Chris Morasky

Chris Morasky has been teaching Stone Age and wilderness skills for over 20 years, and his teachings have reached thousands of students. As a wildlife biologist and student of the natural world, he has an extensive understanding of nature and our place within it. He has even completed several wilderness survival expeditions using only Stone Age tools. Chris lived in the mountains of Idaho in a tipi for 6 years and learned from teachers throughout North America, including many survival instructors and members of Lakota, Shoshone, Arapahoe, Blackfoot, Crow, and Seri tribes.

Chris grew up in Michigan with a frog in one hand and a fishing pole in the other. His amazingly tolerant parents didn’t seem to mind the continuous stream of “pets” that came into the house, including frogs and toads, mice, raccoons, baby birds, snapping turtles and snakes (though anything over 4 feet long had to stay outside). Chris spent every spare moment in nature while growing up, and he developed a close connection with the plants and animals that inhabited the local woodlots.

Chris learned a great deal about woodsmanship from his father who continuously proved the adage, “10 percent of the hunters and fishers get 90 percent of the game.” Chris’ father taught much about reading animal sign and understanding their behaviour, campcraft skills like knots and fire making, backcountry travel and first aid, and also patience. During Chris’ first years of deer hunting, his father would walk with him in the pre-dawn darkness to Chris’ “hunting blind” (usually the base of a tree with a little brush in front) and say, “Now you sit there and don’t move. I’ll come back to get you after dark.” Over 12 hours of motionless sitting revealed much about the forests.

Chris joined the Boy Scouts at an early age and his father became a scoutmaster. Chris earned the top rank of Eagle Scout at age 12 and went on to become an assistant scoutmaster. College and other interests intervened, and Chris earned a Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Along the way, Chris became a falconer and bird of prey researcher, capturing, banding and releasing many hawks, owls and falcons.

After college, Chris followed his love of teaching to become the outdoor education director of several youth camps. He also deepened his knowledge of the old ways by traveling through native reserves in the Western US and seeking out those individuals who still practiced some of their ancient traditions.

Chris later became an instructor for Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School in western Montana, then taught wilderness survival and search and rescue to troubled adolescents in Idaho. Chris then founded Earth Circle School of Wilderness Survival in the mountains of west-central Idaho and served as a director for 6 years.

Chris currently lives on a small farm near Salmo, BC with his son, Kodiak, and their dog, Poppy.
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Michael Smith

Michael Smith spent the first half of his childhood living in a hunting lodge and guest ranch in the remote mountains of British Columbia, Canada, without TV or radio. He began working on his family’s trap line at six years old, and he began learning the arts of bushcraft and hunting at eight. He traded furs for trapping supplies and some candy as a child, and spent much of his time on horseback wandering and learning about the natural world.

Michael grew up in a mixed race or mixed culture family. His maternal Grandmother was a First Nations (Dineh or Navajo) woman and his paternal grandfather, a man from England, lived with the Na-Dene or Athebasken people from 1902 – 1934 as a migratory hunter, trapper, gatherer and accepted community member. These traditional cultural influences, the old-time stories and the sense of belonging to the land has shaped his relationship with being in the bush and his relationship with sharing experiences or “teaching”.

Michael moved to Vancouver at the age of nine. He continued to learn about being outdoors from his father, a lifelong hunter and bushman, on extended camping and canoe trips to learn the “bush life” and the importance of being prepared for anything.

Uncomfortable with the aggressiveness of modern society and his personal experiences with racism, he began to study the martial arts. This year, 2010, he celebrates his thirty-first year in this endeavor.

Michael’s first job out of high school was taking people into the bush for two-week canoe adventures, covering a wide range of skills with a focus on reconnecting with nature and ourselves. He has worked for over 20 years in a wide range of capacities in the fields of wilderness self-reliance, modern survival skills, leadership training, martial arts and close combat training.  In his free time, Michael likes to go on 10 – 20 day solo journeys into the bush to, as he says, “become the land”.

Michael has also devoted most of his adult life to studying the healing methods of traditional cultures. He is a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine with over fifteen years of clinical experience, as well as a teacher of Qi Gong, or Daoist Yoga. Michael is a co-founder of the prestigious Academy of Oriental Sciences where he taught for five years. He is also a Nutritionalist and Functional Medicine Clinician. Dr. Smith is also on the journey of studying the medicine ways of his First Nations ancestors and relations, as well as the Entheogenic or spirit medicines of South America.

Michael Smith is a committed and inspiring educator with respect to emergency preparedness, wilderness living skills, combat martial arts, health and well-being and the Ways of all of our Ancestors.

He lives with his son in Nelson, a small town in the mountains of British Columbia.