Teaching Drum Outdoor School was founded in 1987 by Tamarack Song. The school began as a summer operation, offering classes in edible and medicinal plants and weeklong wilderness canoe trips, along with birch bark canoe building and Native-style running. In 1989 the Teaching Drum incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit school, acquired an 80 acre wilderness parcel on an undeveloped lake for its outdoor classroom, and began operating year-round. By 1999, the primitive camp known as Nishnajida (Ojibwe for Camp Where the Old Way Returns) was well-established on the lakeshore preserve, which made it possible to begin the long-awaited year-long Wilderness Immersion Program.
In 2007, a month-long sister program began at a new preserve called Mashkodens (Ojibwe for Little Prairie). That same year, Teaching Drum launched Snow Wolf Publishing and focused on developing the Children’s Culture at Nadmadewining (Ojibwe for Support Camp).
We are home to the Wilderness Guide and Wild Moon Immersion Programs, the only wilderness living experiences of their kind. Our mission at Teaching Drum is to facilitate the connection to self, and to the Earth through learning bush crafts and hunting-foraging skills. Along with these skills, we help participants to peel back layers of habit and convention so that they may reawaken their innate sensory and intuitive abilities. To learn more about the school, visit www.teachingdrum.org
All of the school’s classes, educational materials, activities, and programs, are available to all persons of any age, sex, race, color, sexual orientation, gender identity, national and ethnic origin equally and without discrimination.