Instructors
Birdsong Gathering offers a mix of hands-on outdoor skills, homesteading, ancestral, and real-life skills. Some classes may include archery, beading, music instrument making, animal processing, leatherworking, flintknapping, candle making, rope making, beading, friction fire, fiber arts, fruit tree grafting, primitive cooking, candle making, tin stoves, knitting, wood carving, primitive dolls, herbalism, homeschool talks, folk dancing and more...... Full Schedule available at gathering.
Chase
"Don't Touch my hat."
Chase is a proud husband and father of five kids. His favorite things to do are be with his family and help with homeschooling the five kids. He is lucky to have a wonderful wife who supports him in all his crazy endeavors. He found primitive skills gatherings and was hooked. He is most famous for his bag of tricks he keeps with him and the stories of the day Paul Bunyan came to his house or the famous hot sauce story! But his favorite story book he brings to the gatherings is called “Don’t touch my hat!”. He is often referred to in camp as the guy with the brown campaign hat and the kids love to try to sneak up on him so they can hear him say “Don’t touch my hat!” in his best cowboy voice. If you see him around say hi!​
Bill Oliphant
Homeschool Talks & Mystery Primitive Class
Bill has been the spoon carving instructor at the Rabbitstick and Wintercount gatherings for over a decade. Besides carving wood, he knits, spins his own yarn, teaches Nalbinding and Fingerweaving, ply-split braiding, and how to make string net bags called bilums. His favorite and oldest primitive skill is making plant cordage from dogbane, milkweed, and nettle. His current interest is processing local raw wool and producing large pieces of felt. “Once I get this down I’ll probably have to figure out how to sew it into clothing.” What Bill decides to teach at a gathering is a bit of a mystery since giving up the spoon carving role. You can be sure it will be fun and informative! Also, Bill homeschooled all his kids, so he is a wealth of information for parents.
Arnold Oliphant, Homo sapiens
Music Flutes & Fruit Grafting
Arnold has professional experience in classical and molecular genetics and is the father of four homeschooled progeny. He is old enough to have had a few hobbies. He plays a mean piano but not with his fingers. He used two tin cans to make the most efficient TLUD stove at the 2016 Aprovecho stove technology retreat. He’d be happy to show you how you can also make one. He has run a marathon on each continent and makes flutes in his spare time. He has enjoyed keeping chickens, ducks, ostriches, pheasants, geese, turkeys, guineafowl, bees, dogs, pigs and sheep. By using grafting and other tree propagation techniques he currently has over 200 varieties of fruit and nut trees in his backyard.
Colin Thorne
Music for All
Colin has been playing music and performing since he was five years old when his father started a family folk music band. In addition to performing in various choirs and bands over the years, Colin has conducted choirs, led bands, written music, and written and directed several short musicals for children. He loves singing and playing music with others and the joy that it brings.
Magdalena
Candle Making
Magdalena is the youngest of three homeschooled siblings. She loves nature, sailing and the beach. She has been to 7 different gatherings in 4 states and attended a total of 24 gatherings. She loves traveling and has visited 23 states in the last 5 years. She enjoys doing handwork and art. She will be teaching candle making and co-running the camp General Store.
Dawn Robinette
Founder/Director of Ohmapi
Dawn helps families and educators rediscover the wisdom of learning through nature. She blends ancestral skills with nature-based academics. For over 13 years, she has guided children in hands-on crafts like cattail weaving, whittling, gourd bowls, and leatherwork, teaching not only traditional skills but the deeper lessons the Earth offers to those who listen and learn outdoors. At her nature-based school in Nevada City, CA, these traditional crafts become gateways to deeper understanding. Dawn weaves reading, writing, math, and science into real-world experiences outdoors, helping children discover that academics come alive when explored through the rhythms of the Earth.
Gabriela Gamino
Natural Vision Healing
Gabriela (Gaby) is a homeschool mother of 3 kids (21, 16, 12). Her skills and passions were inspired as a result of her kids. She the founder of Birdsong and currently runs an Outdoor Skills Homeschool in Orange County. She is a Natural Vision Teacher and helps people improve their eyesight. Through many years of training, she learned the human body is able to self-heal poor vision and improve eyesight. She cares deeply for children/youth/teens and is a strong supporter of homeschooling so children can focus on their interests and learn real life skills.
Robin Blankenship
Founder of EarthKnack
Robin owns and operates Earth Knack and has been working in the outdoors field since 1978 when she began leading horse packing trips into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. She has taught for Larry Olsen's School of Urban and Wilderness Survival in 1984. She will be teaching Fire Making, leather making and a variety of other skills.
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Cami
Burn Spoons
In 2006, Cami took a job as a back-country guide and it ruined her for "normal" modern life forever. She's spent the last 20 years learning and teaching primitive and ancestral skills, living on three different continents, and traveling the American West in her trusty RV with her two poorly-behaved rescue dogs.
At Birdsong, she teaches coal-burned spoon carving, leads a sunrise "dance the sun up" session each day (you're invited, but no good dancing, only goofy dancing allowed) and will be experimenting with a nature-based parable and storytelling class this year. She also loves to teach friction fire one-on-one to the people who are struggling with that skill, so feel free to find her and you can trouble shoot together, she'll be happy to help.
