About Bill McConnell

Bill McConnell is a primitive wilderness survivalist, and lifelong outdoors man, that has been teaching primitive skills professionally since the mid 1990‘s, with an emphasis on the replication and use of aboriginal hunting weapons, and fishing tackle. After completing studies at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, with an Associates Degree in Visual Communications, Bill began applying his art skills to primitive skills, studying under such notables as; Jim Hamm, Errett Callahan, and Tom Brown Jr.  Bill spent a decade training under, and teaching alongside Brown, as an instructor at the Tracker school.

In 2006 Bill McConnell founded the Past Skills wilderness school in Bozeman, Montana where he teaches the finest primitive wilderness survival courses available anywhere in the world. Bill McConnell has been hunting exclusively with primitive weapons of his own manufacture for over 20 years. He has lived for years in a variety of primitive shelters, in a multitude of ecosystems countrywide and internationally. Bill and his Past Skills wilderness school have been featured in such publications as; Field and Stream, Sporting Classics, and Bugle and authored multiple articles for The Bulletin of Primitive Technology.

Bill was assistant Technical advisor to Tom Brown Jr. for the Paramount pictures movie “The Hunted” starring Tommy Lee Jones, and Benicio Del Toro. Bill made the flint knapped knives, and primitive traps for the movie, and was the on screen primitive skills action double for Benicio, lighting the hand drill coals, throwing the knives, etc. Benicio’s movie hideout was modeled after one of Bill’s primitive shelters. Bill McConnell worked for 5 years with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the White Mountain Apache tribe, as the tracking instructor for field operatives involved with monitoring the reintroduction of the Mexican Wolf. Bill McConnell is the vocalist of the ancient Apache chant, ‘Lipan Conjuring’ on the “Tool” album “10,000 Days”.

Bill McConnell has a permanent exhibit of Plains culture replications, at the museum in Roundup, Montana. Bill McConnell hosted season 7 of “Dual Survival” for the Discovery channel. Bill has been adopted and named by two of his favorite indigenous tribes; the White Mountain Apache, and the Kalahari Bushman. He is known as “Tracker” in Apache, and “Hunter” in Bushman. Bill McConnell is currently working on finishing up a book on the primitive archery of North America.