Popular ‘Outdoors woman’ workshop registration now open

WASILLA — Valley ladies take note: those interested in sharpening their outdoor skills in a range of areas from field dressing game to winter survival should break out the calendar and set aside some time in early March.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is gearing up for its popular “Becoming an Outdoors-Woman” winter program, and those interested in participating in the March 5-6 workshop are urged to register soon, as the annual event is expected to fill up fast. The winter workshop will be held at the Victory Bible Camp in Chickaloon.

“We are about half full right now,” Kirk Lingofelt, a Fish and Game shooting sports and outreach, said Friday. “The event out at the Bible camp is pretty popular.”

Lingofelt added that many of the popular “Beyond Becoming an Outdoors-Woman” one-day seminars — such as gun cleaning and maintenance and fur sewing — planned in the coming weeks are already full.

The deadline to apply for the March event is Feb. 19, and the program fee is $275 for those 18 and older. The workshops span a weekend, beginning at noon on Friday and ending around 2 p.m. Sunday. According to Fish and Game, this year’s event boasts some 36 hands-on sessions that will include classes on firearm safety, shotguns, archery, field dressing fish and game, ice fishing, fly tying, wild edibles, cross-country skiing, avalanche safety, snowshoeing, smoking fish, fly-fishing, Dutch oven cooking, dog mushing and winter survival.

Meals and lodging as well as instruction, program materials and use of demonstration equipment, are included in the fee. Participants typically share space in the Bible camp cabins.

The program is one of three held annually in the state, and each region usually tailors its offering to the local population, Lingofelt said. Fairbanks hosts a summer workshop, while a Southeast Alaska program is typically held in May. The first Becoming an Outdoors-Woman weekend was held in Fairbanks in 1996. This year’s regional workshop will host around 130 participants, Lingofelt said.

“We started the Southcentral program in 2002 and moved out to the Bible camp in 2007,” he said. “It has been fun to watch it develop.”

Lingofelt said this year’s winter program lineup iss shaping up to be a good one.

“We are going to have an outdoors photography course this year and the chainsaw class is back,” he said. “The chainsaws have been pretty popular.”

Daily sessions are typically divided into thirds, with a shooting component, a fishing component and an “other” area like Dutch oven cooking. Evenings are turned over to guest speakers that range from biologists to state troopers and “ice breaker” sessions where participants often snack on cooking from an earlier afternoon session.

Some 70 volunteers sign on each year to share their expertise or help put on the program in some way, Lingofelt said, adding that many times the student becomes the instructor.

“Quite often we get instructors who have been through a course and want to give back to the program,” he said. “They discover a passion for something and want to share it.”

While the program is targeted at women, men are welcome to participate.

“As a state agency, we can’t discriminate,” Lingofelt said. “We get a few guys — one year we got an office group. They are welcome. As long as they are comfortable with it and OK with wearing the ‘I am an outdoors woman T-shirt.’ I wear one and I have been doing this for 17 years.”

He added that the women who sign on for the program are great students.

“We rarely get cancellations. They love being there,” he said.

For more information, contact Lingofelt at 267-2534 or coordinator Tracy Smith at 267-2403. For online information, visit www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=outdooreducation.bow

Contact reporter Steven Merritt at 352-2269 or steven.merritt@frontiersman.com