- There is a story, a myth, the legend of truth within African American memory that says that before the transatlantic slave trade, people in West Africa braided seeds into their hair and that they carried then like that history, that wisdom, that resilience, that commitment to survival and being able to stay connected to their identity and their culture wherever they were going, right?

Because they had no clue.

And I think there's something really beautiful, especially with all that we know about how, like, Black families were, like torn apart and disconnected from their language and history, to know that people, like, were determined to stay connected and to put down roots.

- I'm at Dash Point State Park in Federal Way, Washington to meet with Ashleigh Shoecraft.

Ashleigh is the founder of Braided Seeds and somebody who's spent her entire life in the outdoors and now is working to ensure that the next generation of Black and brown youth can do the same thing.

Today will be paddleboard crabbing, my first time.

I hope we catch something.

- The paddleboard has a handle right here, so you can just lift it like this and then paddle in the other hand.

- Okay.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

(Laughter) - Okay, we're good.

In order to go crabbing, we essentially just need a pot with a buoy and a string.

- Okay.

- And then we have to put our bait in here.

- What is crabbing bait?

So crabs are scavengers.

They'll eat whatever falls to the bottom.

You can really use any, like, animal products for crabbing bait.

- Okay.

I like to use whatever is most freezer burned in my freezer.

(Laughter) So, today we've got some chicken legs.

We're going to go out, cast the pot, and then the crabs do most of the work so they'll smell the bait and hopefully climb into our pot.

And then after, you know, about an hour or so, we'll come back out and see, see what crabs we got.

- I like this.

- Yeah.

Typically, I just try to find somewhere not super close to another pot because otherwise they got our crabs.

- Is are those pots?

- Those?

Yeah.

Where you're seeing these buoys.

Those are pots.

I literally just, like, toss it over the side and make sure that my string is a little bit unraveled, and then, you just cast it.

- Okay.

- There it is.

We come back.

- This is my kind of fishing.

- My name is Ashleigh Shoecraft, and I'm the executive director and founder of Braided Seeds.

But more than that, I think, I'm an auntie.

I'm a sister.

I'm a gardener.

I'm a forager.

My childhood was characterized by being outside.

- So you grew up in the outdoors you now have this organization that you founded, how did you sort of piece those two parts of yourself together?

My whole life I wanted to be a teacher.

- Okay.

- I really did.

I got my masters in teaching.

I became a classroom teacher.

Then the pandemic hit and my students were in my apartment with me via Zoom, and I just felt really disconnected from what had meaning to me, and so, it created space for self-reflection to be like what really has value?

And I really wanted to do more work to connect my community in particular, like Black communities with the outdoors.

A lot of the Black community has been socialized to fear the outdoors, and so there's just this internalized narrative of before I've experienced it, I know it's not for me, right?

And I think, at Braided Seeds, one of the communities we focus on is youth, right?

How can you form a connection with the outdoors before you're socialized to fear it?

How can you have experiential knowledge that is yours?

So when someone else tells you, oh, you know, we don't do that, they're like, wait, no, I've been doing that my whole life, right?

Like we do do that.

- Are there particular obstacles being in a plus-sized body for you that, you know, other folks would not know or experience?

- Being in a plus sized body, like there are definitely more barriers, particularly when it comes to like gear.

I think I have a long history of playing so small and of silencing myself - Stop.

- and just being like, no, for real.

Like I don't want to take up any extra space.

Like I'm just going to like, stay in this box.

I think doing work with kids is really helpful to be like in advocating for you, I'm advocating for myself.

Inviting people into, how are you going to foster access for these kids that we're serving?

I think for me has been like, yeah, girl, you better model it, okay?

Like it's like pretty healing, I think too, to do the work of creating space.

So, I'm really grateful.

- I'm grateful for you and all of the future little Black or brown people I will see hanging out with my son outside.

- Period.

(Laughter) Is this us right here?

- This is us, I think.

- Okay.

- This is like, the suspense.

- Okay, we got a couple.

- Aye.

Oh, my gosh, that is so creepy.

- Not creepy!

- It is.

Oh.

- I think there's something that really sacred about honoring the life of what you catch.

- Yes.

- And so for me, it's either catch and release or catch and cook the same day, - Right.

- to make sure that, like, I don't disrespect the fact that I took you from the Sound, - Right.

- to my kitchen.

- And waste you, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I don't know how to get it.

Ah ha ha.

Ugh.

- Cheers!

(Laughter) - So now, after you've caught them, you need to see if they're legal to keep.

- Okay.

- This one, oh, we got a girl and a boy.

- Oh, no way.

Oh, wow.

- So you can see the, like, more of the pointy, - Yes.

more than the wide.

- Yes.

Oh wow.

- Both red rocks.

You want to see if it's five inches.

This one is easily of legal size.

You can see.

- Mm hmm.

- Okay, toss it in!

- Ugh.

- Yeah.

So, those are the crabs.

- Okay.

Wow.

That's cool.

(Laughter) - I think the most life- giving thing you do in the outdoors is just showing up with nothing at all.

I think a lot of times people feel like, oh, I have to have a paddleboard or I have to have a crab pot.

But the reality is you can just go with yourself and you can just go and be.

I think, nature does all the work, right?

Like and I think just sitting and being is honestly just a gift.

When I'm out on the water, I feel like I'm completely held by the land, right?

I know that it can hold me, and it isn't going to try to contain me in the ways that other spaces might.

So for me, it feels like freedom.

It feels like being grounded and being connected and being myself in a way that is like pretty liberating.