Earth Knack has been offering primitive skills courses and wilderness treks since 1990. The Earth Knack school site is near Crestone, Co. Robin owns and operates Earth Knack and has been working in the outdoor field since 1978 when she began leading horse packing trips into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness for Adventure Unlimited Ranches, eventually directing their mountaineering program. She began teaching for Larry Olsen's School of Urban and Wilderness Survival in 1984, the National Outdoor Leadership School and Outward Bound. She holds a B.A. in English Literature, a minor in Spanish from the University of Colorado, Boulder, as well as a B.S. in Education with a Colorado elementary teaching certification.

Many guest instructors, top experts in the primitive skills field, join the Earth Knack staff throughout the year. Tyree, Teale and Tikla are sure to share their expertise during any class and join in all the campfire activities.

Download the Earth Knack slide show (you'll need Windows Media player).

Tyree, 19, spends time in the flintknapping pit on the Earth Knack school site.

Tikla, 10, fries up fresh trout from Cottonwood Creek, which runs through the Earth Knack school site.

Teale, 16, navigates the current on the 2005 Green River Canoe Trip.

Rosalyn makes a bow drill fire.	Kids class on onion skin dyes at Winter Count 2006.	Mike is proud of his primitive bow and arrow made with all stone tools.
Robin shows how to make a deer skin bag.	A happy "ABO" girl!	Robin creates a "no-pattern" buckskin shirt for Peggy Patrick.

Thoughts on "re-entry" after an Earth Knack course!

You pack up the car. You drive away from the primitive campsite along Cottonwood Creek at the Earth Knack school site that has been your home for the last week. There you used stone, bone and wood tools that you made yourself to create other useful and necessary items. You learned some interesting and new, or should we say "old" things. You had some fun. Now it's time to get back to the "real" world. As you head down the road you don't yet realize something has changed. Something has fundamentally changed.

As you make your way over the mountains and back into the tangled traffic your daily life reality slowly creeps back in and you begin to remember things you must do, deadlines to meet, repairs to be made. Oh yes, that leaky faucet at the house! Well, the hardware store is on the way.

The letters HARDWARE flash you in neon green from above the door as you circle the parking lot, waiting for a space to open up. You enter, and your re-entry falls to pieces! You are surrounded by every tool and gadget available. Giant blue plastic rakes reach out into the aisle and catch against your shirt. You step over some spilled metal nails. A basket full of reduced-price hammers sits heavily in the middle of the aisle, blocking your forward progress. The shelves tower above you and stretch indefinitely out in front of you, jammed and creaking with a load of every imaginable thing. Slowly you turn in a full circle taking in the myriad forms of the modern tool.

You stare, feeling overwhelmed. "What is all this for?" you ask yourself. "How could we go from a small core of stone meeting all our tool needs to this 37 aisles of stuff?"

"Can I help you?" A smiling red-vested man with a large nametag breaks into your thoughts

"You know," you answer slowly, "I just spent a week at a stone age skills camp and" the clerk's smile fades and he peers at you cautiously, taking a prudent step back as you continue in a dazed tone, "and every tool I needed all week, for making bows, for cutting string I made from bark, for tanning buckskin, came from a small stone core!"

You look at him intensely. You hope he can feel the import of your words. Can he see the simple efficiency of your past week? The freedom of not needing the metal or plastic? You smile at him while the joy of the simplicity of it all vibrates inside you.

"Uhm,& yes," responds the clerk, clearing his throat. Then, shifting the yellow polyester rope in his arms like he needs to get it to a distant shelf quickly, and using a matter-of-fact voice he asks, "Was there anything in particular you were trying to find?"

He doesn't see it.

"Faucet," you say quietly, "leaky faucet."

"Aisle 17," he says crisply over his shoulder as he quickly strides away. You watch him out of sight to the far end of the aisle, and then you slowly turn around and leave. As you get back into your car you see the small flint core on your dashboard that has been your tool shop for the last week. Beside it is the flake of stone you used to scrape your deer skin. On the floor mat are several pieces you used to make your bow. A large smile spreads across your face. You pull into traffic and head home.

Dimitri holds a primitive arrow above his stone and wood "tool kit".