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Wilderness Drum > Wilderness Videos > Instructional | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
— Richard K. Nelson If you can’t learn from a real live person, then videos can be your best source for learning wilderness and primitive skills. Videos can illustrate techniques that can often be only vaguely visualized from the written descriptions in books. You should not expect professional production values from the videos on this page, although some do come close. You are not buying them for their Hollywood polish anyway; you are buying them as teaching guides, and that depends less on slick videography and special effects than on detailed illustration, step-by-step descriptions, and the personality and communicative skill of the presenter. Some of these videos are available from multiple sources. A list of sources is given at the end of the page. Featured Videos
Survival and Primitive Skills Videos
Chris Janowsky, The Wilderness Survival Series Chris Janowsky, author of Survival: A Manual That Could Save Your Life (Boulder CO: Paladin Press, 1986), ISBN 0-87364-506-5, has produced four sixty-minute videos on sheltering and fire; food procurement; tools and improvised materials; and signaling, orienteering, and your environment. The videos go into great depth on each subject covered, but, at about fifty dollars each, these are relatively expensive tapes. They are probably most useful for someone already considerably invested in the subject and who wants to refine existing skills; a beginner might do better to buy the book and get some less expensive videos, such as Ron Hood’s Survival Basics. Available from World Survival Institute.
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I have heard the elders say that everything in nature has its own spirit and possesses a power beyond ours. There is no way to prove them right or wrong, though the beauty and interrelatedness of things should be evidence enough. We need not ask for shining visions as proof, or for a message from a golden deer glowing in the sky of our dreams. Above all else, we should assume that power moves in the world around us and act accordingly. If it is a myth, then spirit is within the myth and we should live by it. And if there is a commandment to follow, it is to approach all of earth-life, of which we are a part, with humility and respect.
Ron Hood, The Woodsmaster Series There are currently 23 volumes in Ron Hood’s instructional video series, and more come out all the time. Eight of the videos have won Telly Awards. The first volumes cover the usual wilderness survival basics, including spark-based firemaking, outdoor survival shelters, making and using a survival kit, primitive navigation and outdoor travel, traps and trapping, and primitive weapons; later volumes are more specialized – solo survival, for example, and arid land vehicle survival. Some volumes cover areas such as jungle survival skills, primitive knifemaking, and tracking, for which Ron draws on the skills of other experts. Each tape includes lots of additional information and useful tricks for wilderness living along the way; for example, in the primitive navigation video, Ron also demonstrates basic knapping, making an obsidian arrowhead as an example, and how to fit the arrowhead to a shaft. All these tapes have three virtues. First, the instruction is comprehensive and rooted in real-world situations. Second, the tapes are very reasonably priced for their length and the amount of information they contain. Third, and perhaps most important, Ron is a born teacher, with a wry, self-deprecating sense of humor and a clear sense of the practical and the useful. Available from 
Mark Baker, Pioneering: The Longhunter Videos Mark Baker is widely recognized as one of the foremost authorities on 18th-century woodsmanship. He is an author, living history re-enactor, and a longtime contributor to Muzzleloader Magazine. In these five videos – the first four are by Mark Baker, the fifth by John Curry – we are given a wealth of knowledge about the clothing, accoutrements, food, and skills of the 18th-century longhunter. Baker does not simply show a piece of clothing, for example: he shows how it was made and how and why it was used; for each firearm of the period, he demonstrates how it was loaded and fired. Here are some of the topics covered: making center seam moccasins, making oil cloth, dyeing cloth with walnut hulls, firemaking with flint and steel, open fire cooking, parching corn, making jerked meat, bed rolls, deer butchering, braintanning, trail rations, belt axes, leggings, one-blanket tricks – in fact, everything you would need to know for trekking in the style of the 1760-era longhunter. A treasure trove of useful skills. Available from 
