Tracking Connections Podcast

Hosted by Jon Young, Sarah Fontaine, and Aidan Young

We feature voices from around the world, sharing stories of working intentionally with deep nature connection in ways that transform lives, families, projects, and communities

Ep 40 ~ Survival Skills & Mentoring with Jason Knight

"I love that survival mentality, the will to solve problems...It gives you the confidence to tackle many things...You believe in your resourcefulness and those around you."

Episode Description

Feb 26, 2025, hosted by Jon Young, Sarah Fontaine, and Aidan Young

Jason Knight is the founder of Alderleaf Wilderness College, best-selling author of The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival, a Kamana graduate, and has been teaching nature connection, tracking, and survival for more than 25 years. 

In today's episode, we explore Jason's lifelong interest in survival, his unlikely path to meeting Jon, and how that led to being mentored by him and ultimately to Jason starting the first year-long nature connection immersion program for adults.  We reflect on how much the influence of Jon and Jason's work has spread across the world over the past 25+ years and the hope that brings, while remembering how much there is still left to be done. We also reflect on the inspiring power of learning survival skills and the confidence we gain from them, and how our deepening connection to nature tends to lead us to be called to mentor others in these same teachings. Enjoy!

Essential Wilderness Survival Skills - Online Course

What You Need to Know to Stay Alive in the Outdoors

Learn the core skills of survival - shelter, water, fire, and food - in a format that allows you to participate at home and at your own pace. Come away with practical life-saving skills, a deeper relationship with nature, greater confidence, and resources to share with your family & friends for fun and in emergencies.

In this course you will:

  • Understand the survival mindset
  • Learn how to build natural shelter
  • Experience how to make fire from friction
  • Learn how to find and purify water
  • Understand how to safely forage for wild foods
  • Know how to better prevent and prepare for emergencies


Jason is offering Tracking Connections Podcast listeners a special price, with Connection 1st as an affiliate partner.  The course normally sells for $397 but it's available for $97 if you sign up by March 4th. Your purchase will help support Jason's work and ours. 

Learn More or Sign Up Here

About Jason Knight

Jason is passionate about helping people learn wilderness survival skills. Since 1997, he's taught thousands of people, including training hundreds of adults to become survival instructors. He has consulted as a local wilderness skills expert for the Discovery Channel and has been featured on NPR. He is a cofounder and instructor at Alderleaf Wilderness College, one of the leading outdoor schools in the United States offering courses on wilderness survival to the general public and a broad range of clients including the US Forest Service, the Seattle Mountaineers, and the cast of the award-winning film Captain Fantastic. Jason is also the author of the best-selling book, The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival.


Our next episode will release on Mar 12, 2025.

The transcript for this episode is available here.

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Hosts

Jon Young

Jon Young is a deep nature-people-self connection researcher, mentor, naturalist, wildlife tracker, author, workshop leader, consultant and storyteller. Jon has been mentored in deep nature connection by his own grandmothers, Tom Brown, Jr. and a host of elders and experts. As a leader in the field of nature-based community building over 40 years, Jon’s research into the impact and significance of nature on mentoring, human intelligence, spirituality, well-being and development has influenced tens of thousands of people worldwide. Jon has authored and co-authored several seminal works on nature connection and connection mentoring, including What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World (2013), and Coyote's Guide to Connecting to Nature (2007). Jon has appeared in numerous documentaries including The Animal Communicator (2012). In 2016, he received the Champion of Environmental Education Award for his innovative work, which has inspired positive developments in the field, and fostered the growth of the nature connection movement on a global level.

Sarah Fontaine

Sarah is a Wildlife Tracker, Interspecies Communicator, and Nature Connection Facilitator. For over 25 years, Sarah has been practicing ways of deepening connection with self and nature through psychoeducation, neuroscience, somatics and energy awareness. Greatly informed by over 20 years as a professional Massage Therapist and Bodyworker, her studies and practice include Interpersonal Neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Trauma Integration, Emotional Clearing, Craniosacral Therapy, Chakra-work, Traditional Chinese Medicine Meridians and Five Elements theory. She has studied wildlife tracking through Shikari Tracker Mentoring with Jon Young and Josh Lane, Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School, and Cybertracker Conservation. She is a graduate of the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, and studied Interspecies Communication with Anna Breytenbach and Wynter Worsthorne. She currently offers Wildlife Tracking courses, pathways for applying neuroscience and energy awareness to nature connection practices, and co-facilitates online programs for deep nature connection at Living Connection 1st.

Aidan Young

Aidan is a musician, naturalist, and mentor. Over the past 20+ years, he has mentored hundreds of musicians, including over a dozen that went on to top music schools, performed on stage over a thousand times, mentored youth and adults in nature connection, including Kamana services, and guided people on their creative paths as a personal mentor. He is a graduate of the Kamana Program and experienced in the Shikari Tracker Training Program, has served on several Art of Mentoring acorns, helped produce The 512 Project, plays guitar, bass, piano, and mandolin, sings, and writes songs. He currently offers music lessons and personal mentoring and lives in Los Altos, CA with his wife Mystical and their three children.