Len has dedicated his life to preserving ancient knowledge, personal fitness, health and wellness. Len has taught and performed for thousands of people of all ages and abilities over 20 plus years. He founded "Ancient Earth Skills", and is a grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, and NYS Arts Council.  Len is the creator of the Ancient Earth Skills Academy, online learning center providing skills based courses: "Frame Drums and Doundouns", "Buckskins, Pelts, and Deer Masks", "Camouflage Buckskin with Natural Dyes", "Natural Voice Calling for Deer, Turkey, Coyote, & Raven", and  "Couch Potato to Wild Critter". Len lives now in Potsdam NY, where he offers ongoing programming for the community: personal training, yoga, the basics of survival and longterm ancient living skills. Check out his instagram @ancientearthskills, or the youtube channel: Ancient Earth Skills - Len Mackey and learn the love language of the Whitetail Deer.

Born in eastern Quebec where the St-Lawrence merges into the Atlantic, Laurence now lives on Salt Spring Island where she apprenticed willow basketry with french basket maker Lionel Demandre. She has now been weaving, teaching and deepening her connection to willow over the last 7 years. In the fall of 2023 her passion for basketry took her across Europe to study alongside a handful of renowned teachers with her main mentor being the Danish willow weaver Anne Mette Hjornholm. Basket weaving is a way for her to feel connected to the land and its seasonal rhythms as well as to her ancestors. She will be sharing a two day round basket class at the gathering. Every year Laurence teaches several workshops across Canada.  Follow her work & find her teaching schedule at @willow.daughter

Arnaud, founder of Connection Pathways, has been a deep nature connection mentor and facilitator for 20 years. With deep gratitude, he continues to be mentored by master holistic tracker Jon Young, one of the global leaders in the nature connection movement. Arnaud's skills cover a wide range from ancestral skills and holistic tracking to deep knowledge of 8 Shields cultural elements and the spiritual teachings of the Tom Brown / Stalking Wolf lineage.

Alongside his wife Kristyna, he is raising his son at home with the physical, emotional and spiritual nourishment of nature, family and community.  He is deeply passionate about helping other parents create a deeply connected natural way of life for their families.

Arnaud has a life-long commitment to helping restore a culture that prioritizes connection to nature, spirit, self and community for all ages and stages of life locally and globally. He lives and breathes what he teaches, not only as a livelihood but as a way of life.

CZarina Lobo is a fibre artist and creative maker. She shares her processes in an intentional way with heartful stories. Her happiest place is when she is dyeing old fabrics or weaving wool from sheep she knows by name or picking dye flowers while tending her urban gardens. When she is not homeschooling her three boys and their dog Tundra, she gives workshops in natural dyeing, soft baskets made with green waste and introduced plants. She belongs to the Vancouver fibre shed where is also part of the group of people growing their own fibre and dye plants. She is most energized when she is surrounded by other creatives and kids.

CZarina is continuously learning about the links between a balanced environment, local economies and local First Nations people. Born in India, growing up in Australia and now living on Turtle Island she brings with her a wealth of cultural knowledge.

I started in ancestral remembrance when I was kid digging for arrowheads in the Edwards plateau with my grandpa . I grew up longing for a culture of connection with the earth and the remembrance of life ways that hold that connection fiercely and was lucky enough to have a grandpa who would help nurture that. I come from a lineage of builders and started off my active remembering when I began to build with earth as soon as I managed to escape the city i was born in. Nowadays I spend most of my days outside tanning hides, finding/tending food, animal packing, building fun things, wrestling with friends, practicing some handcraft, playing music with friends, or getting really nerdy about the history of traditional skills around the things I'm passionate about, which is almost anything done outside.

Freya is a devotee of folk handcrafts and tending life while living and after it’s passed. she approaches craft as a reflection of the changing seasons and lifeways lived. made with hands that tend the earth and feet that are following the trails of wild foods when not creating.

as hide tanner and olde ways garment tender by trade, she is inspired by the nuances of skin to textile.  further supporting the movements of creating garments and gear that will be carried through generations to come. 

join her in basics of buckskin sewing class. together you will go into the bases of this unique textile, understand different stitches, their advantages, and create a small buckskin pouch. what you will learn in this class can then be applied to bigger project’s. this class will be then followed by a garmentry q&a to support bigger project’s come to fruition. 

