Aqua
Gulf Islands
Living
MAY/JUNE 2019
Volume 14, Issue 3
Quench that Thirst Fine imbibing, island style harvest salt spring Growing healthy food for the whole community
sea blossom studio Dorset Norwich-Young paints a vibrant world
Arts | ventures | food | books | community
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michael murray photo
Editor’s Message
Family toasts
C
atching a cold in a weakened state spelled the end of my mother’s long life in April. She would have been 90 in June. I am glad to have been with her as she passed. After my sister Linda and I said our final goodbyes and walked out of the Comox Valley hospital’s emerpliance.ca gency department following a stressful few hours that night, I said quite emphatically, “I need a drink!” 2-0242 Mom would not have approved, but we tracked down a liquor store still open at 10:50 p.m. in Courtenay and bought a bottle of Sandhill Cabernet Franc for us to crack back at our longtime family home. Our father's cremated remains were brought out of the closet, where they have been since 2011, and we let him sit in his former chair at the head of the kitchen table. Then we marked our parents' long lives with some food, reflections and the wine. While we realized we had a bit of sorting and cleaning work ahead of us, we thanked them both for not being hoarders. For people wanting new taste sensations for any occasion, this issue of Aqua raises a glass to just a few
naimo St. ia, B.C.
of the many island-created beverages and places to consume them. David Dossor takes us to Mayne Island's award-winning brewery for a cold one, while Cherie Thiessen brings us up to speed on Sea Star Vineyards’ purchase of the former Saturna Island Winery property. Elizabeth Nolan checks out the new Mateada Nitro Lounge in downtown Ganges, and our Q&A person is Lea Weir, whose Salt Spring Island Kombucha Co. is a growing concern. We need more than liquid to survive, of course, so Marc Kitteringham hung out at Salt Spring Community Services’ Burgoyne Valley farm to dig into what's happening there. Roger Brunt shares Val Hughes' story about life at the Burgoyne Dairy, which was located a bit further down the road, and other family history. In the Gulf Islands, art is part of our daily sustenance, and Cherie’s story about Dorset Norwich-Young gives us what we need in that department. Cheers, everyone, and don't forget to acknowledge your mother on Mother's Day this month! — Gail Sjuberg
Aqua Gulf Islands
Living
This issue published May 1, 2019 Publisher: Amber Ogilvie Editor: Gail Sjuberg Art Director & Production: Lorraine Sullivan Advertising: Shirley Command Aqua Writers: Cherie Thiessen, Elizabeth Nolan, Marc Kitteringham, David Dossor, Roger Brunt, Marcia Jansen, Gail Sjuberg Aqua Photographers: Cherie Thiessen, Elizabeth Nolan, Marc Kitteringham, David Dossor, Marcia Jansen Cover photo of Guy Morgan of Mateada Nitro Lounge by Elizabeth Nolan Aqua is published by Driftwood Gulf Islands Media, 328 Lower Ganges Road, Salt Spring Island, B.C. V8K 2V3 Phone: 250-537-9933 / Email: news@driftwoodgimedia.com Websites: www.driftwoodgimedia.com; www.gulfislandstourism.com; www.gulfislandsdriftwood.com Publications Mail Reg. #08149 Printed in Canada
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TANTALIZERS! PAGE 6 COVER STORY
Vital refreshment at Mateada Nitro Lounge, PAGE 7
BEER & WINE
Mayne Island shines in local brewery products, PAGE 11 Sea Star Vineyards grows with Saturna addition, PAGE 25
ARTS
Photography groups launch first Salt Spring Photofest, PAGE 16 Dorset Norwich-Young captures the coast on canvas, PAGE 43
NATURE
Rhen's Poetry: Late spring, PAGE 19
HISTORY
Val Hughes: a Hollings girl and Burgoyne Dairy farmer, PAGE 30
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FOOD
Harvest program farmers are on a growing mission, PAGE 38 Comfort Food visits Sweden, PAGE 36
Q&A
Lea Weir of Salt Spring Island Kombucha Co., PAGE 46
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• Boating enthusiasts won’t want to miss the 29th annual BC Boat Show at Port Sidney Marina from May 2-5. The event is the largest in-the-water boat show on Canada’s West Coast, attracting thousands of visitors from across British Columbia and Washington state. With 225-plus international exhibitors, the show features a huge selection of power and sail vessels ready to fulfill dreams big and small. • Salt Spring Kitchen Co. garnered a fantastic award in April. The company’s sweet, savoury and spicy preserves earned the Best Local/Made in Canada award from Western Canada’s largest business-to-business grocery trade show and conference held in Vancouver. Awards were given out by the Grocery and Specialty Food West organization. • The Pender Island Art Society has changed up its exhibit offerings by holding a show and sale called A Brush with Spring! on the May long weekend. It takes place at the Pender Island Community Hall on Saturday, May 18 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, May 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tea and treats will be part of the Saturday afternoon program too. • Fans of choral music are in for a treat when the Salt Spring Singers present a concert called The Three Bs: Bach, Beethoven and Bernstein.
