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.
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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