Overnight Youth Camp at Lake Sammamish for ages 10-16 with prerequisite of a wild edible/herbal day camp or workshop, or two other previous day camps, or one prior overnight camp with us.
In this advanced camp, you’ll go deeper into the skills of ethnobotany. The goal is to provide greater hands-on learning about Wild Edible Foods & Herbal Medicine. During the day, your overnight camp group will work with our Advanced Herbal Medicine day camp, and then go deeper in the evenings with the arts of foraging plants and processing medicines with forays into the wilds so you know when and where to look for the Top Wild Foods and Top Medicinal Plants of our region. We will also spend time in the evening cooking wild edible dinners and focusing on personal health and relaxation with our unique spa day.
During our daily forays into the fields and forests around Lake Sammamish, you’ll learn to key plant families, follow the tenets of herbal medicine and practice honorable harvesting as we select the plant parts we need for wildcrafted recipes upon our return to process, cook and preserve what we’ve collected. Ultimately, we are on a quest for the greatest health and nutrition by concocting herbal remedies and cooking wild foods every day. Roast cattails over open flame, process nettles into delicious pesto; fry nettle chips, grind natural flour, and make teas, decoctions, poultices other medicines for health and well being, all of which you can take home at the end of the week. By the time this incredible week is over, you will be well on your way to becoming a knowledgeable herbalist and wild gourmet chef.
Camp Goals & Skills Covered
The goal of this expedition is to provide participants with hands-on learning about Wild Edible Foods & Herbal Medicine. Skills covered include:
- Honorably harvesting, processing and storing the Top 10 Edible Plants; including cooking with cattails, native hazelnuts and more.
- Understanding plant characteristics (astringents, etc.) and harvesting, processing and administering the most important medicinal herbs of the northwest;
- How to make fire, cook over an open fire, and “rock boil”;
- How to spin advanced rope techniquest from stinging nettle, cattail; cedar bark, and fire weed;
- How to make a medicine pouch to fill with your personal herbs, drying and storing salves, oils, tinctures and other medicines to take home;
- How to purify water naturally for cleansing wounds and making teas;
- Practice wilderness medicine emergency response scenarios;
- Learn Easy Plant Drawing and complete Journal Entries on your healing plants, and on corresponding poisonous plants;
- How to make a medicine pouch, dream catcher, and small collecting basket;
- Learn knife safety so you can carry a knife for harvesting.
Herbiology by camper Ashley Tee –
You can eat herbs, they taste good too,
But pick the right ones, or they could poison you,
You can make tinctures, pesto or fritters,
And watch out, make sure not to eat the critters!
You can also make balm, tea or coffee,
Maybe you can also make hazelnut toffees!
And if you like this herby rhyme,
Then come on down: it’s harvest time!
Voted Best Wild Nature Day Camp in the last Golden Teddy Awards run by parentmap.com surveying the Puget Sound Region.
Ages & Prerequisites
This camp is designed for ages 10-16 with one of the following prerequisites: completion of our Wild Cooking & Herbology day camp or ethnobotany family workshop earlier this year, or at least two other day camps or one overnight camp with us. Older teens may also attend if accepted into our IIT Youth Mentoring Program.
Pick-Up & Drop-Off Times, Camp Schedule & Directions
Please arrive between 8:30-8:45 am on Monday morning, and pick-up between 4:00-4:15 pm on Friday, at the Lake Sammamish Hans Jensen Group Camp, 4460 East Lake Sammamish Pkwy SE, Issaquah WA 98029. The land is managed by the state park but not generally open to the public. Look for the hard-to-spot gravel driveway ACROSS THE STREET from the East Lake Sammamish BOAT LAUNCH – by the park ranger’s house – NOT THE MAIN PARK ENTRANCE.
7:00-8:00 Wake-Up & Help Make Breakfast (Tues-Fri)
8:00-9:00 Breakfast & Clean-Up (Tues-Fri)
9:00-9:30 Songs, Stories & Stretches (Mon-Fri)
9:30-12:00 Morning Lessons with snack break at 10:45 (Mon-Fri)
12:00-1:00 Lunch & Games (Mon-Fri)
1:00-3:00 Afternoon Lessons with water break at 2:00 (Mon-Fri)
3:00-4:00 Camp Crafts, Creek Time & Berry Picking (Mon-Fri)
4:00-5:00 Take Turns Making Dinner & Studying Ethnobotany (Mon-Thu)
5:00-6:00 Dinnerime (Mon-Thu)
6:00-8:00 Evening Lessons & Field Trips (Mon-Thu)
8:00-9:00 Campfire Songs, Stories & S’mores (Mon-Thu)
Camp Leaders
Kim or Chris Chisholm will be on site all week directing staff instructors at our hallmark 6-1 average student-teacher ratio that’s so critical for safe and profound outdoor experiences. Read our FAQ’s for more details and check out camp testimonials dating all the way back to 1997.
