Nomadic Harvests is an herbal apothecary located in the Wheaton River Valley, in Mount Lorne, Yukon. Inspired by the seasonal rhythms of the land, we work to facilitate connection to plants and the magic of the natural world. We lead plant walks and teach hands-on workshops on fermentation, herbalism and gardening. We also make medicinal products and herbal skincare with plants wild-harvested or grown at The Herbal Hearth, our off-grid venue and medicinal herb farm.
Meet the harvesters
Angelune Drouin is a gardener, herbalist, educator, writer and fermentista who’s been calling the Yukon home since 2006. Co-owner of Nomadic Harvests and The Herbal Hearth, she is also the co-founder and president of the Yukon Plant Guild.
Her journey with plants started as a child, growing up on a small homestead at the edge of the Boreal forest in Québec, listening to what ferns and violets had to say. Moving up north rekindled her connection to nature, lost to a few years of urban wanderings, and her love for plants. She’s been studying herbalism since.
For the last decade, she’s been slowly nurturing her medicine-making art, holding space for bacteria and fungi and teaching people how to open their hearts to the songs of the plants.
When she’s not out in the forest or garden, she can be seen garbling herbs, concocting a new fermentation recipe, or pensively seeking the word exact enough to land on the page.
Jalfred Deichsel is a permaculturist and fermentista who’s been calling the Yukon home since 2019. He has completed a Permaculture Design Certificate with Verge and is the co-owner of Nomadic Harvests and the Herbal Hearth.
Growing up in the rainy foothills of Central Cascadia, Jalfred found that bushwhacking and stream hopping was more fun than listening to plants. That is, until Devil’s Club poked him on the shoulder and shared their strength, sending him on the Green Man’s path.
For the last decade, he’s been peeling inner barks, digging up twisted roots, collecting fungi and gracing his community with magical brews.
Jalfred is a spark-creator and river-listener who likes to harvest wild seeds and rainwater, propagate plants to get to know them and peek over the next ridge to see who might be living there. If he finds himself with an opening, he climbs on through to explore the other side.
When he’s not out in the forest or garden, he can be seen playing music or puzzling over tricky problems.
Once upon a time…
The dream of Nomadic Harvests was born in the backyard of Angelune’s drafty Yukon cabin, shrouded in scents of labrador tea, circa 2009. The adventure started with a little bit of olive oil, some beeswax and spruce pitch. The garden vegetables wanted in, and they came along, with a little salt and time. It was messy, crafty and involved teaching workshops for free – there was certainly no business plan.
Nomadic Harvests had a slow gestation in the womb of the forest, took many names and grew from hobby to side gig over nearly 10 years. Things shifted when Jalfred joined Angelune in her adventure, bringing his own passion for plants and ferments, and the momentum needed for this business to take off.
Nomadic Harvests made its first official appearance with cases of bubbly ferments, tea blends and herbal balms on a Christmas market table in 2017. Nomadic as they were, the harvesters migrated several times. But the name stuck.
What was Nomadic Harvests really about? Herbal skincare, fermentation, education? Angelune and Jalfred couldn’t choose. Diversity being the natural rule, they decided to make it all happen, connecting plant, bacteria, fungi and human all together, all at once. It worked! But another shift was underway. In 2023, they became steward of The Herbal Hearth, an established homestead nested in the Wheaton River Valley.
They gleefully released their favourite medicinal herbs to take over the gardens, putting all their fermentation skills into the soil, setting the crocks aside. They may not be selling sauerkraut at the Farmer’s market anymore, but they still teach fermentation… and diversity still prevails, in and out.
What gets us out of bed
We believe that connection to nature and the invisible life around us is essential to our fundamental well-being and can open the door towards an ecologically-viable and socially-just future for all.
We value resilience and autonomy, and this is why we are first and foremost educators. We seek to empower people with skills that reconnect them with the land, the cycle of seasons, the earth and our body’s internal rhythms. Skills rooted in herbalism, fermentation, permaculture, where observation and intuition play a crucial role.
We are indebted to the long history of stewardship by First Nations on their traditional territory and in turn, we strive to enter in relationship with the land with respect, humility and gratitude. This wild land takes care of us in countless ways, and we consider the fruit of our work to first belong to the Earth.
“How can we reciprocate the gifts of the Earth?
In gratitude, in ceremony, through acts of practical reverence and land stewardship, in fierce defense of the places we love, in art, in science, in song, in gardens, in children, in ballots, in stories of renewal, in creative resistance, in how we spend our money and our precious lives, by refusing to be complicit with the forces of ecological destruction. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and dance for the renewal of the world.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer