Alaina is deeply grateful for the privilege to call nature connection and cultural repair her life’s work. A cis-gendered woman of Irish, Scottish, English and Metis ancestry, she is deeply grateful for all the teachers she’s had in her life, who directly and indirectly inspired her on this path. As the Owner and Director of Thriving Roots, she is inspired by the journey of life-long learning and the multi-generational quest to cultivate community anchored in connection to place. Questions that keep her up at night include “what does it mean to live in true reciprocity with land” and “how can we reconcile our deep relationality with the more than human world while still in a modern paradigm that takes more than it gives?”  

Growing up on traditional Sto:lo Nation Territory in the Fraser Valley, Alaina’s connection to nature was sparked through magical camping trips with her vast extended family and watching her mom affectionately tend her gardens and the all birds, bees and insects around the house. She grew up very self-motivated and driven towards leadership mainly in the realms of music, theatre and dance.  At 18 when asked to make a serious decision about what to do with her life, she decided to study Political Science in a French immersion undergrad program at SFU so she could help the world through politics. That inspiration soon fizzled into disillusionment, and after completing her degree and even studying in Paris, she turned toward the world of food systems, native plants and ecology as a new framework for seeing human existence and health. She eventually was teaching food systems and ecology in inner-city public schools of Vancouver, guiding therapeutic horticulture programs at the BC Children and Women’s hospital, and teaching beekeeping in inner city community gardens.  Her continued quest for deeper meaning led her to study at the Wilderness Awareness School in Washington for 2 years which woke up parts of her she didn’t know existed. This experience was deeply transformative, and laid a new life path for her in nature connection mentoring and cultural repair. 

On returning to Canada in 2015, she began mentoring with Thriving Roots in Victoria and Wisdom of the Earth on Salt Spring and has been guiding deep nature connection and cultural repair work ever since. She’s continually inspired by Bill Plotkin’s approach to eco-based depth psychology as well as Non-Violent Communication and Attachment Parenting. 

The world of nature connection opened her eyes to the need for long-term access to wild spaces where youth can learn to relate to the natural world “off trail” through shelter building, foraging, fire building and simply paying attention. For five years she devoted every spare hour to finding a land-base and developing a financial structure to actually purchase land. As any good quest, the journey almost did her in, but with many miracles aligning, she was successful in realizing the dream and now lives on 54 acres in the Highlands with her partner Joe, where many Thriving Roots programs take place. Now committed to this land, her deeper queries are towards right relations with our W̱SÁNEĆ Indigenous Hosts and collective repair and healing for all our future generations.