SkyEarth Host/Co-Founder

Scott is the owner of Prairie Haven Texas, the land upon which SkyEarth takes place.  After years of attending other gatherings and having his life positiviely impacted, it became clear to him that offering his land for a gathering could make an impact on other people's lives as well.  Scott started SkyEarth in 2018 with help from Rabbitstick/Wintercount founder Joshua Sage and has been sole operator since 2020. 

Scott has plans to reclaim the land in a way that will nurture and heal it following previous conventional land management practices. To regenerate his land he raises cattle and intermittently smaller ruminants using holistic management and permaculture design practices to restore the native landscape. 

His goal is to create a space where resilience, self-sufficiency, and to work with nature to thrive in this lifetime.

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"Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit"

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Kids Camp Leader

Born and raised in Texas, Chris has spent his whole life wandering and exploring the wild places. Fishing along the coast in Corpus Christi, hiking the trails of State Parks across Texas, exploring the piney woods of Big Thicket and discovering all that nature offered as mysteries along the way. After high school Chris traveled across the country taking classes from dozens of different outdoor schools that focused on modern, native and traditional skills of living, as well as leadership, homesteading and permaculture. Beginning in 2009 Chris began working in environmental education for youth and adults teaching outdoor leadership skills, archery, bow making, wildlife tracking, edible plants and survival skills. In 2014 Chris opened Natureversity to help homeschool communities around Austin and Dripping Springs reconnect with nature through the practice of hands-on and passion-led learning while being outside. He lives in Austin Texas, he enjoys traveling to new locations in Texas, making bows and arrows, primitive hunting, fishing and tracking wildlife. 

Chris will be leading our children's education component of SkyEarth.

Camp Mom

As SkyEarth Camp Mom, Lacey Proffitt assists wtih registration, class scheduling, webmaster, and event management and logistics.  Have a question? She probably has an answer...or will at least make something up!

Lacey is the part-time Agriculture Lead at Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farms, a living history museum showcasing 1800s living in central Texas. Her role involves caring for the longhorns, horses, donkeys, chickens, heritage turkeys, and homestead site gardens and crop fields, as well as making spaces for future livestock such as goats, sheep, and pigs.  Always attracted to the outdoors, she has been fascinated by the interactions and connectivity in natural systems which led her to study biology and the natural sciences in college. She uses this background as well as her Permaculture Design Certificate and study of Holistic Management to create thriving agricultural systems at Pioneer Farms. In addition to caretaking and land management/planning, she also teaches the farm and garden classes through Pioneer Farms' Folk Arts School.

In her spare time she raises her own chickens, ducks, geese, turkey, and dairy goats, and is a "lazy gardener" who appreciates the value and purpose of the "weeds" growing in the nooks and crannies of her garden.

Dave Holladay is coming again to teach at SkyEarth! He is widely regarded as one of the country's foremost educators in Stone Age living skills, David is a frequent lecturer, author, and consultant on primitive technologies, edible/medicinal plants, and pre-Columbian culture. He served for 18 years as head instructor at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School and was education director of Anasazi, a wilderness program for teens. David has served as a consultant for products such as Cast Away, Survivorman, Man vs. Wild, Road Rules, and numerous others, and was most recently featured on No Man's Land, a History Channel production.

Largely inspired by his Native American heritage, Phil spends a lot of time in the wild with minimal gear to further his connection with nature. He is the owner and lead instructor of “Primitive Wilderness Survival” and teaches the primitive portion of the Pathfinder instructor course. He has taught alongside and learned from many of the greatest instructors on the planet and put his skills to the test in the Canadian Arctic for a month on the show Alone: The Beast.

Doug is from NE Arkansas and is the Founder and Owner of Earth Trekker Bushcraft.  He is trained in:

• woodland survival in the Arkansas and Missouri Ozarks

• desert survival in Arizona and Utah

• jungle and coastal survival in Costa Rica and Hawaii; northern woodlands of Maine

Kristina Tourtillott grew up in the Midwest and still calls the same area home, where she spends her days with her children, foraging, making beautiful ‘Bushcraft Creations’ and writing. She loves to travel and is always up for an adventure. When she learned of primitive skills, her world drastically changed. A closer walk with nature produced a life change that lead to better nutrition and wellness, beyond what she had ever thought possible. She went on to attend several gatherings and schools to learn skills and to broaden her new thought process. Kristina has been teaching wild edible cooking at survival schools and gatherings for several years.

