Tamarack Song

Tamarack Song, naturalist and author, is a leading authority on world cultures and surviving in the wild. Raised to embrace nature by his grandmother but disenchanted with a traditional life, he traveled across the country — a self-proclaimed “wandering Zen seeker” — then came back home to learn the ways of the indigenous tribes of the area. He learned how to commune with nature, to reap its gifts and become skilled in living as the ancestors once did. He took lifetime vows of poverty and service, and devoted forty years to study and reflection on the world’s religions, languages, and indigenous cultures. Zen kept appearing in unrelated traditions, and he realized Zen’s universality.

Song is the director, founder, and lead instructor at the Teaching Drum Outdoor School in northern Wisconsin, where his mission is to return balance to the lives of those who live without it. Founded in 1987, Teaching Drum is internationally known for its year-long wilderness immersion program, as well as its wilderness and personal development classes. The purpose of the school is to aid students in reconnecting with nature and their ancestors, and surviving in the wild. The school has been featured on MTV’s True Life: I’m Living Off The Grid and CBC News: Sunday – Real Survivor.

Song’s other books include Whispers of the Ancients: Native Tales for Teaching, Healing in Our Time and Journey to the Ancestral Self.