Shane Hoveland was there in the early days of Newo, and has returned after 500-plus days in a tent (where he was witness to the magnificent unfolding of nature around us) to manage Newo’s finances.
life story so far
One of Shane Hoveland’s earliest childhood memories is running out with his sister to welcome his dad home from road trips as a truck driver. Then one day in May, when Shane was four years old, his father, along with his uncle, passed away in a farm accident.
There’s no telling what life would have been had things turned out differently, but Shane and his family were surrounded by the love and support of both sets of grandparents. Shane spent several formative years on his grandparents’ farm, developing an appreciation for the natural world.
“My grandmother was the epitome of a green thumb,” he said, remembering helping her transplant petunias and weed the immaculate beds, collect flower seeds in the fall, pick wild strawberries and eat them with cream and sugar, forage for mushrooms and enjoy her mushroom gravy. “There was always delicious Ukrainian food and the generosity of just, ‘Here, eat, eat!’ and the classic sort of grandma, ‘Oh, you must not be full yet, here’s some more food.’”
His mom remarried, they moved to Shane’s stepdad’s farm, and his relationship to, and interest in, the land grew.
“I can remember studying ecology for the first time in junior high and I was just sort of enthralled at the interconnectedness of all systems,” he recalled.
He decided to do an environmental science degree at Augustana, where he made firm friendships and delved into research projects that even took him to the rainforests of Costa Rica.
But this period of exploration and discovery was accompanied by confusion.
“Coming to terms with a system of being that is detached from the natural rhythms of life, the natural world and ultimately ourselves, and embedded in ideas of progress, hyper-individualism, and success,” he said, “it felt almost like life had become robotic, particularly during my undergrad; you do this assignment, this midterm, that midterm, finals. OK, rinse, repeat.”
Discouraged and disheartened, feeling like he was just jumping through hoops to no particular end, Shane became depressed, withdrew from school and entered hospital during this extraordinarily painful time.
“I think healing requires parts of us that have to die,” Shane said. “That experience in my undergrad, there were a lot of ideas and preconceived notions, ‘This is who I am,’ turning to, ‘Oh, maybe this isn’t me.’”

Shane’s dad holding Shane

Shane with his grandma

30th birthday planting
turning points
One day, a group of fellow outdoor-ed classmates and Prof. Morten Asfeldt came to visit him in hospital, bringing a long rolled-up tube that contained a map of the Burnside River, which the class was preparing to paddle.
“Morten said, ‘Shane, you’re coming with us.’ And I said, ‘Morten, can’t you see? I’m in hospital. How could I possibly be coming?’ But he said, ‘No, this is what you need.’”
A month and a half later, Shane found himself on a plane coming in to land at a gold mine in Nunavut for the start of a 300-plus-kilometre paddle all the way to Bathurst Inlet from Contwoyto Lake.
“As Canadians, we take pride in how northern we are, but not very many of us actually get to experience what the Arctic is,” Shane said. “Standing on the Arctic tundra, witnessing it go from brown in mid-June to an explosion of life, flowers everywhere, you watch the melting of the lake ice, it turns to candle ice, and it’s just incredible. Caribou, grizzlies and muskox, and wolves howling at night while you’re cooking supper under the midnight sun. Just an incredible experience of what this planet has in terms of ecology and landscape and the enormity of it all. I suppose it was that trip that for the first time I had ever truly felt alive.”
When he returned to Augustana, he met Raj Rathnavalu and got connected to the Spirit of the Land program. Friendships with community members such as John and Treva Olson, Linda Gervais, D’Arcy and Jane Arial, Don and Marie Ruzicka (on whose land he did a beaver management and riparian health project), and many of his professors carried on after he graduated.
“I was very thankful for that. You spend five years at Augustana, developing and nurturing these relationships with people and it’s so community minded, and I’ve often thought about what happens to the students who do move away from Camrose.”
One afternoon, while Shane was tending to the garden at the house he shared with friends, Raj biked by and stopped to chat.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but this was my Newo interview. He says, ‘Why aren’t you working at Newo?” I’m like, ‘I don’t know,’” Shane recalled. “So that afternoon, we cooked up a plan that we’d be able to get funding for me to work for Newo.”
Shane’s time at Newo was interrupted a few months later when his health started to deteriorate; plagued by chronic fatigue and chronic pain, he took time away to focus on healing. A long, winding journey down the healthcare rabbit hole culminated in a diagnosis of CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome), a biotoxin-triggered immune dysfunction disorder.
One aspect of CIRS is an acute sensitivity to biotoxins present in most homes. Unable to stay indoors without symptom flare-ups, in March of 2020 Shane moved into a tent on his parent’s farm, where he would stay, rain, snow or shine, for the next 500-plus days.
“Most people in their mid to late 20s don’t have to press pause on their life,” Shane said. “My experience in the tent is almost like a retreat from the patterns of everyday life that separate us from the natural world, and essentially from reality.”

