Biography - Outdoor skills Class Schedule

Urban Outdoor Classes

Urban Outdoor Skills is very much a bilateral approach for a self-reliance in the city, taking into account two of its components: The Urban (infrastructure, organization, facilities, etc...) and the Outdoor (tree, plants, animal, etc...).

I've basically taken the outdoor and wilderness skills I have learned over the years and adapted it to the urban environment. In many ways, it is determined by a scale of importance. For example, how important is it to learn how to create a stone knife; how to use a compass, or create an emergency shelter with sticks and leaves? Even though some of those skills are good to know, they may be low on the priority order if you live in the city. But being able to have an alternate source of energy such as solar for cooking can be considered quite high, taking into account that power outages are a potential reality in case of earthquakes or other emergency scenarios.

Being able to know and forage wild food, as well as growing some of your own (even if you are an apartment dweller) could rank quite high as well, even if only for financial reasons in our current economy.

Some of the Urban Outdoor Skills are not just for survival/preparedness. One of the goals is also to enable the city dweller to be in harmony with the world around them and reach a inner balance between the urban and natural environment. The natural ressources existing around us are a fascinating source of interesting crafts that one can learn as a hobby or to complement one's income.

So, you really don't need to be in a survivalist mindset to learn those skills. It's a lot of fun to learn and good knowledge to have. My classes are mostly designed for common folks who are eager to learn new skills/crafts, understand the natural world much better and become more self-reliant.

Some of the Urban Outdoor Skills I currently teach are:

Supplementing your Diet with Wild Food
In these classes we learn how to recognize and cook some of the basic edible plants growing in the Los Angeles area. We do some actual foraging of very specific plants (usually a couple) and explore some of the recipes that can be created it using solar or conventional cooking.

Solar Cooking
Being able to harness the power of the sun as an alternative energy source is a great skill to have. In this class we will review some commercial solar ovens, learn how to build your own, look at the peculiarities of solar cooking, the various recipes, etc... While the class is going on, we will also cook an actual meal and eat it too!

Urban Preparedness
If you live in the city, how do you prepare yourself for an emergency? what kind of food do you need to store and how do you store it? How to grow food inside your home or apartment, What are the minimum nutritional requirements for an individual? How much water do you need and if the need arise, where do you find it? What are the things you need to take with you in case of an evacuation and why? Etc...

Understanding/Using the Natural Environment
There are many classes on that subject which are not always related to survival/preparedness but are an endless sources of interesting crafts that one can learn simply for fun or to create additional sources of income such as:

• Foraging wild plants for tea - creating nourishing drinks from nature
• Extracting Essential Oils from plants and the various methods to do so.
• Creating your own perfume using wild aromatic plants
• Using aromatic plants to create natural incenses
• Medicinal use of some local wild plants
• etc...

Water purification and storage
Probably one of the most important skill to have if you live in the Los Angeles area. In this class we will look at the following topics: How much water do you actually need? How much should you store? The various methods to purify water and where do you find water?

Hygiene - Making you own organic soap
In this class we will learn which plants can be used for hygiene and how to make organic soap using wild aromatic plants, we will also discuss the various methods used over the ages for personal hygiene and laundry.

Trapping
This may or may not be applicable to some people. In this class we will examine various trapping methods.. For the non-vegetarian, this can be an option in case of long term emergency. We'll discuss how trapping can be applicable in an urban environment. We'll create some actual basic traps during the class. We won't do any "actual" trapping.

The Urban "Bug-Out" Pack
What is called a bug-out pack is a pack composed of the essentials you take with you in case you need to leave your home, car or the place you work from immediately. This is particularly true in case of an earthquake. In this class we'll take a look at the various options and content you may need to take, based on your personal needs. We'll also review and taste some emergency foods.

Gourmet Wild Food
Using wild food you can cook incredible, tasty and nutritious dishes. In each of those classes we will learn how to use 2-3 different recipes using various wild food to create gourmet meals. We'll also taste some of the meals I've prepared for the class and actually cook one using available wild food.

Fire making methods
In this class we will review most of the various methods to create fire, from the more primitive ones (using sticks and friction) and other alternate methods such as flint and steel, fire-piston, glass, batteries, etc... Some of the methods are somewhat applicable to the urban environment, good to know and fun to learn.

Grid-Down Cooking
During a disaster (flooding, earthquake, wildfire), the power grid could be down for a substantial amount of time. In this class we will review the various methods that you could use to cook your food and build an "emergency stove" with materials you can find easily in your home/apartment.

"Extreme" Food
In this class we will explore some of the more "sophisticated" culinary dishes that you can find in various other countries as well as some alternative food that could be used in survival situations and emergencies. So yes, we'll look at bugs, snails and other unusual dishes and if you're courageous that day, maybe you'll try some too :) - This class is meant to be fun, a new experience and no, you don't have to eat anything you don't want to eat. We'll also look at how to create gourmet food (i.e. preparing/cooking snails the "French" way, etc...).

Tracking
In this course, you will learn some of the basics of tracking such as those used in search and rescue-type scenarios. This includes; how to create a "tracking" stick and use it to actually follow tracks; what are the various signs and how to read them; what to look for and how to train yourself to see signs, etc...

The materials of this course are based on the tracking methods of Jack Kearney (who was a tracker and a border patrol agent), his book and methods are used by most rescue teams.

We'll also do some drills by actually tracking someone for a short distance. Some of those skills will be applicable to animal tracking.

Food Preservation.
No Electricity? No Fridge? No problem!

Well, not really... BUT we'll look at some fun ways to preserve the edibility and nutritional value of your food. We'll explore various methods such as canning, smoking, drying, salting, making jam, pickling, alcohol preservation, sugar crystallisation, curing, etc...

During the classes, we'll do some specific projects such as, for example, making beef jerky, salting fish and pickling vegetables.