halfPageAdAQUA.indd 1 Page 6 – AQUA – May/June 2019
photo courtesy sophia cheng pr
Tantalizers
It runs at ArtSpring on Saturday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, May 12 at 2 p.m. Eva Bostrand is bringing her choir A Joyful Noise from Edmonton to participate, and other guests include percussionist Kris Abney and young tenor Callum Adler. • For the fifth year the Salish Sea Inter Island Transportation Society will be connecting the Southern Gulf Islands through its Tour des Îles event on the June 21 to 23 weekend. Inter-island vessels will be leaving Ganges for both Galiano and Pender islands, and from Pender, transfers can be made to either Mayne or Saturna islands. Ticket prices start at $10 per ride to Galiano and Mayne with the transfer to Mayne or Saturna an additional $5. (Prices are one way, so double for a round trip.) The society’s online reservation system will be available starting May 15 at www.tourdesiles.ca. At left: Past Tour des Îles travellers. Above: Salt Spring Kitchen Co. jams.
2019-04-09 9:35 AM
photo courtesy mateada
Cover Story
Regenerative Mateada Nitro Lounge serves up unique drink experience STORY BY ELIZABETH NOLAN Photos by Elizabeth Nolan, except as noted
It’s 3 p.m. on a Thursday but the Mateada Nitro Lounge on Salt Spring Island is nearly full, with a late
lunch crowd lingering into a pleasant afternoon. A group of moms and babies has secured one of the comfy couch corners, while friends, singles and a couple perhaps on a date relax in a sunny room that’s been beautifully finished in natural wood. A new community gathering place that opened its doors last November, the lounge is a Salt Spring-based pilot for a new concept in drinking culture — a place that puts yerba mate at the centre of the menu. Just as the word café is based on coffee, the Mateada has mate at its root. The concept was pioneered by islander David Karr, a cofounder of the internationally successful Guayaki company, and may soon be replicated in outposts from California to Buenos Aires. With May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 7
Above: Yuyera Sara Melo presents a tasting flight of nitrogen-infused mate blends. At right: Mateada staff, from left, Hannah Dias, Corrine Donnelly, Tessa Ruttan, Camille Parmentier-laniel, Sara Melo, Mira Mackey and Guy Morgan. Page 7, from top: Healthy dishes from the Mateada kitchen: hot elixirs made with mate, organic nut milk, coconut mana, herbs and flavourings.
community building a major tenet of the Guayaki project, the lounge hosts off-hour cultural events, including live music, film screenings, fundraisers and dance parties, in addition to being a nice place to meet friends during the day. “Our vision is to act as a regenerative gathering place for the island community, as a local heartbeat with a global network serving fresh organic local food and innovative health drinks,” explains Tessa Ruttan, who helped develop the lounge concept with Karr and holds the main management position. “Yerba mate is the core inspiration and fuel for this dream project, a symbol of friendship and sharing, vitality and health.” Ruttan first met Karr when she was running the Grand Central cafe on Galiano Island through the Sea to Seed Tour, which sees musicians promote farm-to-table eating via sailboat travel through the Gulf Islands. They reconnected after she hosted a show for Rising Appalachia in a small Australian mountain town. The band is a major part of Karr’s Come to Life project, an artist-driven media collective and network for the regenerative movement. Ruttan says when Karr first called her up, he was thinking of a smaller-scale project. “He had this concept of a little nitro bar; it was just going to be a couple of taps and no food. And I was like, ‘That sounds great! Maybe I’ll come home,’” Ruttan recalls.
