Our mission is to help children and adults form deep bonds with nature that will help transform and enrich their lives and their communities.
Nature awareness and wilderness survival courses are available for BOTH for KIDS and ADULTS!
Tracks and Roots has been featured in Richmond Magazine in 2018 on was on PBS in 2019.
INSTRUCTORS
Alison Meehan
As Seen on PBS!
Alison is the Founder of Tracks and Roots. She has her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Environmental Policy and Planning from Virginia Tech and has been an avid naturalist, wilderness survivalist, and tracker for 20 years. She is passionate about all things nature and especially bringing people of all ages and backgrounds closer to their ancestry, themselves, and the natural world.
She has attended Coyote Tracks, The Tracker School, the Mid-Atlantic Primitive Skills Group, the Firefly Gathering, the Earth Connection School, the Wilderness Awareness School, the Living Earth School as well as attended a few dozen wildlife college courses and ran a college club, the Nature Awareness and Tracking Stuff club. Most of her knowledge of nature awareness and survival has been passed down directly to her from two mentors, Mike Blackwell and Bill Sydor, who took her under their wing as a young adult.
To dive deeper into the world of herbal healing, she is also a student of the Chestnut School of Herbal Remedies, a world-renowned herbal medicine school, and has attended in-person classes by its founder, Juliet Blanketspoor.
She lives with her husband and three kids in Short Pump, Virginia and loves getting them outside year-round, in all weather conditions.
David Meehan
David is the co-dreamer and an instructor for Tracks and Roots. He has his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Crop and Soil Environmental Science and has completed 2 years of graduate level ecology courses. He is an avid gardener, a hobby naturalist, and a wild edible plant and wild mushroom expert. A trained martial artist and hobby war historian, he worked for the U.S. Army for 7 years as a military police officer. He resides in Short Pump, Virginia with his wife and three kids.
Steve Pullinger
Steve grew up in the woods as a kid. Exploring, playing in creeks, building forts, fishing and hunting. As a young adult, he bought his grandfather’s homestead where he and his first wife grew 80% of their food over the next 20+ years. During this time, he took the first of several Tom Brown Tracker School programs and has since been, admittedly, obsessed with primitive technology.
He has continued his studies by attending other programs, including the Living Earth School and Tracks and Roots, as well as putting in a ton of personal ‘dirt time’.
For the past 30+ years Steve has taught countless Wilderness Survival, Advanced Friction Fire and Edible/Utilitarian Plant classes to schools, scouts and preppers, as well as his own paid programs to the general public. Recently, he has taught friction fire and cordage making, using natural materials, to the future interpreters of the Patawomeck tribe cultural center in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Steve is a beekeeper, organic gardener, Master Naturalist and was a street EMT for 20 years as well as certified in Wilderness First Aid. His passion is to pass on these skills to others and to help people to develop a deeper relationship with the plant world.
Steve and wife, Deborah, a Forest School teacher, reside in Fluvanna County, Virginia.
Peter Yencken
Peter is an experienced bowyer and craftsman. He grew up on a sheep farm in Australia, worked as an instructor at the Tom Brown’s Tracking and Wilderness Survival School, and received a degree in Chinese medicine.
He has taught bow making and other crafts to both children and adults in Australia and the United States for more than 15 years.
He believes that making things by hand that are usable in our everyday life brings a profound sense of enjoying far greater than purchasing an item. He has founded Village Living Skills.
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