Our 2026 Instructors
Check back for updates as we add
confirmed instructors
Tim Swanson
Event Co-Director
Kid's Trade Blanket
Trade Blanket
Archery Competition
TBA
Tim Swanson is the founder and lead instructor of Owl Eyes Wilderness
Survival. He holds a double Bachelor’s Degree in Adventure Education
Leadership and Adventure Therapy. He is a Level 2 Certified Animal Tracker, Wilderness First Responder, a Leave No Trace Master Educator, and a published author. Tim teaches wilderness survival and bushcraft from a connective and realistic approach. Classes with Owl Eyes Wilderness Survival are held in Massachusetts and throughout New England for all ages.
Emma Markowitz
Event Co-Director
Small Animal Hide Tanning
Intro to Survival for Teens
Emma Markowitz is an instructor at Owl Eyes Wilderness Survival and the Assistant Director of TimberNook Middlesex County. Emma is a lifelong adventurer and naturalist. Growing up in the prairies outside of Chicago, her boundless energy often led to climbing trees, splashing through mud, and turning the washing machine into a rock tumbler. Embracing her spirited nature, she channeled her love for exploration into a purposeful career, earning a Bachelor's degree in Art and Visual Culture Education from the University of Arizona.
With over 15 years of experience in outdoor and progressive education, Em believes that by empowering people to take healthy risks and explore the natural world, she can help them develop the confidence and skills they need to thrive. Her teaching is infused with curiosity, patience, and a generous dose of humor.
Grace Krupkowski
TBA
Trilogy Herbalism is founded by Grace Krupkowski, herbalist and educator. Trilogy Herbalism is located in Keene, New Hampshire and serves all of Northern New England and beyond. Trilogy Herbalism seeks to weave the power of personal agency, health justice, and medicinal plants together into cohesion. These three links bring forth an awareness not only of how you can better take care of yourself, but also of the natural world, its forces, and the medicine it provides. Through herbalism, we establish resilience and an awareness of interconnectedness between all aspects of the self. Grace's innate and learned knowledge fosters a connection across many herbal traditions. In 2015, she began an exploration into the world of herbalism and plant connection which has since blossomed into a lifelong passion. Since 2020, Grace has served as an educator teaching courses in person and online while managing an herbal product line. Grace also offers one on one herbal wellness consultations that encompass the whole individual, their ailments, and goals for healing and balancing the body.
Cheeny Plante
Useful Knots
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 canoeing.
Mike Dube
Tracking
Native Story Telling
Come learn the Ancient Art of Tracking with Mike Dube. Mike teaches Traditional Native Skills through his School, "Taconic Challenges". This will be his 6th 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.
Marie Somers
Soap 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 a class on making your own soap at home!
Aileen Peterson
TBA
Aileen Peterson (she/they) is a Queer mother, traditional midwife, naturopathic practitioner and community herbalist, permaculture farmsteader + consultant, bodyworker, rewilder and traditional skills practitioner + educator. Their business is Bear Woman Wisdom: Birth, Healing & Folk Ways and she and her wife operate Two Bears Farmstead & Apothecary together. A military brat born along the Rogue River in the Southern Oregon Siskiyous, growing up and raising a family mostly in Southeast North Carolina, and a recent transplant to Midcoast Maine—Aileen and her family have been building a life and community around ancestral land-based living and parenting, rewilding, traditional skills, regenerative and relational land stewardship, holistic healing, and food + body sovereignty for the last 15 years. She has taught on various homesteading, ancestral skills, and reproductive sovereignty topics in-person and online since 2016, at Earthskills Gatherings around the U.S. since 2017, and is excited to join the Moose Ridge family in 2025. In their free time Aileen can be found learning to tan hides, crafting something, reading, writing short stories and zines, and doing graphic design or photography.
Ryan Johns
TBA
Men's Triangle
Ryan Johns lives in Roxbury VT with his family of 5 and their many pets. He works as a k-8 wilderness, primitive skills, science and math educator in local independent schools. Hunting for animals, raising and processing animals for the family homestead and both growing and foraging for mushrooms with his kids are what he spends most of his free time both doing and thinking about. Ryan moved to Vermont from Colorado and brings with him knowledge of southwest primitive skills and practices and enjoys exploring and working in the northern woods. Ryan has many years of experience teaching children and adults to feel comfortable in their outdoor environment and finding out what drives their unique passions both at gatherings, in nature and in the classroom.
See you at the gathering!
Hannah Mitchell
Broom Making
Coming from the mountains of southern Appalachia, Hannah has been immersed in the natural world since a young child. An abiding love for the wild is the foundation for her creative process. Hannah has been teaching broom making for 12 years. She lives with her partner and two children in central Vermont.
Jes Steele
TBA Basketry
Jes has a deep passion for the wilderness and for teaching. She has been working in the field of Adventure and Environmental Education for more than 30 years. This leg of her journey is about connecting more deeply with herself, others, and the wilderness.
Credentials:
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B.A. Ecopsychology and Outdoor Education from Prescott College, AZ
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M.Ed. Adventure Education Plymouth State University, NH
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Registered Maine Recreational Guide
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National Registered EMT
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SOLO Wilderness First Aid and Wilderness First Responder Instructor
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Leave No Trace Master Educator
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Mindfulness Instructor
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ServSafe Manager
Krystle Bouck
TBA
Arrival/Registration Desk
Krystle is a leader in the healthcare software industry and is passionate about making a difference in people's health outcomes. So much of modern medicine focuses on treating symptoms rather than addressing the root cause. Through diving into the world of herbalism and whole food, Krystle has restored her health and now has a homestead where she and her family raises and hunts their own meat. She is currently acting scribe for the Ancient Ones of Maine where she enjoys competing with black powder firearms and believes in the importance of bringing people back to our roots, when times were more simple. She also directs the children's ministries at her church and has 20 years of experience teaching children ages 5-12.
Kevin Bouck
TBA
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. Kevin can be found hunting turkeys in the spring, deer in the fall, teaching as an Appleseed instructor, serving in leadership roles in his local church, teaching Hunter safety for the IFW, supervising rifle ranges as a CMP Master Instructor, and restoring vintage firearms, or living an 1700's life style with the Accent Ones of Maine. He is looking forward to having you visit him in his classes.
Barry Keegan
Birch Bark Baskets
Advanced Fire Making Workshop
Miniature Bows (kids and adults)
Barry has taught many Earth skills since 1991: such as flint knapping, basketry, bark canoe making, fire by friction, bows and arrows, primitive fishing, survival food/water/shelter, and much more, has made or repaired 70 wigwams and longhouses of bark and thatch, and 15 dugout canoes, (one of which has been part of numerous films featuring bark and dugout canoes), fluting a point, and History Channel’s Stonehenge Archer (Mystery Quest). He also performs a rare demonstration of 9 ways to make fire by friction-back-to-back, which may be unique. He has taught at many survival schools, primitive gatherings, colleges and public schools, day camps, museum and nature centers. Barry makes replica crafts for many museums and teaching institutions, has written over 20 articles for periodicals, and assisted in writing and illustrating numerous books on primitive technology related matters.
