My heart beats for craftsmanship, for grasping biological interrelations, and for the courage to leave well-trodden paths behind. Alpine Roots Maple Branches is my personal learning space. It is here that I document my journey back to a deeper connection with nature and the search for what keeps us stable and resilient at our core.
Balance is not a passive state to be found, but a skill we reinforce daily through craftsmanship, biological understanding, and the conscious act of creation with our very own hands.
Tanja Fröhlich
The Mind and Hands Behind Alpine Roots: Tanja
Professionally, I am deeply rooted in the delivery room and postnatal care as a midwife—a vocation that demands daily precision, a high degree of responsibility, and a profound trust in life itself. Parallel to this clinical responsibility, I dedicate myself to my passion as an author, copywriter, marketer, and the documentarian of this platform.
It is my mission not just to scratch the surface of a topic, but to dive deep into the matter and prepare knowledge in a way that truly lasts. This approach and the intensive search for the origins of healthy cycles led to the creation of my book on soil health. Both there and here, my goal is to make complex biological interrelations understandable and tangible, so that we may learn to grasp the foundations of our lives once again.
My former background in project management, which I actively pursued until 2018, serves as the invisible but indispensable framework for all my current endeavors. Those years taught me how to structure visions, analyze technical nuances, and implement complex projects—whether digital or on the land—logically and step-by-step.
Midwifery has taught me a unique respect for biological laws. It is a daily experience of how powerful, yet simultaneously vulnerable, natural processes are—knowledge that one does not just grasp with the mind, but primarily with the hands.
The search for a place where we could study these biological laws in their most original—and often harshest—form eventually led us to Canada. On Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, we found a piece of land that is much more to us than just a place to stay. It is our personal open-air laboratory and a sanctuary all at once. The untouched nature of the North Atlantic challenges us to re-read the cycles of the earth and understand how life thrives under extreme conditions.
This focus on the essential and the miracle of emergence leads me directly into the practical work on our land: For me, working with my hands—whether in the garden, knitting, or canning—is a vital anchor for the psyche.
Science supports the fact that haptic creation and direct contact with the soil reduce stress levels and ground us mentally. On Alpine Roots Maple Branches, I document what I learn about botany and soil science, and how this doing helps us find more meaning and genuine satisfaction in everyday life.
The Crew: Who accompanies me here
No one walks their path alone. Alpine Roots Maple Branches is supported by a small team that helps bring this project to life:
- Gernot – The Practitioner: My husband is my most important partner. While I focus on research and planning, he is the one who puts ideas into practice on our land with a keen sense for technology, design, and plants. He ensures that theoretical knowledge is transformed into tangible projects.
- Isis, Diana & Anubis – Our four-legged mentors: Our animals are an integral part of our daily lives. They teach us mindfulness and remind us daily that life happens in the here and now—entirely without plans or deadlines. Their presence gives our project in Cape Breton the necessary warmth and grounding.
- The Digital Assistant and Aide: As I value clear structures, I use an AI as a partner for this blog. As an analytical tool, it supports me in organizing information, verifying data, and ensuring that our knowledge remains visible on the web. This leaves my mind free to focus on what matters most.
- An image that the AI created of itself, following this prompt: “A picture of you (as you define yourself), square please”.
Our Core Values: Grounding and Resilience
A project like this is based on convictions that we put into practice every single day. When you read here, you will encounter the following principles:
- Regenerative Soil Building & Local Loops: Our gardening follows the logic of closed-loop systems. We utilize the resources provided by our environment—this includes manure from our neighbors as well as organic material from the forest and fields. We consistently avoid synthetic chemicals and focus instead on building a living soil structure. We feed the soil life so that it, in turn, can nourish the plants.
- Science Meets Craftsmanship: Every experiment is documented. We link sound botany and soil science with practical work on the land. For us, knowledge is the tool required to not just use nature, but to understand it in its full depth.
- True Resilience: Cape Breton challenges us. With wind gusts up to 120 km/h, harsh winters at -20 °C, and extreme dry spells, we learn what it truly means to plan for self-sufficiency and durability. We share our successes as well as the failures the climate teaches us.
- Documented Learning & Craftsmanship: This is not a place for finished answers, but a space for lifelong learning. Whether it’s canning (food preservation) or various forms of crafting: I am right in the middle of the process. Every new skill is first discovered, then tested, and finally documented. For me, mastering manual crafts is an active path to gaining independence and keeping the joy of discovery alive.
- Practical Community & Solidarity: True stability does not grow in isolation. In a demanding environment like Cape Breton, community is the essential support network. For us, helping where help is needed and never losing focus on the “we” is a matter of course. We do not see neighborly help as a mere duty, but as a logical and human consequence of a grounded lifestyle. Community, to us, means that solidarity secures the quality of life for everyone.
Cooperations & Partners
A project only unfolds its full impact through exchange with like-minded individuals and experts. We do not work in isolation but are part of a network that connects ecological values, artisanal precision, and regional identity.
- Green Brand Development (GBD): Our strategic partner for the development of ecological brands. GBD supports us in clearly defining our deep-seated values and identity and communicating them authentically to the world. This is where strategic planning meets genuine ecological conviction. To the GBD website
- Bras d’Or: Operating under the motto “touch wood – we create biodiversity,” this is our operational counterpart. The focus here is on the active creation of biodiversity through the design and construction of perma-forests and orchards—both in Canada and Europe. It is the interface where ecological planning meets the physical landscape. Here, in addition to yield trees, you can purchase CO2 compensation through permanent forests as well as our digital products, such as my book on soil health. To the Bras d’Or website
- Alpine Roots Maple Branches: Our own blog serves as the central documentation platform for our journey, our learning processes, and the scientific-practical work on our land. It is the place where all the threads of our work come together.
Join our Network
Knowledge only gains value when it is shared and applied. If you want to dive deeper into the processes behind Alpine Roots Maple Branches – unvarnished, fact-based, and away from common narratives – I invite you to become part of our network. I don’t send out shallow marketing emails; instead, I share genuine insights into soil ecology, botany, and the path to autarky as they ripen in practice. Sign up here to keep a direct connection to the roots.