Field Philosophy Programs
Thinking with wilderness
Philosophy goes wild
Making sense of the world by engaging with it
01
Re-situating philosophy
If the ultimate subject of philosophy is the question of life – what it means to live and, subsequently, how one ought to live – then the proper place of the philosopher is not removed from the world, thinking about it abstractly, but rather engaged in the world – engaged with life – such that one may come to know what it is, in all of its details. Only after one has come to fully live life, may understanding and direction arise.
03
Engaging with the big questions, in the field
At Headwaters, we seek to engage with the big questions of our time. Our field philosophy programs are designed to do just that. Each course revolves around a particular topic of inquiry and takes place in a wilderness setting, establishing the conditions through which we think: engaging with these topics on an island campsite results in far different insights than doing so in a classroom, for the campsite implicitly invites nonhuman beings, and the wild place itself, into the conversation. We live with wilderness, read, think, write, and discuss, enabling a unique experience of philosophical practice that is unlike any other, for it takes place in the field, transforming from a solitary experience into a relational one.
02
The philosopher as wilderness traveller
If there is a better way to fully live life – to come to deeply know the world – than travelling in community with wilderness, we have not found it. Stripped of the ephemerality of technological culture, what remains is only that of inherent and immutable value: living beings and their relations, in which is located the essence of life on this planet.
04
A rare gift: the chance to think
Philosophy may sound confusing, or like it is limited to those with particular background knowledge. On the contrary, we find that everyone has the capacity to engage in philosophy, as it is nothing but the love of wisdom tied to the practice of intentional thinking. In a culture sorely lacking in slow, unhurried thinking, we find that our field philosophy courses offer an opportunity to consider important questions and to find deeper meaning. An opportunity that is missing in the day-to-day. Absolutely no prior knowledge is required, only an openness to experience, to think, and to share.
What the Wilderness Trip Aspect of Our Field Philosophy Programs Looks Like
All of our trips are traditional. The lakes, rivers, and portages we travel constitute an interconnected trail system that has been in use by the living beings of the land for thousands of years: we voyage on ancient paths, never the first to have done so and hopefully never the last. What we see has been seen and what we experience has been experienced, but to us it is new, and so long as the wilderness remains free and our hearts remain open, we shall be pioneers of the spirit.
A Day on Trip
We travel shorter distances, with more days spent at camp and fewer on the water, than we do in our Wilderness Voyages, in order to give more attention to the philosophical component of the programs.
How we live, however, remains the same as our Wilderness Voyages: We travel by canoe and wooden paddle, we portage on foot. We cook on an open fire that we made ourselves, preparing each meal communally. Our food consists of homemade recipes long perfected for the canoe voyage, with fresh baking savoured when we please. We sleep in tents. We awake when our bodies are rested, rather than by the clock. We gather blueberries from the land and our water from the lake. We travel as according to how the weather dictates. We take rest days whenever we find a good spot. We live without haste, for the trip itself is the point.
Summer 2025 Field Philosophy Programs
To find out more about what our programs are like, take a deeper dive into the Headwaters Experience and the Headwaters Philosophy.
All of our summer 2025 trips are beginner friendly, with no prior experience necessary.
Siblings, Friends, and Past Participants Discount
-
Those who join a program as a group of two or more (such as family members, friends, and colleagues) are eligible for a 10% reduction per-person of the program cost.
-
Anyone who has previously taken part in a Headwaters program automatically receives a 10% reduction in the program cost of all future programs they partake in.
-
A section of the registration form will ask about the above two categories. If either are applicable, the 10% discount will be automatically applied to your final payment cost.
-
Only one 10% discount may be applied per-participant.
To learn more about financial supports, paddle over to our Economic Theory page.
"Our life is frittered away by detail […] let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand"
~ Henry David Thoreau