Jason Morse
Fermented Foods and Beverages
Jason is an avid plant and mushroom forager, hunter, tracker with an educational background in sustainability. He enjoys all aspects of learning and incorporating primitive skills into his daily life. He has spent over a year living outdoors while participating in outdoor education, hiking the Appalachian trail and rock climbing around the country. He lives off of a diet full of acorns, wild mushrooms, venison, wild fruits and wild greens. He currently works in the field of sustainability with a focus on energy efficiency. He is generally fascinated and constantly learning about ecology and is excited to share his knowledge with others.
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Jason will be teaching a class on how to ferment foods and beverages, including lacto-fermentation, vinegars, wines and meads, kombucha, and more!
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Julieann Hartley
Acorn Processing
Julieann Hartley is a local music therapist and nutritional therapist. After Julieann hiked the Appalachian trail in 2015, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease and began seeking out wild foods as a way of healing her body. Instead of counting miles, Julieann now focuses on counting plant and animal species while she is out adventuring. She loves to teach others about the plants and their uses, believing that education is key to sustainable land conversation. Her favorite wild foods are acorns, wintercress greens, hen of the woods mushrooms, dandelions and black locust flowers.
Julieann will be teaching a class about foraging and preparing acorns and will be providing a recipe for her favorite food of all time: acorn pancakes.
Joshua Pavese
Making a Farm Stool
Joshua is a maker of useful farm implements/and everyday household objects from spoons to chairs to chopsticks, an avid gardener that enjoys wandering through a large wood and is curious about the uses of old tools. Come join him at this years gathering to make a farm stool. Sure is a fine thing to sit upon and dream.
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Joshua will be teaching a class on creating a farm stool! Students will harvest greenwood, and learn how to split the wood into legs and carve a seat. They will also learn to work with the grain, the importance of different moisture levels in the parts of the stool, and much more!
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Tim Swanson
Wood Carving: Spoons, Forks, and
Fishing Hand Lines
Tim Swanson is the founder of Owl Eyes Wilderness Survival , a “traveling” nature connection and wilderness survival school for people of all ages. He holds a double Bachelor’s Degree in Adventure Education Leadership and Adventure Therapy (Unity College). He is a Level 1 Certified Animal Tracker (CyberTracker) and a Wilderness First Responder (SOLO). He is passionate about educating our children/teens/adults about nutrition, natural awareness, equality, and hopes to spread his love of nature through the practice of wilderness survival.
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Tim will be focusing on wood carving, always a favorite class! He is also known to jump into some archery or primitive fire, and will hopefully be talked into running the trade blanket again this year!
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Kate Wentworth
Animal Fat Rendering and Salve Making
Kate Wentworth lives in Passadumkeag, Maine, where she is building her off-grid homestead. Sustainable living is very important to her and she incorporates the concept of zero-waste into her everyday life, as well as her products at Bear Hand Necessities. Kate has spent nearly a decade honing her wilderness and homesteading skills, and has challenged herself under extreme conditions by appearing in two seasons of Naked and Afraid. She is passionate about teaching others how to be more self-sufficient and live closer to the Earth.
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Kate will be teaching how to render animal fat and and then add medicinal plants to make a healing salve.
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Mike Dube
Tracking
Come learn the Ancient Art of Tracking with Mike Dube'. Mike teaches Traditional Native Skills through his School, "Taconic Challenges". This will be his 3rd year at Moose Ridge Gathering, teaching Tracking Classes and telling traditional Native stories around the fire.
You'll learn side-tracking, aging with Wisdom Keepers, 10 step drill, Stalking Circle, patterns, Cutting Sign, and track casting. Your connection to Mother Earth will expand.
Tim Mullen
Coming Soon...
Tim grew up in Northeast Ohio bow hunting and fly fishing and has studied herbalism, wild foods and foraging, and outdoor living/survival skills in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maine. He is also a Registered Maine Guide for hunting and fishing. Tim is the property manager and a resident instructor here at Moose Ridge.
