The 2026 Wilderness Guide Program
Living and Learning the Way of the Wolf
Here is an outdoor adventure program-plus—a Rite of Passage into the very heart of Nature. The WGP is one of the most extreme, exhilarating life experiences you can have: For a full year, you live in a primitive Wilderness wigwam camp and learn everything you need to know to sustain yourself with little or nothing from the outside world. From wild food foraging and wilderness first aid to moving invisibly and communicating with Animals, you acquire from direct experience what all Native People know: that Earth Mother kindly and generously provides all your needs and wants.
But don’t think for a minute that this is just a survival course. In the WGP you go from survive to thrive. You learn how easy it can be when you connect with your Ancestral Wisdom and learn how to listen to the guidance that Wolf and the other Animal and Plant Relations all around you are ready to share. You go from observing and studying Nature to living and breathing Nature—to becoming the Child of the Earth you are intended to be.
When you first walk into the WGP camp, it feels like you’ve gone through a time warp and you’re back in the Stone Age. It’s the perfect setting for learning respect for Native cultures and all they’ve given—and are still giving—us. You are taught some of the local Native language, and Native Elders may drop by to spend time with you around the Evening Fire.
“Doing the Wilderness Guide Program is the best thing I have ever done. It was more than a “thing” or an experience. It fundamentally changed my entire reality and how I view the world and myself. It showed me the truth I was looking for. It showed me what a connection to the Earth felt like and how it was what was missing in my life.”
Certification
Graduates of the WGP are awarded the Wilderness Guide Diploma. Being the only certification of its kind, it is respected throughout the Wilderness skills, outdoor adventure, and Nature education communities. The certification gives you professional credibility and qualifies you for employment in many outdoor-related positions.
Instructors
Your first teacher is Wolf. Our Ancestors learned from the example of Wolf how to live in clan, communicate effectively, conduct a coordinated hunt, and raise children cooperatively, and you do the same in the WGP. Wolf is an exemplary teacher of how to live in Balance with each other and all the Plant, Animal, and Mineral Relations.
Complementing Wolf’s guidance is the wisdom and training that Native Elders have passed down to our senior instructors for safekeeping and transmitting to those who are ready to honor it and keep it alive by becoming Wilderness Guides.
Bringing it all together is a faculty that is among the best-trained and most experienced you’ll find anywhere. They’ve done it all, from living with Wolves and living in the Wilds on foraged foods to apprenticing with American Indian Elders and Mayan Curanderas, from surviving harrowing Wilderness adventures to taking Deep Soul Journeys. On our faculty is a traditional storyteller, an expert in animal communication and Wolf language, and internationally recognized authorities in Indigenous lifeways, Wilderness survival, and the full range of primitive skills. Faculty have authored the definitive works on survival foraging, traditional tracking, primal parenting, Guardian training, Nature-based healing, Truthspeaking, and the Talking Circle. Guest instructors in various skills round out the faculty.
As well, our instructors guide your personal growth and oversee your psycho-emotional health by being specially trained in leadership, mentoring, ethics, suicide prevention, trauma recovery, shamanic healing, and all aspects of running an outdoor skills program.
Location
The setting for the magical, mystical experience known as the Wilderness Guide Program is Wisconsin’s Headwaters Wilderness, which lies adjacent to the WGP base camp. The camp is tucked under tall Pines on the shore of a pristine wild Lake. It is the only place in North America where you can live for a full turn of the seasons the way your hunter-gatherer ancestors did and be guided by Wolf, Elders, and widely practiced instructors.
Dates
Every Melting of the Snows (which is around the end of April), a new group of people, known as a Pack, walks into the Wilderness to begin their full immersion experience. Other individuals, called Lone Wolves,* come and join the Pack at various times to start their turn of the seasons.
Registration for 2026
As you’ve by now gathered, this is not your regular outdoor education course; this is life—your life. In honor of that, there is no standard dry, impersonal application form. This experience is all about relationship: first with Nature and your inner self, then with your packmates and instructors. To begin creating that relationship, please call 715-546-2944 and ask to speak with one of our elder instructors.
For questions please call the above-listed number or send an email to wgp@teachingdrum.org
* Like Humans, some Wolves stay with their families when reaching maturity, and others become Lone Wolves, leaving to go in search of mates and new territory. Individuals can come and go at any time. They might return one day, join another Pack, or start a Pack of their own. That vibrant Pack dynamic is part of the original Vision for the WGP, and it has now come to fruition. Those seeking the guidance and inspiration of Wolf can join in at any time that best suits both them and the Pack.
As with Human families, venturing forth alone is sometimes not a choice for Wolves. Such was the case with our founder Tamarack, as he was the last Wolf standing after the Wolf family he lived with got annihilated.
