WISDOM OF THE EARTH WILDERNESS SCHOOL - Key Persons
Candace Miller was born and raised in the Fraser River Valley, BC, where she happily spent her free time adventuring outside with the neighbourhood kids. After schooling, she travelled for several years, falling in love with the many faces of Earth; desert, jungle, forest, mountain, glacier, and sea. She moved to Salt Spring Island in 2014, where she dove into bird language and survival courses with Wisdom of the Earth Wilderness School, and began to develop a relationship with ancestral and naturalist skills, and earth based living.
Candace is a graduate of the Wisdom of the Earth Immersion adult program, and completed her second year as an apprentice in 2019. She continues to enrich the community with her commitment to and experience in nature connection.
With a profound devotion to a life, where all beings are living in harmony and a commitment to the future generations, she offers her gifts of music, compassion, joy, curiosity, empathy, and deep nature connection. She brings her deep love for children, enthusiastic play, exploration and the joy of family to her days with Wild Child, and to our summer camps.
Frank Doss has been part of Wisdom of the Earth adventures since the beginning, when we were just starting out and he was living on Ingrid and Jean-Claude's land. Back then, he helped lead a regular Friday program for youth as well as other programs, and taught about edible/medicinal plants, fire making, navigation, living outdoors long-term, as well as martial arts and the ever-popular outdoor Ninja Camp. Frank has extensive knowledge and understanding of living connected to nature, both self-taught and from mentors in his youth and beyond. He now lives in the Comox Valley, where he runs the Matsukaze Dojo, when he is not wandering the forests or walking the length of Vancouver Island. He is a popular guest instructor when he's in the area, and has helped the WOLF Kids make beautiful bamboo flutes.
Frank has trained in many forms of Japanese martial and healing arts and has studied Ninjutsu for over 25 years. His focus in the past few years has been the use of martial arts principles as an effective way to bring about health to the body/mind/spirit by moving in harmony with the environment and rhythms of nature. He has trained everyone, from U.S. Special Forces groups, to 3 year old children. His favorite form of entertainment is philosophy, especially when expressed through playing music or sitting still and watching things go by.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Director
- Co - Founder, Director and Core Immersion Instructor
Ingrid Bauer is the co-founder of Wisdom of the Earth, and has been working with and sharing deep connective practices for over 30 years. The mother of 4 children aged 14 to 35, Ingrid is committed to growing peace from the roots by addressing how we practice compassion with ourselves and each other, how we nurture and educate children, and how we embody interdependence in creating communities that nourish and care for each living being within the whole web of life.
Ingrid has taught at various wilderness skills gatherings over the past 25 years. She is also a sought-after International Trainer in Nonviolent Communication (CNVC), with a special focus on supporting parents and families, and community leadership. She holds a combined Honours B.A. in Languages, Literature, Theatre, and Women's Studies, and left behind her Masters in Child Psychology to spend more time with her children and in nature. She has also completed studies in herbalism, and various healing practices. Ingrid is also the author of a best-selling book which sparked a world-wide movement of natural infant care and has been translated into 8 languages. Ingrid brings these influences, as well as her understanding of anthropological child-rearing, attachment theory, neurobiology, peacemaking, and a practice of deep intuition, to her work.
Ingrid is passionate about supporting next generations and cultural repair, the power of storytelling, ceremony, music and humour, plants, embodying the sacred wild/wise woman, and healing the rift between feminine and masculine, as well as addressing other impacts of colonization. Ingrid especially loves creating deeply connective village experiences, and has facilitated dozens of gatherings, camps, and events to help families and individuals connect more deeply with themselves, each other, community, and nature.
Ingrid has had many adventures, including long canoe expeditions on remote rapids, braving sand storms in the Sahara, parachuting out of an airplane, and sailing a Chinese junk across the Atlantic. She has discovered, however, that her greatest challenges and growth inevitably happen right at home, in her own heart and environment, endeavoring to live simple daily life with compassion, authenticity and mindfulness. She's not sure how she would have survived without a strong sense of humor, and a willingness to embrace despair, forgiveness, and hope.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Instructor
- Co - Founder, Director and Core Immersion Instructor
Jean-Claude Catry is the co-founder of Wisdom of the Earth Wilderness School and has been studying, practicing and teaching wilderness connection skills for over 35 years. Originally trained as a physical education school teacher in his native France, Jean-Claude left the beginnings of a career as a professional soccer player when he almost died from a serious illness. This awakened him to a path of meaning and nature connection, and he spent over a decade as a mountain wilderness guide, leading groups of children, at-risk youth, and adults on horse, ski, and foot through the French Pyrenees, to support them in connecting to their inner Wild Nature. He established a remote mountain equestrian centre with over 150 horses, now run by a woman he mentored when she was a teen.