Caelan Dunwoody
Fire Kits and Bottle Nets
Caelan took an interest in primitive skills and the outdoors at an early age. He particularly enjoys blacksmithing, tanning & leather-work, and archery, as well as emergency medicine. He has completed his Wilderness EMT and Advanced EMT certifications, and is pursuing further training towards a career in wilderness emergency medicine and back country rescue.
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Caelan will be leading a class in making a fire kit, (including char cloth) and starting a fire with flint & steel and other methods. He will also be teaching knotted twine bottle nets.
Marie Somers
Homeopathy and Cheese Making
Marie resides in Chester, New Hampshire with her husband and a large amount of farm animals, including sheep, cows, chickens, pigs, and silver fox rabbits. Living in a world of many passions, she is a Naturopathic Doctor who has specialized in homeopathy, herbology, and holistic medicine for 48 years. She will be teaching acute homeopathic medicine and cheesemaking.
Laura Wolfer
Edible and Medicinal Plant Walk
Laura has graduate degrees in both Molecular Biology and Archaeology, and has worked as a DNA scientist and a field archaeologist. She combines these two paths into a passion for studying and teaching evolutionary medicine and health. She is an avid gardener, forager, artist and crafter, and mother to Caelan, Leah, and Lainy.
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Laura will be leading a walk around the Moose Ridge property and talking about the many edible and medicinal plants and trees that grow there.
Kristee Nichols
Wet Felting
Kristee resides in Connecticut and has recently retired from the medical field. As an outdoors enthusiast and camper, she found her passion in 2008 when she began attending primitive skills gatherings. She enjoys travelling throughout the U.S., newly learning the "old ways". Among her favorite skills: wet felting, bowl burning, stone tools and gourd crafts. She has recently begun teaching at local events.
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Kristee will be teaching a wet felting class. Participants will leave with a felted pouch. During the wet felting process, Kristee will also demonstrate needle felting techniques.
Daniela Connelly
Bread Baking
Daniela grew up in Ecuador, Switzerland, and the UK, but has since settled in NH on an organic farm that provides sustainably raised meat, vegetables, honey, and maple syrup to local residents. She is an avid gardener and orchardist (especially apples!), and enjoys growing food and preserving the harvest for the winter months.
As an MD, one of Daniela’s passions is bringing medical and nutritional care to underprivileged populations, and she has recently returned from California, where she provided healthcare for migrant farm workers for several years.
Daniela will be teaching a bread class, giving us the tips and tricks she has learned in her own bread baking practice. Loaves will be baked in our wood fired oven, and plenty of fresh butter will be on hand!
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Lainy Dunwoody
Kid's Camp
Lainy is a junior in high school, and is interested in animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, and herbalism. She recently started an organic, loose leaf tea company:
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Lainy will be leading several activities at the Kid's Camp.
Leah Dunwoody
Kids Camp
Leah is a student at University of Southern Maine, majoring in music and psychology. She plays the clarinet and piano and enjoys taking long walks and baking.
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Leah will be leading several activities at the Kid's Camp.
Tony Pike
Flint Knapping and Atlatls
Tony grew up in a self reliant household in Missouri. Hunting, fishing, trapping and gardening was a daily task to help feed his large family. He took an interest in aboriginal skills at a very young age. He was building bows, arrows and working hides by the time he was 5 years old. He studied the Native American tools and campsites he found along the banks of the nearby rivers which sparked his curiosity even further. At age 10 he was practicing flintknapping and trying to replicate artifacts for his experiments. In college he took every archeology class available to him. Primitive skills and amateur archeology being his primary past time for most of his life. Sharing these skills with others brings him great joy. In 2017 Tony starred on the Discovery Channel series “Bushcraft Buildoff.” While not often on screen Tony has trained or trained with many of the people you see on survival tv today.
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Penny Hewitt
Plaited Willow Bark Baskets
Among other things, Penny Hewitt is a homeschooling mom, craftsperson and homesteader, who is inspired by the traditions of other cultures to revitalize and share skills useful to everyday life. She strives to grow, craft and participate in seasonal harvests for as many of her needs and wants as possible. She is also grateful to be part of a generous community of talented makers and growers with whom she trades skills, ideas and wares. She uses hand-harvested resources from the forest, letting the qualities of varying materials dictate their use.