Please join our Cooking with wild edibles class, we have a fantastic menu planned!! Kristina will also be teaching us how to use English Ivy and conkers to wash our clothes, our body and our hair. This will be a FUN class, come spruce up with us! In another class, we’ll be making all natural lotion bars and black drawing salve. The bars are luxurious and good for your skin! The black salve is perfect for throwing in a pack or purse for adventure. We will also spend some time picking dandelions and make an amazing dandelion jelly!! It is DELICIOUS!!

Robin has owned and operated Earth Knack Stone Age Living Skills in Crestone, CO since its founding in 1990.  She has been working in the outdoor field since 1978 when she began leading horse packing trips into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness for Adventure Unlimited Ranches, eventually directing their mountaineering program. She began teaching for Larry Olsen’s School of Urban and Wilderness Survival in 1984, the National Outdoor Leadership School and Outward Bound. She holds a B.A. in English Literature, a minor in Spanish from the University of Colorado, Boulder, as well as a B.S. in Education with a Colorado elementary teaching certification. Currently she also “moonlights” as the 4th and 5th grade teacher at the Crestone Charter school, which she helped to establish in 1995. She is the author (and illustrator) of How To Play In The Woods, published in 2016 by Gibbs Smith, Publishers, and co-authored and illustrated Earth Knack Stone Age Skills for the 21st Century, also published by Gibbs Smith in 1996. Robin made a friction fire for Katie Couric on The Today Show, has been featured in publications including Outside Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Denver Post, and appeared on Channel 4 news programs in Denver featuring self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyles. All her Air b-n-b listings on the Earth Knack property are self designed and architected, hand built, homemade, alternative and eco-friendly buildings; methods that she also teaches through her Earth Knack programs.

Matt's primitive skills background started like most as a kid.  He was lucky enough to grow up out in the country and spent all his summers running wild - fishing, hunting, and building shelters (forts in the woods).  When he was 19 he was introduced to archery and spent the next 10 plus years bowhunting everything possible.  His favorite time of the year has always been September in the mountains chasing elk.  Around 2012 he heard about the Rabbitstick gathering in Idaho.   In 2018 he made the long trip and it changed him for good.   Now September is spent in Idaho not elk hunting.  The skills and community he found there are 2nd to none.  Since that trip he's been to seven other gatherings.  He looks forward to teaching and learning new skills at SkyEarth this year.  Some of his favorite skills are fire, camp crafts, atlatls, and knife making.

 Tony Pike is the founder of Ancient Wisdom Survival School and has been teaching survival skills for over two decades. You may have seen him on a season of Bushcraft Build-Off on the Discovery Channel. He grew up in a family that lived a lifestyle of self-reliance, a fact he directly attributes to his intense passion for thriving in a minimalist environment. His father challenged him every day, testing his resolve, something he explains was crucial to the mental resolve needed to survive challenging situations and created the drive to become a nationally ranked power lifter. Because of this self reliant lifestyle he soon developed a deep respect for the ways of the Native Americans' ability to live off the land. 

The youngest of 5 siblings, Tony helped his dad trap, hunt, and fish from a very early age, and takes pride in the fact that he helped feed his family as a young boy. He found his first arrow head at age 7, at which time he became fascinated by seeing how such beautiful creations could be crafted from simple rocks. He went on to explore many primitive skills from that point in his childhood until today. Much of his free time is spent with experimental and amateur archeology.

Alfonso has been a firearms instructor since 2017 in pistol, rifle, shotgun, and carbine.  He became a law enforcement designated marksman in 2018 and currently has over 500 hours of SWAT training. He is TCCC and TECC qualified, a Certified Wilderness first responder since 2019and a member of East Texas Search and Rescue. In July 2021 he became a Certified Law enforcement Active Shootee response instructor. 

All of this experience makes him especially qualified to teach a special class at SkyEarth on Mindset: Surviving an Active Shooter Event.

Justin  was born and raised in east Texas, grew up on 105 acres, where he and his siblings and cousins played cowboys and Indians and pony express all on horseback. He had a love for the land and always felt he needed to learn to use it, not just live on it.  His grandfather taught him things like primitives traps, making bows and arrows from trees and shrubs, which trees to use for headaches and toothaches. and on and on. These little things began to form his love of learning primitive skills and ways of living whic guide him today.

Dan and his wife Carolyn enjoy raising cows, goats, and chickens, keeping bees, tending an orchard, gardening, and enjoy practicing a wide range of primitive living skills from harvesting wild foods, butchering and preserving meats, drying and fermenting fruits and vegetables, blacksmithing, etc.   ​

Carolyn Fauber lives with husband Dan and raises goats and cattle and a few chickens. Her passion is to become and to help people be resilient, healthy, and self-sufficient.

