Skeet Sutherland

Skeet Sutherland is the founder, program director and lead instructor of Sticks and Stones Wilderness School.  Skeet is a tracker, wilderness skills educator and environmental consultant.  He has a unique passion for combining the integral studies of education, ecology and community stewardship with the ancient skills of tracking, nature awareness and wilderness living. 

Over the past decade, Skeet has traveled overseas to the Old World and extensively in North America. Tracking the ABC’s of nature and “ground-truthing” all that he has learned and observed in order to evolve a perspective that is worth teaching and preserving.

With initial questions that began fishing on the rivers, Skeet wondered about how and why we have come to live in the world as degraded as it is.  Sir Sandford Fleming College, where he received a diploma in Ecosystem Management, provided the firm understanding of our current ecological health and provided the skills and tools to create a career out of the application of restoring the natural world.  Most important to his studies were the various integral approaches to modern restoration ecology.  What stood out to Skeet was the need for local, ecological community stewardship and the severe lack of vision and cultural leadership within the community.

Raising awareness of local ecological stewardship and his great love for forested habitat and preserving what is left of the North Eastern Woodlands led Skeet to become a certified Managed Forest Plan Approver in partnership with the Ministry of Natural Resources. As such,Skeet helps deliver the Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program (MFTIP) as a Plan Approver and assist landowners in sustainably managing their woodlands.

While providing services as an environmental consultant in the Headwaters region of Southern Ontario, Skeet coordinated the award-winning Mill Creek Stewardship Project. Providing the community of Orangeville with an educational event focusing on watershed habitat rehabilitation and local wildlife awareness.

It was during his time as a private consultant, providing services as a project manager while working on the Emerald Ash Borer Project (coordinated by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency) that Skeet truly realized his passion for preserving the natural world wasn’t being fulfilled. The constant bombardment of ecological degradation, and total lack of awareness even among specialists in the industry was enough to keep him searching.  He began to see that certain specialists forgave all awareness of the basic teachings of ecology to pursue a career blind to fact that their work was useless– a lot of research for little return.

The majority of people in this world are tourists, strangers to the very plants, trees and wild things that surround them everyday.  The question of how to grow awareness in people, before the very resources that sustain them run out– became the leading force in Skeet’s life.  The quest to answer this question brought Skeet to meet Tom Brown Jr. and to attend his Tracking, Nature Awareness and Wilderness Survival School, in New Jersey, USA.  Skeet found the practical application of what he was looking for in the skills that Tom was preserving.

Tom’s Vision of preserving the “ancient skills” evolved out of the teachings from his mentor Stalking Wolf, an elder Apache Shaman.  Tom, who was mentored for ten years by Stalking Wolf, trained in the ancient skills of tracking, awareness, wilderness survival and the ways of the spirit.  It is through the passionate application of these skills that true awareness arises in people, in a way that continually produces universal results.  The teaching methods, known to so many as “the way of the coyote,” refers to a teaching or mentoring style which is fundamental to all earth based cultures.  To evoke an answer from a student, a mentor will ask questions, leading the student ever closer to their destination, yet allowing them to find their own way down the path.

Allowing students to lead the journey for themselves, empowers their own potential and integrity, and thus creates greater strength in the community as a whole.  Skeet started attending classes at Tom’s School, which led him to volunteer for those classes he had already taken.  Joining the school as an intern for more than a year, Skeet lived in the Pine Barrens and trained passionately, living as did those in the school’s Caretaker program.  He lived outside for two years while he applied the skills of the Caretaker in the same camp that Grandfather, Stalking Wolf, Tom and tens of thousands of other tracker students have done ever since anyone can remember.

It was the passion that Tom noticed in Skeet, as well as the way he was integrating the skills into his life that urged Tom to ask Skeet to train as an assistant instructor.  Skeet trained, assisted and taught under Tom’s wing, learning as he never had before in “layers and veneers” so to say. It was a short time before Skeet was an instructor.  Living, teaching and growing in and through the skills, Skeet travelled and trained all across North America, testing the skills in every ecosystem throughout.  It was during this time that he knew he had to bring these skills back home and provide a living example for his home community. He knew the skills of the Caretaker or Ancient Steward could be applied to any landscape or ecosystem; he had lived it himself all over North America.

Skeet has continuously studied with Jon Young, of OwLink Media, through the various tools and resources Jon has made available. Jon is the author of several books on teaching and tracking; he is also the founder of the Kamana Naturalist Training Program and the Shikari Tracking Guild, based in California.  Jon is unique in bringing forth educational models that create mentoring, naturally within communities.

Helping to inspire Skeet to grow into his own talents as a tracker, mentor and steward, utilizing educational models that have evolved from the natural cycles of life and the purity of wilderness, Skeet is forever thankful and grateful for the communities of people who intentfully leave tracks of integrity. The skills are universal to establish, maintain and preserve meaningful relationships within natural local communities.  The integration of ancient skills– such as tracking, nature awareness and wilderness skills — into modern life relies mainly upon one main ingredient. Passion born out of need.

The wilderness skills, which come from and are inherent to the existence of all of the worlds’ communities, grow within people their own sense of purpose born out of the ecological wisdom spawned in their own home communities.  This is the universal key, that when found and utilized, unlocks the secret to any habitat and the skills of the steward or caretaker made evident.   They are tried by fire and tested by the forces of creation, still the skills have endured throughout the ages to grow resilient communities, full of integrity and firmly grounded in the natural world with Hope and Vision for the children of tomorrow.