Instructor Spotlight
Add your body text We are grateful to our talented new instructors sharing their time and expertise with the ICL community this fall. One of them, Keith Farrar , is teaching two Wilderness Survival classes and four First Aid/CPR workshops. After his originally scheduled Wilderness Survival class and three First Aid/CPR workshops filled immediately, Keith generously added another session of each. Keith has taught outdoor survival and primitive skills for 20 years and First Aid/CPR for more than 12 years. Before becoming an instructor, he spent 30 years as a professional photographer, running a wedding, portrait, and event photography business and working part time for the Associated Press. Keith, his wife Stephanie, and their two sons moved from Las Vegas to California to be near family, lived there for 13 years, and relocated to St. George in 2024. They first discovered St. George during an RV trip and loved it even more after settling here. Keith learned about ICL from his wife a year ago and began taking classes. Recognizing the value of First Aid/CPR and nature skills for ICL members, he volunteered to teach—and we are grateful he did! While living in California, Keith’s passion for hiking and backpacking inspired him to expand his outdoor skills. At the School of Self-Reliance, he studied survival, primitive, and general outdoor
Keith Farrar
skills, later becoming an instructor at the school. He still returns to California several times a year to teach there. For 15 years, he also led schoolchildren on nature walks through California State Parks and National Park Service sites, teaching them about plants, animal tracks, wildlife, and Chumash and Tongva cultures. Keith also studied first aid and wilderness medicine to complement his hiking, backpacking, and State Park volunteer work. When the Park Service needed First Aid/CPR instructors, he became certified and taught there for several years. He continues to return to California twice a year to teach First Aid/CPR at Malibu Creek State Park.
Keith earned First Aid/CPR instructor certifications from the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association, as well as Basic Life Support certification from the American Heart Association. He currently holds Emergency Care and Safety Institute certifications that allow him to teach as a private volunteer. He is also certified to teach the Stop the Bleed and California Epinephrine Auto-Injector programs. Although wilderness survival has no official certification system, Keith attained the levels of Master Bushcraft Instructor and Master-Level Wilderness Survival Instructor at the School of Self-Reliance. In his rare spare time, Keith regularly attends primitive-skills gatherings. Participants learn skills such as stone-tool making, friction fire-starting, hide tanning, and identifying edible and medicinal plants—all of which foster a closer connection with nature.
Keith genuinely enjoys sharing his knowledge and has seen firsthand how first aid and nature skills are valuable for people of all ages and experience levels. He recalls reassuring a boy with ADHD that a nature walk offered many ways to stay engaged, if one thing no longer held his attention, they would just move on to something else. As they walked, Keith explained everything from plants and animal tracks to Native American culture. After the walk, Keith taught him to start a friction fire and the boy called it his best field trip ever, proving nature skills can be of benefit to everyone. If you missed Keith’s fall classes, don’t worry, they will return this spring!
ICL Lifelong Learning
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