ELK Center
Ecological Literacy on the Klamath
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Our home -- the Klamath River...
... in the Siskiyou Mountains.
The ELK Center is based on the Klamath River, in the ancestral lands of the
Karuk and Shasta tribes. The nearest town is Happy Camp, CA. Our base is fifty
acres of private land surrounded on three sides by national forest.
The private land is a recovering gold mine. As it heals from the scars of
civilization it supports a similar process in those who come here. The ELK
Center is committed to restoration of land, reconnection of true community, and
resistance against that which would destroy land and community.
Working with this private land and the surrounding area, including a designated
wilderness area, the ELK Center provides opportunities to learn and practice
survival arts. These are the ancient yet still-present skills used to relate to the
world in order to provide ourselves with food, clothing, shelter, and much more.
Projects may include herbal medicine, hide tanning, wild foods, friction fire
making, basketweaving, tracking, stone tool knapping, or other skills depending
on the season and available facilitators.
These skills are fun and important to our survival as a species, but their impact
on our lives can reach even further when they are practiced in the context of
healing from, and resistance to, civilization. This much-misused word is
intended here to mean the alienating and damaging relationship, which we have
all experienced, based on exploiting what is natural in the world and in
ourselves to feed an increasingly unstable system of control.
Along with physical skills, the ELK Center offers opportunities to explore
emotional and relational skills. The alienation that we have been told to accept
as “normal” can be overcome and true connections can be made to the land and
to each other.
The ELK Center is in the process of formation and change (as we hope it always
will be) and we welcome your input and involvement.