Melvin Beattie, The Tanning Spirit Melvin Beattie is Tom Elpel's cousin, and one of a few people around the country who helped recover the nearly lost art of braintanning. Mel's hides are so even, soft and beautiful that they inspired a whole generation to switch to the wet-scrape method. In 1978 he brought his brain-tanned buckskin to sell at a blackpowder rendezvous with some 300 people. He was the only one there with genuine braintan hides. At the same rendezvous ten years later there were 3,000 people in attendance, and it seemed that everyone had braintan to sell. Today there are individuals all over the West who learned wet-scrape tanning directly from Melvin, or from others he has taught. This video shows you how he does it. It is for both the beginner and the seasoned tanner, and takes you from skinning a deer to a finished smoked tanned hide, ready to be made into usable articles. Available from 
Larry Belitz, Brain Tanning Bison Robes the Native American Way Belitz is well known for his buffalo products, including buffalo hide tipis. In this video, he shows the traditional Native American braintanning techniques for producing a soft, flexible, sweet-smelling hide. But remember that a buffalo is huge, and its skin is big, heavy, and awkward, so this video is probably best for folks who already have some deerskin tanning experience. But, even if you are not actually going to do it, it is still fascinating to watch, especially if you have an interest in Native American culture and history. See also Wes Housler’s video, How to Brain Tan a Buffalo Hide, discussed below. Available from 
Ella Mae Blackbear, Cherokee Basketmaker This video sets out the life of a traditional Cherokee, woman who is known for her native buckbrush baskets. In this tape, Mrs. Blackbear shows how she makes her traditional baskets, from gathering and dyeing buckbrush to selling it at a museum show. The video also discusses the history of the Cherokees and the life Mrs. Blackbear has lived in the hills of Northeastern Oklahoma. The video places the basket weaving within the context of both traditional and contemporary Cherokee life. Available from 
Alice Blue Legs, Lakota Quillwork: Art & Legend Before the Europeans brought beads, the Plains peoples decorated their buckskin with dyed porcupine quills, and skilled quill work was a highly esteemed art among Plains women. This video explores the legends and art of Lakota quillwork through historic footage, and portrays the legend of Double Woman, who first brought porcupine quilling to the Lakota from the spirit world. Moving to contemporary Pine Ridge, Alice Blue Legs hunts the porcupines, and pulls, sorts, and dyes the quills. The video includes close-up quilling techniques. Available from 
Bruce Bradley, Ph.D., Flintknapping Dr. Bradley is an internationally known professional archaeologist specializing in excavation and analyses of flaked stone and southwestern pottery, experimental archaeology, research design development, Native American consultation, and exhibit design. His main areas of expertise include tool manufacture technologies – stone working, pottery, brain tanning, weaving, bone, antler and ivory working – and Southwestern architecture in masonry, jacal, and adobe. Known as a master flintknapper and potter, he consults with professional and amateur researchers, gives public lectures and demonstrations, and makes replicas for sale to individuals, museums, and schools. In this video he demonstrates the fundamentals of the art of flintknapping, explaining and showing the process of stone tool manufacturing. Available from 
James Halfpenny, Ph.D., Tracking: Mastering the Basics This is an introductory two-tape set covering track formulas, track identification, gaits, and how to follow a trail. The material is similar to that covered in Halfpenny’s outstanding book, A Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America (Boulder CO: Johnson Books, 1986), ISBN 0-93347-298-6. Anyone who has worked with video knows that the camera sees very differently from the human eye. Tracking can be especially difficult to portray on video, since the track details – even the tracks themselves – may not show up at all on camera, but Halfpenny manages to make the tracks clearly visible. He is an enthusiastic and engaging speaker, and the tapes are well edited to maintain your interest. Halfpenny also has a tracking video entitled Tracking Elk for Hunters, especially designed to help hunters interpret elk track and sign, determine the sex of a tracked animal, predict where and when to find elk, and, finally, track an elk after the shot. Whether or not you are a hunter, the video can teach you a lot about elk and their habits; most of the material presented is new and different from that in Halfpenny’s book or his basic tracking video. Both are available from 
