Gilbert Whiteduck
Gilbert W. Whiteduck has been a trailblazer for Indigenous social justice and education during a long and distinguished career in public service. Whiteduck excelled in the field of social work and graduated with an honours Bachelor of Social Work from Carleton in 1997. Before that, he received a Bachelors of Education from the Université du Québec a Chicoutimi in 1985 and a Master’s of Education from the University of Ottawa in 1991. “Carleton’s School of Social Work energized my conviction that there was a tremendous need to fight for Indigenous social justice,” he says. “This was, and continues to be, what drives my passion to bring about culturally based visionary changes for this and future generations.” A committed educator, he has served as a teacher, guidance counsellor, school principal and director of education during 33 years in the education system. Whiteduck also played a pivotal role in his Kitigan Zibi Anishinabe community as a long-serving band council member and as chief from June 2008 to April 2015. He has supported First Nations education through his service as a senior education advisor with the First Nations Education Council and as president of the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. He is presently serving as the Treatment Co-ordinator at the Wanaki Treatment Centre, providing help to First Nations and Inuit people with addiction issues.
Steven Martyn
M.A. (traditional plant use), B.F.A. honours, herbalist, artist, farmer, wildcrafter, builder, teacher, writer, visionary.
Steven has more than thirty years experience living co-creatively with the Earth, practicing traditional living skills of growing food, building and healing. Steven created Livingstone & Greenbloom in 1986, Toronto’s first green landscaping company. In 1996, he created the Algonquin Tea Company, North America’s premiere bioregional tea company. He has given talks and run workshops internationally for more than twenty years and taught plant identification and wilderness skills at Algonquin college for 11 years, and at the Orphan Wisdom School for eight years. In 2014, Megan and Steven started the Sacred Gardener Earth Wisdom School. Steven released his first book The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden in 2016, Sacred Gardening, in June 2017 and The Roundhouse in 2022.
Luce Bélanger
Luce Bélanger est née à une petite ville dans la province de Québec, un espace de montagnes, de lacs et de la majestueuse rivière St-Maurice. Le contact avec la nature, la chasse, la pêche et la culture de la terre font partie ses valeurs familiales importantes. Elle est une femme aux origines métissées : algonquine et européenne. Elle donne diverses formations telles que : la fabrication de tambours, l’initiation à la culture autochtone et une initiation aux plantes médicinales. Elle anime des cercles de discussion, des cérémonies traditionnelles autochtones diverses. Pendant une vingtaine d’années elle a approfondi ses connaissances ancestrales autochtones à travers des rencontres significatives d’aînés et l’accompagnement d’aînés pour l’harmonie interculturelles et le respect de l’environnement comme Grand-père Ojigkwanong William Commanda, Chef spirituel et Aîné Algonquin, Abuela Margarita Nunes Cheffe spirituelle du Mexique et membre du Conseil autochtones des ainés d’Amériques, Thunderchild Kenny Awasis Ainé Cri de la Colombie-Britannique, Elle a côtoyé ces aînés dans des centaines de cérémonies pendant une vingtaine d’années. Leur désire de transmission du savoir ancestral et d’unification de l’Humanité sont pour elle le cadeau le plus précieux qui lui a été offert ainsi que le choix d’en assurer la continuité. Elle transmet le savoir qui lui a été partagé, ses expériences de vie et de cérémonie avec pour objectif d’unir et de reconnecter l’humain à lui-même et par le même fait à tous les êtres vivants qui l’entoure sur la Mère Terre sans oublier les ancêtres qui nous accompagnent. Pour la continuité.
Mama
Mama is a member of the Ewe tribe, born in the village of Dagbamete in the Volta Region of Ghana in West Africa. The daughter of a village priest who was a prominent traditional psychic herbalist, Mama moved to Canada to join her husband in 1996. She is greenhouse manager of Richters Herbs in Goodwood where she lives with her husband and raised her three grown children. In 2013, Mama was installed as Queen Mother of her village in Ghana by the elders in an elaborate ceremony. “Mama” is her honorific title as Queen Mother.