Jean-Claude has been an instructor at numerous wilderness schools and primitive skills camps throughout North America over the past 25 years. He lives and teaches through the Art of Mentoring, "coyote teaching," and the work of 8 Shields, developed by naturalist and tracker Jon Young, by whom he continues to be mentored, among others. Having spent extended time alone in the wilderness, including mountain and coastal expeditions on foot and horseback, and a solo winter expedition traversing Yellowstone Park on skis, Jean-Claude has built a profound personal connection with the wild. "JC" is committed to designing programs and rites of passage to create a culture based on equal partnership for all beings, in the circle of interdependence. For the last four years, he has been designing and leading a French long-distance program as well as returning to France annually, to bring Deep Nature Connection mentoring and the 8 Shields model to educators and community leaders there. He is deeply committed to the work of cultural repair and village building, and to the well-being of future generations. He has a reputation for holding a passionate vision, for laughing easily (especially at himself), and for gentle, crazy wisdom.
Matt McKinney grew up on the edge of metropolis on the suburban outskirts of Chicago, Illinois. Climbing oak trees, fishing for crawdads, catching lightning bugs, and being mystified by thunder storms occupy the natural memories of his childhood. He came from a musical and artistic family where creativity was just part of growing up. While in art school, Matt had a realization and decided to enter into the wilderness to "remember what it means to be a human being." This quest led him to Wilderness Awareness school in 2010 where he became deeply versed and experienced in the 8 shields mentoring model for deep nature connection and cultural repair.
Matt is a full-time mentor for WOLF Kids and guest mentor for adult programs. Matt has been involved in studying and delivering nature connection mentoring to youth and adults over the last 10 years. He has worked as a Youth and Teen Programs Instructor for Wilderness Awareness School, Vashon Wilderness School and Right of Passage Journeys in Washington State, and was a part-time instructor for Thriving Roots Wilderness School in Victoria. He continues to study personal, spiritual and cultural repair with Sal Gencarelle and the Helpers Mentoring Society and offers life coaching through his private business.
Matt's talent and passion for music has led him all over the world, capturing the musical story of his journey as he goes. He has published two solo albums of original music: "Folk and Soul Songs" in 2016 and "The Songline" in 2018. We're so happy that he has joined us on Salt Spring, to bring his passion and gifts for supporting nature connection for children, adults and community.
Job Titles:
- Wild Teens Instructor, Adult Immersion Guest Instructor
Ayden Catry-Bauer is grateful to have been immersed in nature-based mentoring and primitive skills communities since before he could walk. He attended the WOLF Kids outdoor program on Salt Spring Island for seven years, where he was mentored in nature connection and wilderness skills. Ayden has continued to be mentored, as well as mentoring others, through the Wilderness Awareness School (WAS) near Seattle , and through Twin Eagles Wilderness School in Idaho. He trained as a Mentor-in-training for two years with Twin Eagles, at various programs at WAS, including Wild Within and wolf tracking expeditions, and at the Art of Mentoring in Idaho, and Santa Cruz, California. Ayden is a graduate of the the Anake Outdoor School at WAS, with additional certificates in naturalist studies and tracking. He is also a graduate of the Anake Leadership Program where he was an apprentice with the Anake adult immersion program.
Ayden has been an instructor at Wisdom of the Earth for the past 10 years, since his teens. He has been a full-time instructor for the WOLF program for 5 years, where he finds meaning and joy mentoring children aged 8-14 throughout the school year. Ayden is also a core instructor for the Wild Teens Expeditions, has been a lead instructor for several years for the Art of Mentoring teen program, and is a guest mentor for the adult Immersion and other adult programs. He has also been a popular instructor at the Firemaker primitive skills gathering, as well as the Nonviolent Communication Family Camp and other gatherings.
Ayden is passionate about fire making, bird language, tending the wild, music, and deepening his tracking skills. He is appreciated for bringing both a grounded, caring presence, and a very energetic, youthful playfulness to his work, particularly in his interactions with children. Ayden loves exploring nature by himself and with other people, practicing primitive skills, building stuff, discovering new skills, reveling in humour and shenanigans, and making music with his fiddle, guitar and voice.
Our newest WOLF Kids mentor, Mikayla, was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, where the coulees and the Old Man River still hold her heart. She has many memories of wild adventures with her grandpa under the summer sun as he led her and her 11 cousins into the forest, enchanting them with stories, and bushwhacking into a world with protective stone circles and percussive musicals.
Born into a family of teachers and musicians, Mikayla followed suit, and studied Music and Education at the University of Lethbridge. Highlights alongside her studies included participating in a Global Drums, world percussion group and a Clowning course.
After her studies, she spent a year learning French and working as an English Language Monitor in Quebec. It was there she discovered the 8 shields model and Forest School movement. She completed a 6-month 8 shields Art of Mentoring course and was deeply touched by the concept of rebuilding culture through connection to self, nature and others. With this mission integrated into her being, Mikayla built experience as a mentor for children at various programs such as FACE UP, The Lion and the Mouse, and Coyote Programs in Montreal.
Her desire to delve deeper into nature connection, culture repair and ancestral skills led her on a cross country journey to Salt Spring Island to take part in two years of the Wisdom of the Earth Adult Immersion Program, including an apprenticeship at WOLF. For the past year, Mikayla has also been a Mentor at the Cahoots nature connection program on Salt Spring Island with children ages 6-11.
Mikayla is committed to lifelong learning and tending to her creative spark through timeless wanders in nature, awakening her senses, singing harmonies, song writing, and story catching. In turn, she brings a gift to the community of seeing and celebrating the creative spark in each individual, and loves to encourage it to grow, and grow, and grow!