Karen Hood, The Cave Cooking Series These three videos – more come out all the time – deal primarily with food gathering and preparation in the wilderness, and are intended to be complementary to the Woodsmaster videos on wilderness survival. Like the Woodsmaster series, too, each video covers a wide variety of topics – how to clean and cook fish, squirrel, marmot, and maggots; find and cook wild edible plants; make pemmican; and get yeast for bread from the environment. The videos include discussions of stone ovens, the hobo stove and hobo oven, Dutch ovens, and solar cooking. Along the way, Karen shows how to make a buckskin rifleman’s frock, like the one Ron wears in his videos, and how to make tallow candles Karen, like her husband Ron, has an attractive low-key presentation style. The videos are relatively inexpensive, and they cover material unavailable elsewhere. These are worth having. Available from 
Ron Hood, Survival Basics By taking about twenty minutes of the most technique focused material from each of the Woodsmaster videos and compiling them into a two-video set, Ron Hood has put together a comprehensive, yet inexpensive, set of survival skills videos. Survival Basics One has material from Woodsmaster volumes one through three, dealing with fire making, shelter construction, and survival kits; Survival Basics Two has material from Woodsmaster volumes four and five plus Karen Hood’s first Cave Cooking video, covering navigation, trapping, and wilderness cooking. These tapes are an excellent place for a beginner to start. Available from 
Wes Housler, How to Brain Tan a Buffalo Hide A braintanned buffalo hide is more soft, warm, and comfortable than you can imagine. Wes Housler, from Cloudcroft, New Mexico, has braintanned over 500 hair-on buffalo robes, so he has plenty of practical experience. In this 59-minute video he shows step-by-step how to tan a buffalo hide from start to finish. Buffalo hides are big, heavy, and awkward, so this tape is for experienced tanners; you should probably have skinned and tanned a few deer before you start on a buffalo. See also Larry Belitz’s video, Brain Tanning Bison Robes the Native American Way, discussed above. Available at 
How to Bead Native American Style Just because it’s primitive doesn’t mean it has to be ugly. Native Americans quickly learned to use European glass beads in place of porcupine quills to decorate their clothing and utensils in striking and beautiful patterns. Now you can do the same. This is a five-volume set of videos that cover loom, lazy stitch, peyote stitch, running stitch, and two-needle appliqué stitch beadwork. Each video uses "larger than life" beads to make it easy to follow along. All are professionally produced and include a written instruction sheet and supply list. Available from 
Richard and Linda Jamison, The Woodsmoke Series Woodsmoke was the first magazine dedicated entirely to primitive skills, running from the 1970s to the early 1980s. The Jamisons were the compilers of the three Woodsmoke anthologies – Woodsmoke: Collected Writings on Ancient Living Skills (Bountiful UT: Horizon Publishers, 1997), ISBN: 0-88290-611-9, The Best of Woodsmoke: A Manual of Primitive Outdoor Skills (Bountiful UT: Horizon Publishers, 1993), ISBN: 0-88290-203-2, and Primitive Outdoor Skills: More Wilderness Techniques from Woodsmoke Journal (Bountiful UT: Horizon Publishers, 1993), ISBN: 0882902636 – and they have supplemented those books with a six-volume set of videos, covering the basic and essential primitive skills – the hand drill, the bowdrill, the fire piston and other firemaking methods, shelter, primitive cooking, and primitive pottery. Available from 
Mors Kochanski, Wilderness Skills Videos Kochanski, author of the outstanding book Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival (Edmonton AB: Lone Pine Publishing, 1998), ISBN: 1-55105-122-2, has put together a four-volume series of interesting and unusual videos, covering wilderness skills not usually focused on in other series – sticks as tools and implements, bush knots, and the sharpening and safe use of blades, as well as more conventional videos on clothing and sleeping bags. This is not a polished production, but very useful, and priced reasonably. Available from 
