2022
Moose Ridge Gathering
Instructors
Gourd Water Bottles, Archery, Rabbit Processing
Tim Swanson
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.
Wood Carving
Emilie Rigby
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.
Soap Making
Marie Somers
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 a class on making your own soap at home!
Acorn Processing
Julieann Hartley
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.
Fermented Foods & Beverages
Jason Morse
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.
Jason will be teaching a class on how to ferment foods and beverages, including lacto-fermentation, vinegars, wines and meads, kombucha, and more!
Tracking
Mike Dube
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.
Flint Knapping, Navigation, AtlAtls
Tony Pike
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.
Feathers, Skulls, Tree I.D., Tracking Walk
Jonathan Shapiro
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.
Jonathan will be leading a tracking walk around the Moose Ridge property. He will also be teaching classes on the analysis of animal skulls, feathers, and tree identification!
Kuksa Cup Carving
Joshua Pavese
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 kuksa cup!
Eco-Printing and Char-cloth fire kits
Kate Wentworth
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.
Coal Burned Bowls
Kristee Nichols
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.
Come Burn a Bowl
Free, Walk-in class held every day (whenever you see me at the fire) Create your own container with hot embers and stone tools. Once I show you the technique you'll be free to come and go and work on it throughout the
weekend. (although can be done in a day)
Shaping and carving the bowl is on your own but I can advise and guide you. Old leather gloves recommended as we'll be working with
hot embers.
Children must be accompanied by parents.
Rawhide Knife Sheaths
Doug Householder
"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.
The Urban Survivalist, and A Soldier's Rations
Kevin Bouck
Kevin Bouck lives in Litchfield, Maine, with his wife Krystle and twin boys Hunter and Zachary. They enjoy their 1850’s farmhouse and have a small, but ever growing, family farm. They enjoy the simple life and strive to keep things as period correct as possible. Kevin grew up in Michigan, and spent 20 years serving in the United States Marine Corps. After retiring in 2001 he settled in New England where he met his wife, Krystle. They moved to Maine in 2017 and have been involved with the Moose Ridge Gathering since 2020. Kevin enjoys all things Maine and the outdoors, although still can’t wrap his head around ice fishing. Hunting turkeys in the spring, deer in the fall, teaching as an Appleseed instructor, serving in leadership roles in his local church, restoring vintage firearms, and maintaining the farm fills his days. He is looking forward to having you visit him in his classes.
Kevin will be teaching a class on "how to get home safe" in many different scenarios. He will also be demonstrating how a Revolutionary War soldier would have cooked over the fire with the rations they were given, and will talk about what life was like during that time period. Finally, Kevin will be cooking turkeys with a tripod for the Saturday potluck!
Fun With Fungi 101
Christina Tsang
In this class we will explore how to see and work with the fungal queendom, and learn about some of the ways that being in relationship with fungi can enrich our lives. We will cover key characteristics for identification, and safer beginner species that have few toxic look-alikes. We’ll discuss some of the roles fungi play in a healthy robust ecosystem and go over low-tech cultivation techniques one can try at home.
Christina is a regenerative gardener, citizen mycologist, plant-medicine enthusiast, and healing practitioner who’s heart and mind have been transformed through their work with the natural world and particularly by the fungi.
Basketry
Weaver Goldsmith
Weaver and her family, including Osha Root, the ambassador of love, were world-weary travelers until they found a home in Vermont. She is of a jack-of-all-trades, and loves to learn and to work with her hands and the full tool box that she as accumulated. Along the way, she has working as an EMT, a Montessori teacher, a gardener, a carpenter, a massage therapist and a painter and continues to study plant medicine, mycology, and other healing modalities. For Weaver, as a basket maker, nature lover, and curious builder, getting to know a whole new landscape here has been thrilling. A basket maker looks at the world and thinks, “Hmm...I can make a basket out of that."
If you are interested in basket craft, she will have with an assortment of styles and shapes and we can discuss their composition and construction. We can go on a nature walk and talk about how we would go about making a survival basket on the spot, out of green materials. If you’d like to learn how to make a small bark container or wearable pouch, there will be prepared materials available.