Since childhood, Delmar has grown up witnessing and practising ancestral skills being of Squamish Nation and Lil’wat Nation. He has accumulated many hours of dirt time experimenting with natural materials, hunting, and living a lifeway guided by ancestral skills. Some of his time on the land includes helping Lynx with the Wilderness Living Project, being a mountain guide for twenty years, and teaching winter survival courses for military personnel. Delmar enjoys bow making, hide tanning, friction fire, cedar weaving, tracking, and making birch bark canoes.

Hiroko Takaya-Pascal is a mother of two teenagers living in Mt. Currie. She is a gardener, a humble beekeeper, and a basket maker. She loves roaming around a forest foraging for foods, herbs and basket materials. Her favourite materials for making baskets are willow, birch, pine needle, cedar. Also, she has a little patch of basket willow growing in her garden to harvest every winter. She has been making baskets for 15 years. She self taught herself to weave baskets most of the times, but she have taken willow basket making workshops down the states, and England. Recently she is learning to use other fibre materials like dandelion stem, rush, nettle, or linden bass. Her obsession is to make baskets right from a scratch. She has a great appreciation for amazing mother nature to providing her plants that she can create very practical art and craft.

I am called Howard Shields my real name is Swelacken but most people call me Howie. i am of the Statlimc nation born and raised here in Seton portage. One of my passions is reviving traditional technologies. Hunting,fishing,gathering off the land, making medicine, being in ceremony is how I live my life. I truly enjoy sharing the skills I have. I am continually adding to my repertoire of skills and knowledge.

Madisen (Medicine) has worked with natural pigments for a decade. What began as a question of "Why paint landscapes with acrylics? There must have been another way humans did this!" that she thought would get answered easily, turned into a journey in apprenticeship, and beginning to see how connected to a place humans can be.

She started collecting mud from wetlands of her youth, and making gritty paint in her mother’s kitchen. Madisen later sought teachers, and while there were few at the time, she took a workshop with Scott Sutton and became a years-long student of Melonie Ancheta of Native Paint Revealed. Her undergraduate thesis focused on how natural pigments can promote a sense of connection to place, and she created a body of artwork using plant and earth pigments of the Squamish Estuary. Recently, Madisen hiked 500 miles in the desert and mailed away earth pigments she found along the way. These are in the process of being made into personal and collaborative artworks.

She is passionate about how stories of the land, and of human experiences on the land, come alive in individual colours. These colours invite us into the beauty of deep time and slow presence.

Sage Armitage is an educator, parent, activist, facilitator, and nature-lover. She is of Swiss and Swan River Cree descent, living in the Colquitz River watershed on stolen land the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples steward and belong to. Her biggest passion in life is to facilitate cultural regeneration: the healing and restoration of a connection-based culture. Together we can refine our ability to build connective experiences with ourselves, with each other and with the natural/divine world. These deeper relationships inspire creative and effective ways to live with each other: they are constructive. This then yields radical and transformative ways to meet our personal and collective needs and change the world while doing so.

This vision of cultural regeneration includes values-based child-raising, decolonization processes, life transition ceremonies, nature-based education, grief-tending rituals, conflict resolution, and more.

To support this vision, Sage loves to connect with values-based organizations and develop unique learning opportunities that meet their needs and goals in these areas. She also offers a wide variety of workshops and classes to the public, both around so-called Victoria, BC as well as on Zoom. For more information email info@sagefacilitation.com.

Kelly grew up in rural southern Virginia in tobacco farming country. She earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies, Anthropology at Christopher Newport University in Virginia in 2009, focusing on globalization of culture and land relationships, environmental ethics and Vedic studies. She worked on and ran organic farms, studied with various herbalists, gardeners, permaculturists and ecologists from Vermont to Ohio, North Carolina, California, New Mexico and beyond. She became interested in land based skills after studying philosophy and wanting to find a tangible and hands on way to channel the discord of disconnect that is present in the world. She has dabbled in natural hide tanning of all styles, buckskin sewing, weaving, cordage, felting, earth pigments, natural dyes, bookbinding from land materials, pottery among other skills for over 12 years now, relating them back to her study of experiential ethnobotany in modern times.  She has also spent countless hours studying the importance of land tending across the U.S. west, especially. She is the main facilitator behind the Ground Shots Project and Podcast, a work that explores cross-ecological and societal intersections. She currently teaches craft and field ecology classes in Western Colorado and eastern Utah, but also travels all over teaching about ecology, history and landscape awareness connecting her critical social theory skills to hands-on land based connection work. Kelly will be co-teaching Sheepskin Tanning with Jesse Jameson at this year's gathering.