Tuition
Cost for Wild Chefs & Herbal Medics is $1,175 if this is your first-ever overnight camp with us, or $1,075 if it’s your second overnight camp with us, or $975 if it’s your third or more, including all meals and most camping gear, although participants are encouraged to bring their own pillow, sleeping bags, pads, and tent if they have them already. We accommodate almost all food restrictions (our staff has many) but you may want to send along food for campers who are picky. Tuition includes choice of orienteering compass, recommended field guide, firesteel and other outdoor essentials depending on number of camps attended, age and availability.
Discounts are available including $10 off per additional week you attend this summer, and $10 off per additional family member attending this summer. For those who are on a tight budget, we have plenty of tents, sleeping bags, pads and other gear on our recommended packing list for overnight camps. Or click here to apply for financial aid from the Max Davis Scholaships Fund.
Registration Process
STEP 1 – Reserve your spots in camp by $200 deposits per overnight camp week via one of the following methods:
• Zelle using our email address with that extra “e” on skye plus try to add a note including camper name/age, camp start date/theme, plus your CONTACT INFORMATION (phone number is fine if system doesn’t allow sharing email) if we don’t already have your info since Zelle doesn’t automatically share that with us, or follow up right away with an email;
• Or use Venmo to @Chris-Chisholm-13 or • CashApp to $wolfschool but again, try to add your contact information, camper name, program theme and dates, or follow up via email;
• Or use Credit Card or Apple Pay by clicking here and follow up with an email;
• Or call us between 9am-9pm at 425-248-0253 ex 1 with a credit card to register over the phone;
• Or use PayPal system appearing below….
STEP 2 – If this is your camper’s first year with us, complete our once-in-a-lifetime Registration Form within one week of making your deposit. In case you’re having trouble downloading or making a copy of our Google Doc , please email us for a Word or PDF version of the registration form, and again, complete within one week to maintain your reservation. If your camper has attended Wolf Camp in the past, a new registration form is not needed.
STEP 3 – Pay balance during your summer camp weeks. We’ll email you an invoice this spring with camp prep info and balance payment options. All payments are non-refundable unless we refuse your registration. However, if you cancel (at any time for any reason is fine) we will save your payments as credit for you to use in future years, or you can choose to have us move the funds into our scholarship account if you prefer. The best practice is to make the minimum deposits to register, and then wait to pay the remaining balances during summer, but you are also welcome to pay your balance in advance if you prefer.
Refund Policy: Payments are not refundable unless we don’t accept your application. If you cancel for any reason, you may receive a full credit good through the following calendar year on appropriate and available programs listed on our schedule, although an additional deposit may be needed to secure your spot in the future program. If a program you sign up for is canceled and not rescheduled at a time you can attend, you may receive a full refund except in cases of natural (weather, geologic, wildfire, etc) disasters, grid failures, epidemics, government shutdowns, conflicts or curfews, or other unforeseen emergencies making it unsafe for staff and/or attendees to reach or use program locations, in which case all payments made will be held by us without expiration date for your future use in appropriate/available programs of your choice. Reasons include the expenditure of funds (property rentals, advertising, materials, admin staff time, etc.) long before programs take place, i.e. deposits make it feasible for Wolf Camp to schedule programs in the first place, but our mutually understood agreement is that Wolf Camp will run the program at the safest available time in the future. Finally, no refund, nor credit, is given if a participant is a no-show without prior notice, or asked to leave a program for inappropriateness as determined by our kids, youth and adult agreements for participation.
Camp Preparation: Agreements, Packing List, Health Protocols and FAQ’s
Recommended Packing List for Overnight Camps at Lake Sammamish (or click on your camp week for specialized packing lists when taking place at or traveling to other locations)
Agreements for Participation in Overnight Camps
Homesickness Protocol & Prevention
Other FAQ’s – Frequently Asked Questions (Most Asked Question: What are bathroom and sleeping arrangements like? Bathrooms are primitive, and we train campers in wilderness hygiene and private outdoor bathing methods as part of their learning experience. We provide camping tents, and campers may have (or bring) their own, or share one with others, depending on pandemic protocols. We recommend you bring your own pillow, sleeping bag and foam pad, although we have extras if needed. Click on packing list above for more details.)
Hygiene protocols will remain the same as last year as long as there’s still little evidence of Covid/Cold/Flu transmission in the outdoors with room to spread out. To start each day, campers must pass our health screening. If there are reports of group participants who came in contact with an infection, we may provide n95 masks to wear when less than 3-6 feet from others. As before the pandemic, we require hand sanitizing when sharing tools and materials, before entering toilets, and we train campers with proper hand washing after campers exit toilet facilities with doors left open between uses to ensure ventilation.
Full vaccinations are strongly encouraged – we follow the scientific consensus – with tetanus shot (usually given as part of the normal Tdap vaccine series) considered the most important in the field of outdoor education. Otherwise, we know that due to our 100% outdoor setting, combined with health screenings, contact tracing, supervised hand washing, bathroom ventilation, mask use when exposure has been reported in a group, and individual/family style tenting at overnight camps, the risk of disease transmission has been negligible at Wolf Camp, so other vaccination records are not required.
Read our FAQ’s for more details and register asap to give yourself or a loved one the gift of camp! Or email us to be put on our our list for this program in the future. We always keep your information absolutely private, and will never share it.