Ancient Skills, Modern Wisdom: Len Mackey’s Journey | Episode 3

In this episode of Forge & Freedom: Into The Fire, I sit down with Len Mackey of Ancient Earth Skills. Len shares his journey into the ancient ways, how survival skills, storytelling, and living closer to the earth have shaped him into the man he is today.

We talk about the wisdom that comes from working with your hands, listening to the land, and carrying forward traditions that connect us to something bigger. And joining us for this fireside chat is a very special guest “Bebe,” the tanned hide of the whitetail deer Len harvested and turned into a teaching companion.

It’s a conversation about resilience, simplicity, and finding freedom in the skills that have carried humanity for centuries.

About Len Mackey
Len’s journey with the outdoors started almost as soon as he could walk, following his father through the woods of northern New York hunting, fishing, trapping, and tracking game. By the age of seven, he had already skinned his first deer and was running his own muskrat trap line.

Over the years, Len’s path expanded beyond the wilderness. He studied yoga, sweat lodge traditions, African drumming, and Reiki, and even traveled to Guinea, West Africa to document music and culture through photography. Eventually, his passion led him deep into the world of survival and ancestral skills studying at Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School in New Jersey, Caribbean Earth Skills in St. Croix, Roots School in Vermont, and the jungles of Belize.

Today, as the founder of Ancient Earth Skills, Len brings all of these experiences together to teach, share, and inspire. He’s also been recognized with multiple grants from the NYS Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Grateful to his teachers, human, plant, and animal alike. 

Len sums it up best: “All I am, and all I have, is made of her.”