Register

The 15th Annual Bushskills Caribbean Rendezvous 2020!
Some call them outdoor home-steading skills. Primitive skills. Or just skills.
​We call them BUSH SKILLS!

Visit the farm for four days of workshops in natural crafts, survival techniques, wild crafting, organic farming, and outdoor cooking with farm fresh foods. Island visitors and residents are welcome one and all! Each day has a theme that builds up to Sunday's Bush Chef Cookout event (read more below). Camp out or stay in a cabana to enjoy the nightly fire, or just come for the daily workshops and farm fresh and local cuisine lunches. (see below for details)

---

2020 Bush Skills Schedule
(subject to change)

DAY 1: The Basics: Fire, Fiber, and Flint Knapping.
8:30a Registration and Check in and Sign up for Class.

AM
9:00AM Start time
-Fiber harvesting and processing (Snow Bear)
-Stone tools AKA flint knapping (Alex Kilgore)
The Core Skills: Fire, Fiber, and Flint Knapping.

12:00pm Lunch
PM
1:00pm - 4:00pm
Bow Drill firemaking class (rubbing sticks together)

7:00pm Dinner and campfire

---

Hike

DAY 2 Schedule: The BASICS PART II & PLANT MEDICINE.
8:30am Registration and Check In and Sign up for Class.

AM
9:00 AM Start Time.
- AM plant walk with guest instructor Ruth.

12:30pm Lunch
PM
1:00pm - 4:00pm
Calabash bowls w/ Snow Bear
​Shelter building demo/materials gathering
 
7:00PM Dinner and campfire

---

DAY 3 Schedule: HUNTING AND GATHERING
7:30AM Breakfast
8:30am Registration and Check In and Sign up for Class

9:00am Start Time:

Classes
- Bamboo with Snow Bear. Learn how to harvest and carve Bamboo to make hunting tools such as bamboo spears, bamboo knives, bamboo cooking sets, bamboo utensils, and more.
 

12:00pm Lunch

1:00PM Afternoon Classes Start Time
- Bamboo with Snow Bear. Continuation from your AM projects using bamboo.
- Palm Weaving with Carmen Corrandino of Mt. Victory Camp. Make something to gather nuts and fruits! Learn a whole different material to work with: Coconut leaves.
3:30 Gut Hike "forage and find" w/Nate

7:00pm Dinner
​8:00PM  Evening Entertainment with MC Snow Bear around the Fire.

---

DAY 4: The original BUSH CHEF COOKOFF 
No propane allowed:) All natural feast from spark to plate; learn outdoor cooking techniques
7:30am Breakfast
8:30am Registration and Check In

You'll be making what you need from provided ingredients, including making what you'll need to cook food in!  

9:00am Start Time
Gathering and Preparing

Goes all day.
3:30pm Finale Drum Circle followed by sunset at the beach on this year's 15th Annual Bush Skills.

---

---

 THEME SCHEDULES Featuring expert instructors from R2R, Earth Skills Rendezvous,  Mt. Victory Camp/Tom Brown Tracker School and others...

DAY 1: Primitive Survival Skills: The basics of tropical living - fire, shelter, water, fibers 
Thursday, March 5
Instructors:  Snowbear, Nate Olive (fire making), others TBA

w/ special guests, St. Croix's Complex High School Environmental Science Students!

---

DAY 2: Herbs and Trees: Medicines, herbalism, and wildcrafting
Friday, March 6
Instructors:  Snowbear, Nate Olive (fire making), others TBA

w/ special guests, St. Croix's Complex High School Environmental Science Students!

---

DAY 3: Hunting, Gathering, & Bamboo! Hunting tools, primitive hunting tools, gathering from wild plants and cultivated plants, and Bamboo kitchen crafts
Saturday, March 7
Instructors:  Snowbear,  Nate Olive (bamboo), others TBA

---

DAY 4: "Bush Chef" Food Day: How to harvest and prepare an all-natural island feast - an all-day bush cook out!! 
Sunday, March 8 I
Instructors:  Snowbear, Nate Olive, Ruth, others TBA & Special Guest Chefs

---

Daily Timeline 9am-4pm daily w/lunch , evening activities for campers w/dinners & breakfasts

 Sign-in begins at 8:30 a.m. each morning, with a lunch sign-in also available for participants who want to take afternoon sessions only.

We gather in the outdoor classroom for a beginning circle at 9:00 a.m.

Past classes have included . . .

• Stone Tools, Flint-knapping
• Organic food production
• Tree Fibers and Food
• Fire by Friction
• Tropical fruit tree care
• Forest Foraging
• Spears & Nets for Fishing
• Hide Tanning Demonstration
• Herbal Healing
• Calabash Craft
• Wild Edible Plants
• Indigenous root crop planting and other ancient agriculture techniques
• Primitive Cookery
• Tracking
• Primitive Shelter building

Bring: 
Your favorite carving knife (we will have some for use and for sale), water bottle, clothes that can get dirty, folding chair (optional)
​
Cost:
Full program package (includes camping, 8 classes, and 3 meals per day, for all four days except Thurs breakfat and Sunday dinner): $225, RSVP
Daily rate (year-round VI residents): $45 per day, lunch is included, register upon entry, please RSVP

Fun and learning for all ages! Come one day or all.
Camping is included in four day pass and cabanas still available.

Sign up!

Questions?

See you here!