Meet Raven
Raven Padmos is an herbalist, mother, educator, gardener, and owner of Wolf Willow Botanicals. She has over twenty-five years of experience as an herbalist. She teaches herbal workshops, creates small batch handmade skincare products, and leads educational plant walks.
Born in an off-grid home in Slocan Park, BC, in the winter of 1974 to Back-to-the-land parents. Raven was always wandering in the woods looking for thimbleberries to eat, playing in the garden, taking care of the chickens and goats, and smelling the wild ginger that grew near the creek on her parents’ land. Her childhood was formative in fostering a love for plants and the natural world.
After graduating from high school at 17, Raven travelled to India, Nepal, Thailand, and Australia. When she returned to Canada, she travelled to Yukon and Alaska, where she fell in love with the plants of the boreal forest. Then, Raven began her herbal studies in 1994 with herbalist Carol McGrath while apprenticing at Self-Heal Herbal Centre in Victoria, BC. She received a Chartered Herbalist Diploma from Dominion Herbal College in Vancouver, BC. Then, she returned back to Whitehorse, Yukon in 1998 to work with herbalist Beverly Gray, owner of Aroma Borealis Herb Shop and author of The Boreal Herbal.
After her time at Aroma Borealis Herb Shop, Raven worked with Yukon Education as an Education Assistant and received an Education Assistant Diploma from the College of the Rockies. She also studied Anthropology, Botany, and Ethnobotany at the University of Alaska Southeast and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Raven founded Wolf Willow Botanicals in 2004 after leading interpretive plant walks to tourists in the Campbell Region of Yukon. The visitors were so intrigued by the plants of the boreal forest that they wanted to take something home as a reminder. Raven created a wild rose skin cream and a fireweed skin cream, which were sold at the Campbell Region Interpretive Centre and community market. As an educator, she began to teach herbal workshops to children and adults in her community.
Over the years Raven has taught herbal workshops and led plant walks for the Yukon Conservation Society, Girl Guides of Canada, Aroma Borealis Weed Walk Wednesdays, Campbell Region Interpretive Centre, Del Van Gorder School, Faro’s Sheep and Crane Festival, Faro Girls Club, St. Elias Community School, Yukon Boys and Girls Club, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations Greenhouse, Shawkwunlee Early Learning Centre, Yukon Plant Guild and Augusto Children’s Festival. She is an Associate Member of the British Columbia Herbalists Association and a Member of the Yukon Plant Guild and United Plant Savers.
Raven and her family moved to Haines Junction, Yukon in 2014, where she continues to teach herbal workshops to children and adults, create new herbal products, and learn more about plants every day!
Her joy is seeing the next generation of young herbalists be inquisitive and respectful learners about the plants that grow around them!