us. Along the way, we’ll practice two solitary awareness-building techniques - one in the woods and one on the beach. Then, we’ll walk back to the shelter with a sensory plant walk, learning plants that have unique tastes, smells, and/or textures. Reawaken your senses and reconnect with the natural world around you during this evening’s mindful outing!

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This clinic is designed for beginners who are looking to build a foundation with a variety of knots that can be used for camping, shelters, traps, gardening, and more.

We’ll work as a group and follow along step by step to practice common knots and discuss when to use them. We’ll finish the class with a training on how to set up a ridge line that can be used for a variety of purposes including tarps and shelters.

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Join Licia from Firecraft Northwest for a sunset social walk for women on the full moon. This month’s outing is on the moon referred to as The Time of the Blackberries (Tulalip), the Sockeye Moon (Samish), among others. At this location, we might be able to taste test some of our native blackberries and enjoy new friends for social time along the river!

Thanks for your interest in this outing. Stay tuned for August’s full moon walk, which will open for sign ups mid-July.

Learn the fundamentals of sharpening knives and tools!

In this one-session workshop, join Woodworker and Survival Skills Instructor Ryan Johnson for a tutorial on sharpening your knives and tools by hand. We’ll discuss the principles of sharpening and get hands-on practice using free-hand techniques.

Thanks for your interest in this class, but it is now full. Sign up for our newsletter to get notified about future Arbutus sharpening classes.

Hone your fire-starting skills and survival knowhow to prepare for the upcoming camping season! The first half of the workshop will focus on fire-building, including fire-starting 101, what local resources we have in the PNW for successfully starting fires in any weather, and practice with multiple ignition types. After successfully building our fires and a fire-side lunch break, we’ll dive into survival basics, learning about prioritizing needs in survival situations, best practices for trip preparation, and an overview of essential gear. This workshop is geared towards beginners hoping to get more confident in exploring the outdoors solo or with friends and family.

Registration options include the option to add on a Morakniv camp knife and/or handmade ferro rod.

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The study of ethnobotany (human relationships with plants) paints a powerful picture of how humans have coexisted with the natural world around us. This includes medicine, tools, food, and more.

If you are new to ethnobotany, this walk is a great place to get started and learn about plants of the PNW and how they have been used for millennia, and how we can use them respectfully today.

Thank you so much for your interest. This class is now full. Please stay tuned for our other plant and ethnobotany courses. Looking for something similar? Take a look at our July Wildflower and Prairie plants course

Discover the ancient skill of archery with a focus on the plants of the Pacific Northwest!
In this 3-hour field session collaboration, join Jazmen Yoder of Northwest Natura and Ryan Johnson of Firecraft Northwest to study native and naturalized plants of the region that can be used for archery. After concluding our plant studies, participants will hand make deer and elk leg bone arrowheads to take home.

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Note - This course is in Maple Falls, WA
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Join Licia from Firecraft Northwest for June’s Wild Women Walk - the Strawberry or Salmonberry Moon. As the name suggests, the wild, June-bearing strawberries may be ripe as well as the native Salmonberry, which also brings with it the Swainson’s Thrush. Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually Wildlife Refuge will be a great place to see the berries, birds, and, if it’s a clear night, the rising moon!

We’ll do a slow meander along the boardwalk and out to the delta with a silent stretch on the way back to notice, listen, and be present. Thanks for your interest in this outing, but it is now full. Stay tuned for the next Wild Women Walk mid July!

Email reminders with details for this program have been sent. If you did not receive it, please contact Ryan@firecraftnw.com

Late spring offers a bounty of plants for the northwest forager to learn about — let’s walk the trails at Burfoot Park to study the new shoots, needles, shrubs, and plants that can serve as prized local edibles! This in-field class will guide students towards confident identification through botany features and anatomy. As we meander through the woods, the instructors will also facilitate conversations around honorable harvesting and sustainable foraging. The outing will conclude with wild tea made from local plants!

