Down to Earth
Man vs. Wild, Virginia Edition

It’s brisk out there. Windy. Unforgiving, even.

In other words, the perfect time to tackle nature, armed with little more than a blanket, a knife and your considerable wits.

Yup, time to head to a place like Earth Connection, a Fauquier County operation where they teach you to go all Bear Grylls for a day, or even a week, accepting participants now.

Now, let’s get this out of the way: this isn’t some mystical cult that will have you beating on drums in the forest. Or a bunch of militiamen preparing for the end of days. Nope, just a writer for Outdoor Life who’s been teaching survival for 16 years and is all too happy to send you out into the woods overnight with nothing but your clothes and a trusty blade.

But not right away. Lest you become a Darwinian footnote, he’d rather you first came to one of his “crash courses”—one-day schools in building shelters, starting fires and getting water and food.

From there, you can graduate to specialized workshops like Emergency Fire Skills and Wild Brew 101, where you learn to make beer with wild plants. Before long, you’ll be sitting around the fire you made, drinking the beer you brewed and eating the wild game you caught.

Which is usually a good time to break out the harmonica.