By way of introduction, we are pleased to bring you the biographies of those who will be speaking during this summer’s 2026 series of programs.

Alexandra Conover Bennett
Alexandra Bennett, a nature lover since childhood, has been a year round Master Maine Guide for over 40 years. Her enthusiasm abounds on the trails, whether she’s listening to songs of the thrushes and warblers, observing shifts in the weather heralded by frogs, spying edible and medicinal wild flowers, admiring the miniature world of mosses and lichens, or harvesting mushrooms. Raised eight miles from Thoreau’s Walden Pond, in her teenhood, Thoreau’s nature observations, canoe trip adventures, and unusual philosophies greatly influenced and inspired her life’s choices. In her adult life, she has lived off-grid in the Moosehead Lake region. She knows the North Woods territory like the back of her hand. She teaches outdoor skills to students of the College of the Atlantic.

Caitlin Drasher
Caitlin Drasher has worked as the State Black Bear Biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife since 2023. She is responsible for statewide management of the bear population, and also conducts field research to inform bear management decisions. Prior to working in Maine, she worked for bear programs in Vermont, New York, and Connecticut, participating in research studies and managing human-bear conflicts. Caitlin also recently completed her PhD at the University of Vermont, studying wildlife movement and landscape connectivity across the northeastern U.S.

Erik Ewers
Erik Ewers serves as co-director and editor of Ewer Brothers Productions. He has worked with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns for more than 35 years, including most of Burns’ single and multi-episodic films. Erik has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards and has won one editing Emmy and three program Emmys, as well as two prestigious ACE Eddie Award nominations and one ACE win for “Best Edited Documentary of 2015.” Erik is an expert in all aspects of filmmaking, having served as a music producer, writer, director, producer, picture editor; and sound effects, music, and dialogue editor.

In 2015, Erik collaborated with his brother Chris and with Ken to create the two-hour PBS film The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope, Science. They co-directed Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness, exploring the mental health crisis in our nation’s youth and young adults, which aired on PBS in 2022. This spring, they completed the documentary biography Henry David Thoreau, which opened nationally on PBS March 30-31. Erik and Chris are currently in production on a follow-up mental-health film, Hiding in Plain Sight: Adult Mental Illness, along with a number of other documentary projects in various stages of development.

James Eric Francis, Sr.
James Eric Francis Sr. serves as the Penobscot Nation Director of Cultural and Historic Preservation, Tribal Historian, and Chair of the Penobscot Tribal Rights and Resource Protection Board for the Penobscot Nation. As a historian, he explores the relationship between Maine Native Americans and the land. Before his current roles, James contributed to the Wabanaki Studies Commission, assisting with the implementation of Maine’s Native American Studies Law in schools. He co-produced the documentary *Invisible*, which highlights the racism faced by Native Americans in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes. James is a member of the Abbe Museum’s Board of Trustees and Abbe Council; co-founder and Chair of Local Context, an initiative dedicated to supporting Indigenous communities in managing their cultural heritage and intellectual property. He serves on the UMaine Hudson Museum Advisory Board and chairs the Maine Archives Board. James is also a visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, painter, and graphic artist.

John J. Kucich
John J. Kucich is a professor of English at Bridgewater State University. His edited collection of essays, Rediscovering the Maine Woods: Thoreau’s Legacy in an Unsettled Land, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2019. His latest book is Unsettling Thoreau: Native Americans, Settler Colonialism and the Power of Place (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024). He currently serves as the president of the Thoreau Society. 

Jason Pardilla
Jason Pardilla is a member of the Penobscot Nation and Penobscot Nation Council member. He has been paddling canoes in the traditional territory of the Penobscots since the 1970s, from the headwaters to the ocean. Jason has participated in several group projects building birch bark canoes. He also shares his knowledge of canoes and waterways while guiding people for the Penobscot Nation’s Cultural Tourism Program.

Kevin Slater
Kevin Slater is co-founder of Mahoosuc Guide Service. He began guiding in northern Maine in the 1970s. He has traveled extensively in the north by canoe and by dog time with Natives. This has provided him with a deep respect for Indigenous peoples and their culture. He makes numerous canoe trips in Maine, Quebec, Labrador, and Western canyons. In 2024, he received the honorable Legendary Maine guide award. He is a past program director for Outward Bound and taught at the University of Maine, where he founded Maine Bound in 1982. Kevin is also a fine craftsman and takes great pride in what he produces from his workshop.

Richard Smith
Historian Richard Smith has lectured on and written about antebellum United States history and 19th-Century American literature since 1995. He has worked in Concord as a public historian for 27 years. He has written or edited 13 books for Arcadia Publishing and is a regular contributor to Discover Concord Magazine.

Chris Sockalexis
Chris Sockalexis is the Penobscot Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. He is currently conducting research for his Masters of Science degree at the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, with his thesis focusing on Cultural Identity and Maritime Adaptation in Frenchman Bay, Maine. Chris is also an artist, cultural tourism guide, and one of the lead singers of the RezDogs, an intertribal powwow drum group based out of Indian Island, Maine. He serves on the Abbe Museum Board of Trustees, is an avid canoe and kayak paddler who loves being out in the Maine woods and on the waterways that his ancestors have traveled for thousands of years.

Charles M. Stang
Charles M. Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought and Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. His research and teaching focus on philosophy and religion in the ancient Mediterranean world, but he has an abiding interest in and passion for Transcendentalism. Under his leadership, the CSWR has recently launched a new Transcendentalism Initiative, which examines it as a living tradition, on that continues to shape our religious, ethical, and political life today. The Initiative brings together scholars, writers, artists, activists, and practitioners to explore the movement’s past, present, and – most importantly – future. In collaboration with the artist Sarah Schorr, he is writing a book entitled Skywater, a collaborative philosophy of water in word and in image, taking inspiration from Thoreau’s Walden and other writings, and from Walden Pond itself, from Walden’s own water and the other waters in and around Concord.

Wendy Weiger
Dr. Wendy Weiger is a former medical researcher who left the halls of academe for the wilds of northern Maine, where she has become deeply involved in environmental advocacy to protect her chosen home. She is the author of Living Every Season: A Mindful Year in the Maine Woods, and is seeking a publisher for her next book, Heaven Beneath Our Feet. Her writing shows the importance of rekindling our intimacy with nature, both for our own health and the health of the Earth. Through her nonprofit, Achor Earth Ways, she offers programs that guide people into deeper, more joyful connection with the natural world.

Amity Wilczek
Dr. Amity Wilczek is a longtime educator, ecologist, and Thoreau enthusiast who spent 10 years at Deep Springs College serving as Herbert Reich Chair of Natural Sciences, Academic Dean, and Vice President. Her research has been published in Science, Ecology, and many other journals. Amity now lives in Concord, Massachusetts, where she serves on the Thoreau Alliance Board and saunters in Thoreau country at every opportunity.