SISKIYOU PERMACULTURE

SOCIAL FORESTRY

6 Days in the Woods with Hazel and guests
Advanced Permaculture Certificate course
February 8-13, 2025

Course Price $900, early registration up to one month before start date is $850.  This course has been selling out the last several years, so if you’re keen to come, register early.

To register, please complete the Registration Form below.  For more information, please contact us using the Contact Form.

Be sure to join our mailing list to stay updated about our events and activities.

The course supports our vision of a cottagers’ co-op, stewardship contracts with ecological covenants, semi-nomadic seasonal work patterns and cultural support for a new/old way of being in relationship with our forests and landscapes.  We believe that only through building new relationships now can we look forward to a more appropriate and sustainable culture of cities, farms and forests that inspires us all and especially the children to look forward to a future that makes sense and promises a good and glorious life many generations hence.

Here in a developed industrial empire, the forests are lonely.  We have lost our sense of living with forests as friends. Our forests have become sources for industrial materials and gold rush like gathering of minerals, game, mushrooms, herbs and specialty woods.  We no longer have cultures of forest dwellers and keepers of the game.  

With climate weirding and excessive fuel loads, our abandonment of forest care is catastrophic.  Our cities have forgotten that they were built with materials and vernacular flavors that came down river.  We fly in our exotic foodstuffs and pretend that country dwellers are sub-cultural and pitiful.  We eliminated the indigenous peoples through genocide that included destroying and failing to appreciate knowledge of landscape scale management and celebration.

Now we are largely clueless as to how to build persistent inhabitation and ecological integration that serves multiple values and connects us to wonder and appreciation.  Luckily we have remnants of knowledge from both Native American and traditional European forest cultures to help us rebuild our lives.  We can learn to be social in the forest together and to bring into our homes ways of living that connect us to place.

This Social Forestry course will explore reconnecting with forests through ecological knowledge, the use of hand tools and woodscrafts, seasonal festivals and work cycles, childrens’ stories, pilgrimages and stewardship covenants. We will learn ecological assessment, carbon sequestration methods, restoration forestry and the crafts and products that can be enjoyed while we are re-establishing our heart space and wonder in the woods.  

Join us for underburning, forest management, coppicing, basketry and more at this hands on course.  Choice of activities will be based on interest and weather conditions.

The course is held at Wolf Gulch Ranch where Hazel has designed and maintained an experimental social forestry operation over the last 10 years.

The Permaculture Design Course is a prerequisite for getting an advanced certificate from this course. Others may have the certificate held until they have a PDC certificate. You must complete all six days of the course to get your certificate. The course is open to all who have a working knowledge of Permaculture.

We hope that people will feel comfortable camping in the February weather as that will make it easiest for you to stay focused and connected.  Let us know if you need help with accommodation options in the local area.

CANCELLATION POLICY

 Until 1 month before the start date, the course fee is refundable less $100 cancellation fee. After that date, the fee is nonrefundable unless the course fills and we sell your spot. There will still be a $100 cancellation fee.

There are some rules and expectations around being at Wolf Gulch.  No pets allowed.  No big rigs. Modest vans and pickups are okay. We will be pressuring you to carpool and helping to arrange it, as we do not have room for everyone’s individual car.  Wolf Gulch is a low signal zone.  You will not have cell phone or wifi.  The parking is very limited, a bit tricky and often muddy at this time of year and coming and going is highly discouraged.  Do not expect to be in communication during your time at the course except in an emergency.  Local students will park on the road.  Winter camping in community is part of the experience.