WINTERCOUNT 2017

Every year the Elemental Awareness crew crams our van full of dudes, a bunch of skateboards, lots of crafting materials, a dog, and hits the road for a week in the Sonoran Desert at Wintercount skills gathering.

Traditionally Winter Counts are pictorial calendars used by by Native Americans which depict important happenings and events that occur over time. An illustrated history if you will...

Although this Winter Count isn't a Calendar, it is a gathering of creative people where many important things take place. More specifically, it is one of the largest primitive skills gatherings in the country; people come from far and wide to teach, learn, and share information about the ancient ways of living. We spend the week taking classes and learning new skills that we can bring back to our Wilderness Program at Element Skate Camp.

We also get to bring skateboarding to the primitive skills community, something that some accept more than others... I understand, some don't see the connection. However, in our defense (if you think about it) skateboarding came from surfing, which is a primitive Polynesian activity that predates european contact- so really we are just practicing an updated ancient sport. Right?