Abrah Arneson Cht RH
Abrah Arneson has been practicing herbal medicine for 18 years. Abrah has worked in a hospice to support the dying, trained as doula to hold women while they labour, travel to all continents on this planet and spend a year in retreat in the Yukon wilderness. Abrah’s practice of herbal medicine has nourished this question and deepened her understanding of transformation from illness to health, from despair to hope and from disconnection to connection. Abrah is the author of The Weaving: Plants, Planets and People, The Vessel: Women, Plants and Contraception, The Herbal Apprentice: Plant Medicine and The Human Being and the Herbal Apprentice Workbook. She is passionate about sharing all that plants have taught her on her journey as a herbalist.
www.abraherbs.com and on Facebook at Abrah Herbalist in the Woods
Kayoki Whiteduck
Kayoki Whiteduck est un anishinaabe algonquin passionné par les plantes, le jardinage, la durabilité et les tisanes. Il a planté son premier jardin à l'âge de 15 ans. Il a étudié l'horticulture, l'herboristerie occidentale et la sommellerie de thé. En 2016, il a créé une entreprise appelée Mitigomin Agriculture, où il cultive et vend des tisanes.
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Alberto Carbo Cht RH
Alberto Carbo is a people person - someone who loves to connect with fellow human beings to talk, share, joke, laugh, and learn. At some point, in his desire to connect with others through the sharing of food, Alberto sowed seeds in the Earth, and tended to a vegetable garden, not knowing that this was the beginning of his relationship with Plants. Extensive travels, with lots of time spent in farms and rural areas, solidified his bond to the natural world, and after personally experiencing and witnessing the power of Plant medicine in the Amazon, Alberto realized that the influence of the Plants had unequivocally changed him. Today, Alberto is a practicing clinical Herbalist in Ottawa, serving his community in English and Spanish, and utilizing his abilities to connect with others as a bridge for those who could benefit from connecting with the Plants.
Dr. Hemant Gupta
Dr. Hemant Gupta’s extensive expertise of 40 years in Ayurveda medicine and holistic health continues to attract people of all cultural and lifestyle backgrounds. Since he received his MD degree in Ayurvedic Medicine, Surgery, and Internal Medicine, and a D.N.M. degree in Natural Medicine, Dr. Gupta has been consulting with and treating patients, conducting research, publishing professional articles, lecturing and teaching internationally on his findings. 15 years back, he established the Holistic Ayurveda Institute and Wellness Centre in Ottawa, and as director is providing a full range of Ayurvedic Knowledge from free lectures and certification courses to clinical consultations and panchakarma treatments.
Jennifer Gillean
Jen supports people willing and wanting to learn how to nourish their mental, emotional, physical & spiritual health for enhanced vitality in their daily rituals, rhythms, and relationships. As an Orphan Wisdom Scholar, Birthing from Within Facilitator, Sacred Gardener and Morning Altars Practitioner, Jen’s work often weaves narrative and plant-based medicine with self-care and self-regulation skills through embodiment, mindfulness, and earth-based practices in multilayered and personalized ways to help orient folks in their bodies and in their communities. With a BEd and specialized training in Birth & Bereavement as well as Yoga Therapy, Jen brings a wealth of experience when working with folks experiencing grief, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, addiction, and persistent pain. Jen is committed to supporting people working through the consequences of sexual, birth, and pelvic-related trauma to restore a sense of well-being and wholeness. Trained as a Clinical Herbalist, she loves making medicinal teas and tinctures at her home along the Gatineau River in Chelsea, Quebec.
Dominique Charpentier
Dominique Charpentier est une herboriste thérapeute située à Gatineau en Outaouais. Elle est propriétaire de l’herboristerie Gaïa dans le village de Buckingham où elle donne des ateliers sur la découverte des herbes médicinales et la transformation de celles-ci. Dominique concocte aussi plusieurs préparations médicinales personnalisées, à base de plantes de son jardin, de sa cueillette sauvage ou d’agriculture biologique pour les besoins spécifiques de ses clients. Sa mission est de partager ses connaissances acquissent aux courants de ses années d’études et d’expériences et de redonner autonomie à la communauté car c’est pour elle la médecine du peuple. Dominique est entièrement engagée dans sa pratique et lorsque vous ne la trouvez pas à la boutique, vous la rencontrerez certainement près de ses jardins ou dans la forêt pour cultiver et faire grandir son amour pour la nature! Ou tout simplement profiter de la vie en famille.
Mariane Desjardins Roy
Mariane Desjardins Roy est une fervente passionnée de l’agriculture régénérative, de l’économie locale et surtout du retour à la terre et de l'autosuffisance.