Tamra Dawn Hyde
Shelter, Water, Fire & Food
Tamra has been a primitive living/wilderness survival instructor and backcountry guide since 2006, working with The Anasazi Foundation, Wingate Wilderness Therapy, California Survival School, and Coyle Outside as well as independently. She has been featured on survival, bushcraft or wilderness therapy themed TV shows on The BBC, History, FOX and Discovery channels. She has been nomadic for 8 1/5 years and lives in a converted short bus with her adorable but rude cat, Monster.​
Dino
Dino's story is the connection between wildlife, the environment and people. He has been teaching about the intimate and complex relationship of all three.
Dino worked as a Naturalist for a regional park for many years. He taught cultural history and natural history programs to school children, as well as to college students. Weekend public programs included topics and hands-on activities, like fire making, ethnobotany, ecology, cordage making, basketry, astronomy, and other traditional skills. Dino has also taught workshops on indigenous skills, Stone Age technology and wilderness survival competence at several traditional and wilderness skills events like Rabbitstick, Buckeye Gathering, Winter Count, Acorn Gathering, and the Yosemite Knap-In. He believes that knowledge is not complete until it is passed on.
Dino is a co-founder of the website called PrimitiveWays.com. The site has various articles on ancestral skills and traditional technology.
Norm Kidder
Naturalist
He will be teaching foundational primitive skills, drawing on over 33 years of experience in the field. His expertise includes fire-making, cordage, netting, and woodworking. He also teaches about the Ohlone people—their artifacts, dwellings, and cultural practices. Norm has hands-on experience building Native American Tule reed boats and often travels to share his knowledge. Since 1996, he has served as the Supervising Naturalist at Sunol-Ohlone Regional Wilderness. Additionally, he runs The Old Ways Workshop, a small business through which he consults, creates educational exhibits, and replicates artifacts for teachers and museums.
Kelly Beltier
Knitting & Acorn Processing
Kelly is a home educator and lifelong learner and loves learning ancestral skills every opportunity she gets and teaching them to others. She currently homeschools her 2 kids. She enjoys the outdoors especially skiing and traveling. She is very talented in working with kids and showing them the love of making new things with natural materials like making their own dolls, knitting their own bags or making pancakes out of acorns!
Rosemary Wells
Fiber Arts
Rosemary Wells has been primitive felting for over 15 years and teaching it for over 12. A She took felting from four different teachers to perfect her craft making hats, bags, vests, rugs and other felted objects from the wool of the sheep she and her husband raise on their little farm in Idaho. Rosemary has felted with wolf, buffalo, rabbit, human hair and a variety of sheep, but prefers the wool of the Navajo Churros she breeds especially for the felting quality of their fiber. She teaches using basic layout techniques that will allow the student to progress to more difficult projects as they continue to practice felting. She loves watching new students discover the beauty within as they create beautiful things with their hands.
Justin Lunt
History of Beads
Justin Lunt has always loved the outdoors and was raised by his father who was an avid hunter and fisherman. He taught friction fires and other various skills to Justin while outdoors in the late 80's early 90's, and Justin was hooked. With a passion for survival and archeology the historical artifacts became intertwined early on. Now Justin teaches "The History of Humans Through Beads" class which is about the only artifacts known to man on every continent amongst every clan, tribe, society, or civilization. Join him for the deep dive into a life changing rabbit hole of knowledge you might not have known to exist.​
Aaron
Knots, Ropes, & Cordage
Less Tangled Knots, ropes , and cordage skills. Tie it all together with Aaron. Practice making splices, knots, and cordage. "Turn a string from a tangle to a useful thing. Ropes and games it's all the same." Basics of Fireside Storytelling. How we did it before modern media. "Meet the inner storyteller that was you and your Ancestors too." Aaron likes to share his passion for storytelling and cordage. He has been a professional sailing instructor for over a decade and can be found sharing stories in virtual reality or beside a cozy fire on the side of a mountain.
Marianne and Bernie Kenkuliet Medicinal Plants Walks
Marianne and Bernie have taught medicinal plant classes for many years. They started learning to use plants for medicine for their own children and since then have taught others about making medicine with plants and how to treat different conditions.
Mike Petree
Drumming
Mike has been drumming since the early 90's and will be teaching West African poly rhythms, basics of djembe technique, how to play with others in a freestyle circle and how to support the heartbeat if you've never played before. Mike was a wilderness therapist and has been attending primitive skills gatherings since the early 2000's.
Bo Earls, Utah
Flintknapping & Bow Drills
Over 20 years of experience in Outdoor Education & Leadership, Wilderness Therapy Programming, Celestial Navigation and Wilderness Skills Programming in various settings. I also do a little Flintknapping…
Some people say I look a little like a character from a popular holiday; but I don’t think I look anything like a Cupid, a Bunny Rabbit or a Leprechaun.
Carola
Beading
Carola has been attending skills gatherings with her husband and two daughters for several years. She was so excited to learn the art of loom beading at a gathering and it has since turned into a wonderful hobby. Teaching the skill to others is now also a passion!
