The Trail Forge Mission Statement

Trail Forge exists to rebuild our relationship with the Earth through monthly nature walks, guided workshops, circle engagement, and meaningful connections.

We are a Melanated-centered collective created with the understanding that Black people across the diaspora have experienced violence, displacement, environmental injustice, and exclusion from spaces that should belong to everyone. Trail Forge was created as a response to that history and as a space to imagine something different.

We believe that reconnecting with nature can be part of reconnecting with ourselves.

The forest, the river, the mountain, the soil, and the open sky can become places of learning, reflection, healing, and collective memory. Through hiking, camping, foraging, meditation, yoga, forest bathing, storytelling, creative expression, environmental restoration, and shared meals, we create opportunities for people to slow down and remember that we are not separate from the Earth. We are nature.

Our work also calls us to look deeper into the land beneath our feet.

We are committed to learning more about Turtle Island// The Americas by building relationships with Indigenous communities and learning from the knowledge they continue to carry. We seek to understand the Indigenous technologies, ecological practices, agricultural systems, medicines, architecture, land-management practices, and ways of relating to the natural world that existed long before colonization.

This learning is not about taking knowledge. It is about building relationships, listening, respecting sovereignty, and understanding the people who have been caring for these lands since time immemorial.

We are especially interested in exploring the connections between Indigenous, Black, and Afro-Indigenous communities and the ways our histories, cultures, migrations, survival, and relationships with the land intersect. We believe there is much to learn through bringing these communities into deeper relationship with one another while honoring the distinct histories and identities of each.

The Trail Forge also welcomes genuine allies who understand that solidarity requires action. We want people who are willing to learn, listen, challenge harmful systems, respect Indigenous sovereignty, and help create environments where Black people can gather, explore, grow, and exist freely in nature.

Our vision is rooted in the belief that land, people, and culture cannot be separated.

When we learn from the land, we learn about ourselves.

When we gather in nature, we create community.

When we protect the Earth, we protect the generations that come after us.

Trail Forge is more than an outdoor organization. It is a growing movement rooted in nature and centered on the remembrance of who we are, where we come from, and how we are responsible for the places we call home.

We walk the land to remember.
We gather to reconnect.
We learn to restore.
We forge forward together.