Week19: First Rewild Camp a Complete Success!

With around 45 total participants and over 30 classes and discussions, this week has felt like a great success, for the first Rewild Camp. And up next, Jason and Guili from Anthropik have announced the will hold space for the second Rewild Camp to take place in Pittsburgh later this month. Also, stay tuned for more Rewild Camps to take place in Portland, or perhaps you feel inspired to hold one in your bioregion!

The following list contains a few things that happened this week at Rewild Camp Portland:

Animal Hide-tanning, martial arts, archery, rocket stove production, conversations about collapse, conversations about community and unschooling, proper knife sharpening techniques, star-gazing, bow-drill fires, natural cordage, weaving net bags, free food, feral visions refugees, theater games, foraging expeditions, massage instruction, medicinal salve making, yarrow bug-repellent tincture making, squirrel hunts, primitive trapping, power of street performance discussion, urban tracking, kayaking, bicycle repair, oyster mushroom growing, animal skinning, minor surgeries, evening campfires and potlucks.

Of course many spontaneous gathering and information/skill shares happened throughout the week that did not get written down, nor any record of them taken. And those moments make Open Space successful. In the spaces, between the spaces, magic happens.

Check out this sweet photo montage from the week:


Morning News


Skinning a victim of the road


Circle Work


Penny gets crafty


Raccoon about to get a tan


Aaaaaarrrrrrgghh!


Drill Sargent


Making rope


Kayakattack!

There you have it. What a week. Now back to your regularly scheduled Urban Scout Laundry List. Penny Scout has not yet returned to her native Pennsylvania, and we didn’t get anything on our list done this week due to the rewild camp. Well, we did these things:

Explore Molalla (Meet my parents)
Smoke Penny’s hide, again
Work on infusion
Drive to Seattle to go to Daft Punk show

Which means we’ve still got this list of things to do:

Fire Clay Pots
Find/Buy/Make a Metate y Mano
Bike/Camp on the Spring Water Corridor
Antler Wedge
Rawhide from shitty Drum
Tan Hides at Shauns
Make Buckskin Short shorts
Make Quickie Bow
Make Arrows
Watch/review Tom Elpel survival videos
Wild Foods Potluck in honor of Penny’s presence
Nasturtium flower salad!
Practice Drying Meat!
Tattoos!!!!!
Gather dead Yucca stalks
Work on nixtamal project
Have shaun show us how to flint knapp bottle bottoms
Harvest MORE sumac and dry it
Do something with the green apples in my backyard
Make Rosehip jam?
Find out what we can do with Mountain Ash (the berries look edible)

Stay tuned to see what projects we complete, or FAIL to do!

Show your support and appreciation for Urban Scout


2 responses to “Week19: First Rewild Camp a Complete Success!

  1. […] -Rewild camp started the third week. We prepped by soliciting food donations from local businesses. In case you don’t know, this was a free, open-space event, a primitive skills anti-school, organized by Urban Scout and made possible by everyone who attended. The way it works is people put up workshops they want to teach or discussions they want to lead on a marketplace, a board with times and places, and you sit back and see who shows up. For example, I led a successful class on tincture making across from the archery range. I didn’t teach anything else formally, but found I was able to contribute lots to the event. I do know things! I am useful! I noticed this happening not only for myself but among everyone. This sharing of knowledge rather than formal teacher student relations resulted in the feeling that we were “just hanging out”. The plan now is to turn our lives into an ongoing Rewild camp. […]

  2. […] During the Portland Rewild Camp I felt anxiety about the ever-approaching nuclear disaster in Portland referred to as “Operation Noble Resolve.” Luckily Penny Scout; tracker of plants, showed me the great calming effects of Lemon Balm, a familiar friend you can find in practically anyones yard here in Portland. Doing my research on the plant, I found out that not only does it relieve you of anxiety and stomach craps but also works great for those who’ve acquired some civilized “fuck buddies,” …If you know what I mean. […]