Tim Swanson is the founder and lead instructor of Owl Eyes Wilderness Survival. He attended Unity College from 2010-2014 where he received a double Bachelors degree in Adventure Education Leadership and Adventure Therapy. While attending Unity College, Tim was the Training Officer for the volunteer search & rescue team as well as the President of the college’s primitive skills club. After receiving his degree, Tim worked as a field guide for various wilderness therapy organizations in Vermont and Utah. While in between shifts working wilderness therapy, he taught animal tracking and foraging at local conservation lands. Through leading these educational walks, Tim started Owl Eyes Wilderness Survival.
Tim has extensive professional training in leading backcountry wilderness expeditions, and hundreds of nights in the field leading groups of teenagers and adults. Tim’s specialties are ultralight backpacking, stone age living skills, fly-fishing, and foraging for wild plants. He also has a strong background in many wilderness activities including rock climbing, cross-country skiing, and whitewater canoeing.
Tim has over 20 years experience as a practitioner of wilderness survival. He has trained and taught in various environments including deserts, rainforests, mountains, and coastal habitats. Tim has taught wilderness skills professionally across the United States in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Utah, Colorado, Washington, and Arizona. He has adapted his survival style of teaching to encompass and combine recreational backcountry activities and stone age living skills.
Tim Swanson has also served as a survival skills consultant for the TV Show “Finding Adventure”. He writes articles for Backwoodsman Magazine, and has helped create knife designs for knife making businesses. His philosophy of maintaining an ultralight pack, along with having strong earth based skills, make Tim unique in his teaching style. Along with teaching skills to people of all ages and backgrounds, Owl Eyes Wilderness Survival’s curricula have helped start various other survival schools, and trained survivalists preparing for major TV shows.