Medicine & Knowledge Keepers

I am a Cree/Metis and Japanese herbalist who grew up in a gathering culture among the mountains and the Salish Sea.  I began harvesting wild foods at the age of 6 and have always had a special connection to the land, and a love for plants.  In 2013 I began formally studying plant medicine and have completed 2 Herbalism apprenticeships in Western Herbalism, Native and non-Native Plants, Human Physiology, Formulation and Herbal Pharmacy. I am extremely grateful for the many teachers I have had the honour to learn from including Elders Gerald Oleman and Alex Nelson, and fellow plant lovers Dr. Nancy Turner, Elise Krohn, and Jessy Dellman.

Beangka Elliott is the daughter of master carver Charles Elliott from Tsartlip First Nation and Myrna Crossley from Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. She has grown up in the Tsartlip community and has been immersed in WSÁNEĆ family, culture and traditions. She is passionate about community work; social action initiatives; Indigenous food systems; land stewardship and advocacy for shifting culture through consent-based practices and collective decision making. She grounds her work in her cultural values and decolonial learning.  

  I am a  lnu’sgw, Mi’kmaq/Algonquin/French woman on my mother’s side, and I have mixed European, settler ancestry on my father’s side. I was born in Sioux Lookout and was raised in Anishinabek territory, in and around Northern Ontario, as well as many territories within what is now known as Interior British Columbia. For the last twenty-one years, I have had the honour to work, live, and learn in and amongst the Coast Salish, Nuuchahnulth, and Kwakwaka'wakw territories and peoples. Developing relationships with and learning (with permission) from and with the land, plants, animals, water, and people, and working with traditional materials from the land to make art, medicine, and regalia has made me a strong Indigenous woman and advocate and continues to provide healing for me. Sharing teachings, artistic and culturally based skills, and the knowledge and stories I carry are paramount in all the work I do. Working as an Indigenous educator has incited my passion to facilitate the furthering of Indigenous governance, particularly with regard to our right to access land-based education. 

Harmony Pillon is an artist, educator, herbalist and astrologer, with a passion for medicine making, herb growing, ethical wild-foraging and land stewardship. Harmony is of Irish, French, German, Jewish and Anishinaabe/ Ojibwe ancestry.  Harmony grew up in the southernmost waters of the lower Great Lakes Region in the traditional territories of the Myaamia, Mississauga and Anishinaabek peoples.  A deep connection to the land through craft and plants was fostered as a child and continued to evolve as an amazing channel of communication with the earth. Harmony currently makes her home on Vancouver Island, on the ancestral territories of the K’ómoks, We Wai Kum, We Wai Kai, & Homalco Nations; home to where the coastal rainforests meet the ocean tides. 

Melaina Patenaude (she/her/hers) is of Georgian Bay Métis and mixed European ancestry. She grew up in Blackfoot and Ktunaxa territories and now resides primarily in Quw’utsun’ territory on Vancouver Island. Melaina connects deeply to the importance of fostering collective stewardship for the natural world, and values cultivating meaningful relationships with people, animals, and Mother Earth. She is passionate about wildcrafting and medicine making, which is rooted in her reverence for traditional knowledge about native plants, food systems, and ecology that has been entrusted and passed down to her.