Ali is a courageous, compassionate, curious and creative guide of immersive transformation. A steward of 2 kids alongside their partner Noah, roadkill harvester, land tender, breathwork facilitator, archer, firewalker and traveler of the world to share the gifts of transformational lifeways. Ali shares practices that dissolve chronic pain, stagnation, tension and suffering and ignite energy, healing, creativity, awareness, adaptability, empowerment, and aliveness.

Kk is a queer, cis, Polish-Jewish & Romanian-Jewish woman. She is a land tender, a forest dweller, a sister, a friend, and a daughter. She is a ceremonial tattoo artist, a huntress, a facilitator of connection, and a comprehensive sexual health educator.

Together Ali and Kk collaborate in the initiation of animal transformation deeply rooted in experiential learning, reverence and song. Together they hold a principle-based approach, focusing on accessibility to all folks and all beliefs, supporting immersive integration to weave these skills deeper into your life.

I got my start on the path of nature connection studying ancient survival skills, the ways
of the Scout, and shamanism with Tom Brown Jr. I walked with an Anicinabe medicine
man for seven years, and condected sweats and guided Vision Quests for twenty years.
In 1999 I initiated the Firemaker Gathering. I loved the community the instructors and
participants created together as well the opportunity to share ancient skills. I’ve been
involved with Eight Shields teachings for twenty years, and facilitated a number of AOM
programs on Vancouver Island and in Alberta.
In my professional life I was involved in training, strategic planning, and human resource
management as a manager and a consultant. I taught at the University of Victoria and North
Island College.

These days I guide past life regression and life-between-lives journeys, explore my own
past lives and consciousness, write, offer Emotional Freedom Techniques healing and
personal mentoring. In 2019 I published Born Whole, a book about healing my own pre-
birth trauma.

I am honoured to be acknowledged as a healer, teacher, and elder. I honour as teachers
Tom Brown Jr., Bedai,  Jon Young,  David R. Hawkins, Michael Newton, and Ken Wilber.
My website is

Jaime descends from a family of late 19th century Wyoming homesteaders and was brought up learning much about Paleoindian and Plains Indian history and material culture. He recently spent fourteen years working as a ‘Subsistence Resource Specialist’ for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game traveling all around bush Alaska learning everything about Native American prehistorical and contemporary survival skills in the Far North. For several years Jaime also spent time on-and-off staying with hunter-gatherers in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa, becoming immersed in a diversity of indigenous lifeways. Jaime has been engaging in primitive skills for two decades and, after over a decade of practice, continues to pursue a wild food subsistence lifestyle from his home in the Wrangell Mountains of Alaska. His favorite activity is semi-nomadic large game hunting. Jaime has an MA in anthropology and is currently writing three different books about hunter-gatherer studies and rewilding.

Bruce was born in South Africa. His ancestors came from the North Sea area. For most of his life, he has lived in and around the Salish Sea. He presently lives in the Pentlatch, Eiksan, Sahtloot and Sasitla (K’omox) territory.

He originally studied robotics before realizing humans have become robots and we need to discover what it means to be human and how to live in harmony with the Earth. He ended up on the frontlines of the “war in the woods” in Sinixt territory, Slocan valley where he was arrested and sent to prison. Fortunately, he had a book with him - the “Tracker” by Tom Brown Jr. And his path of activism turned to education.

In 1999, he co-founded the Oak and Orca Bioregional School and the Firemaker Primitive Skills gathering and studied with Tom Brown Jr. (Tracker school) and Jon Young (Wilderness Awareness School). He started WildSpirit to restore people’s connection to wildness. He became a father in 2004 and 2007 and integrated wilderness skills and awareness into his daily life. Through WildSpirit, he has offered adult workshops and kids homelearning programs for over 20 years.

