In Spring, buds and shoots pop out and tree saps run lively… In Summer, leaves expand and flowers burst in colors all around us. In Autumn, fruits ripen and roots fill up with summer’s energy. And in Winter, it’s the evergreens who shine with their needles and sticky resins. Walk with us in the forest, join us in the apothecary and learn how to deepen your connection with the Plant Kingdom. Our classes are immersive – they provide practical tips and information, while allowing space to connect with the natural environement.
Our wildcrafting offerings
PLANT
IDENTIFICATION
“Nobody learns “foraging”. You learn one plant at a time. For ages humans have learned plants from other people. Grandmother showed you an herb over and over again: identifying big ones, small ones, normal ones, odd ones, dead ones. You’d get to feel the stem, sniff the leaf, flip it over, run it along your cheek, take a nibble – until you recognized it. The fixative power of flavor, scent, location, and a familiar voice would reinforce your memories.”
– Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants.
A sneak peak into the magical world of plants for people curious to know their environment better and discover the medicine and food hidden right at their feet in the city’s green spaces.
Common garden weeds, boreal pioneers and invasives all play a role in the urban landscape and hold many gifts for us.
We will engage our observation skills and our child’s eyes as we meet some of them.
Contact us if you would like us to lead a botanical walk.
PLANT ENCOUNTER
“Eventually I began to appreciate – I don’t say this lightly – that the great black oaks knew me. I don’t mean they knew me as myself and not another – that kind of individualism was not in the air – but that they recognized and responded to my presence, and to my mood. They began to offer, or I began to feel them offer, their serene greeting. It was like a quick change of temperature, a warm and comfortable flush, faint yet palpable, as I walked toward them and beneath their outflowing branches.”
– Mary oliver
Plant Encounters are intimate 4-hour workshops that include a guided attunement meditation with the plant, a circle of sharing, an exploration of the food, technology and healing gifts they carry, and sampling of different preparations made with them. Participants leave with a 5-10 pages plant monograph and a preparation we make together in the apothecary or summer kitchen.
This is an immersive experience for hands-on people who are called to study a specific plant and work with their medicine.
Along with gathering information with our minds, we will engage our observation and intuition skills, awakening the awe of the child within us, a knowing from the heart, as we meet, harvest and transform the plant together.
Plant Encounters are held in the forest and garden around our home, The Herbal Hearth. They feature Boreal plants growing in the Wheaton River Valley, Yukon. They also feature plants that are not native but thrive at our medicinal herb farm.
“I went to all three of the Plant Encounters organized and hosted by Nomadic Harvests last year. Each one radically transformed my relationship to the plant that was featured. If you are yearning for deeper intimacy with the natural world, I couldn’t recommend this more.” Lisanna S.
- botanical identification
- tools + books recommendations
- meditative exercises
- proper harvesting practices
- herbal samples + monograph
- herbal preparation to take home
- for adults only
Looking for something specific?
We can organize plant walks and medicinal-making workshops for your group or family and are happy to tailor it to your own forested area. We look forward to hearing what interests you!
“The Honorable Harvest, a practice both ancient and urgent, applies to every exchange between people and the Earth.
Its protocol is not written down, but if it were, it would look something like this: Ask permission of the ones whose lives you seek. Abide by the answer. Never take the first. Never take the last. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. Take only what you need and leave some for others. Use everything that you take. Take only that which is given to you. Share it, as the Earth has shared with you. Be grateful. Reciprocate the gift. Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer