Anake Outdoor School Instructors

The four Core Instructors of the Anake Outdoor School facilitate the overall progression of the program, and serve as your primary mentors. They teach the core competencies of the program, and work with reknown guest instructors and staff specialists to provide mastery-level instruction in important areas. They each bring their own areas of specialty and enthusiasm, and part of the magic of the Anake Outdoor School is the unique complementary interaction of these vital teachers.

Marcus Reynerson, Program Coordinator / Lead Instructor

Marcus has lived close to the natural world throughout his life and some of his earliest memories include hunting and fishing in the muggy marshes and pine forests of south Louisiana and the gulf coast of south Texas. Thanks to a childhood of time spent outdoors, Marcus got an early start working in the environmental education field. After leading teens on backpacking trips and trail crews during college, and completing a semester with the National Outdoor Leadership School in 2000, he earned a degree in Environmental Studies from Miami University in Oxford, OH in 2002.

Marcus went on to serve as a conservation programs director for Philmont Scout Ranch in Northern New Mexico and then as a lead naturalist at an outdoor education center in Southern California. He was drawn to Washington from Louisville, Kentucky, to attend the Anake Outdoor School in 2005.  A year later, he served as an apprentice for the program before becoming an instructor in the fall of 2007.  Marcus also serves as an instructor with the Wildlife Tracking Intensive and is certified as a Track and Sign Specialist through Cybertracker Conservation by scoring 100% on their internationally standardized evaluation process.  In addition to immersion in nature, Marcus enjoys playing guitar, traveling, backpacking, fishing, sitting around a fire with friends, life near the ocean, and tends to be fond of any music with a good twang.

Laura Gunion, Core Instructor

Laura is the Director of Mentoring as well as an Instructor at Anake Outdoor School and Anake Leadership Program. She began her work for Wilderness Awareness School after attending our Anake Outdoor School 2001-02. After 16 years and many summers of working with children and teens, Laura is transitioning her focus to work with adults. She is currently enrolled in a training program at Animas Valley Institute that supports her explorations at WAS of how time in the natural world helps evoke our fullest potential. In her spare time, Laura enjoys sitting by the creek, sharing delicious meals with friends, wandering forest trails, contemplating untapped human potential, telemark skiing, and exploring the indefinite opportunities of simplifying and slowing down.

Mike Prince, Core Instructor

Mike serves as a core instructor of Anake Outdoor School and Lead Instructor of Community School.  Mike also coordinates the Wild Within Teen weekend program.  Mike previously served as Land Manager for Linne Doran for 5 years and is a dedicated keeper of the center fire.  As a Delaware native, Mike spent many years exploring the wilds of the Chesapeake Bay region and Mid-Atlantic coast. He earned a BA from University of Rochester in upstate NY. After teaching High School, directing a Boy Scout Camp, and directing at a YMCA Camp & Conference Center, Mike followed coyote west to join the Anake Outdoor School in 2004.  Mike is passionate about the art of mentoring and dreams of creating a Wilderness Awareness Academy for teens that would blend nature and modern academic skills.  Mike loves tracking, swimming, sailing, real pizza, scouting, Inipi, football, live music, stock investing and ice cream. 

Lindsay Huettman, Core Instructor

Lindsay loves being a part of the Wilderness Awareness School team in her roles as Outreach Coordinator and Anake Outdoor School Instructor. Her primary passion is connecting humans to wilderness through the use of native plants. This inspired her to complete a degree at WWU in Ethnobotany Stewardship Education. This can include anything from eating Hemlock cambium and discussing its nutritional benefits, to making baskets out of Cedar roots and dying them with lichens! Other passions include leading wilderness survival, whitewater rafting and kayaking expeditions; writing and playing music, and creating dynamic environmental education curriculum for K-12. She has a background in organic farming, landscaping, horse packing & training, homeschool support and is an avid plant dork when it comes to biochemistry. Most of all she loves to sit in the woods and watch the leaves uncurl each spring.

Staff Specialists

Additional Wilderness Awareness School instructors teach as staff specialists at the Anake Outdoor School, sharing their knowledge in specific topics over the course of the year.

Chris Laliberte, Director of Anake Training Programs, graduated Dartmouth College in 1992 with a degree in Anthropology, and immediately started working in the field of outdoor education, helping to create programs that incorporated wilderness adventure with cross-cultural experiences. Before joining Wilderness Awareness School in 1996, he worked as an interpretive naturalist and wilderness expedition leader for youth. In 1996 he received a Master's Degree in Education from the Audubon Expedition Institute (AEI), and in 2008 received a Master's Degree in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Chris founded the Community School at Wilderness Awareness School in 1996, and has been working with Anake Outdoor School since 2005. His passions (aside from exploring the natural world) include his two sons Phoenix and Griffin, strategy games, mythology and storytelling, Baguazhang and other internal martial arts, and singing and playing traditional and folk music on the guitar, mandolin, and bouzouki.

Nate Summers, Staff Specialist, also serves as the Coordinator of the Anake Leadership Program and has been mentoring adults and youth in the outdoors since 1995. Nate's journey with ancient living skills started as a teenager at the Ancient Lifeways Institute in Southern Illinois. This exposure to stone age living at a young age sparked a life-long interest in anthropology, hunter-gatherer lifestyles, and indigenous cultures. In the past, Nate has served as both Youth Programs Director and Adult Programs Director for Wilderness Awareness School, and has worked with such organizations as King County Parks and Recreation, Seattle Parks Department, and Outdoor Connections/WildLore.