He has learned from many Indigenous people including Stalking Wolf (as told by Tom Brown Jr.), Wedlidi Speck (Gigame - Eiksan), Elder Bill Jones, Elder Evelyn Voyageur, Carla Voyageur, Sara Child, Keisha Everson, Andy Everson, Daryle Mills and Marilyn James.

Ayden Catry-Bauer has been learning at ancestral skills gatherings since he was a baby.

As a child, he was a student of the WOLF Kids outdoor program on Salt Spring Island for seven years. There he studied nature by harvesting food, lighting fires, sitting quietly, making useful things from sticks and rocks, and sleeping in shelters that he built.

Ayden is a graduate of Anake (now the immersion) and the Anake Leadership Program at Wilderness Awareness School, with additional certificates in naturalist studies and tracking.

He has learned and taught at many other outdoor schools and ancestral skills gatherings and is always learning more about nature.
Ayden has been an instructor at Wisdom of the Earth wilderness school for over 10 years, where he teaches survival and ancestral living skills to all ages. He is a full-time instructor for the WOLF Kids program, and enjoys passing on the skills he learned when he was a student there.

Ayden loves observing nature, tracking, playing his fiddle, tending the wild, adventuring and reading books by Tristan Gooley.

Cat learned to work with and bead on leather (moccasins, medicine pouches, mittens) from Metis artist and teacher, Dawna-Lea, of One SparrowImages. Cat’s interest in beading took off from there and, many years later, she has continued to learn and experiment with a variety beading styles and techniques including Iroquois raised bead-work and Huichol beadwork. She can often be found, needle and thread in hand, teaching circles of curious adults and children how to bead.

Cat completed 2 years of deep nature connection with Wisdom of the Earth Wilderness School, followed by a two year apprenticeship in grief tending and ritual literacy with Randy and Rowena Jones. She is a mentor and anchor to many folks in the Salt Spring community and is sought out for her capacity for deep listening, her long acquaintance with shame and her warm and joyful heart. Cat spent over ten years working for SelfDesign Learning Community as an Educator, mentoring and supporting parents in unravelling their deeply held beliefs around children, parenting, school, and learning.

Austin is an avid leather worker and wilderness skills educator. He is an eagle scout, and attended both Alderleaf Wilderness College's year long program, as well as Raven's Roots Naturalist School's Naturalist Immersion program. He has a Permaculture Design Certificate, and a Cyber Tracker level 1 certification. He enjoys practicing primitive skills and survival as well as ethnobotany beyond his leather work. He is a hunter both modern, and primitive, as well as a hide tanner. He also enjoys participating in historical reenactments and teaching and designing period correct clothing, armour, and tools.

Yarrow has an unquenchable love of learning the ways of the wild, including working with natural materials to make useful everyday items. The love of swamp grasses and reeds for soft fiber weaving has definitely been an interest, and she is very excited to weave beautiful, functional hats with you all! If you get a chance to go on a wee walk-about thru the forests, Yarrow has a unique perspective on the wild edibles and the symbiotic relationship of the landscapes.

Frog has over 14 years of experience working as a Nature Connection Mentor since his beginnings at both Alderleaf Wilderness College and the Wilderness Awareness School in Washington State. He loves archery and has been practising it on and off for over 35 years. Frog is well known for his child-like spirit, impressive agility, heartful expression and deadly aim.  He looks forward to running the archery range and shooting some arrows at Earthkin Gathering 2025.

Candice has facilitated a wide variety of children’s programs over the past 13 years. An innate desire to care for the land first led her to work in the field of environmental conservation and resource management in remote places in northern ON and southern AB. Following a pull to move West, her work evolved to mentoring youth in wild places. Having offered nature connection programs for children through with Cahoots, Wisdom of The Earth and Fianna Wilderness schools along the BC coast in recent years, she is excited to join the kids camp team at Earthkin this year. Candice’s warm hearted nature and playful enthusiasm offers a supportive environment for children to explore and express themselves.

Mandolin is a naturalist focused on regenerative ecological living, direct action activism and community organization working through the lens of restoration, education and design. She enjoys helping communities, individuals, and families connect with the rhythms of Earth through hands-on land stewardship development & resiliency practices. She is a land steward, birth worker, teacher, artist, musician & nomad.