She moved back to Salt Spring for the job and soon enough the two decided to shift the simple idea into a restaurant. Ruttan helped create the space with local artist and designer Robert Moss. “We’re really excited to be here on the island, and curious. We’re still kind of discovering it all,” Ruttan says. Many cultures around the world have rituals based around the sharing of drinks, both alcoholic and otherwise. Japan’s tea ceremony is well known; even coffee, so ubiquitous you can find it at any gas station, began as a sacrament used by Ethiopian hunters. Yerba mate’s origins are in pre-Colombian Paraguay and Brazil, where leaves from a tree in the holly family were brewed up in cups made of dried gourds and shared in communal ceremonies. Enthusiasts describe the stimulating effects of mate’s caffeine, or mateine, as being more energizing than coffee but without the attendant jitters and crashing. Today the cup is more often made of ceramic but retains the gourd shape. It comes with a stainless steel straw with a strainer tip called a bombilla and a thermos of hot water infused with medicinal herbs. Traditional gourd service is but one of many mate-centred offerings at the Mateada lounge. During my April visit I’m here to dive into my first experience with nitro-infused yerba mate served on tap. Although I’ve sipped on the bottled iced tea version and steeped the tea bags packed by Guayaki, the craft brewed, herb-infused concoctions will be a brand new taste adventure.
Morgan's food menu from the Mateada kitchen has a west coast wellness theme.
Page 8 – AQUA – May/June 2019
Ruttan is the friendly guide helping me out with my tasting experience. I also get a warm welcome from house chef Guy Morgan, while my drink selection is put together and served by “yuyera” Sara Melo. The title is borrowed from the women herbalists in Paraguay who serve herbal medicines with a mate base. “They’re called the yuyeras, so we’re all yuyeras here,” Ruttan explains. Melo gives a whole new level to the phrase “being Mother,” which sometimes applied to the person who pours out cups of tea from a teapot. As one of the lead yuyeras, she compares her role to that of a mother welcoming her community members home. “It’s just being a support role and taking care of whoever comes through that door with whatever need they come in with. And the food and drink just highlights that experience,” Melo says. First up in my tasting is a selection from the part of the menu called “Vitality on tap.” Like some craft breweries and cider houses, the lounge offers its cold drinks either by the glass or in tasting “flights” of four. The Mateada currently has up to six of its house-crafted mate-herb blends with nitro infusion on tap at a time. The team craft brews their blends every week. Ruttan, who trained as a herbalist, developed this part of the menu. “We’ve really honed down some good recipes,” she says. The addition of nitrogen to the mix transforms the traditional South American beverage into a classy and fun drink that has the bubbles and creamy finish of a Kilkenny beer but the clean flavour and medicinal properties of a herbal tea. The nitrogen also cuts the mate’s natural bitterness without the need to add sweeteners. Melo brings me the classic San Mateo mate nitro to start, followed by the High Tide. This infusion includes E3Live blue-green algae, with hints of rosemary and lemon. It’s very tasty and fresh on the palate. Next up are a couple of examples of mate-kombucha nitro fusion blends. The Mateada is devoted to working with local suppliers, so it has Salt Spring Kombucha
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photo courtesy mateada
photo courtesy mateada
Above: San Mateo mate presented for traditional service, in ceramic “gourd” with stainless steel bombilla. At right: Daily menu of house-blended mate drinks available on tap.
