Samuel Thayer is an internationally recognized authority on edible wild plants who has been teaching workshops and classes for three decades. He is the author of four highly acclaimed, award-winning books on edible wild plants. His first book, The Forager’s Harvest, has sold over 250,000 copies. His most recent, Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America, is the winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for best nature guide of 2023. Born in Wausau, Wisconsin, Samuel began gathering wild food in early childhood. At the age of 18 he built a log cabin and began pursuing his dream of homesteading, foraging, and studying Nature. Today he lives in Northern Wisconsin with his wife, Melissa, and their three children. Besides teaching and writing, Sam runs a small organic orchard featuring apples, native fruits and berries, and edible native ground covers; he also harvests wild rice, makes maple and birch syrup, and hickory nut oil.

Biologist and Herbalist Aimee Heavey lived and breathed permaculture at sustainability education center, Rancho Mastatal, in Costa Rica, for 6 months. She received her PDC from the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute in Ithaca, NY, and her Teacher Training Certification from Midwest Permaculture.

Aimee is passionate about embodied movement, dance and drum, rewilding, plant medicine, bodywork, wildlife tracking, and ancestral nutrition.

Mike Haasl promotes permaculture homesteading with an emphasis on high rewards for less effort. He teaches, writes and experiments with ways to homestead with a lighter footprint. He lives in northern Wisconsin and tends a big garden, greenhouse and flock of chickens.

Roger Gietzen is a father, doctor, and humanitarian worker who first started learning about syntropic agroforestry in 2016 when he hired a consultant to come to Haiti. He could see that this approach could help address the food insecurity, soil erosion and deforestation that is ravaging the country, as well as provide a path for financial security. The journey to bring this method to Haiti and make it simple enough that an average family farmer can grasp it, has taken Roger to Brazil and eventually to Ernst’s cacao farm. After years of intense study in the tropics, Roger started applying this method in the temperate climate and now looks forward to sharing what he has learned with others.

Bryce Ruddock is an experience Permaculture designer and homesteader living in North Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is an ethnobotanist, historian, co author of Integrated Forest Gardening, and someone who has been making plant based medicines since 1990.

Levi is a geologist who works on environmental remediation professionally. He has taught permagardening in Ethiopia via the Peace Corps, and now has a homestead with multiple green building experimental designs, a permaculture designed orchard of over 150 trees, and raises chickens, pigs, and cattle.

Will Dickinson is an outdoor educator and visual artist. He has extensive experience with mapping and GIS and volunteers through teaching orienteering to youth.William is an avid forager and has participated in permaculture/gardening practices, as well as exploring biochar production.
In addition to to his work as a professional artist, Will has been teaching at community centers, art leagues, and community colleges for the last 15 years. He has completed several international artist residencies, with a focus on connecting and capturing the human experience with our natural world.
For more info about his projects check out his website: www.wildterrainnav.com

Brittany Arnold has a degree in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. She teaches farm to school and has helped start four community food forests and several school orchards. Next school year she will help launch an agroforestry educational site in partnership with the city of DePere.

Maggie Turnbull is a professional astronomer, a Buddhist, a naturalist, a meditation teacher, and a mental health practitioner. She specializes in the study of life in the universe, and her goal is to help people feel more connected to the web of life that spans the earth and stars.

Aaron Laux is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is grounded in a deep, evolving relationship with the natural world. What began as survival art—reclaiming long-lost skills like stone tool making—has grown into a contemporary practice of sculptural mosaics crafted from local, natural materials. His work is inspired by the patterns and processes found in nature, reflecting a lifelong exploration of how humans connect to their environments across time and culture.

Cheryl DeWelt is the Environmental Education and Garden Manager at Madison Children’s Museum. She is passionate about sustainability, regenerative agriculture, and the environment. She has been at the museum for 15 years and has over 30 years of experience educating about nature, permaculture, and gardening. She earned her degree from UW-Madison and holds a permaculture design certificate. Cheryl is also a visual artist who works with COB, wood, metal, and fibers.

Tomas Ward is an ecological dabbler currently residing in Sheboygan County WI. A suburban refugee, he is working to establish a small herbal medicine homestead on an abandoned dairy pasture. His random resume includes stints in conservation biology, home improvement trades, writing and editing. He holds a bachelor's in English literature from UC Berkeley and a M.S. in natural resources and environmental sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tomas' recent daily work at a public elementary school has narrowed his focus towards creative use of outdoor space for unconventional learning experiences. Using a small grant from the WiDNR foundation, he established a unique classroom outside the art room on an elementary campus in 2024-2025. He is eager to connect with others working in this arena and to simply be with the Wisconsin Permie tribe. Find me on Youtube (channel name: tomdotbot) or blogging at literatenaturalist.wordpress.com.

My home is on a half acre piece of land. Though somewhat limited in space, my wife and I cultivate a large garden and fruits, as well as chickens and ducks. The purpose of our homestead is to raise our children in an outdoor life filled with plants, animals and traditional handicrafts.

With all of this, we also run a blog about our homestead projects, called Peasant Ways for Modern Days. We give a particular emphasis on researching and rediscovering forgotten methods and culture in which our ancestors interacted with the natural world. With our findings, we look for ways to revive and integrate these old folk methods into life in the 21st century.

Im a farmer/homesteader that was raised on a small farm. Back in 2000 I built a rope making machine based off an old school design. I’ve been making rope ever since.

Ryan and DeAnn Kolodziej have lived and farmed on 55 acres in Amherst WI since 2003. They both grew up in Portage county on family farms tending market gardens.

Married in 2001 they set their goals to preserve thier rural lifestyle by developing a farm business model that doesn't require expensive infrastructure and machinery. They operate and run Epic Nature LLC.

Jeff is a campsteader who has learned about rocket mass heaters from multiple sessions with experts at Wheaton Labs in Montana. He currently lives comfortably in a yurt in the woods East of Rhinelander, including winters, thanks to a RMH build completed two years ago. He is working on experimental builds and looking for other adventurous spirits seeking to pursue a deep permaculture lifestyle.

I live in a house my grandparents built along the Peshtigo river in northern Wisconsin. I had the privilege of being raised by a botanist and a naturopathy doctor who together incorporate permaculture principles and practices into our daily life. I rebeled against them for some time, as youth often do, yet after learning how most of society functions I realized how smart my parents were to raise me in this way. About 10 years ago, I came back around. I am now working towards becoming a registered Horticultural Therapist. I strive to help people connect with nature and design spaces that facilitate this inn a therapeutic way. I aspire to study this in an academic research setting in the future. I also dream of having my own children, but for now I spend time with kids as a nanny and an activity coordinator at a local youth demonstration garden. I enjoy all things fiber crafts, from spinning, to dyeing, weaving and crocheting, especially in the winter. I look forward to learning and growing together with all of you at the convergence this year.

Terry Rutlin retired as Outdoor Adventure Program coordinator for Nicolet College in Rhinelander. It’s here where he was “bitten by the Fly Fishing bug” and continues to teach Fly Fishing for the college in his retirement.