About
Primitive Pursuits offers Preschool Programs, Youth Programs, Teen Programs, and Summer Camp where participants have harvested cattails, built shelters, cooked, crafted, and carved a wooden spoon. The program also offers Adult Opportunities, including an Adult Program Winter Sleepover and an Adult Earth Skills program.
• Ages: 3–18 years old
Since 1998, it has been Primitive Pursuits' mission to steward the health of the community by fostering life-long relationships with the natural world through exceptional mentoring and nature education. Each year, hundreds of diverse youth from Tompkins County and beyond reconnect with the natural world through year-round nature immersion programs. Primitive Pursuits is a non-profit 4-H program in partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County. Staff share experience teaching in primary schools and universities as well as other wilderness education programs, and their interests include birding, tree lore and cultivation, bow-making, primitive technology, winter survival, permaculture, and animal tracking. The program’s curriculum has helped to shape college degree programs and is available in print. Primitive Pursuits recognizes that the land where they live and work exists within the territory of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ (Cayuga Nation) and acknowledges the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy for their enduring stewardship of this place. Primitive Pursuits works daily to achieve a cultural intervention that will bring back into modern lives a necessary and healthy relationship with the natural world and within human communities.
“We were BLOWN away by the community and engagement our son felt this summer. He came home excited to share all the new things he had learned that day (from day 1!) – as well as show us his impressive collection of sticks, rocks, bows and arrows, cordage, etc. Primitive Pursuits has fostered such a love of outdoor learning and he loved seeing counselors through the weeks (especially Pickle!) who shared his excitement for being outside and exploring. We can’t wait to send him – and his younger sister – again next year, and we’ll be ready for the muddy clothes, collection of sticks, and stories of their adventures each afternoon. Thank you, Primitive Pursuits, for making this nervous mom feel great about dropping my kiddo off at camp each day!!” - S. W. Parent
Last updated February 8, 2026.
• Ages: 3–18 years old
Since 1998, it has been Primitive Pursuits' mission to steward the health of the community by fostering life-long relationships with the natural world through exceptional mentoring and nature education. Each year, hundreds of diverse youth from Tompkins County and beyond reconnect with the natural world through year-round nature immersion programs. Primitive Pursuits is a non-profit 4-H program in partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County. Staff share experience teaching in primary schools and universities as well as other wilderness education programs, and their interests include birding, tree lore and cultivation, bow-making, primitive technology, winter survival, permaculture, and animal tracking. The program’s curriculum has helped to shape college degree programs and is available in print. Primitive Pursuits recognizes that the land where they live and work exists within the territory of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ (Cayuga Nation) and acknowledges the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy for their enduring stewardship of this place. Primitive Pursuits works daily to achieve a cultural intervention that will bring back into modern lives a necessary and healthy relationship with the natural world and within human communities.
“We were BLOWN away by the community and engagement our son felt this summer. He came home excited to share all the new things he had learned that day (from day 1!) – as well as show us his impressive collection of sticks, rocks, bows and arrows, cordage, etc. Primitive Pursuits has fostered such a love of outdoor learning and he loved seeing counselors through the weeks (especially Pickle!) who shared his excitement for being outside and exploring. We can’t wait to send him – and his younger sister – again next year, and we’ll be ready for the muddy clothes, collection of sticks, and stories of their adventures each afternoon. Thank you, Primitive Pursuits, for making this nervous mom feel great about dropping my kiddo off at camp each day!!” - S. W. Parent
Last updated February 8, 2026.
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