About Abel

Abel’s expertise puts him in the top tier of wilderness professionals. He excels in the areas of shelter building, friction fire making, hide tanning, wilderness foraging, primitive cooking, solo canoeing, orienteering, weather forecasting, dream-work, and co-parenting. He scored Level 3 in the 2015 Track and Sign Evaluation and holds a current Wilderness First Responder certification. Abel is a mentor, soccer coach, and an award-winning high school science teacher. He currently lives with his wife Susan and son Diindiis at Teaching Drum Outdoor School, where he is the senior wilderness guide for the wilderness immersion courses. You can learn more about Teaching Drum Outdoor School here.

Having spent the last 16 years either living immersed in the wild or guiding individuals and groups who were doing so, Abel is passionate about sharing outdoor survival skills (making fire by friction, orienteering, primitive cooking, etc…) and and the softer skills that increase self empowerment, intuition, and communication with others.  He enjoys teaching  what he’s learned from direct experience and nature, as well as his love for the wild places in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. He especially enjoys teaching people the natural history of the land, the behavior and migration patterns of wildlife, and how to forage for food and use plants for medicinal purposes.