Check out the schedule, then scroll down to see activity or presentation descriptions and bios for presenters!
For each session you will have three choices plus visit the Chalet to see demos and resources for foragers. Due to limited capacity, hikes, walks, and some workshops require registration. Sign up for these offerings when you arrive!
Workshops, Presentations, Walks, & Demos
Primal Extravagance at the Wild Table – Preparing and Cooking with Foraged Edible Plants
Demo by Nicki Schneider
You’ve learned how to key out and identify wild edible plants. You’ve located them, harvested them and brought them home. Now what? In this demo, Nicki Schneider of Earth Wisdom Wellness will discuss cooking with wild plants and how to prepare them in tasty and nutritious ways. Check out this hybrid live-action cooking with prepared dishes to sample. Nicki will happily answer questions and show you her favorite cookbooks.
Nicki has been actively foraging, eating and using wild plants for over a decade. Having a B.S. in Biology, she began her career as an Interpretive Naturalist with the MetroParks Serving Summit County, went on to manage a health food store and now teaches about wild food, herbalism and other esoteric topics with her business partner under the name of Earth Wisdom Wellness. Their herb shop and classroom closed its doors in late 2020, however they recently opened an education space in Lakewood, Ohio called the Galactic Oasis.
Wild Food Forests
Presentation by Sarah Culliton
Check out this presentation on the importance of adding more native plants into the environment by turning your own property into a food forest. Learn how to replace your lawn with native/wild edible plants, which plants can be used on your property, sources for plants, and how to make them happy. This interactive presentation will show you how to sketch a diagram of your property then pick from a list of suitable plants.
Sarah has been foraging and learning about wild edible plants and mushrooms for eight years. During those hectic eight years, she graduated from Hocking College and is now pursuing a bachelor’s of science in biology with KSU and Hiram College part time while working full time for Ohio EPA. In her free time she volunteers for various nature-related programs such as ODNR’s Scenic Rivers program, The Nature Conservancy’s Bissell Nature Center, and local mushroom group events. She is especially passionate about fungi; in addition to eating them, she collects them for genetic sequencing with Ohio Mushroom DNA Lab, including from some metroparks with research permits.
Intro to Wilderness & Herbal First Aid
Workshop by Leah Wolfe
Join herbalist Leah Wolfe for an interactive experience learning some basic wilderness and herbal first aid skills. Learn about important first aid plants, common things to put in a first aid kit, and techniques to play it safe in the woods. Practice some basic first aid assessment skills including how to move people in an emergency. Then check out Leah’s first aid kit and get ideas for broadening your capacity to take action in an emergency.
Leah Wolfe is the archetypal herbalist. You know the one, living at the edge of town with all the weird plants. A childhood in a village sandwiched between two national forests led to a lifetime study of the wild. In 2013, Leah combined her love of wild plants, her MA in Literature and her MPH in public health and started the Trillium Center, an educational project for natural arts offering hands-on and online experiences in herbalism, foraging, homesteading, folk arts, and disaster preparedness. Her obsession with plants, art, and culture compels her to explore and cultivate folk art and folklore. Leah offers herbal assessments, forays, workshops, private classes, and online education.
Edible and Medicinal Mushroom Identification
Walk with Don King, the Mushroom Hunter
Join Don on a hike through the woods, where he’ll teach you how to find, identify, process, and preserve the many edible and medicinal mushrooms that grow in spring here in NE Ohio. Take a walk through the woods, and search for edible and medicinal mushrooms. Don will talk about when and how to find various species, identify them correctly, and process or preserve the various mushrooms found. Learn about sustainability and the environmental concerns involved with mushroom foraging.
Don King, also known as The Mushroom Hunter, can often be found hiking the forests of Ohio and neighboring states in search of wild mushrooms and other delicious and healthy edibles, which he considers to be the pinnacle of sustainable, local foods. Don loves to share his knowledge of wild foods and how to prepare them through private and group identification workshops and wild edible hunts, as well as video tutorials and other appearances. He has been featured on NPR’s Good Eats with Vivian Goodman and has made over a dozen appearances on Fox 8’s New Day Cleveland.
Foraging & Sustainable Food Systems
Presentation by JB Douglas
Foraged foods can be a catalyst for creating a more equitable and sustainable food system, and this class will spend some time exploring what’s currently happening, and how we can work together to ignite change. A combination presentation and symposium, this time is geared towards foragers of all levels interested in learning more about relevant academic research, and brainstorming ideas for creating positive change through foraging.
JB Douglas is a forager and food maker based in Cleveland, OH. His recipes and food photography featuring foraged ingredients have been published in VegNews, Edible Magazines, the New York Times, and others. He directed culinary content production at Foraged Market after working with food access programs and farm retail operations in New England for several years. He’s passionate about leading demonstrations and creating educational materials to teach people about the value of wild foods in their diet. Currently, JB is earning his Master’s in Sustainable Food Systems from the Culinary Institute of America, with a focus on how foraged ingredients could play a bigger role in the future of food. In his free time, he creates a wide variety of crafts from foraged materials, including baskets, utensils, paper, pigments, brushes, and brooms. To learn more about his work, find recipes, and see pictures of his wild crafts, follow him on instagram @jbdouglas.food.
Creating Foraging Journals
Presentation by Susan Majercak
Whether you are new to foraging or wishing to expand your practice, a foraging journal can be invaluable to your adventures! Learn about different styles of journals, all the various information you may wish to record, and how to use the journal to enhance your foraging. Build habit that will bring you closer to the natural world. Bonus: Each participant will be able to create a pocket sized mini journal to keep with you for times when you do not want to carry a larger version.
A life long camper and nature lover, Susan graduated from Hiram College with a BA in Environmental Studies. From field research on invasive earthworms to kitchen experiments with tincture making and adventures in foraging, she is creating a life that allows her to explore and live within the cycles of nature!
Staple Food Plants in the Wild Larder
Walk with John Wright
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get a substantial part of your diet from wild foods? John Wright will give you the knowledge and skills to gather wild staple food plants safely and sustainably. What are wild staple food plants? They’re traditional wild foods that can make up a dominant portion of our diet. In this park ramble we’ll find wild food plants and then divide them by whether they provide carbohydrates, fats and/or oils. Proper identification keys for plants will be provided as well as best practices for storage and preparation.
John is basically an organic farmer who teaches workshops and presentations around the region and at his farm, Red Beet Row. He and his partner grow new and interesting crops for the region, save seeds, and sell interesting hard-to-get nursery plants. Some of their long-term projects include: mushroom log cultivation, ecological forest management, prairie restoration, plant breeding, beekeeping, animal husbandry and natural building.
His interdisciplinary work means he teaches a variety of classes on homesteading, wild foods, plant identification, soil fertility, market gardening and permaculture design. His life’s work is devoted to community resiliency in the NE Ohio region.
Tracking and and Hunting Wild Critters for Food and More: Nose to Tail
Peter Hoffman
Hunting starts with identifying targeted animal and learning its tracks. Next step is learning to follow those tracks to see where they lead and in doing so learn the behavior of that animal. Learn why it goes to a specific place, what it likes to eat, what its scat looks like, what is its normal route or range. Does it walk, or swim, or fly to it’s food source. What to look for if it flies to a specific place to eat. What to look for if it likes to sleep in a particular location. Where does it swim and what times of the day does it swim to that location. How to hunt the chosen species and what to use to ethically dispatch the animal. Often after dispatching an animal recovery is important so learning to follow the tracks when the blood trail disappears is crucial to recovery. Once the animal is acquired, how to skin and dress out the animal for food use. What parts of the animal are utilized for food and what parts are used for other purposes. How to prepare the hide to turn it into fur or leather. Also covered will be hunter safety in not only hunting situations but also preparation so you don’t get lost and have the equipment with you to get you home.
Peter grew up in a gatherer family with teacher parents, tracking animals, bird watching, herbalism, woodworking, fishing, sewing, camping, and self sufficiency. He made a choice to become a hunter at age 35 because the people he traded with for venison moved away. After tracking animals for 44 years, Peter extended his skills by hunting. In 2014 after completing studies at The Pathfinder School, Peter felt the call to become an instructor. Along with all of his wild food skills, he trained in First Responder, Wilderness First Aid and Search And Rescue. He has taught Primitive Skills for 10 years and currently teaches at Bending Oak Permaculture Farm. As an animal and nature lover do he believes in the total use – from nose to tail – of the animal taken. This includes not only eating the animal but tanning its hide, using its bones, teeth, feathers, antlers to make outdoor gear items.
Where to Hunt/Fish/Gather
Presentation by Raymond Morris
Finding a place to gather wild food can be difficult for new people. In this presentation Raymond will explore the rules around parks, public and private lands to help you decide which best suits your needs. Bonus tips on finding the organisms you’re looking for and the best types of locations.
Ray is a mushroom and native plant enthusiast. His passion for wild edibles stems from a desire to be connected not only to what we consume, but to the earth as well. This has lead him to learn the edible and medicinal mushrooms of our Ohio forests. Ray operates a native tree and shrub nursery called West Branch Forest Treasures. There, he grows fruit and nut trees from seed from local and high quality sources. He also operates a small farm where he is creating a food forest of native plants.
