2024 NW Herb Fair
Recent News
〰️
Recent News 〰️
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Dr. Nancy Turner, Ethnobotanist
TOPIC
Treasures of the Land: Plants that Heal and Keep us Healthy
BIO
Nancy Turner is a Distinguished Professor Emerita in Environmental Studies, University of Victoria. She is an ethnobotanist who has worked with Indigenous elders and cultural specialists in western Canada for over 50 years, learning about traditional knowledge of plants and environments. She has authored or co-authored/co-edited over 30 books and over 150 book chapters and papers, and has received a number of awards for her work, including Order of Canada, Order of British Columbia, and fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada, as well as honorary degrees from four BC universities.
A love letter to herbalists
Let me count the ways that I love you. I love you because you are primary caretakers of people’s health. Because you carry on the millennia-old traditions of healing. Herbs were the first medicines and they still work today. You are the current editions of the shaman, medicine-women and medicine-men of the past. You are tradition carriers. You serve the people.
Most of the herbalists I know ply their trade out of love for people. You truly care about others and want to help them. Love is why I grow herbs for people, for herbalists and for the herbal trade. Herbs are my main income and money is an incentive for me, but underlying it is love. Love for herbalists, love for people, love for plants and love for this beautiful planet.
I love the plants I grow, wildcraft and work with.
Love for the herbalists is why I organize the Northwest Herbal Fair and other herb gatherings. I have organized hundreds of herbal events, large and small. I do it as a service to the herbalists and through them to the community in general. Putting on gatherings is a lot of work, stress and risk of financial loss. I certainly don’t do it for the money. Most often I break even and sometimes lose money. I try to keep admission costs low, but there are a lot of expenses to cover.
I have met thousands of herbalists over the years through putting on herbal events, trainings and as clients of my herb business. Many of you have become friends. That is one facet of the Northwest Herbal Fair. It is a reunion of hundreds of herbal friends.
Weaving the network that serves us all. There is no substitute for getting together in person, shaking hands, hugging and looking into each other eyes and reading body language. Zoom, phone calls and social media help us to communicate but getting together in person is the best of all. It feeds our spirit. Feeds our hearts. I offer the Northwest Herbal Fair to you as a gift, as a service, out of love.
Please join us if you can—August 16-18, 2024 near Quilcene WA on the Olympic Peninsula!
A friend of the herbalists,
Michael Pilarski, Winter Solstice 2023
Co-Founder & Lead Coordinator | 15th Northwest Herbal Fair
From Michael “Skeeter” Pilarski
