John Stokes

John Stokes

John Stokes, founder & Director of  The Tracking Project, Inc. in Corrales, New Mexico, is a well-known musician, performer, writer and teacher of hard ground tracking.  Since 1978 he has worked and traveled extensively in his efforts to bring awareness of the Natural World and the integrity of indigenous peoples to interested people around the world. 

Born in Lakewood, Ohio (1952), he spent much of his early life on the Gulf coast of Florida.  He graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor’s degree in 1974 and spent the following year as a teaching fellow at the Athens College, Psychiko, Greece.  From 1975 – 1977, John worked as an assistant to the Senior Editor at the Beacon Press in Boston, generating new titles in the area of social awareness. In 1976, he edited The Rastafarians: Sounds of Cultural Dissonance by Dr. Leonard Barrett, one of the first books on Rastafarianism (still in print).

From l978 – l984,  he taught language and music skills at Tauondi, Inc. (formerly known as the Aboriginal Community College) in Adelaide, South Australia.  Work with this community – initiated college dedicated to Aboriginal self-management brought him in contact with tribal, rural and urban Aboriginals from communities around Australia.   His involvement with Aboriginal land rights causes, especially those of the Pitjantjatjara and their lands in the central desert, introduced him to the global indigenous network. 

Through friendships with traditional elders— notably the distinguished tracker Jimmy James of the Pitjantjatjara— John became aware of the need to preserve the wealth of indigenous knowledge regarding the Natural World. He clearly saw the role traditional tracking and bush survival skills could play in training and enhancing the cultural and natural awareness and self-esteem of a community, especially the youth.

For further study in Native American style tracking, John worked and studied at Tom Brown’s Tracking/ Wilderness Survival School, New Jersey in 1984 &  ‘85. During this time he was asked by traditional Native elders to initiate tracking/survival outreach programs to Native American communities. His work with the Mohawk nation newspaper Akwesasne Notes led to a series of workshops with Ray Tehanetorens Fadden and John Kahionhes Fadden at the Six Nations Indian Museum in Onchiota, New York.  Classes with Native youth soon followed throughout the Northeast and in the Four Corners area of the Southwest.

In late 1985 he moved to Corrales, New Mexico and began to work with the 19 Pueblos and the Navajo Nation.  Working with the Title VII Bilingual Multi-cultural unit of Albuquerque Public Schools, he wrote a tracking curriculum for Grades K, 1, 2.

To meet growing requests from Native communities, John established The Tracking Project (TTP)® in 1986 as a not – for – profit organization dedicated to working with traditional Native elders and community educators from around the world to design a series of teachings which would connect individuals directly to the Natural World, while practicing traditional skills and preserving tribal knowledge.  The name Art of Life ® was chosen to describe this unique program of natural and cultural awareness which blends a wide range of skills — from traditional tracking and survival skills to music, storytelling, dance, peacemaking and martial arts training.  Arts of Life programs emphasize indigenous knowledge, the lessons of Nature and the power of art.

Over the past thirty-eight years John and a diverse team of artist/ educators and traditional Native elders have shared this unique awareness program with more than 150,000 people of all ages.  Through Nurturing the Roots ®, a community mentor program which began in 1996, the Project’s curriculum was shared with more than 250 trained mentors.  The work of NTR with the international community now includes partners/programs throughout the United States, as well as Hawai’i, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Spain,  Japan and Australia.