Diplômée comme herboriste en 2011, elle fonde alors le projet dont elle rêve depuis plusieurs années : l'Herboristerie La Fée des Bois, une entreprise unique en son genre qui se veut de produire la totalité des plantes médicinales utilisées pour la confection des tisanes, teintures, produits corporels et produits du terroir agroalimentaire produits à la ferme. Depuis, elle porte plusieurs chapeaux: agricultrice, entrepreneure, herboriste et nouvellement maman et participe à des conférences sur l’agriculture; à la ferme, elle donne des ateliers d’herboristerie, offre des consultations et forme des stagiaires en herboristerie. En plus d'être une destination agro-touristique éducative pour toute la famille, offrant maintenant de l'hébergement, la ferme est aussi une micro-ferme, où on y trouve un mélange de culture de légumes à des fin d'autonomie alimentaire pour les résidents de la ferme et où on y élève des animaux dont des poules et des moutons, entre autres pour l'aspect de l'agriculture regénérative en plus de l'autonomie qu'offrent les animaux.
Diane Perazzo
Diane Perazzo is a writer, poet, tarot reader and eco witch. She has been growing and working with herbs, foraging and observing local plant allies for more than 30 years. She is a trained legacy writing facilitator and in her professional practice she supports community groups and organization to communicate about social and health issues. Her creative writing focuses on crafting poetry and stories that strive to echo the magical and mythic voices of the living land and her beings. You can read some of her creative writings on her website:
www.dianeperazzo.com
Penelope Beaudrow
Penelope Beaudrow is a Registered Herbalist and recognized herbal elder who has devoted over the past 30 years to helping others foster deep and resilient connections with the living intelligence of the natural world and the regenerative, healing forces of plants and the medicine they carry. Penelope earned her Diploma from Dominion Herbal College in British Columbia. She is head of Product Development and Herbal Community at Richter’s Herbs and previously was at Faunus Herbs for over 28 years. She is also deeply engaged in the field of herbal education, including in depth work with the Association for the Advancement of Restorative Medicine and The Ginkgo Tree Herbal Course.
Penelope is deeply concerned with regenerative ecology as an integral component of the health and wellbeing of the earth and all of its inhabitants. She works diligently to reintroduce a wide variety of native, at risk and endangered plants at her sanctuary and farmstead and is engaged in significant re-wilding efforts. She has been a fierce advocate for herbal medicine as the people’s medicine and has successfully spearheaded a team that has worked to stop the traditional herbal tonic – Fire Cider – from becoming a trademarked commodity in Canada. The work that Penelope is engaged in every day aims to lay the foundations for a verdant, thriving, and viable future that upholds and works alongside the brilliance of nature. The path of earth stewardship has as its goal harmony, health and the peaceful coexistence for all beings. The transformations that Penelope has, and continues to witness through her careful and patient partnership with the green world have far exceeded her hopes and expectations; when the plants begin to speak, it’s always best to listen, for the marvels that will unfold are sure to be beyond our wildest dreams.
Erin Whittingham
Erin Whittingham began studying, growing, and working with herbs in 2018 and has not been able to stop. She is fascinated by how plants work in the body, and is in awe of both the plant’s and body’s intelligence. Erin is currently completing level two of the three year Herbal Apprenticeship with Abrah Arneson, and is working towards becoming a clinical herbalist. She looks forward to supporting her community in Aylmer, Gatineau.
Dionne Jennings
Dionne Jennings has a mission as a Community Herbalist: connecting plants & people. Her Ukrainian-Canadian heritage drives her interest in Ukrainian/Slavic Folk Medicine and inspires community connection with Ukrainian folk arts like embroidery, song, beading, and more. Having always loved and worked with plants and flowers, Dionne began studying herbal medicine in the folk tradition 20 years ago on Vancouver Island. She completed a 3 year supervised clinical apprenticeship with Abrah Arneson in Alberta in 2015. In her role as Community Herbalist, she helps others reconnect with traditional plant knowledge and encourages connection with traditional cultural medicine practices.
A storyteller and communications professional, she is passionate about teaching, researching, and sharing Ukrainian Canadian cultural stories and experiences. She is passionate about cultural history, cultural engagement, building community around culture in an inclusive and barrier-free way, and connecting people with the natural world via herbalism and herbal education. She currently makes her home in Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, MB.
Tori Lubbers Cht RH