Class Schedule
~ 2025 SCHEDULE ~
For questions or to register, call 719-256-4909 AFTER March 5th
Arrow Making Class
April 26-27 – Sat-Sun 9-5 – 2 days – $130
Make your own natural arrows with Ken Wee
Ancestral people gathered their materials from nature and successfully hunted large and small game to provide for their extended family groups. You will learn how to identify, choose and prepare a wild harvested plant shoot to make a quality, effective arrow shaft, methods for sizing, straightening and balancing the shaft, how to prepare turkey feathers for fletching , carve nocks to receive the bow string, and process elk back sinew to wrap a field point. Historic traditions and context will be shared and discussed throughout the weekend.
Ken Wee: Primitive technologist, experimental archaeologist, historian, author, artist, specialist in primitive archery, atlatls, fire making, brain tanning. Owns Rocky Mountain School of Hard Knocks – est. 1984. Has been instructing for over 40 years. and has taught at Rocky Mountain National Rendezvous, Rocky Mountain College, Earth Knack , Rabbit Stick, and Tesoro Cultural Center.
Felting Class
May 2-4 – Fri-Sun – 3 days – $195 – with Robin
Learn how to make beautiful, soft, flexible, warm felted fabric using yak, alpaca and buffalo fibers as well as sheep wool. Subjects covered include assessing the quality and suitability of a sheared fleece or brushed from the animal fiber, easiest ways to prepare raw fiber just off the animal for felting, the technique of hand worked felt, using contrast fiber shades to inlay patterns in your fabric, methods of patterning and sizing for hats, slippers, mittens, vests and bags, and how to felt plant and cloth materials into your animal fiber project.
Hand Dug Clay Pottery
May 9-11 – Fri-Sun – 3 days – $195 – with Robin
Build clay pots with your own two hands like your ancestors have done. I have dug clay soils from all around the country and they are waiting for you to work with. You will learn how to assess the percentage of clay in a soil you dig yourself, identify natural tempers and prepare them to mix with your clay, learn to mix your own workable clay body, techniques for building and shaping large and small pots and vessels, repairing cracks that form in the drying process, and successfully adding handles or spouts. You will also use natural earth pigments and some plant syrups to coat, color, glaze or design your cured pot.
Women’s Ancient Skills
May 16-18 – Fri-Sun – 3 days – $195
Surround yourself in nature while learning Ancestral, Survival and Outdoor living with Robin and Sue Labiste
Ladies! Let’s gather, share and learn together in a beautiful outdoor setting! Make a fire with two sticks, use the campfire coals for Dutch Oven cooking, and “burning” bowl and utensils from wood, learn rope and string making from plant fibers, learn more about edible and medicinal plants, making health enhancing teas and nutritious wild salads, shoot hand made bows and arrows, throw spears with an AtlAtl, use Willow shoots for weaving , learn simple flint knapping and make a stone knife, melt pine pitch glue to attach your stone knife to a wooden handle, then felt raw wool into a sheath for your knife. Camp along the creek and cook in our outdoor kitchen. You can also fish, enjoy early morning bird chorus, or take hikes in the surrounding public lands. Trigger is always ready to give old style buggy rides.
Sue Labiste: Curiosity of ancestral ways led Sue into a lifelong investigation and acquisition “grab-bag” of primitive, survival and historical life skills. Acquiring and practicing these skills allowed opportunities to teach basketry classes, bone tool making, fiber processing and twine-making, primitive cooking, Inuit strap-drill and flint and steel fire making, wild edible and useful plants, acorn processing and stone boiling in a basket, at nationwide programs and classes for decades. Sue is a traditional hide tanner of mammal and fish skins, maker of obsidian arrow points and stone knives, and a member of the American Mountain “Women of the Morning Star” Association. Sue shares all her thoughtfully researched, practiced skill set to teach at Rabbitstick, Wintercount & Buckeye Primitive skills gatherings, Maidu Community Center, Central Point’s Recreation, and created her own program for youth: Outside Educators Training. She brings a marvelous and vast array of knowledge to Earth Knack.