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This in-field course will introduce birders to concepts beyond visual ID. We will meander and look for and ID birds we see and hear, but we’ll also learn about bird language, behavior, sign and more! We’ll cover topics like plumage and feather ID basics, nest types, bird tracks 101, and bird pellets. We’ll discuss any real life examples of bird tracks and signs we find as well as examples brought from nearby habitats. All skill levels are welcome, including beginners, and we hope existing birders will also take their knowledge to the next level!

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Please join Naturalists Ryan Johnson and Licia Sahagun from Firecraft Northwest for this interactive and beginner friendly Fungi and Mushrooms crash course. Learn the different structures of fungi and mushrooms, their life cycle, and how to categorize them so you can prepare for your first forage or studies in the world of mycology.

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Join Licia, naturalist and educator from Firecraft Northwest, on this full moon walk for women. May’s full moon is known, among other names, as the Flower Moon as we start to see many blossoms along the trails.

This location is particularly great for wildflowers as it’s situated on the now rare garry oak prairie. We’ll spend the evening doing a slow walk admiring the flowers, rising moon, and new friends!

Thanks for your interest in this outing, but it is now full. Stay tuned for June’s Wild Women Walk, which will be posted about one month prior.

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Below the South Sound and many areas of Western Washington and Oregon remain a small fraction of beautiful Oak Prairies that once stretched far and wide. During this outing, walk the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area to learn and study the Spring wildflowers and plants blooming in this incredible habitat.

Ready to sign up? Register now.
Want to learn more about this outing? Click the button below!

During this evening’s mindful meander, we’ll walk slowly through the woods of a Capitol Land Trust site not yet open to the public that features upland forest, wetlands, and access to the Sound. We’ll start the evening with a short intro from Capitol Land Trust representatives about the site and learn what we might see and hear during our silent stroll. Halfway through the evening, we’ll convene to share about what we saw and heard, and then do another silent stretch back to the start. Join us to clear your mind and notice nature during this (mostly) silent sunset stroll!

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Email reminders for this outing have been sent. Please let us know if you did not receive the information on where this group will meet!

Wildlife tracking may seem like an activity that requires trips to far reaching remote locations. On the contrary, there are many animal tracks and signs even in densely populated urban areas for us to study and learn from. During this outing, participants will track the animals that frequent our parks and our own backyards to learn how to identify them.

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Amble through the 117 acres (trail is 1 mile) of wetland and upland forest at Hazel Wolf Wetlands Preserve where flowers are blooming everywhere. Plants will be bursting with spring growth and we’ll look for clues on how to identify them.

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Don’t get us wrong…. Trees are cool! But, hey, they get a lot of the glory in plant identification training. In this course, we’ll walk the diverse deciduous woodlands of the Deschutes River identifying the plants of the understory from floor to chest height!

Thanks for your interest in this outing, but it is now full. Check out our Wildflower ID class in May!

The world of survival skills often considers the knife the most important piece of gear you can carry. With the right experience, you can use your knife to build fire, create a shelter, harvest and process materials, and craft many other items.

In this beginner friendly workshop, learn the foundation of using a knife at camp and on the trail by developing fundamental carving techniques.

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Join Firecraft Northwest and representatives from Capitol Land Trust for a Happy Hour birding session! During this casual stroll we’ll learn about the many feathered friends we have returning to our woods to sing, meet their mates, and build nests. We’ll do a slow meander along the Darlin Creek Preserve trail to see what birds we can see and hear as well as look for bird track and sign. No experience necessary. Bring your binoculars if you have them!

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Join Licia, certified Yoga and Meditation instructor, from Firecraft Northwest, for a quiet evening of mindfulness activities and sensory guided hikes.

We’ll start with hot tea at the shelter to learn the basics of nature awareness and practice activities to clear the mind. Afterwards, we’ll engage in a series of three, silent walks with prompts and tips to stay present in the moment. Reawaken your senses and reconnect with the natural world around you during this evening’s mindful outing!

Thanks for your interest in this outing, but it is now full. Sign up for our newsletter to be informed about future classes.