Mors Kochanski, Plant Walk Videos This remarkable eight-volume series covers the identification of 240 species of plants, plus a master tape for a quick review all of them. Plants are typically featured in series of seven, followed by review sections to help you remember what you watched. Common and Latin names are given on the video, and question and answer sheets are included to aid in the review process. Of course, the plants are limited to the region of western Canada, so you have to decide how relevant it all is to your own area. Still, the scope is remarkable. The first volume, for example, covers thirty-six plants, including Silverweed, Marsh hedge nettle, plantain, brown-eyed susan, yellow ladies slipper, meado buttercup, alpine bistort, pink pussytoes, cream-colored peavine, purple vetch, Canada thistle … well, you get the idea. An illustrated book – Robert Dale Rogers, Rogers' Herbal Manual (Wildwood AB: Karamat Wilderness Ways, 2000), ISBN 1-89445-322-0 – has been published to accompany the video series, covering the medicinal constituents, homeopathy, personality traits, recipes, essential oils, and flower essences of the plants, and how different people around the world have used them. Available from 
Annabelle Medicinechips, How to Make Moccasins: Plains Indian Hard-sole Style Simple teaching methods show how to make a pattern, how to adapt for men and women, any size, and how to adapt to hightop moccasins. An excellent video for anyone interested in making an authentic pair of mocs. Very well presented with great close-ups of important steps. You will be guided step by step through each stage of construction. Includes special emphasis on various tribal styles and different techniques. Moccasin maker Annabelle Medicinechips (Cheyenne/Caddo) demonstrates the centuries-old way to sew with an awl and animal sinew – the way leather and beads were held in place before the introduction of needle and thread. Available from 
John and Geri McPherson, The Prairie Wolf Series The McPhersons are the authors of two classic books on primitive skills – Naked Into the Wilderness: Primitive Wilderness Living and Survival Skills (Randolph KS: Prairie Wolf, 1993). ISBN: 0-96787-777-6, and Primitive Wilderness Skills, Applied and Advanced (Randolph KS: Prairie Wolf, 1996), ISBN 0-89745-984-9. They have produced a six-volume set of videos illustrating the primary skills they have written about – dry-scrape braintan, primitive fire and cordage, deer from field to freezer, primitive bows and arrows, semi-permanent shelters, and the Asiatic composite bow. Available at 
Jim Meuninck, Edible Wild Plants In this video, Dr. Jim Duke of the USDA, author of more than a hundred publications on wild plants and medicinal herbs, and botany professor Jim Meuninck teach how to identify, collect, and eat over a hundred of the most nutritious plants in North America. The video discusses thirty-five commonly found edible wild plants, pharmaceutical uses of common herbs, and wild plant recipes. An appendix catalogs and indexes many poisonous plants and poisonous look-alikes. Also see their video Trees, Shrubs, Nuts and Berries, discussed below. Available from 
Jim Meuninck, Trees, Shrubs, Nuts and Berries This video is both a field guide and cookbook, illustrating field identification, recipes, folklore, pharmaceutical uses, and plant use among Native Americans, Eskimos, and European pioneers. Botanists Dr. Jim Duke and Jim Meuninck take a tour across North America, identifying trees and shrubs and collecting acorns, walnuts, chestnuts, butternuts, pine nuts, juniper berries, hazelnuts, hickory, and beechnuts. Wild berry and nut recipes include loganberry sorbet, lavender pecan ice cream, blueberry omelets, berry sauces, berry mayonnaise, and berry cornbread. The video includes a section on poisonous berries. Also see their video Edible Wild Plants, discussed above. Available at 
Tom Miranda, Fur Fish Game Magazine Trapping Videos Fur Fish Game Magazine is the leading source for all aspects of trapping. Here the editors have put together a high-quality eight-volume video series with techniques from trapping experts Tom Miranda, Bob Gilsvik, Jerry Herbst, Jeff Smith and Dave Hieb. Each volume teaches how to trap a specific species – raccoon, beaver, coyote, mink, fox, muskrat, and predators generally (there is an extra volume on mink and coon). These Tom Miranda trapping videos are used by state, national and international agencies as trapper training videos, and have been used to train trapping instructors in nearly every state and province. Available from 
Northwestern Video Productions, Primitive Skills Series This is a set of five videos illustrating a variety of skills as taught by several different teachers. Robert Earthworm, so named by his friends because of his love for the earth, teaches in two videos: in one, he teaches primitive life skills, including how to make fire with a bowdrill, cordage from plant fiber and deer sinew, tea from wilderness plants, dried meat, and bread with wild berries; in the second, he gives a step-by-step demonstration of the dry scrape method of brain tanning buckskin. Jim Riggs also teaches in two videos: in the first, he teaches how to make fire using the hand drill and bow drill, and, in the second, how to make plant fiber cordage. Finally, Brian James shows how to break spalls of larger rocks, and then how to pressure flake a point. Animated graphics show the forces at work. Available at 