Artxmis (they/them) is a teacher in the Midwest. During the regular school year, they work with teens and for the prior two years, worked with younger children in an outdoor environment. Artxmis is involved in the rewilding scene primarily through their podcast, Uncivilized Podcast and zine, "Plastic in Utero: Anti-Civ Anarchy Reborn from the Compost of Wasteland Modernity." In their free time, they are an avid reader, volunteer with conservation work and participate in anti-authoritarian advocacy. New to the ancestral skills gatherings, Artxmis hopes to bring their educational and child-centered background to Earth Kin in hopes to keep the child's natural love and wonder for the wild alive!

As a deeply devoted student of the teachings of a Southern Lipan Apache Scout named Stalking Wolf, as passed down through Tom Brown Jr., I've spent the last ten years studying wilderness survival and nature philosophy with a tremendous passion, culminating in a high intensity year-long immersion as a Caretaker at the Tracker School where I lived full time, 24/7, in a wilderness setting, practicing and living the skills & philosophy that I learned over my decade as a student at the Tracker School. I believe that Earth connection is the most direct, powerful, pure, and effective means of healing & protection, and it is my mission, my purpose, my Vision, to pass on what I've learned as purely as possible, exactly as I learned it, to all who seek.
~ Shuna ~

Joshua is happiest when he is with friends making things or working.

He has been a part of the primitive skills community for decades including at BOSS as instructor in the early days.

Joshua has been co-organizing Wintercount skills gathering in Arizona wuith his partner for over a decade. His has generous and vivacious spirit and loves to drum.

Jeff is an arborist who hails from coastal British Columbia. He has a wide variety of hobbies that include wilderness living, geology, teaching workshops in hunting, mycology, tree, climbing, spirit, distillation and primitive skills.

He can frequently be found sound asleep in a hunting blind, an advanced technique that he does not recommend for beginners.

Shauna is a nature-based maker who explores ancestral arts and land-based relationship through making. She is a Yonsei, fourth generation, Japanese European settler who resides on Ktunaxa and Secwepemc territory in the East Kootneys. 

She began her skills journey travelling across the continent to learn place-based skills from peers and mentors. She started tanning a decade ago and continues to be mesmerized by this process of transformation. She looks to hides as teachers and has found eldership and deep joy in them. She hopes to impart a deeper connection to plants, animals, land, ancestry and confidence for anyone who learns with her.

Imagine that you could use herbs to treat most first aid situations, what would that mean for you?  For the people around you?

Many people, even herb lovers, don't realize how quickly herbs can work and how much healing they offer in first aid. 

Garliq has been offering herbal first aid at community gatherings since 2004.  He's on a mission to show that herbs are a vital part of personal and community resilience - especially for folks who value deep nature connection.

Ania has been immersed in ancestral skills for over a decade. As an immigrant she has maintained a connection to her ancestral Eastern European roots through place based crafts from the rivers and mountains of her homeland, along with the old so gs, old ways, and ancestral food and medicine. She’s grateful to have the opportunity to learn from many elders that have shared their crafts and secrets with her. She is looking forward to opening her bundle and sharing with you.

Abel Bean, a seasoned guide with 24 years of experience in the Wilderness Guide Program at Teaching Drum Outdoor School, has earned the prestigious Senior Guide certification. His extensive tenure has seen him mentor numerous individuals through transformative wilderness experiences, focusing on deep nature connection and personal growth.

Abel's dedication to wilderness education and personal human development is not just a profession, but a deep-rooted passion. His professional-level certification from the Cyber Tracker organization in their track and sign evaluation program is a tangible proof of his exceptional skill in tracking and naturalist studies, further fueling his love for his work.

Sofia is a biologist turned mystic. An awakener of wild seeds; wild dreams in people and places. Wild as in without exile of the weeds, without taming voice, grief, rivers, without planting in rows. Wild as in lands unowned, but in which we are planted. Sofia tends to the living seed capsules of plants across the continent. Along the way she also replants people with knowledge of bird language, baskets, hide tanning, herbalism, ritual, dreamwork and other manners of being in collaboration with land. She tends to the wild seeds sleeping in people, helping remove the fences around voice, creativity, and full feeling. She paints portraits of people's inner gifts, and our interrelationship with Wild Others; planting images in psyches that may grow us towards a more alive world. She tends to psyches through her mentoring/intuitive/counseling work, as she would tend to a landscape.