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.

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.

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.

Earthkin instructor Kai, along with neighbours, friends and family in the Skeena watershed, are facing another major TC Energy pipeline. Kai calls it an "existential threat" to some of his favourite wild places, and a way of life based on love from the land. Read more from Kai about who’s behind this latest fracking megaproject, and sign up for updates about PRGT.

Kai Nagata loves gathering food from the land, with a special focus on bowhunting. He is happy to share what he’s learned so far about habitat, animal behaviour, hunting mindset, harvest techniques and game processing. Kai’s ancestors are from Japan, Scotland and England. The Nagatas came to W̱SÁNEĆ territory in 1900 where they adapted and thrived until WWII. Kai and his family now live on Gitxsan lax yip where they practice Ki Aikido and archery, caretake a small farm and support local house groups protecting their rivers, land and food.

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

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 6 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 two 1 day willow basketry classes at Earthkin Gathering.

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 am ‘Ha7li’ of the ‘Bear Clan’ from Skookumchuck part of St’at’imc Nation, sometimes referred as the Interior Salish. My given English name is Carl H Sam, I have 3 grown children and 10 grandchildren.
Upon retiring and moving back to the land, I was requested to teach culture and language to the
local students, here at Xa̓xtsa Community school. The parents were saying “I don ̓t know how to do that” and so I expanded and started teaching week-end workshops to adults.
Passing on this knowledge is why we were chosen to live to be an Elder, and sharing these
teachings, gives me mutual pleasure. I have been teaching , skinning, scraping, stretching hides for drums, rattles, fishing in net making, cutting, preserving, and harvesting seasonal medicines and materials. Also a lot of traditional drumming, singing and dancing.

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.

Chad is an accomplished hunter of over 30 years and a hunting guide for a couple decades. He has learned his trade hands on in the most remote areas of British Columbia. He lives for the thrill of the chess game, to out wit an old mature white tail buck! An avid outdoorsman, he taught himself through countless hours of reading, experimenting and hands on practice, too hone his mad wilderness skills. Chad has been enthusiastically instructing wilderness survival, tracking and hunting classes for over 25 years. His other passions include eating , shed hunting, trapping and backpacking!

He also offers a hunter mentorship program yearly, free of charge to beginner hunters.
Instructing them in shooting skills, hunting strategies and the processing of their game.

A true survivor of the wilderness, Chad's encounter with a sow grizzly in the fall of 2015 marked his body as well as his soul. The stuff of legend, Chad fought the bear in hand to paw combat, in which he drew on years of martial arts training and an arrow to convince her that he wouldn't go down so easy! His fight with the bear solidified the nick name given to him in high school, "Grizzly Dueck" like a self fulfilling prophecy. A truly wild spirit, Chad survives and thrives!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. He and his friend once bushwhacked from the central Walbran

valley to the ocean. It took them three days, and the distance was… nine km. That is not very fast.

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.

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.

My name is Raphael, and I’ve been teaching primitive skills and bushcraft since I was 12 years old. I grew up in a rich community of people living a land based existence, and throughout my childhood I had many adults around me who were incredibly knowledgable about plants, animals, hunting, craftsmanship, and martial arts. I’ve been learning steadily since, gathering skills from a variety of people and communities across North America. My dream is to live a full and intact life, like all our ancestors did of old, feeding the wild and life itself by devoting myself to the creation of beautiful things by hand, and the sharing of martial skills that I have learned in my study and in my wanderings.

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.

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.

Ali McWeeny is a courageous, compassionate, curious and creative breathwork practitioner from the Pacific Northwest, now in Upper Yakama Lands, Ellensburg, Washington. Living with limbloss as an amputee, Ali has triumphed over greater challenges and experienced miracles. Nomadic living and practicing breathwork, earth based skills, and steeping in experiential learning and reciprocity with two children and partner. You can catch Ali harvesting roadkill, stewarding land, tending food forests, scraping hides, chopping wood, shooting arrows, and traveling the world to share the gifts of breathwork.

Former elite competitive athlete, a coach of peak performance, teacher of body, mind, and spiritual health, a full-time parent, and an emerging guide of immersive transformation.

Ali is a multidisciplinary breathwork practitioner, hypnotherapist, herbalist, permaculturist and more. The practices Ali offers dissolve stagnation, tension and suffering and ignite energy, creativity, awareness, adaptability, empowerment, and aliveness.

Ali holds a principle-based approach to transformation that opens accessibility to all folks and all beliefs. Facilitating transformation in person and online, individually and groups, retreats, intensive trainings and immersive integration to bring these healthful ways into everyday life.

Born in 1981, living in Israel. Founder of “Bir

Language Israel” and “Avnei Derech” - Primitive skills gathering in Israwl. Enjoys people, birds, and plants. Ever since I can remember myself, the beauty, power, and mystery of nature fascinated me. I began guiding in nature conservation groups at the age of 16, and from there, I passed through several significant phases in life, including “Guardians of the Garden”, the Israeli Bird Center, 8 Shields Institute in California, and the Living Wild school in WA.

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.

Jeffrey Hamner is a Colorado born wildman with a passion for sharing their love of skills. Whether it's skateboarding, exploring on mountainous adventures, or cultivating fertile ground to grow. If there is anything Hamner enjoys more than teaching, it’s learning. Jeff learned most of the ancestral skills he knows from skills gatherings in the south west region of the United states. They have been guiding youth to their passions for 10+ years at a school for dyslexic children. Additionally they founded The Hive DGO, a youth serving nonprofit with a youth dedicated space for kids to discover themselves and igniting sparks of inspiration through art, music, skateboarding, and nature connection. Jeffrey is so excited to share this passion with the youth of EarthKin!

Laryssa was born on the prairies of big sky country, with all her roots in the black fertile soils of what’s now sovereign Ukraine. Raised with traditional songs, dances, foods and language, now her journey is weaving her culture of origin with a nature connected lens.


She is dedicated to re-membering and reviving the earth-based, seasonal ceremonies of old Slavic culture, as a means of returning to our ancient selves in balance with the natural world of seen and unseen others.

What songs, dance and rituals did our ancient proto-European ancestors do when we were still connected with the Earth?

Laryssa is bringing the ritual of Kupala to Earthkin community, Slavic Summer Solstice. Join in the ritual movements, songs, dance and opportunities to be purified by Water and Fire. On Kupalo night, the Earth speaks her mysteries to those who are listening.