Rocky Mountain Wild Herb Medicine Making
July 9-13 – Wed-Sun – 5 days – $295
This class begins with a 3 day backpack and camping trip into the mountains to gather herbs, followed by 2 days of medicine making in the Earth Knack outdoor kitchen with nationally known herbalist Keith Hess. You will enter the ‘rocky mountain herbal garden’ and learn to identify not only the medicinal plants themselves, but the special micro regions in which they can be found. Upon returning to the Earth Knack camp, you will learn to sort, clean and prepare herbs to make the freshest highest quality medicines possible. You will bring your own backpack, hiking gear, tent, cook gear and food being self supported during this group backpacking experience. This rare opportunity is conducted completely ‘out of doors’.
Keith Hess: Spring of Life founder, herbalist and instructor of many years, Keith travels nationally to teach medicinal herbal plant identification and medicine making and to also share his unique perspectives and deeply personal spiritual philosophy on our relationship, our interdependence, to the sentient beings that not only supply all we need for radiant well being but supply us the very air we breathe. His homebase and Spring of Life school is in Wisconsin, where classes and lectures are also offered.
Teen Survival Green River Canoe Adventure
August 5-13 – Mon-Tue – 9 days – $525
Guided and instructed by Clark Patton and Robin Blankenship
Launch your canoe on the Green and travel into deep geologic time, slowly paddling deeper and deeper, hundreds of feet down, through the weather sculpted walls of Labyrinth Canyon. Combine this wild travel route with a full curriculum of challenging survival activities and you have an incredible learning adventure! Teens who have attended Earth Knack survival programs in the past have specifically asked for this opportunity; a chance to use survival skills already learned, and the challenge to apply them in a wilderness setting while also learning more advanced skills. Make stone tools with a variety of rock, build riparian area shelters, learn water purification methods, harvest Tamarisk to make carp fishing bow and arrow sets, practice primitive fishing with dogbane line and bone hooks, learn canyon country medicinal and edible plants, explore for river bank clay and learn ancestral pottery skills, use Willow to weave sun visors, develop appreciation for the Canyonlands ecosystem and contemplate adopting for yourself the imperative stewardship ethos of our time.
If we paddle past the cold water Crystal Geyser at the right time, we can watch it explode skyward, sandy beaches make our campsites, and cliff jumps cool us off in the heat of the day. Join in the true spirit of adventure!
We will meet at Green River State Park in Green River, Utah on Monday August 5th. More info, a pick up schedule for Tuesday Aug 13 and a minimal gear list will be sent to participants upon registration.
Clark Patton: Clark has worked with teens groups teaching survival skills for nearly 17 years. He is lucky enough to have learned and studied with some of the best mentors in the field…experiences that changed the course of his life. Clark states, ‘The greatest inspiration of teaching is unlocking the deeper resources within the groups I am working with. It’s vital that the skills taught are applicable to many ecosystems, and useful down the road. As the state of our natural world is changing… we need adept minds with strong connection to their environment to protect and preserve life. As DaVinci says: “Nature is the source of all true knowledge”. Our relationship to it is vital.” Clark first started instructing at Earth Knack in 2008. Over the last 5 years he has designed curriculum and run survival classes for teens at Earth Knack so that students progress in their outdoor knowledge and survival skills year after year.The Green River Survival Trip is a challenge many teens from these programs have specifically requested from Clark.
I will also teach a variety of classes at these programs in 2025:
EarthKnack in California! March 24 Monday – March 29 Saturday
Acorn Gathering hosted by Luna, Gabriel & the Acorn family
To register: acorngathering.com
Earth Knack in Washington State! May 25 Sunday – May 31 Saturday
Between the Rivers Gathering hosted by Bridges to the Past
To register: bridgestothepast.org
Earth Knack in Maine! July 23 Wednesday – Sunday July 2
Moose Ridge and Wilder Waters Primitive Skills Gathering hosted by Moose Ridge Wilderness School
To register: mooseridgewild.com
Earth Knack in Idaho! Sept 14 Sunday – Sept 20 Saturday
RabbitStick Rendezvous hosted by Paula and David Wescott
To register: rabbitstick.com
October classes will get added to my 2025 schedule.
Future International Learning Adventures “in the works” ! I’ll send emails upon finalization.
Ways to contact Earth Knack: 719 256 4909 earthknackschool@gmail.com
Earth Knack / Blankenship P.O.# 508 Crestone, CO. 81131 …..or you can try smoke signals!