Nestled just off the side of the Hart Highway by the Salmon Valley bridge, Robyn Stoy's 4,000 acre campground has been the site of the Salmon Valley Woman's Festival for eight years.
The self-described moon honourer is giving up her post as "grandmother" and organizer of the festival after this year, something she celebrated Sunday in a closing ceremony.
"I just feel like it's my time. I've felt like it for the last two years, but I just haven't been able to let go."
Stoy founded the festival as a place to foster sisterhood, healing and spiritual connection with the Earth - one she said is for like-minded and curious women.
"I'm a steward of the Earth, which means my rhythm is with nature. It's how I find creator and god," said Stoy, to explain her spirituality and some of what goes on during the three day festival.
"I honour grandmother, that's what the moon is for me."
"For me this is my connection. The trees, the river, all of the elements that are around me," said Stoy, gesturing to her location.
Stoy greeted guests at the "goddess gate," which is the registration booth at the entrance of Rockin' Rivers Resort where guests can sign in to camp or for workshops.
"We're not Hotel California, you come in you can't leave," she joked.
Workshops covered empowerment, creativity, spirituality, meditation and yoga. Some instructors identify as Wiccan and others don't ascribe to labels.
Stoy said one is a medium, who can get angel messages and offers readings through tarot cards, totems, aura and more.
There's also "healing touch therapy," offered in white tents next to the river bank.
"They actually don't touch you but they open up all your energy centres so if you have any pain or any hurt or you need healing that's what it does, it just moves it through," Stoy explained.
Stoy started the non-profit festival the year after she bought the property, soon after leaving her hobby farm in Falkland behind.
"I started to live up here and I was like 'Oh man, we don't do enough self care."
It was something the 52-year-old needed as a young woman, recovering from cocaine addiction and the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband.
"I've always been a very strong woman, but I got into an abusive relationship. Sometimes we get connected to an energy that is very unhealthy for us but we don't see it," said Stoy, adding that though the relationship lasted three years, it took her 10 years to get past it.
"For me, I've always been a seer," said Stoy, who said she can summon archangels.
"I could see things in people, I could see things around people, I could see colour, sometimes I could see spirits. It scared the crap out of me. That's how I got into addiction, was like 'shut this crap off, I can't take this.'"
But at 23, she had a "lightbulb moment."
An addictions counsellor introduced her to native spirituality and that's when things started to make sense for her.
Five years after she first became addicted, she said she was driving over the Alex Fraser bridge in Vancouver and had an out of body experience.
She remembered taking in her grey skin and eyes yellowed from the drugs.
"I stopped in the middle of that bridge, threw my car into park and went over to the side and sprinkled about an ounce of cocaine over it, went home and packed my bags, left my house, left my boat and started on this journey to self."
Since then, Stoy has tried to become the healer.
She likes to say that she's had 165 children, in reference to the time she worked at a group home in Vancouver, through to her own birth and adopted children she's raised as well as those she's fostered.
She worked at the Elizabeth Fry society in the Okanagan, both in a transition house and victim services.
Stoy has weathered criticism for making it a man-free event, something she feels is important to keep.
"We are trying to create a safe, sacred space here. So a lot of women who are recovering from trauma or addiction or whatever, sometimes that can be a trigger," she said, adding this year it had its first youth day, which was a gender inclusive event.
"It's all about gender for us," she said. "Women create a different type of energy. We are the mothers, we are the healers, we are the birthers so the minute you have a male energy that crosses into that, it shifts our energy that we've spun and created."
She's well aware of the criticism, and jokes made of the event - common comments are that all participants must be lesbians or witches - but she said none of that matters.
"You can take it or you can leave it. I know what's in my heart, and I know what I've created and I know what's being supported here, and here it is."
Go online to www.pgcitizen.ca to listen to Stoy speak about the festival, how she came to her spirituality and what it means to her.