and Raincoast Kombucha (made in Powell River) on tap. I try a blend of Flora Rosa mate — with hints of hibiscus and rose — combined with Raincoast’s Liquid Sunshine kombucha, bright with hibiscus, grapefruit and rosehips. My favourite blend combines strawberry mint kombucha and a tulsi mint (holy basil) mate. It’s fresh and delicious, so I’m not surprised to learn that tulsi is one of Ruttan’s favourite flavour pairings for mate. “Mint and mate go really well together because mate is really earthy and deep tasting, so it just balances it really nicely,” she says. Another delicious option is to add Salt Spring-made Moonshine Mama’s turmeric elixirs to any of the nitro drinks. Turning to the hot side of the menu, brewed mate and mate lattes are definitely among the core offerings. We’re going to sample something a little fancier, though. The elixirs are specialty drinks developed by the third partner in the Mateada’s trinity of management along with Ruttan and Morgan: “elixartista” Devealina Waring. All elixirs have coconut mana and organic nut milk sweetened with maple syrup as a base. I sampled the Velvet Rose, which adds rose water, an infusion of goji berries and roibos, maca and he shou wu — a longevity herb. Topped with rose petals, it has a lovely scent that rises with the heat. I also had the Reishi Spiced Cacao, which spices things up with mesquite and cayenne. As Ruttan aptly describes the result, “It’s like the best hot cocoa you’ve ever had.” It may seem like there’s a lot to know about this interesting menu, but the lounge is equally welcoming to customers who are mate adepts and those who are new to it, like myself. “I’d say there’s a mix of both, but there’s a lot of curiosity. We don’t necessarily bombard everyone who comes in with everything we have to offer, but when people come in that are curious, we definitely have very well-educated staff, and it’s a really fun conversation. We love engaging with people,” Ruttan says. Page 10 – AQUA – May/June 2019
The Mateada is also welcoming to youth, who tend to be huge fans of Guayaki’s pre-packed cold drinks. Youth discounts for nitro drinks are given at the lounge because the team would like to get local kids off the sweetened version. They have also seen groups of teens coming in to enjoy the gourd ceremony. Morgan’s food menu from the Mateada kitchen has a west coast wellness theme — keywords include vitality, health, flavour, nourishing and vibrant. The soup special when I visited was potato and nettle, featuring nettles that Ruttan had harvested herself the previous day. There was also an organic chicken bone broth, tomato and vegetable soup, healthy bowls and salads, and “boards” such as the deconstructed nori wrap. The lounge partners with local producers of sauerkraut, tofu, sprouts and mushrooms, sourcing veggies from Stowel Lake Farm, berries from Golden Tree Farm and goat cheese from Salt Spring Cheese. All their sauces and keto bread are made from scratch. “You can just feel that it’s replenishing you,” Melo says of Morgan’s menu. “And I think that’s a beautiful value of Guayaki, is to be regenerative. It’s beautiful to see that we’re doing that for our community through our food.” Local designers and craftspeople were also instrumental in creating the warm and welcoming space, built by Mike Nelson. It features Steve Forbes metalwork, Luke Hart-Weller wooden tabletops and specialty plaster finish by Edward McKeever of Strong River Painting and Design. The gourd-inspired ceramic cups were made by island potter LeeAnn Norgard. Having become a downtown hub both for drinks and culture in a few short months, Ruttan sees the Salt Spring locale like a seed pod for determining what is possible on a greater scale of growth, while also being entirely unique. “It’s a place of potential, and it’s kind of a curious uncovering of what it wants to be. It’s almost this entity on its own,” Ruttan says.
Passions
Flights of fancy
A visit to the Mayne Island Brewery By DAVID DOSSOR Photos by David Dossor, except as noted
The freshly picked blossoms of the bigleaf maple look very much like newly harvested hops. “Here, try some,” offers Michael Garratt, who, just like his artist wife, Annette Witteman, is the owner, operator and alchemist of the Mayne Island Brewery. “We had some deep-fried last night,” he adds reassuringly. May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 11
photo courtesy mIBC
Above: Michael Garratt and Annette Witteman at Mayne Island Brewery. Previous page, from top: Five of the brewery's products; a handful of grain used to make the beer. Page 13: The brewery building on Fernhill Road.
