Casey Nutt

Casey was born and raised in Berkeley, growing up fishing and sailing around the Berkeley Pier. Casey's grandfather, a university level wilderness guide and english professor, was a very influential figure in his life. He brought casey on endless backcountry trips as a boy, mentoring him in wilderness skills. By the age of 8 Casey was thouroughly obsessed with wilderness survival, and read books on the subject over and over again, on buses, trains, in bed, and at school. Casey was introduced to Carpentry by his father who showed him the basics at an early age. He built his first sail boat from a plank and some sticks when he was 9. Most weekends as a boy Casey was unleashed on a local junkyard/building playground where he could build anything he imagined. School was never a great fit for Casey, but he did take off in the theatre department as head set builder and techie. Casey's unrest during highschool led him to build a large arsenal of non-lethal weaponry from bows, arrows, swords, spears axes and shields. He would regularly call together everyone he knew and throw big battles in abandoned urban settings. Casey practiced Kung-Fu a lot in those days, but in later years has moved more into the study of Aikido and other non-conflict martial arts.

Casey worked as a pizza delivery boy through highscool saving up money to travel. He hit the road the day after graduating high school. He began travelling around North America, working and living at different national parks, farms, and communes. And always wherever he went, building things. His travels took him eventually to Europe, Indonesia, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico and the Middle East. In his travels casey was introduced to Permaculture, and became obsessed with water catchment/filtration and passive solar technology. Casey also eventually found himself at Rabbitstick Rendesvous (a yearly primitive skills gathering) and felt that he had finally found his people. Here he met an amazing mentor named Lynx who he lived and studied with in the mountains of New Mexico, building a solid foundation in primitive survival skills.

College never excited Casey and he avoided it like the plague, but eventually he heard about a school in Washington that taught people how to build wooden boats of all sizes. Finally he had found what he was seeking! After graduating from the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, Casey began apprenticing under an old shipwright in a boatyard back in Berkeley. Eventually Casey went off on his own as an independent shipwright and never looked back. He has done major structural rebuilds on a number of sail and power boats ranging from 30-50', replacing planks, keels, stems, decks and cabins among other things. He also trained at the Skinboat School with Corey Freedman and developed a passion for the beauty and functionality of skin-on-frame sailboats and kayaks.

He now combines all his passions for primitive skills in his work as a found instructor of TrackersBAY and program director for TrackersTEAMS. On any given day with Trackers Casey finds himself tanning hides, sailing, tracking animals, leading archery wargames and building boats.