Susu Marley,
Herbal Remedies & Games
Susu is earning an MA in Ecopsychology from Naropa University. She is a dedicated student at the Tracker School, and of Jon Young’s 8 shields nature awareness and connection programs. Susu is a community organizer with an abiding interest in co-creating intentional living and learning centers that model and teach connection and reciprocity with the natural world. Her gifts and roles include mentor, healer, event producer, and guide to ceremony, council, rites of passage, ecotherapy, and trauma integration work. She is a Montessori-trained educator and mom of two young children.
Catherine Marie (Cat)
Folk/Contra Dance
Cat has a love of learning, with varied interests. Current interests include sewing, music, and gardening. Her distinct areas of study support a desire to build connection and community. Cat was drawn to folk dancing at age 14 because of the warm and supportive community she saw there, and now loves to teach and call dances from a variety of backgrounds. Catherine tries to practice living lightly and peacefully on the Earth, alongside the many cultures and creatures who inhabit it, celebrating and honoring the diversity of life. She enjoys thrifting all her clothes and adjusting or mending as needed as part of her desire to avoid further exploiting the Earth. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three feral boys.
Emily Walters
Kid's Games & Crocheting
Hi! My name is Emily Walters, I'm from Idaho, and I'm so excited to be getting to teach at Birdsong! I have loved doing fiber arts of all sorts for as long as I can remember -- I love how this craft inspires me to be creative and artistic on my own while also carrying on centuries-long traditions for the creation of practical, useful items. My story: Since 2017, I have been going to as many of the primitive skills gatherings as I can! I was always homeschooled, graduated in 2021, and then spent a gap year cooking, backpacking, and traveling. This fall I'm a sophomore at Southern Utah University studying outdoor recreation and journalism. I have a pet fish named Donovan, and I really enjoy good books.
James Madry
James was in the United States Airforce. He is a life member of the NRA, NRA Safety, Certified Muzzle Loader Instructor, CA Representative and NMLRA Officer. He remembers going hunting since he was 7 years old. He is dedicated to passing on knowledge that people have passed on to him especially young folks.
Graham McLaren
Coal Burned Bowls/Spoons
After spending a decade as an organic fruit and vegetable farmer, Graham transitioned to a career in outdoor and adventure education. He was an instructor and program director for the Twin Eagles Wilderness School, where he mentored children, teens and young adults in nature connection, wilderness crafts and survival skills. He recently retired from teaching as a job but can still be found sharing wilderness crafts at schools and gatherings. Through these years he loved homeschooling his three children. He now enjoys a full-time career as a massage therapist, and lives with his youngest daughter in an off-grid cabin in the mountains of North Idaho.
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Chad Keel
Friction Fire
Chad Keel is the founder of naturereconnection.org, an outdoor school dedicated to reconnecting both children and adults with nature, and he's also an established author, having penned the enlightening 'Mastering the Art of Friction Fire'. Pushing boundaries, he pioneered the Pakistan Primitive Survival Workshop in 2018, marking Pakistan's first-ever bushcraft and survival school. As the 2023 Jiu Jitsu World League Worlds Champion, he seamlessly blends his passions, offering instruction in survival, emergency disaster preparedness, and martial arts. Featured across media such as Vice TV, Discovery, Oxygen, People Magazine, and Yahoo News, Chad truly embodies his teachings. Ready and eager to impart his knowledge, Chad Keel is a testament to living one's passions to the fullest.
Brooke Tennant
Rabbit Processing
Professional and nationally ranked rabbit breeder since 2016 specializing in Rex and Florida Whites. Known in the community for being educators and leaders. President of the Kings of the Southwest Rex Club. Offering private processing classes. Practices using the entire animal from preserving skulls and feet to tanning hides in house.
Jim Rizer
Smart Adobe Building
Jim is a self-described “generalist” and systems design philosopher. Raised in the alpine village of Idyllwild California, Jim grew up building forts and exploring miles of forests, boulders, and creeks in his own backyard. In high school, He lived in Europe as a Rotary Exchange Student. Upon returning to US, Jim found himself as somewhat of a fish out of water in trying to share the different ideas that he had been exposed to in Denmark, Germany, and Holland. He served as a firefighter for 12 years. He served in leadership positions in local non-profit chapters. Jim also founded EcoMind Youth Service club where he organized hundreds of teen volunteers to renovate 3 public parks by creating water. Jim is the original founder & has been the principal driver of Down-To-Earth Eco LLC.
Carter Hafif
Wilderness First Aid
He will be teaching Wilderness and Remote First Aid. With nearly 10 years of practice in wilderness first aid, and 15+ years of wilderness experience, he is eager to share the dos and don’ts of the backcountry. Having used these skills across the country, and even in international settings, he is proud to say these skills have saved his and others lives. They are a necessary part of having a safe, remote adventure.
He has spent a good portion of his life in the wilderness and has had the privileges to establish an intimate relationship with her. Mother Nature is not something (or someone) we should take lightly. Things inevitably will go wrong when in remote situations.