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Tom
Brown Jr.
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Tom Brown Jr. at the Caretaker
class, Nov 2001
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Tom Brown Jr. is a renowned outdoorsman, tracker, teacher, and author of 16 books.
He was born Jan 29, 1950 in South Tom's River, NJ. Starting when he was only seven Tom
was taught by Stalking Wolf (Grandfather), an Apache elder, shaman, and scout.
For ten years Tom was mentored in the skills of tracking, wilderness survival,
and awareness. After Stalking Wolf's death when Brown was 17, Tom spent the
next ten years living in the wilderness throughout the United States with no
manufactured tools - in most instances not even a knife - perfecting these
skills and teachings. Brown came back to" civilization" looking for
people interested in all he had learned. He felt lost and confused until a
local sheriff who knew Tom called him in to track a lost person. Tom found the
missing person and in the process, found his path in life.
For the next few years, Brown earned his reputation as
"The Tracker" finding lost people, and sometimes fugitives from the
law. Tom has since worked with many law enforcement agencies throughout the
United States and internationally on cases involving abducted children, lost
hunters and hikers, and fugitives. He wrote his experiences in a book titled The
Tracker which was published in 1978. Soon after, "Reader's
Digest" ran a condensed version of his story, and included information on
the Tracker School. That was twenty years ago, and today Tom Brown's Tracking,
Nature, and Wilderness Survival School is the largest school of its kind,
teaching people from all over the world in all walks of life who share an
interest in learning the simplicity of a natural way of living.
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Tom Brown Jr. at the Caretaker
class, Nov 2001
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The school offers many different week-long courses covering
all aspects of living close to nature. Some courses cover the physical wilderness survival skills.
These classes gradually take the student to the point where he or she can
enter the woods and live comfortably with no man-made supplies. The student
learns how nature provides for all of our physical needs. The other group of
courses stress the philosophical and spiritual aspects of living close to the
Earth. Traditional Native American ceremonies such as the sweat lodge and
medicine pipe ceremony are taught and experienced. In these classes, the
student also learns to use and trust their own "inner vision" or
sixth sense. All of Tom's courses are attended by both men and women from all
over the country.
Although different course tracks are offered, all classes
incorporate nature awareness skills and the philosophical overtones of living
close to Mother Earth. To quote from Tom's school brochure: "I believe that to be "one" with the Earth, it is not enough to
just have good survival skills, but a more rounded philosophy and skill level.
That is why each of my courses cover equally the three major categories of
survival: tracking, nature awareness, and the ancient philosophy of the
Earth."
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Tom is the author of 16 books (for an overview of his books see
the Booklist).
Seven are field guides for living in nature. The other books are based upon
the life and adventures of Tom as a student of Stalking Wolf, tracker of
criminals and searcher of spiritual truths.
| The following quote from The Journey, tells us a lot about Tom Brown, Jr.:
"Mankind must reach a balance with nature and live in harmony where the
quest for spirit is more important than the gods of the flesh. Unless we can
change, and change quickly on both a physical and spiritual level, we all soon
must face the Final Winter."
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Tom Brown Jr. at the Caretaker
class, Nov 2001
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- Tom
speaks of his underlying philosophy in the very moving Preface to his book The
Search: "Tom's
World".
- The above photographs were taken at the Nov 2001 Caretaker
class. To view more pictures of this class, please visit the Earth Caretaker website -
November
2001 Caretaker Class section.
- To learn more about the Tracker School, visit the Tracker
School page on this site, or visit the Tracker
School website.
Stalking Wolf (Grandfather)
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The following bio has been compiled from Tom's books. Stalking
Wolf was raised free of the reservations in the mountains of northern Mexico.
Born in the 1870s during a time of great warfare and violence, he was part of
a band of Lipan Apache that never surrendered. He was taught the traditional
ways of his people and excelled as a healer and a scout. When he was twenty, a
vision sent him away from his own people, and for the next sixty-three years
he wandered the Americas, seeking teachers and learning the old ways of many
native peoples. Stalking Wolf traveled the height and breadth of the Americas,
living on his own as a free man. He never held a job, drove a car, paid taxes,
or participated in modern society.
When he was eighty-three years old, he
met his grandson Rick's friend, Tom. He
recognized that boy as the person he would spend his final years
with, teaching him all he knew. That boy was Tom Brown, and Tom
became the recipient of not only all that Stalking Wolf had learned
during his travels, but the distillation of hundreds of years of
Apache culture as well. These teachings are what Tom teaches at his
famous Tracking, Nature, and Wilderness Survival School. (The above picture appeared in the
original Reader's Digest article about Tom Brown in November 1978. You can decide for
yourself how authentic it is.) |
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