I accept. Another foraged food source to add to my repertoire. Today’s the day for trying new things. After all, I am at a new brewery that offers unique libations. Here I can feed my fancy with a flight of beers that includes new creations, like the Beet Buck strong ale, or the Mayne Island Forager ale. Those foraged maple blossoms are actually a fine example of how Garratt and Witteman have adapted to their environment. If survival depends on adaptability, then this entrepreneurial couple does it well. They arrived on Mayne along with their two preschoolers, Jasper and Grace, in 2005, moving from Kaleden in the Okanagan, where Witteman worked both as an artist and a fruit grower and where Garratt was a ski instructor and an employee of a number of wineries hired to sell wines to the lucrative restaurant markets in Vancouver. Since he was tired of weekly Coquihalla trips and because they wanted to maintain a rural lifestyle, the relocation to Mayne suited their needs. Now, from their new island home, trips to Vancouver were more leisurely affairs. Island lifestyle, especially with two youngsters, generated its own synergistic energy and now they were able to pursue their passion of brewing beer and to contemplate the idea of starting up a nano-brewery, an idea that had been fermenting along with the beer. Ergo, after many years of bureaucratic wrangling, the brewery opened in December 2016. “It was a passion,” says Garratt. “Life is about passion. It’s just that it got a bit out of hand. Annette calls it ‘my mid-life crisis.’” “And it’s not a bad one to have,” she affirms. But things have not got out of hand. Expansion can be an ene-
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Beer making is art in action in this Mayne Island nano-brewery.
photo courtesy mIBC
my to adapting. They have a very, very clear idea about not expanding too much. The market is there and they sell all they brew, usually two 140-litre batches a week. It is all a question of sustainability. They respect their water table that feeds the well that feeds the beer. They know their own minds. They don’t just brew to match market trends but to create tantalizingly unique concoctions. Take, for example, the Mayne Island Forager. To beer aficionados, it may seem anathema to make beer flavoured with locally foraged plants, like stinging nettle, grand fir tips, dandelion and burdock, but it works. “Actually, regulars frequently ask, ‘What’s in the Forager?’ because things change with the seasons. Soon it will be sea asparagus time,” says Garratt. Beer making is art in action in this Mayne Island nano-brewery. So many decisions at different stages all affect the final outcome. Unlike the commercial breweries, the Mayne Island beers are unique with each batch being slightly different from the other. The grain, the water, the hops and yeast are carefully selected according to the type of beer, and the Witteman-Garratt
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brewing art proceeds with experimentation and reverence. The grain, malted barley, comes from Germany or the U.K. or from Vancouver Island, depending on the type of beer to be made. It is interesting to note that the Phillips Brewing and Malting Company of Victoria is the only craft brewer in Canada to malt its own barley, which is grown just minutes away. Our Mayne Island brewers make their Belle Chain Pale Ale from this local grain. The malting of the grain is an art in itself. Perhaps, down the line, it may happen at this brewery. The chosen type of grain is milled by hand by Witteman or Garratt. The amount of milling varies according to the grain or the type of beer and then this malt is added to heated water. This is no ordinary water, either; it’s special registered well water, not your chlorinated city H2O, but healthy, mineralized and filtered groundwater, because water quality is a critical consideration in beer making. This mashing process, uniting grain and water, requires careful temperature control. The mash is then “sparged” or “lautered” and the remaining wort collected in one of the three tanks of the Blichmann three-stage gravity system. Then the wort is boiled and hops added. All this requires significant decision-making and allows for experimentation. The length of boil, the type of hops and when to add the hops all play a crucial role in the flavour of the beer. Most of their varieties of hops come from the Chilliwack hop farms, in the Fraser Valley. Then, passing
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recycled rainwater through a heat exchanger, the wort is cooled to the temperature needed for the added yeast to work its magic. Each stage of the process is open to experimentation. “I’ve got a thing right now about temperature,” explains Garratt. “I’ve been speaking to other brewers. If we slow down the fermentation it affects the attenuation and will change the flavour of the beer.” From the ongoing learning process, he gains a lot. Local livestock also gain. Mayne Island chickens fed on the spent mash lay nutritious eggs, and a Galiano farmer, with 15 cows, comes over bi-weekly to satisfy his herd’s addiction. So what beer finally makes it to the self-styled artistically designed four-pack beer containers? Well, apart from the Belle Chain Ale and the Mayne Island Forager, you will find English IPA, Dutch-style Blonde