Barefoot Dave (Ojiig)

*"The more you know, the less you need", was made famous by expert survival instructor Codi Lundin.  He owns Aboriginal Living Skills School in Prescott Arizona and I very highly recommend learning from him. He teaches a wide variety of classes as well as emergency preparedness and other health and safety related topics.  Check him out.

​​Hi, I'm known as Barefoot Dave or Ojiig... I was born into a very traumatic family situation, and was fast tracking toward my own destruction.  In fact, it was predicted (when I was in grade six) that I would end up fighting addiction, in prison, or dead before I was twenty  - and there were many valid reasons for those predictions.  BUT that never happened.   Instead, the Creator provided me with a refuge - the natural world.  I often say that I was raised by a forest in the Creator's care.  And it was thru these moments of solitude that I had a very powerful teenage spiritual awakening which transformed my entire life.

​Before my spiritual awakening I was living a double life; my personal life was spent in the forest pursuing the healing power of nature and traditional culture, while my public life was spent in very destructive behavior - violence, substance abuse, theft, etc.

After receiving a Bachelor's Degree in spiritual formation and education, I began my official career which took me to some of North America's most suicidal, financially challenged, and violent communities.  It as during this time that a traditional medicine keeper (real shaman) taught me about how to grow my medicine bundle.

Shortly after this everything began to change quickly, I am going to resist sharing my resume here, in short my reputation grew and I was able to help countless people.  So by word of mouth people began to seek us out at our house...so we embraced it and created EXILED NOMAD.

Along with teaching on our property I still regularly teach at youth gatherings, community events, leadership summits, indigenous communities and gatherings, and spiritual events.  I also volunteer my teachings in prisons and homeless encampments.  As well, in the past I've worked as a Spiritual Counsellor for Community Wellness and the Men's Circle, as well as serving our community in more traditional roles such as firekeeper, medicine keeper, forest healer, etc.

Then one night while sleeping under the stars I realized my private and public lives were bonded together and so began my lifelong journey of living holistically healthy in nature. I began to seek out elders and it was during one of these experiences that a spiritual elder identified my calling to help people to heal and grow spiritually as part of my life journey.  (By this point all my worldly possessions could fit into a single backpack.)

So I began to travel by bicycle sharing all that I was learning; sleeping in the woods and on the side of the road.  Then, while teaching at-risk teens in the wilderness (in my 20's)  I began to understand the greater power of land-based experiences in peoples lives.  So I committed to dedicating my life to making a difference by offering spiritual coaching and providing growth and healing experiences in nature.  

Searching for an authentic way to move toward holistic health I left my troublemaking friends, and turned to the counter-culture lifestyle of surfing and windsurfing.  A very weird decision for a kid living in an Ontario farming community in the 70's and 80's; yet the power of the water, and healing of fully immersing myself in nature helped me to de-tox my life.  I vowed to NEVER go back to societies toxicities and the dreaded status quo. I became a boho nature boy (lol).

To this day I am very much a boho nature boy who lives very disconnected from the status quo, and when not helping others my time is spent either with family and friends or with life on the land.  I should mention that I am also a primitive arts and forest living expert which is another skill I use to enhance my spiritual coaching and forest wellness practices. 

CONTACT US NOW

Dave@exilednomad.com

IT'S TRUE..."THE MORE YOU KNOW, THE LESS YOU NEED*" - AND THE LESS YOU NEED, THE MORE YOU CAN FOCUS ON WHAT TRULY MATTERS TO YOU.