Herbal Tinctures and Grief Work
Sara Moore
Sadly, Sara passed away on June 25th. We will remember her as a ray of light who inspired so many people to love Mother Earth and to have immense gratitude for her gifts. One of her greatest joys in this life was to live close to the land and to practice the skills that sustained our ancestors for so many thousands of years. In my mind, she will forever be in the sunshine in a buckskin dress. Safe travels, my friend.
Sara Moore is a grief practitioner, budding herbalist, and registered Maine guide. She has been studying grief work under Stephen Jenkinson’s tutelage at Orphan Wisdom School for over 5 years. Sara is the co-founder of Wilder Waters Community, a non-profit protecting land in central Maine.
Herbal First Aid
Grace Krupkowski
Grace Krupkowski, founder of Land of Milk and Honey Herbalism, is an herbalist and educator with a passion for putting forth the human connection to the wild weeds beneath our feet. She strives to connect individuals and communities of all ages to the natural world through herbalism, gardening, foraging, and wildcrafting. Grace has been studying and practicing
herbalism for six years now. She has been mentored by a myriad of clinical herbalists, farmers, horticulturists, and institutions nationwide. Grace continues to learn and grow in the field of herbal wellness by offering educational courses and curating small batch herbal remedies in her home.
Come join in on this workshop with Grace! We’ll discuss essential wild herbs that can be utilized for first aid situations in the wild. Following, we will forage and demonstrate their uses. Participants will be involved in curating a simple pine resin salve.
Connection with Plants (see below)
Jeff Mitzel
Jeff understands plant medicines as a spiritual practice and travels across forest lands in the western US as he makes plant medicines, helps those in need, and teaches and encourages a road of individual connection and unfolding of each person's unique self and journey before the Creator.
Jeff will Be teaching three classes:
-Clever Things Plant Medicines Do
-Plant Medicines: Deepening Our Connection and Indigenous Heart
-Plant Medicines for Covid-19, Covid-19 Long Haul, Inner Calm, and Trauma
Immediate Action Poncho Shelters &
Parachute Shelters
Cheeny Plante
I am from Sanford Maine. I was a SERE (survival, evasion. resistance, escape) Specialist in the Air Force for eight years. I trained thousands of aircrew members how to survive in every environment in the world. I currently work in the trades (painting, general labor) and I am a registered Maine guide. When I'm not working, I'm backpacking, fishing and canoing.
I was on season 14 of naked and afraid and completed the 21 day challenge in South Africa. When it comes to survival my focus is on being prepared and having a basic survival kit.
This is my first year teaching at Moose Ridge. I will be teaching immediate action poncho shelters and parachute shelters.
Trapping
Reggie Read
Reggie Read was born in 1952. He is a Maine Native and he has worked with IF&W safety courses since 1978. He is currently a Registered Maine Master Guide, been married 51 years & has trapped off and on since the 1960s.
He will be offering a 3.5 hour course on Bear Trapping during our 2022 Gathering here in Upton, ME from August 4-7! This will be limited to only 10 students and will be followed by a multiple choice and will be legally recognized by the state of Maine for a Bear Trapping Permit.
Fur Handling/Processing
Nelson Frost
Nelson Frost of the IF&W will also be holding a 3-hour block on how to properly process animals directly following Reggie’s class. Reggie will be assisting on that!
Nelson was born in 1956 in southern California with roots in Maine. His grandmother said if a cat has kittens in an old oven, they ain't muffins. He lived most of his life in Maine fishing, hunting, and trapping. He is a volunteer instructor for Maine IFW. He is a member of Maine Trappers Association, SAM, NRA, and other sporting organizations. Nelson has been married 45 years and has 2 boys, 2 dogs, and a bunch of chickens. Trapping is his favorite pastime.
Plant Walk and Talk: Making New Friends and Recovering Ancestral Knowledge
Sonia Acevedo
Let's explore! We'll start with a talking circle where we remember the plants we associate with family, go on a plant walk, pick a new plant friend to learn about, create an herb tea to drink together and more! Fun for all ages, nature provides the materials :)
Sonia Acevedo is a small farmer, herbalist, mother and musician living in the Kennebec River Valley on Wabanaki land. She's been making friends with plants and healing with their medicine for 24 years, and loves the ways that plants remind us to keep rooted in natural ways of living and healing. She loves to share plant knowledge with kids of all ages!
TBA
Coming Soon
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TBA
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