Fishing Made Easy
Presentation by Michael King
All of the rules, regulations, types of bait, and equipment can make fishing seem complicated. Michael will help make it easy. Learn about the basics of fishing such as types of fishing line, strengths, and terminal tackle essential to freshwater fishing, plus an overview of the rules and regulations in Ohio. Learn when and where to find different species of fish. Plus learn some easy but essential knots used in fishing. Plus learn some tactics that will make fishing an enjoyable experience.
Michael is a retired firefighter and avid angler in Ohio and Canada. He spends his time teaching his three daughters the craft and hopes to teach his granddaughter in due time.
Teaching firefighters about ropes and knots was an easy transition from his fishing experience. Fishing for over fifty years and studying knot strength and ease of tying them he has a great appreciation of his father who taught him those skills so long ago. He passed on these skills to others through the state sponsored “Hooked on Fishing” program.
The Herbal Foragers: Walking the Edges
Walk with Leah Wolfe and Nicki Schneider
Join a herb walk with two bioregional herbalists and foragers. Nicki and Leah have been sharing ideas for almost a decade ever since Nicki showed up at Leah’s Community Herbal Intensive in 2015. Although the line between food and medicine is blurry, distinguishing between the two depends on dose, how the food/herb is used, and the frequency of use. The first step of the walk will be a short discussion on how you decide whether you’re using a plant as a food, herb for food, or for its herbal actions. This walk will happen at dusk to celebrate the tradition of walking the edges on many levels.
Introduction to Small Game Hunting
Presentation/Demo with Phil Melillo
An introduction to hunting, processing, preserving, and cooking small game. This presentation will teach the audience how to prepare for hunting small game in Ohio including how to get a hunting license, how to acquire an appropriate weapon, what clothing and gear is needed, and how to find a place to hunt. The second part of the presentation will focus on how to take this preparation to the field and hunt, field dress, process, preserve, and cook small game. Audience members will leave this presentation with the knowledge and resources necessary to procure wild, organic, free range, nutrient dense meat for themselves and their families no matter what knowledge and skill level they bring to the presentation. This presentation might include a field dressing and processing demonstration if the hunter is lucky.
Phil is from Northeast Ohio and has been hunting, fishing, gardening and foraging for food since he was 9 or 10 years old. He comes from a small Italian immigrant town called Niles, Ohio and was raised by families of Italian and Hungarian ancestry. Those cultures deeply value self reliance, and high quality and flavorful food that is not just fuel, but a social event to partake in with reverence and respect for the ingredients, where the ingredients came from, and the people with which one enjoys them. Phil hunted, fished, gardened, and foraged with his family out of financial necessity, but also out of passion for high-quality ingredients for the supper table. Phil currently work for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources managing Burr Oak, Strouds Run, and Forked Run State Parks and continues to promote these sustainable practices of hunting, fishing, gardening and foraging for food.
Fun & Creative Ways to Preserve Foraged Food
Presentation by Kate Cunningham
Learn how to preserve and create healthy food alternatives with wild foraged food! In this workshop you will learn how to safely and sustainably make fun snacks for your family with some of Kate’s favorite Ohio plants and mushrooms! Join Kate as she shares how she replaced her kids favorite sour gummies, shelf snacks and popular sports drinks with ingredients right outside your front door!
Kate is the owner of Moonflower Apothecary in Ravenna, Ohio. Her goal is to teach people how to reconnect and heal through nature. As a mother of children with rare disease and special needs, she strives to offer experiences that are affordable, accessible and inclusive.
She grew up hunting, fishing, foraging and exploring the outdoors in Geauga County, and has had a close relationship with nature since she was a little girl. The forest has always been a safe harbor for Kate; sharing the forest’s gifts and lessons is the imprint she wants to leave behind to her children and community.
Prehistoric Food Ways of Northeast Ohio and the Eastern Agricultural Complex
Presentation by Ursula McVey
A compilation of my research into the pre contact and pre three sisters food of this region. The native people of the north east developed agriculture surrounding several native grains, mainly goose foot, tall smartweed, sunflower and squash. I will talk about the importance of saving seed as many of the specialized varieties grown during this time have entirely reverted back to their wild forms, how environment also effected peoples food in this region such as how low clay in the soil correlated with bad teeth and shortened lifespans, and my experience trying to recreate recipes recored in the 1600s from this region, as well as give attendees a handout with some ancient Northeast Ohio recipes.
Ursula calls herself a wild food maniac. She organizes a yearly festival called Ephemeralfest and read about historic food ways in her free time.