Skills for real life, from every age of human history
Our programs cover a wide range of traditional arts and practical heritage skills. Offerings will grow as our instructors, facilities, and community do. Below is the range we teach and are building toward.
Fire & Metal
Blacksmithing and forging
Shaping iron by heat, hammer, and patience. Learn fire maintenance, drawing out, upsetting, punching, and crafting hand tools, hinges, fire pokers, and cookware at the anvil.
- ♦Coal and charcoal forge tending
- ♦Anvil work & tool handling
- ♦Heat-treating & quenching
- ♦Traditional hardware forging
Fibre & Cloth
Spinning, weaving, and natural dyeing
Turning fleece, flax, and plants into thread, cloth, and colour. From raw wool washing and carding to drop spindle, and Heddle loom, plus wild botanical dyebaths.
- ♦Fleece grading & scouring
- ♦Drop spindle & wheel spinning
- ♦Inkle and Heddle loom weaving
- ♦Botanical mordants & dyeing
- ♦Embroidery
- ♦Gold Work
- ♦Finger Loop Braiding
- ♦Lucet
- ♦Cord Making
Wood & Hide
Timber framing, tanning, and leatherworking
Building and making with the materials of the land. Timber and dimensional lumber joinery, producing a wide variety of beautiful and useful carpentry projects. Natural tanning, preparing, stamping, tooling, and sewing, producing leather products of all sizes and utilities.
- ♦Chisel and mallet joinery
- ♦Stamping, tooling and leather dyeing methods
- ♦Brain & bark tanning methods
- ♦Hand stitching leathercraft
Hearth & Pantry
Historical cooking, food preservation, and soap making
The everyday crafts that fed and sustained households. Sourdough fermentation, smokehouse curing, earthenware crock fermenting, and cold-process tallow soap.
- ♦Cast iron hearth fire cooking
- ♦Lacto-fermentation & pickling
- ♦Meat curing & cold smoking
- ♦Cauldron wood-ash soap
Land & Wild
Gardening, seed saving, herbal knowledge, wilderness and survival skills
Living in partnership with the land and knowing it well. Heritage open-pollinated seed varieties, foraging regional native plants, herbal salves, and primitive shelter.
- ♦Open-pollinated seed preservation
- ♦Alberta wild edible & medicinal foraging
- ♦Campcraft & friction fire
- ♦Seasonal soil regeneration
The Written Word
Bookbinding and calligraphy
The slow, beautiful arts of making and marking the page. Folding folios, sewing coptic and leather-bound journals, calligraphy, and quill making.
- ♦Hand-folded signatures & stitching
- ♦Leather spine casing
- ♦Quill cutting and care.
- ♦Calligraph and illuminating manuscripts
Every learner has a place
Children & Youth
Hands-on learning that puts down the screen and picks up the tools. Instilling patience, problem-solving, and pride in physical craft.
Adults
Skills to make, grow, repair, and create, whether for work, home resilience, or personal joy.
Seniors
Learning, teaching, and community. Reconnecting with elder knowledge and sharing life experiences with eager newcomers.
Families
Learn alongside one another and make something real together that lasts for generations in your home.
Apprentices
Deeper, sustained training and mentorship in a trade, working alongside seasoned practitioners to achieve true proficiency.
How we teach
Programs Launching This Season
Workshops in introductory blacksmithing, natural dye extraction, and timber hewing are scheduled across Alberta. Join the list to be first to know when seats open.