Carolyn has been instrumental in our animal dispatching class at SkyEarth. She and Dan have donated a goat to be dispatched and processed fully in our classes the last few years.

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Jen is a proud member of Earth Trekker Bushcraft and an herbalist currently studying natural integrative medicine at the American College of Healthcare Sciences in Oregon. She is a long time nature/ outdoor enthusiast and grew up learning folk medicine from her grandmother. She has many years of experience camping with her military-family childhood.

Courtney Taylor has been foraging wild food for 20 years, in a variety of ecosystems and climates from the tropical jungles of Hawaii to the arid hills of Arizona and northern California, but the majority of her experience is in North Texas, which she has called home for most of her life. She’s been teaching foraging classes for 10 years, and has compiled her North Texas teaching and foraging experience into an ebook--North Texas Edible Wild Plant Basics--and runs the Wild Foraging North Texas Facebook group. When she’s not foraging, she’s enjoying time with her husband and two children, hiking, backpacking, camping, gardening, reading, and writing.

Willow Ann Iives in the high desert mountains of Colorado. Thriving, Serving, Teaching, learning and growing along side her teen daughters. This year Willow and the girls will be back at SkyEarth guiding the Archery range, teaching “The basics of bare bow”

for all ages.

As a child, Willow had the unique opportunity of traveling and competing in archery tournaments all over the US, learning from her father a professional archer of forty years.

Willow now uses archery as a meditation, she’s thrilled to share her life long knowledge to the SkyEarth family

Ash Wiecek is an educator, homesteader, chef, local and slow food entrepreneur, horticulturist, and herbalist. Life forever changed for her in 2011 when their son was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition that was healed through supporting his body with proper nutrition rather than conventional medical treatment. From this point on, her priorities changed and grew into educating others on how food, plants, and the organic microcosm around us can be natural medicine to support them in their journey through life as well. As an educator working with several non-profit organizations, she loves teaching others to grow, produce, and process food and plant medicine in relation to their nutrition and overall health/lifestyle. She thoroughly enjoys working with people to build strong relationships with themselves and others through nature and community. Her current projects include the administration of the Art of the Seas nonprofit organization, designing, building, and operating community garden and permaculture spaces, teaching homesteading classes, and cooking for friends & family. She lives, works, and thrives with her family in an off-grid homestead nestled in the woods of Central Texas. The Wieceks will be embarking on a new journey this year in learning to homestead on the ocean in South Florida.

Greg Wiecek is a retired engineer, entrepreneur, ponics-gardener and all around homesteading MacGyver. In 2007, he found the wonderful world of fermentation and started with home brewing. From there he has moved into fermentation of vegetables with pickles, krauts & condiments, sourdough, & vinegars. He also built the self-sustaining electrical system that keeps the family homestead running with modern amenities. Thanks to the multitude of acquired skill sets collected throughout his life, he was able to spearhead the rehabilitation of an off-grid cabin, taking the dream of sustainable living to reality. His next project will be refitting a 71 foot motor yacht into a completely self-sustaining vessel running off biodiesel, solar & wind energy…off-grid 2.0. He lives, works, and thrives with his family in an off-grid homestead nestled in the woods of Central Texas. The Wieceks will be embarking on a new journey this year in learning to homestead on the ocean in South Florida.

Jonathan is an outdoorsman and wilderness skills instructor, that loves to share a campfire with anyone who would welcome him. He spent his childhood camping, canoeing, kayaking, fishing and hunting with his grandpas and knew early on nature was a place he belonged. With over a decade now of experience in the outdoor community, he has trained all over the country with schools and experts in the field. He has made it a point to learn and develop his skills in multiple environments and gain knowledge from anyone he can. His desire to not limit his outdoor education to just one method, school, or way of thinking has given him a Multitool approach to wilderness living skills.

TJ Fabby is a Texas plantsman who has spent over 20 years studying, collecting, and growing all kinds of plants and trees. His goal is to naturalize as many edible and medicinal plants on his property as possible. He has owned Liberty Tree Service in Waxahachie, Texas for 13 years. When he's not working with his crew, TJ enjoys gardening, foraging, spending time with family and friends, and lending his voice to the cause of individual Liberty.

Working in "the biz" of hospitality, Churchill bided his time, waiting for the right moment to follow his dreams. In 2004, that moment finally came! On May 14th, he ascended the Missouri River on a 55-ft, 7-ton wooden keelboat, with a rotating crew, reenacting the Lewis & Clark Expedition for the Bicentennial. William Clark is his 4th Great Grandfather. This was all about honoring William. 2-1/2 years later, he returned to St. Louis... paddling trees! 