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Penny will be teaching diagonal plaited willow bark baskets. Learn the technique of diagonal plaiting while creating a beautiful and useful vessel of willow bark. You will have some options in color and shape to make your own unique basket, approximately 5"x4". Materials fee $25
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Jonathan Shapiro
Natural History Walk, Tree I.D., and Animal Skulls
Jonathan lives in Vermont and spends his days tracking, making traditional crafts, hunting, canoeing, picking up roadkill, and listening to birdsong. He believes that an accurate understanding of and deep connection to our wild surroundings are necessary for all people to thrive. He runs the Fox Paw School, where he teaches adults about wildlife tracking, bird language, weather, plants, awareness, and nature connection.
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Jonathan will be leading a Naturalist walk, where you will learn about the ecology of the Maine forest and the many plants and animals that live there! He will also be teaching a class on the analysis of animal skulls.
Doug Householder
Shelter and Water Purification
"Arkansas Doug" Householder has trained in and taught survival from the tropical jungles of South America and Hawaii to the Sonoran Desert, but calls the Ozark Mountains home. He is a highly skilled outdoorsman who teaches at top survival schools. You may recognize him as founder of Earth Trekker Bushcraft.
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Doug will be teaching shelter building and methods to purify water in the wild.
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Emilie Rigby
Nature activities for kids
Emilie Rigby is a green woodworker, botanical illustrator and pyrographer. She lives in a cottage on a lake in Upstate NY where she makes art, chops wood, and enjoys nature. She has a degree in Environmental Science which has served as inspiration and foundational knowledge for her artwork and carvings. She believes in the importance of sourcing her raw materials locally and finds value in making beautiful things out of otherwise discarded materials. Emilie has been carving for 10 years, and has been teaching woodworking, handcraft, survival skills and naturalist skills at various places across the country for the past 8 years. She understands how difficult it can be to be an absolute beginner at something, and makes a point of welcoming all skill levels in her classes.
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Emilie will be providing fun, Nature based games activities for our younger attendees.
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Spoon Shop — Woodworking by Emilie Rigby
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Dave Boynton
Wilderness Medicine Concepts
Knots for Homestead & Primitive Skills
Dave has a wild and circuitous background, including outdoor education and non-profit director, farm-to-table brewpub owner, and small business advisor/instructor. He has a bachelors in Outdoor Education from UNH and an MBA in Organizational and Environmental Sustainability from Antioch NE. Always returning to the outdoors, David was a USA Canoe/Kayak Instructor, an AMGA Rock Climbing Guide, apprentice at Maine Primitive Skills School, and is a part time instructor for SOLO teaching wilderness medicine.
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Dave will be teaching a Wilderness Medicine Concepts class. Learn the overreaching concepts of emergency medicine and short-term critical care in a wilderness environment. We will explore practical skills, real stories, and a discussion of what is most important to know when you are outside the 'golden hour' of access to definitive care.
He will also be teaching a class on knots that are useful for primitive skills and around the homestead, including for mechanical advantage and primitive trapping.
Becca Houghton
Ayurveda
Becca's studies have included meditation, yoga, natural medicine, wilderness skills, natural movement, community skills and personal development. She is a lifelong student but has accumulated a few relevant qualifications along the way: Board Certified Ayurveda Health Counselor, Registered Maine Guide, MovNat Certified Trainer, Reiki Practitioner, Wilderness First Responder, Mom.
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Becca will be facilitating a class and discussion on the ancient teachings of yoga's sister science, Ayurveda. The language and principles of Ayurveda can guide us to a deeper relationship with ourselves and the natural world. By tuning into this universal wisdom, we can rediscover life's rhythms, cycles, and balances. In this session, we will begin with some foundational learning and then shift into a dynamic conversation to uncover our individual and collective opportunities for reclaiming personal well-being and sovereignty. Bring your questions and a beginner's mind so we can learn together.