I've been drawn to the woods for as long as I can remember — back to the days I was running around in a coonskin cap and buckskin coat with the Old Betsy rifle my parents made me. I grew up in the Maryland suburbs, and I found my wilderness walking and biking through Rock Creek Park with my brother. Then I read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and got completely hooked on the idea of learning to be capable in the woods.

By middle school, my brother and I were backpacking through western Maryland and Pennsylvania — suffering through our own mistakes and miscalculations, and learning a tremendous amount in the process. Nobody handed us a system. We figured it out the hard way, one wrong turn and cold night at a time. I didn't know it then, but that's the experience that shapes how I teach now: I know exactly what it feels like to be out there unsure of yourself, because I've been that person.

After college at RPI — where I met my wife — we moved to New Hampshire, and the outdoor opportunities up here are endless. I spent my free time hiking the White Mountains and learning the woods of New Hampshire and Maine, and eventually set my mind on earning my Maine and New Hampshire Guide's Licenses. That pursuit pushed me to broaden and sharpen my skills across the board.

I went deep into the survival and bushcraft world along the way. I had the privilege of spending two weeks learning the nuances of canoe travel from Tim Smith at Jack Mountain Bushcraft School, and I've sought out other serious practitioners of the craft whenever I could. Each fall, I work as a hunting guide for the team at Northern New England Outfitters — an honor, and a constant education working alongside guides that good.

Here's the thing I learned from all of it: most hikers don't need to become survivalists. They need the right skills — the ones that actually matter on a real trip — and they need to know how to use them. Somewhere between the bushcraft world and twenty years of my own hiking and backpacking, I found the translation. I took what I learned from the survival side and filtered it through thousands of miles on the trail to figure out what genuinely keeps a hiker safe and confident, and what's just noise.

That translation is what Northern Wilderness Journey is built on. Through my online courses and my YouTube channel, I teach hikers the practical, real-world skills that turn uncertainty into confidence — navigation, weather, fire and shelter, trip planning — taught plainly, without the survivalist theater.

I see myself as an eternal student. The woods have something new to teach you every time you step away from the paved world. My goal is simply to pass along what I've learned, so you can head out and pursue your own journeys in the wild — prepared, capable, and confident.

I'll see you in the woods,
Shaun