What a world opens up with an animal track! A single print can tell you that a female badger passed by here on her regular early morning walk, slowly, alertly scenting the right side, intently looking for hunting opportunities. And this trail leads you to countless questions about the area you are crossing: what animals does the badger hunt, what do the prey eat; is it a mother with cubs, where could her den be?
Learning tracking or other stone age skills opens up a spectrum of possibilities. One experience leads to another, and thus to richer interaction with nature. Whether you are an avid outdoorsman or a "newbie," the first time, as you sleep without a sleeping bag in a branch hut, as you blow embers from fire drilling to a flame, or make a cord from plant fibers, you are always getting closer to our ancestors' way of being embedded in their environment.
The lessons of the SOS in tracking, nature observation and other arts of wilderness living are based on the knowledge of the indigenous people. They have a philosophy of respect and reverence for the earth. The classes combine lectures with practical work, so that the student learns techniques as well as their background. This way should lead to the fact that after the course week the traces and the material, with which is worked, itself becomes the teacher.
In the last 39 years we have introduced several thousand people of all ages and different professions to these skills. While most of the learners are simply nature lovers, others apply what they have learned in their special fields of interest (wildlife and plant biology, education, alpinism, photography, scouting...).