Twa Corbies Hollow School of Bushcraft & Homesteading is set at a homestead in the Nova Scotia highlands. Stretching over a mile long, it offers settings ranging from woodlands to parklands, meadows to gardens. The historic cottage around which it is centered is so old its date of construction has never been recorded. The bushcraft and homesteading school is founded upon honest woodsman’s principles which the owner lived and learned over three decades of back country living in environments as wide ranging and demanding as the bayous of the American Deep South, the Mojave Desert and the Alaskan subarctic. They are know-how must come before it’s needed, practice makes perfect, and immersion in Nature fosters a spirit of care and compassion for the natural world.
Cliff Seruntine is the owner and primary instructor. He is a devoted permaculturist, a practicing shaman, a writer and fiddler, and a psychotherapist with a busy private practice. He was born in New Orleans and grew up in the bayou country on his grandfather’s farm among French speaking Acadians. Cliff was always one to roam the outdoors and spent many hours among the elders of the countryside, absorbing lore of the myths, enchantment and spirits that were so much a part of the Acadian world. Shortly after Cliff began college, he took a hiatus to see Alaska that turned into a decade and a half sojourn in the wilderness. Often dwelling at a remote cabin, Cliff furthered the development of his skills in tracking, foraging, cabin-making and food preservation. During this time Cliff also studied the shamanic practices and Inuqun beliefs of the subarctic aboriginal peoples, and found in them many curious parallels to the Acadian and Celtic faerie faith which he had come to know in his youth.
Years later Cliff and his wife, Daphne came to desire a place where they could cultivate their own food, keep horses and develop their dream of a self-sufficient homestead. They relocated to the misty wooded glens of the Nova Scotia highlands, ancestral Canadian home of the Gaels. There they maintain organic gardens, raise dairy goats and keep alive old skills such as horse driving, cheesemaking, brewing and woodscraft. They also teach classes on how to live green while living well.
Cliff is the author of Seasons of the Sacred Earth (Llewellyn, 2013), An Ogham Wood (Avalonia Esoterica Press, 2011) and The Lore of the Bard (Llewellyn, 2003). He has contributed to a number books, including The Faery Craft (Llewellyn, 2013) and has been invited to write several times for Llewellyn’s bestselling Witches’ Calendar. Cliff has also been published in magazines on Celtic history, paranormal phenomena and written for webzines about ecology, sustainable living and earth-based spirituality. Currently, Cliff is contracted to create a book on the spirituality of the wilderness.
twa corbies hollow 