Ale, barrel-aged Brown Ale, Beet Buck, a Belgian strong ale, called Little Hell, and a German-styled JPod Kolsch. All ales are conditioned ales, meaning that they are carbonated naturally. The young venture has already been awarded for its success. Its Brown Ale earned a silver medal at the 2018 Canadian Beer Awards in the wood and barrel-aged beer category, and the Beet Buck was a bronze medal winner in the B.C. Beer Awards last fall. And the whole family gets in on the act. Jasper and Grace, now fully fledged teenagers, help with the bottling and stick on the labels that have been creatively designed and painted by their mom. This is an island beer mecca, where you can worship the gods who brew such fine elixirs, like the Beet Buck, which was a B.C. Beer Awards winner last fall. I had never tasted a Beet Buck in all my considerable life of beer drinking, and to be honest, I had never before met such a brew, but I’m now a convert!
Above: The brewery's unique sign. Page 14: Daughter Grace puts labels on the bottles.
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Festivals
Picture Perfect
Salt Spring launches first annual Photofest BY ELIZABETH NOLAN Photo at left: Eternity in an Hour by Amy Melious The art of photography will command the spotlight during the last two weeks of June this year, when the first ever Salt Spring Photofest takes over wall space at virtually every island gallery and cafe. More than 30 Salt Spring venues have signed on to the event, which runs from June 13 to 26. With the timing intentionally set to coincide with the annual Tour des Îles festival (June 21-23), the event will expose local talent both to islanders and visitors coming in from the other Gulf Islands and beyond.
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The new festival is the creation of two organizations that formed a joint committee for the purpose: the Salt Spring Photography Club and the Photosynthesis group. The photo club has over 100 members and is open to all levels, from newbie to professional. They meet monthly and have speakers and events as well as their annual show. Photosynthesis is a closed group of 20 established photographers who come together for one group show each year. (Members are permitted to take one year off, in which case guest artists are invited to take their spot at the show.) While each organization has a slightly different orientation, there are overlaps in membership and some confusion from the general community, so the two decided to team up and celebrate photography in style by having their annual shows both occur during the same two weeks. That offered the opportunity to bring in even more local photographers with satellite shows. “We see this as an annual event. It’s not a one-off,” says Salt Spring Photography Club chair Pierre Mineau. “My vision is eventually we could extend to all the southern Gulf Islands, so people taking the boats for Tour des Îles would go to galleries and see great photography.” “We’re trying to get everyone involved in this,” adds Photosynthesis chair Alane Lalonde. “We’re even coaxing out some of the top-notch professionals who don’t often show anymore.” As an art form, there is much to celebrate. Lalonde notes that when she first arrived on the island 44 years ago, there were only three professional photographers. The community’s growth and the advances in digital technology have seen a burgeoning of local talent since then. Both organizations make a point of sponsoring a student artist each year, which helps grow the field even more. “Photography has greatly expanded. It’s absolutely incredible where it’s come to,” Lalonde says. Even though it is more and more accessible, there doesn’t seem to be any slackening of appetite for the creative images that individuals produce. “Photography acts as a witness to our goings on and our civilization — especially because it is so reachable for most people,” Mineau says. Photosynthesis’ exhibition during the festival will be at the ArtSpring gallery, as it has been for the previous 18 non-festival years. The photo club show will be hosted by Gallery 8 in the upstairs feature gallery. Other venues include the stage gallery at Mahon Hall, downtown cafes and galleries, Fernwood Road Cafe, and many more. The Driftwood will exhibit photos from its annual Day in the Life community photo project and 2019 shoot day takes place during the festival. All participating locations will be marked on a map/brochure, which will be available at ArtSpring, Gallery 8 and the tourist info centre, and will be handed to Tour des Îles visitors as they disembark at Ganges Harbour. The festival officially begins on Thursday, June 13 and offers staggered opening receptions on the following evening. Visitors are invited to start at ArtSpring and end up at Gallery 8. The Photosynthesis reception runs from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. and the photo club’s is from 5 to 8 p.m. Each event typically attracts around 200 visitors, so the committee is looking forward to a very festive evening as well as an exciting two weeks. “People do love to come out to see photography,” Lalonde observes. “And if it encourages people or inspires them to get out there with their phones or whatever they have, that’s great,” says Mineau. The Salt Spring Arts Council and Country Grocer are key sponsors for the event.