Arctic paddling

Augustana neighbourhood community
core values
From viewing the Perseid meteor shower across the Milky Way galaxy, to walking through a field enveloped by fireflies, to witnessing the first fledgling steps of a baby robin, Shane has been uniquely placed to observe nature.
“I fall asleep to the sound of wind and frogs singing and coyotes howling, and this is an enormous miracle that is happening all the time around us,” he said. “The sense of wonder that I have experienced, given my proximity to the natural world growing up and these last few years in the tent, has really embedded in me a valuing of the sacredness of this planet.”
Modern life affords us the illusion that we are separate from the natural world, but the immediacy of increasingly extreme temperatures and wildfire smoke cannot be ignored when you are only insulated from it by thin tent walls.
“The last few years, I’ve really felt unequivocally that my place here is to bear witness to what is unfolding…even when it hurts to witness, like with the forest-fire smoke, or the heat wave,” he said. ““Nature is just, I think, yearning to be witnessed…and if we witness it, then maybe we develop a relationship with it that then calls into question, how can we protect it?”

Raj, Shane, Hans, James, Ryan and Chris at the Ruzicka cabin

Newo gets an Edmonton business licence
rooted in people or place
Shane will always feel rooted to the farm where he grew up, by virtue of having spent his formative years there, as well as his time in the tent. But he was surprised that, as a self-confessed homebody, he experienced a strong sense of belonging in the Arctic.
“It felt like home, but it also felt like an entirely different planet, just with how different the ecology was,” he mused. “Granted, I was also there with a dozen other people who had become extraordinarily supportive friends throughout the previous few months, so there was that community piece.”
The nature of community has been on Shane’s mind since he moved to Cochrane to stay in a low-biotoxin home. It has taken some adjustment to the hectic pace of life on the outskirts of Calgary, but in addition to coming back to work at Newo remotely, he’s already forged deep friendships with people he expects will be in his life long term.
“That’s a surprise I did not expect and it gives me hope. What Newo is trying to hold and do requires a community and I think there is always room for community, no matter where you are, no matter if it feels like home or not,” he said. “But that’s not to say that I won’t make space every spring, summer and fall to come to the tent on the farm, because that’s really crucial to me as well: to remember what’s important.”
Thank you for sharing your beautiful story Shane. You have touched my soul. Welcome back to Newo!
I am filled with gratitude and joy reading Shane’s piece. Shane’s wisdom, generosity and love enriched the remarkable extended Camrose community during the “golden years”. His breadth of spirit and capacity for expanding his being modifies the disturbed force field that surrounds us and creates new forms of inter-being that create channels for new life.
Thank you Shane.
Am so thankful you are here on this planet to teach us and to make us more aware of the complexity and beauty surrounding us all.
Thank you Shane.
Am so thankful you are here on this planet to teach us by making us more aware of the complexity and beauty surrounding us all.
You are a great model of how we have to be rooted in place, connected to the spirit of the land, if we are to heal ourselves and our planet in whatever part we occupy of it. Thanks for sharing your story. It reminds me of your amazing presentation on your Arctic trip and its impact on your health at the Spirit of the Land final class.
Dittmar
You’re good! Great team, doing what’s best for ecology! Huge business potential! Way to go, Shane!
Thank you for sharing your story, Shane! It’s a true privilege to know someone as compassionate, gentle and loving as you. I’m happy to be a part of your community. ❤️
Go Shane, go!!!