Nate is an internal martial arts enthusiast, a practitioner of Chinese Medicine, and a the proud father of his pre-school age daughter Katie. He holds a Master's of Acupuncture degree from the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, as well as Bachelors of Arts Degrees in both Anthropology and Asian Studies from the University of Illinois. He has also served as faculty for the Desert Insitute of Healing Arts, the Asian Institute of Medical Studies, Earthwalk School of Energy Healing, and as adjunct faculty for Prescott College. Nate likes to fish, practice internal martial arts, go on Daddy-adventures with his daughter, and gather wild foods to supplement his diet.

Dan Corcoran, Staff Specialist: Dan shares his passion and experience with wilderness survival skills and naturalist studies. He also serves as the Adult Programs Director and Coordinator of the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, and an instructor with our Youth Programs and Adult Programs as well. After receiving his B.S. in Biology from Indiana University in June of 2000, Dan moved to the Pacific Northwest to pursue his love of nature with Wilderness Awareness School. He graduated from the Anake Outdoor School in 2003. As a Kamana graduate, he aspires to inspire more people to finish the program. He continues to push his edges with attempts to touch a deer, flintknap a clovis point, and hear a cougar bird-alarm sequence. Dan is also a Wilderness First Responder.

David Moskowitz, Staff Specialist: Dave shares his knowledge and experience with wildlife tracking, outdoor education, and wilderness survival skills. Dave also serves as lead Tracking Programs Instructor and Special Programs Coordinator. He joined Wilderness Awareness School in 2005, bringing with him over a decade of experience with wildlife tracking, and in teaching outdoor and environmental education throughout the United States including at Outward Bound, Rites of Passage Journeys, and the Northwest Outdoors Science School. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Outdoor Adventure Education from Prescott College.

Emily Gibson serves as Summer Programs Instructor and Anake Outreach Specialist. Emily has spent her life among the cedar trees and winter wrens of Western Washington, where her inner compass is set to orient by the Cascade Mountains to the East and Puget Sound to the West. She loves good literature, music, faraway cities, adventures, mischief, stinging nettle soup, big mud puddles, her daughter, and too many other things to list. Before coming to Wilderness Awareness School, Emily studied Wildlife Science at the University of Washington. She spent two years as a research assistant studying the effects of urbanization on songbird populations in the Puget Sound region.

After graduating from the Anake Outdoor School in 2005, Emily participated in the Instructor Training Apprenticeship and was an Apprentice Instructor with the Residential Program. She has also continued her study of tracking through two years of Wilderness Awareness School’s Wildlife Tracking Intensive. She is a team leader for the Cascade Wildlife Monitoring Project, and is certified as a Level II Track and Sign Specialist with CyberTracker International.

Guest Instructors

The Anake Outdoor School also incorporates expert guest instructors that visit the course to offer their unique perspective on special skills and topics. Here are some examples of guest instructors we've had recently at Anake Outdoor School:

Chris Kenworthy, Guest Instructor: Chris shares her passion and knowledge of nature awareness and native scout skills. She is the director of Coyotes Path Wilderness School which she founded in 1994. Chris trained extensively at Tom Brown, Jr.'s Tracking and Survival School and has led wilderness courses for many years. She has been running the Scout Class, an intensive week of training in nature observation and awareness, for the past decade on her land in the foothills of the North Cascades. Chris shares a love and knowledge of nature that inspires her to pass this on to others.

Heidi Bohan, Guest Instructor: Heidi Bohan has been working intensively as an educator in the field of PNW Native American history, ethnobotany, native plants and habitat restoration since 1992 working with tribes, schools and organizations around the region. Heidi offers programs for all ages specializing in ethnobotany and native plant activities such as basketry, carving, traditional skills, native plant uses, medicinal native plants, ethnoecology field studies, and native plant restoration. She specializes in creating hands-on experiences and artifacts as a way of engaging and connecting people to the natural world around them. Heidi has authored and illustrated the book "The People of Cascadia- Pacific Northwest Native American History", 'Starflower Foundation Native Plant ID Cards', and the 'Quick & Easy Habitat Education Activities'.

Dave Scott, Guest Instructor: is a former instructor for youth school and monthly programs. As a child growing up in Austin Texas, Dave found a great love for the outdoors and immersed himself in the natural world through exploration and the close observation of wildlife. In his early 20's, Dave began to more formally study the natural world at nature and wilderness skills schools across the country, with a focus on ecology, tracking and wildlife behavior. Dave has studied under many great naturalists and trackers, completing the Anake Outdoor School at the Wilderness Awareness School, and studying at Past Skills Wilderness School, in Bozeman, Montana. He is the co-author of Bird Feathers -A Guide to North American Species which is now available for sale from our store! In 2006, Dave began working with troubled teens in Texas at a wilderness residential treatment center using his skills as a naturalist, survivalist and wildlife tracker to design new programs for the center. Through Dave's programs, which emphasized the interpretation of bird behavior and wildlife tracking as an avenue to promote the growth of internal and external awareness, many of his students succeeded in altering their behavior and changing the course of their lives.