Announcing the Hemiboreal Nature Guild
Sharing our Nature joins an expanded Nature Journal Club (and leaves Substack)
Before jumping in, I’m gonna say what’s really up: my age went and changed decades this week. And before you ask, being thirty just feels the same as before! I feel like I already did all the aging I needed to do before the day arrived.
But the real reason why I’m writing a new entry in your inbox, is because I want to inform you that I’m going through an exercise of reorganizing my projects. I’m thus rebranding my nature journal club, Hemiboreal, and putting this blog and the guide Sharing our Nature inside of it. Click the image to visit the new site, which is slowly transitioning from the old Wildflower Seeds Initiative. All links formerly on that website will redirect there.
The now-defunct (but in good hands!) Wildflower Seeds Initiative
Now some of you who know me might know of the Wildflower Seeds Initiative, an ambitious project I had to help create wildflower seed libraries across Canada.
I was greatly inspired by the Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library and wanted to share their model, but realized it takes many hands and a very particular skillset shared by a local community to package and send seeds all across a whole ecoregion.
Now that the Ottawa initiative has evolved and now has become a pan-Canadian mailing initiative with a catalogue and a 10,000 member-count on its Facebook group, I am constantly redefining my own approach in doing seed library-related education and distribution. Not only that, but my current job at Nature NB (which now has the Seed Sitters Club) involves a lot of that native seed education and distribution already, so I don’t want to spread myself too thin.
Back to my roots, I decided to put Sharing our Nature, which I call a nature & community organization guide, inside of the Hemiboreal Nature Guild.
Relaunching my Hemiboreal Nature Journal Club
The Hemiboreal Nature Journal Club was started last year at the original website of hemiboreal.com. I have hosted 3-4 nature journaling workshops since starting it, at local festivals and nature club events. But what I learned was that nature journaling events mostly attracted already-artistically-inclined people, especially those at the intersection between nature and art. This is a very small percentage of the population, but those workshops were very fun to host and taught me a lot!
I think nature is accessible to everybody, but I also think the target audience for nature journaling can be broader. That’s why I wanted to create the Hemiboreal Nature Guild.
A community of nature enthusiasts led by Samuel LeGresley. Centered in the Canadian Maritimes, we document patterns and seasons, while aiming to share our love of nature with others through the practice of nature guide creation and journaling.
I think self-created nature guides through nature journaling doesn’t have to be called “art”. It’s mostly a tool of exploration and curiosity, which leads to learning in a self-directed and cost-free way.
That means anybody who even has a slight interest in nature can use their walks in nature or photos to create their own “guides” and start their learning journey!
Why “Guild”?
To me, “Guild” is the best word for a community of practice linked with nature. It has two definitions: one ecological (a group of different species that use the same resources) and one practical (an association of artisans).
What will change
For those on e-mail, nothing changes in practice (keep up with the great feedback!), but for those on Substack I will be leaving this platform to go fully on the Hemiboreal Guild website. Don’t worry, I’ll transfer my subscriber base there. So be sure to join the mailing list at hemiboreal.com and/or the Discord community for the Club at this link!
See you around these parts very soon!