Larry “Slim” Pedersen, Productive Snaring Techniques Here is a video that shows you the best modern snaring methods, including snare construction and the various modern components – locks, swivels, cable, spring holders, support wire, connectors, deer stops – available today. Pedersen explains snare loop size, placement, location, and animal habits, and covers snaring bobcat, coyote, fox, beaver, raccoon, badger, woodchuck, and more. Available, along with dozens of other trapping and snaring videos, from 
Matt Richards, Deerskins into Buckskins Matt Richards has done more experimenting on brain tanning methods than anyone I know. His video – two years in the making – is easily the most detailed, comprehensive, and easy-to-follow guide to brain tanning around. You get to see what each step looks like – what it looks like when the grain is coming off properly, how much effort goes into softening, what different odd textures on the skin mean, what good smoke looks like. These presentations are really helpful in learning an essentially tactile art. The video incorporates what Matt has learned since he wrote the classic book Deerskins into Buckskins, as well as ideas and feedback from thousands of tanners, including improvements in the process that ensure more thorough brain penetration, make the process easier, and produce incredibly soft hides. Available from 
Roy Roush, Prospecting for Gold I just had to include this video. It sets out the ultimate survival skill – getting rich in the wilderness. Roy Roush illustrates the six basic methods of finding gold, provides tips and information for the beginning and experienced prospector, shows how to find gold-bearing areas and where gold accumulates, and demonstrates and explains proper panning and sluicing techniques, the operation of wet and dry placers, effective metal detecting, and dredging. This – along with other videos on gold prospecting and mining – is available from 
Don Stinz, Pointy Side Up The Plains tipi is in many ways an ideal shelter for its environment. It can be pitched by one person. It is roomy, well ventilated, cool in summer, well lighted, proof against high winds and heavy downpours, and can be kept warm in the severest winter weather. It is claimed that Don Stinz has set up more tipis than anyone in history. In this video, which runs just a bit over an hour, he shows you how to set up an eighteen-foot tipi, either by yourself or with help from others, from marking the tripod to adjusting the smoke flaps. As the title indicates, Stinz is an entertaining and engaging instructor, and the methods you see in Pointy Side Up are quite possibly among the easiest ways to set up your tipi. Available from 
D.C. Waldorf, Flint Knapping Videos Waldorf is the author of the self-published book The Art of Flint Knapping, originally used as a class handout in his knapping courses, and several very useful videos – The Art of Flint Knapping Video Companion, intended to be used with the book, Getting Started in Flint Knapping, Working Obsidian: Adventures in the Pacific Northwest, and Roasting Rocks: The Art and Science of Heat Treating. The book and all the videos are available from 
Preston Westmoreland, The Stay Alive! Videos This series consists of two videotapes dealing, respectively, with survival in the desert southwest and in mountainous areas. These videos are reasonably priced and certainly cover the basics, telling you, for example, how to find water and edible plants in the desert, avoid flash floods and quicksand, and use your broken-down car for survival; and, in the mountains, how to make shelters and clothing, light a fire with a flashlight or batteries, find water and edible plants, forecast the weather, make emergency signals – and that old standby, how to tell directions with your watch. These are primarily for beginners. Available from 
Frank White, Moccasin Making: Side Seam Moccasins Demonstrated by renowned moccasin maker Frank White, this video explains the making of side seam moccasins and demonstrates different types of leather and materials available. These easy-to-follow video instructions were produced as a companion to the outstanding book by his father George W. White, Craft Manual of North American Indian Foot Wear (Arlee MT: George M. White, 1969), ISBN 1-884693-00-8. Available from 