Aleah Kohlen

Comox Sitka Spruce Early Years Program

Nature Educator

Pronouns: she/her

I have considered myself very fortunate to grow up here, in the unceded, traditional territory of the Komoks First Nation. As I’ve grown, nourished by this beautiful place, I realized that my own relationship with the land, the waters, the plants and critters, is one of the most important relationships I lovingly tend. I cherish the time I spend quietly walking our many trails through our local forests, every time finding something new to marvel at and wonder about.

I began my academic journey with the Indigenous Land Stewardship program through Native Education College, gaining more knowledge about stewardship and exploring my own relationship with the land. As I completed the program, full of gratitude, I also realized that the career paths did not align with the way I’d like to live.

Next came some soul-searching, and that search led me to enroll in the Early Childhood Care and Education Certificate program at North Island College, which is what led me here, to Hand in Hand! I am so excited and grateful everyday to walk both of these paths at once, stewarding the land and guiding the children through their own explorations of their connections with it as well.

I have a special affinity for fungi and all the strange, weird and unusual beings of the forests, I talk to fairies and to trees, and you can find me exploring in my kayak or on my trusty old feet any chance I get.

“…joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” Robin Wall Kimmerer