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Craig Caudill is the Chief Instructor at Nature Reliance School. Craig was blessed to grow up with parents that enjoyed the outdoors. He spent his childhood years exploring creeks, and woods at his home and at the family farm. He spent many weekends with his dad and other friends, sleeping in tipis and lean to’s in reenactment events as well as caves and other wild places. He also spent a great deal of time hunting and fishing, and was taught very important “woods ethics” by his dad.
Two experiences led him to desire a deeper understanding of the things around him. On a hunting trip, his dad told him to walk out a ridge and meet him at “the big white oak tree”. Not knowing what an oak tree was, but feeling embarrassed to tell his dad the truth, he trekked off and quickly walked too far and got lost for a few hours, before he was found. The other was when he got caught up in the “Rambo” fascination and he walked into the woods to “test himself” for thirty days with nothing more than the clothes on his back, and a big knife on his belt. This was the first time, he learned that nature has a certain way to humble you. He left the experience, humbled yet eager to learn the many things that the woods had taught him he did not know.
From that point forward he immersed himself in learning about and studying nature. During his spring breaks, he backpacked rather than heading to Florida and spent all his free time either in the woods or paddling rivers, creaks and streams throughout Kentucky. As an adult he purchased a farm with nothing more than a poorly logged landscape and a small opening in it. He cooperatively worked with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Natural Resources to help bring that farm’s wildlife, water and trees closer to their original ecology.
He was recently trained in primitive skills and survival methodology by Richard Cleveland of Earth School in North Carolina, an absolutely wonderful teacher. After taking the course he realized that many of the things that Mr. Cleveland taught and that other people call survival, he had been doing for fun his entire life. With that realization, he formed Nature Reliance School to help others find their way in the woods, streams, and other natural places around them.
Mr. Caudill has written many outdoors-related articles for magazines including Kentucky Afield, and Wilderness Way, as well as local area newspapers. He loves teaching both adults and youth, especially to those who are new to outdoor experiences.