After a terrible wreck in 2009, he was disabled and legally blind. He called to the trees, and a fine cottonwood came to him, helping in his recovery. As the tree transformed, so did Churchill! Ever since, he's been traveling the country, going where the big trees tell him to. Carving publicly is his forte, and he loves to share the experience with a hands-on approach, especially with children. He has carved with Native American Tribes, schools, fairs, and passers-by. Everyone walks away smiling!

Dugout canoe magic is real.

Love is here. Canoe! Canoe!

Thomas J. Elpel had the rare opportunity as a child to spend hundreds of hours with his grandmother exploring the hills and meadows of Montana. Tom’s grandmother helped him to learn about the native plants and native skills, igniting a passion for nature that has inspired Tom ever since.

Thomas J. Elpel is the director of Green University LLC and Outdoor Wilderness Living School LLC (OWLS) in Montana, and the author of nine books, including Participating in Nature, Botany in a Day, Shanleya's Quest, and Foraging the Mountain West. He won the Writer's Digest First Place Award for nonfiction for his book Five Months on the Missouri River: Paddling a Dugout Canoe.

Jessica Carew Kraft is the author of Why We Need to Be Wild: One Woman’s Quest for Ancient Human Answers to 21st-Century Questions (Sourcebooks, 2023). An independent journalist trained in anthropology, she has written on health, culture, tech, and education for many national and local publications. In mid-life, she learned ancestral skills, became a naturalist, and started wild food foraging. Formerly residing in the Bay aream she now lives with her two daughters and like-minded neighbors of various species in the forest of the Sierra Foothills.

David grew up camping everywhere from Texas to Alaska. His father was a District Executive for the Boy Scouts so he worked at scout camps from the age of 11 to 17. He really started down the rabbit hole of primitive skills 7 years ago and now takes all the classes and training he can. The more he learns, the more he realizes how much more there is to learn and he enjoys sharing all he's learned with others.  

He is a licensed master electrician, but currently supervises special teams crews building the F-35. He is also a proud father and grandfather.

Jacks Genega is an avid adventurer and full-time van-lifer who travels across the country teaching various wilderness skills with a focus on tree medicine and camp craft. Her journey into exploring outdoor skills began when she encountered an earthquake, witnessed an avalanche, and fell into a crevasse on just day one of her solo hike across Iceland’s Landmannalauger region. It was then that she thought to herself, “I really need to amplify my survival skills.” She didn’t shy away from other solo travels across the UK and Europe having traversed some of the Alps’ highest peaks, glaciers and rivers while also studying bushcraft with Woodland Ways (UK) leading up to the completion of their Northern Forest Year, a year-long intensive in Scotland’s East Lothian region, home to the famous mountaineer, John Muir. She then carried her love for the craft back to the U.S. training with and working for various experts in the fields of emergency and wilderness survival. Jacks hopes to share her love of all things bushcraft and survival to not only help others develop a shared skill set, but to aid in a sense of resilience through self-reliance through her school and brand, Wildcard Wilderness. In the wilderness, one can encounter a wildcard situation albeit a storm, getting lost, wildlife encounters, etc; but with skills, wisdom and guts one can become the wildcard and overcome any situation against all odds.

Donna Gowans has worked in the healthcare industry for the past forty years in different areas of healthcare such as family practice, pediatrics and internal medicine.  Her passion lies in women’s health which has been her focus for the past two decades. It has allowed her to care for a broad range of women from teens and expecting mothers to those in their menopausal years and beyond. Through the years she has spent the majority of her time in an office setting giving hands on care and education to patients. As the healthcare industry changed, she began to struggle with the limited interaction and time allowed for each patient. With these changes she began to explore where she could incorporate her strengths into a way of really pouring into women and that is when she explored the option of becoming a birth and postpartum doula. It was almost instantly that she realized that stepping into the birth field was where she was being called in order to continue to live out her passion.

In her spare time she enjoys reading, memorizing quotes, a few tv shows, patios in springtime, outdoor activities as well as women’s and prison ministry. In addition to that she enjoys time spent with family and friends.

