Why Alberta Wildcraft Is Different | Why Choose Us
We're not the biggest. That's part of the point.
Alberta Wildcraft is a Canadian family business built around wild harvesting, hands-on making, education and a ridiculous amount of work behind the scenes.
We don't compete by pretending to be bigger.
There are businesses with bigger teams, bigger facilities, larger production runs and far more resources than Alberta Wildcraft. That's fine.
We don't need to pretend we're one of them.
Our advantage is that we're still close enough to the work to know what's actually happening at every stage.
The people running Alberta Wildcraft are also the people going into the forest, harvesting wild ingredients, handling raw materials, making products, answering questions, building guides, packing orders and constantly learning how to do the work better.
Hands-on doesn't mean small effort.
The work doesn't end when we leave the forest.
A finished tin, bar, balm or bag of herbs can look simple. The work behind it usually isn't.
Wildcrafted products begin long before something appears on a product page, and they keep requiring work long after the harvesting is finished.
Then there is everything people rarely associate with wildcrafting: maintaining a website, writing product information, creating educational guides, answering customers, managing inventory, shipping, marketing and doing the thousand small jobs required to keep a family business moving.
Sometimes the work is muddy boots and resin-covered hands. Sometimes it's fifteen hours at a computer. Both are part of Alberta Wildcraft.
Our wild ingredients aren't outsourced.
When we say wildcrafted, we mean something very specific.
The herbs, mushrooms, saps, resins and other wild materials used in our wildcrafted products are not sourced through outside harvesters or purchased as bulk wild ingredients from botanical suppliers.
We go out and harvest them ourselves.
That includes the resin used in our Canadian Spruce Gum, the wild herbs used in our herbal products, the forest mushrooms used in our teas and the other wild materials that become Alberta Wildcraft products.
Our Canadian Spruce Gum is made primarily from wild-harvested spruce resin, with a small amount of pine resin added for elasticity. We personally harvest both.
We know where our wild ingredients came from because we were there.
Harvesting our own wild ingredients means we plan production around seasons, weather, travel, healthy harvesting areas and what nature actually makes available to us. Over time, experience in the field has helped us identify productive harvesting areas, plan larger harvests and build inventory around demand. It is more labour-intensive than simply ordering bulk material, but it keeps us connected to the source.
The wild ingredients in our wildcrafted products are gathered by us rather than purchased as bulk wild materials from outside harvesters.
We personally visit the places we harvest and handle the material from the beginning of the process.
When our name goes on a wildcrafted product, we want firsthand knowledge of the wild material inside it.
We know who harvested our wild ingredients. We did.
Knowing the source changes how you work.
When you're the person who harvested the material, you don't have to guess where it came from or how it looked when it was collected.
You saw the tree, plant, mushroom or resin in the landscape. You handled it before it became inventory.
That direct relationship gives us something we value deeply: firsthand knowledge of the wild ingredients carrying the Alberta Wildcraft name.
We don't expect the forest to behave like a factory.
Wild ingredients are not manufactured to identical specifications.
Different trees, locations, seasons and harvests can produce materials with different colour, texture, aroma and character. Tree resin is a perfect example.
One resin harvest may produce a softer gum. Another may be firmer or darker. That's not a flaw in wild materials — that's what makes them wild.
Our job isn't to pretend every harvest is identical. Our job is to understand what we gathered, work with it carefully and tell customers what they're getting.
Unusual products sometimes need actual teaching.
Traditional resin gum doesn't behave like commercial chewing gum. There is a learning curve.
We could put a tiny instruction card in the package and leave customers to figure it out.
Instead, we've built detailed chewing guides, demonstrations and educational resources because learning how to use the product is part of having a good experience with it.
That's how we approach wildcrafted products generally: not simply as things to sell, but as materials worth understanding.
Because we still have something to prove.
Being a small business doesn't automatically make a business better. We don't expect anyone to choose Alberta Wildcraft simply because we're family-run.
We have to earn that choice.
Herbs, mushrooms, saps, resins and other wild materials used in our wildcrafted products are gathered by us.
The people behind the business remain connected to harvesting, making, education and customers.
We know where our wild ingredients came from because we were physically part of the harvest.
Wild materials change. We don't pretend the forest produces standardized factory ingredients.
Guides, demonstrations and customer support are part of how we share products that may be unfamiliar.
There isn't a giant team behind the curtain. The work is personal because the business is personal.
Growth shouldn't separate us from the work.
Of course we want Alberta Wildcraft to grow.
We want more people to discover traditional resin gum, wild plants, forest products and the knowledge surrounding them.
But growth means very little to us if becoming bigger requires becoming disconnected from the things that made the business worth building in the first place.
We want to grow while remaining recognizable to ourselves: still learning, still harvesting, still making, still teaching and still willing to do the hard parts.
This isn't a forest-themed business.
The forest is part of the supply chain.
The polished product is only the last part of the story.
Behind Alberta Wildcraft are real people doing real work: finding harvesting areas, gathering wild ingredients, processing what we bring home, learning, making mistakes, improving, teaching, packing and starting over again with the next harvest.
We're proud of the finished products.
But we're equally proud of the work it takes to make them.
If that kind of business matters to you, we're glad you found us.
See the work for yourself.
Explore our Canadian wildcrafted products or learn how wild-harvested spruce resin becomes traditional Canadian Spruce Gum.
Explore Alberta Wildcraft Read The Chewing GuideExplore the Spruce Gum Library
Keep Going Down the Resin Trail
Choose a topic instead of digging through one giant reading list.
Learn & Start Chewing
Health & Science
Is Spruce Gum Good for You? · Research & Traditional Use · Jawline Gum
Texture & Ingredients
Why Spruce Gum Shatters · Is Chewing Gum Plastic? · What Is Gum Base?
History & Natural Gum
Spruce Gum Industry History · Soldiers & Spruce Gum · Natural Gum Around the World
Sourcing & Wildcrafting
Buying Natural Spruce Gum · What Wildcrafted Really Means · Our Wildcraft Standard
Compare Types of Gum
Resin, Chicle & Mastic · Natural vs Regular Gum · Spruce vs Regular Chewing Gum
Looking for the gum itself? Wild-harvested in Canada and prepared by Alberta Wildcraft.
Explore Canadian Spruce Gum