Atlatl

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Why Youth Year-Round Programs are Gender-Based

We have polled our campers and staff and have learned that during this formative time being with a group of any gender(s), masc, or femme, identifying peers is what supports them most in feeling safe, seen and celebrated. 

Though these groups have different names the curriculum arcs are similar throughout. We trust all campers and families to choose the group that most supports their identity and needs.

Artemis – for femme identifying youth, open to all

Atlatl – for masc identifying youth, open to all

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This monthly program for 9–14 year old young men and masculine-identifying youth will challenge, excite and deepen connections to nature, self and community.

Atlatl is held by young men and masculine-identifying youth, fathers, teens and elders working together to create projects, challenges and adventures that awaken a part of our human blueprint.

Pronounced “aht-lat,” Atlatl provides an energetic, social and creative time for emerging adolescent youth. Each month the child will be met with opportunities to strengthen their bodies, learn and develop skills and have new and fun experiences with young adult mentors, mature men and other young men and masculine-identifying youth their age.

Through wilderness skills and group challenges, youth develop empowered self-reliance as well as the ability to serve as part of a team. Nature serves as a powerful teacher of bravery, interconnected relationship, inner-resilience, and inspiration. Tracking, stalking, friction fire, tool-making, bird language, shelter-building, story, song, and more are tools to create caring and awake young adults.

At Atlatl we mix guided play-based learning with structured skill-building activities to help youth develop into capable, empowered, young men, supported by their connections to nature, self, peers and mentors.

Youth are given opportunities to learn and develop skills, test themselves in exhilarating situations and have new and fun experiences with mentors and other youth their age.

Our activities include a wide variety of team-building games, which require young men and masculine-identifying youth to flex their decision-making muscles, voice their ideas, and cultivate a plethora of leadership capacities, including awareness and sensory acuteness, self-care and care of others, quiet mind and patience, cooperation, empathy and embracing differences, puzzle solving, detecting patterns and tracking changes, and healthy assertiveness.

Atlatl will meet one Saturday per month beginning in the fall with an overnight in the spring.

We will be sharpening our wilderness skills and deepening our connection to nature through guided activities such as:

• Tracking
• Fire building and fire-by-friction
• Stalking and the art of camouflage
• Wandering with awareness
• Navigation
• Storytelling
• Discovering natural mysteries
• Shelter building
• Making natural cord and rope
• Stone tool making
• Practical camping and survival skills
• Being outdoors through different seasons and weather
• Games and play

What does Atlatl mean anyway?

The name Atlatl (aht-lat) comes from the Aztec language meaning extended arm. Though Cortez and his men called them estólica (spear-throwers) and feared them for their ability to puncture their chain mail and cotton armor.

The oldest version of the Atlatl tool was used over 30,000 years ago to hunt mammoths, and is still a used today by the First Nations people of Australia and New Guinea. Other modern day uses of the Atlatl include spear throwing for sport, with awards for both distance and accuracy. The farthest recorded throw was around 850 feet.

To us, the Atlatl represents a symbolic extension of our own arms into the natural world, into our communities, into our ancestry and history, and into the youth, allowing us to propel ourselves further than we could possibly hope to alone.

Register now and reserve your space in Atlatl today. Space is limited.

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