Melody is a southern muddy mermaid originally from Louisiana who laid down her roots in Austin 8 years ago. She founded Austin’s first and only Stand Up Paddleboarding School, Cypress Roots SUP School in 2021. She provides SUP instructor training certifications to lead others on the water safely and successfully. Melody grew up spending a lot of time in the country and on the water. She learned how to garden, shoot firearms, take care of chickens, canoe, swim, fire building and cooking, along with a lot of dance lessons. She loves many movement disciplines and the outdoors. Her movement career began as a Physical Therapist Assistant in 2002 then expanded into wellness with certifications in personal training, yoga, pilates, reiki, thai bodywork and natural movement fitness, like MovNat. Over the past 10 years, her studies of developmental movement, indigenous cultures, ancestral memory, energy medicine, somatics, and embryology have facilitated a deeper connection to her body’s wisdom with nature. As a full time movement therapist and natural movement coach, she helps her clients and students learn to think and move outside the domesticated “fitness” box to restore their human movement potential and vitality for life. The experience of whole embodied strength, flow, function and play completely transforms the way one experiences themselves in this world opening up a whole new world to explore! When Melody isn’t coaching, she is either surfing in the ocean, camping on the beach, climbing rocks and trees barefoot or gardening in her yard with her plant friends.

Dave Van Hook Soap Maker

Inspired when reading Grandma Van Hook's cookbook in '94, he started making cold process soap for family and friends. He took a break in 2002 when he lost his son to suicide. Then when diagnosed with incurable lymphoma in '08, which in part may have been caused by environmental factors, he remembered your skin is your largest organ and started soaping again. In 2014 after a cold process failure when teaching at his second Wintercount (while recovering from a Bone Marrow Transplant) he decided to start making and teaching Hot process -- the method used in Grandma’s cookbook -- and continue to use that method since (except when making woolies).

Dave is an advocate for men’s health -- both physical and mental. His survival skills include Lymphoma and Prostate cancer survival, and suicide has touched his family multiple times and he survives those losses.

But Davis is just a Normal guy since Normal, Illinois is his hometown.

If you don’t know what a woolie is, take the class. 

Chase is a proud husband and father of five kids. His favorite things to do are be with his family and help with homeschooling the five kids. He is lucky to have a wonderful wife who supports him in all his crazy endeavors.  He found primitive skills gatherings and was hooked.  He is most famous for his bag of tricks he keeps with him and the stories of the day Paul Bunyan came to his house or the famous hot sauce story! But his favorite story book he brings to the gatherings is called “Don’t touch my hat!”.  He is often referred to in camp as the guy with the brown campaign hat and the kids love to try to sneak up on him so they can hear him say “Don’t touch my hat!” in his best cowboy voice. If you see him around say hi!

Gina LaRoche has lived her life connected in body, mind & spirit to Mama Earth. She was raised on the east coast & presently resides in Texas, although she finds home in the nooks & crannies & wide open spaces where she is grateful to lay her head on the earth. She finds her greatest gifts is to share in how to connect to the natural world & to teach others how to look beyond the veil at how closely we are connected to our plant & animal relatives here. Her approach to earth skills is that to work with the materials, to allow each project to be a collaboration between the two. She’s worked for many years in the creative arts, energetic work & holistic health. She is looking forward to sharing her love of all things natural with folks attending SkyEarthGathering.

Dean Smith (Papa Dean) : Student and Teacher of Earth living skills, Since1958, Influenced by Appalachian Grandparents was the beginning makings of this North GA Mountain Man . Award Winning Nature Photographer, Experienced Folk Naturalist , 4th Generation Blacksmith , Historical Cultural Demonstrator

Tabetha’s favorite place to be is outside. In years past she has homeschooled her children in a wild and free outdoors setting. Hiking, camping, nature walks and more are family favorite pastimes. She has also helped Phillip Liebel with the kids program at Primitive Wilderness Survival.

Tabetha is studying anthropology and archaeology. She loves learning about how humans interact with one another and how our ancestors lived their lives. Her love of nature, history, and the study of humanity all go hand in hand and have guided her in this path to learn more about primitive skills and living.

Tamra had her first immersive experience in the wilderness in 2006. Prior to this, she was very much an "indoor cat". Since that time, she has been practicing and teaching primitive living and wilderness survival in many capacities. She has worked for the Anasazi Foundation, Wingate Wilderness Therapy, California Survival School, Wilderskills, and Coyle Outside, as well as teaching independently.

She has had roles on 4 survival themed television shows on the BBC, History, FOX and Discovery. She has lived nomadically, traveling the West in a converted short bus since 2015. She has 23 nieces and nephews, loves to dance under the full moon and travels with an adorable, albeit mean cat named Monster. She’s got a touch of the old “facial recognition blindness” (it’s a real thing), so if she doesn’t recognize you right away, it ain’t personal!