June 21st ~23rd, 2019
tourdesiles.ca May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 17
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1. Offer subject to change. Expires December 31, 2017. Data plans will only work on the ZTE MF725R Smart Hub, Huawei B882 4G LTE or Huawei B890 4G LTE at eligible addresses. Check with a TELUS Dealer to qualify a service address. If Smart Hub device is moved out of region or if the Smart Hub SIM card is moved to a different mobile device, these data plans will cease working. These data plans do not include any voice minutes or capabilities. 9-11 and 6-11 calls can still be made if a phone is plugged into the Smart Hub unit, but no other voice activities will be possible with these plans. Taxes and pay-per-use charges are extra. 2. Speeds depend on signal strength and distance from cell site. Speed and signal strength may vary with your configuration, internet traffic, environmental conditions, applicable network management or other factors. For a description of TELUS network management practices, visit telus.com/networkmanagement and telus.com/optimization. Additional usage will be charged in increments of $10/5GB (rounded up to the closest GB at the end of the billing cycle). Data usage during a single billing cycle may be capped at $500 of additional usage. Additional usage may be authorized by calling TELUS to remove the data block. 3. If a 2-year term agreement is cancelled for any reason before the end of the commitment period, the account will be charged a fee equal to what’s left on the Device Balance and any remaining unpaid charges for using the service. TELUS and the TELUS logo are trademarks of TELUS Corporation. ©2017 TELUS 17_00264-01.
Nature
Rhen's
Poetry
poetic images of salt spring Island POEM & PHOTOS BY BARB LEVY
LATE SPRING SIGH Indigo wavelets wink at you with their starlight eyes in the middle of the afternoon. And by dusk, the air is so inviting, you leave your worries and winter layers behind, michael LEVY photo
to go hopping over stones next to the bay, free-spirited, like this gosling boldly stepping out on his own. Now that the Purple Martins have settled Barb Levy, AKA Rhen, is a poet, musician and photographer who has lived on Salt Spring for 16 years. Rhen's Poetry matches the seasons in each issue of Aqua.
into their summer homes, you wake up to their tinkling chatter and to these blissful lambs nibbling on tender greens. And later on in the morning, while a chorus of dignified Eagles surveys their hunting ground, you daydream, drifting along with these soft-spoken clouds, in this time of sweet apple blossoms and bees.
For more images by Barb Levy and to connect with her about her work, visit www. facebook.com/ saltspringbarbrhenpoetry/
May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 19
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Ventures
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of the
Grapes
Saturna’s Vineyards get new life Story by CHERIE THIESSEN Photos courtesy Sea Star Vineyards
L
ive music, children jostling one another in a sack race, adults sipping wine at tables shaded from the fall sun or snugged up on straw bales closer to the music, hungry diners lining up at food stations to enjoy every gourmet course, designated stompers rolling up their pant legs to get ready for the grape crushing event. Saturna Vineyards' annual harvest celebration ended well over a decade ago. Popular, lively and festive, it had too short a life. The 60acre (24-hectare) property with its four vineyards, its 10,000-squarefoot production facility and warehouse, its tasting room and restaurant fell silent in 2012, and one of the most beautiful properties anywhere brooded in solitude, unappreciated by all but the few homeowners on the waterfront strata properties and the odd curious visitor who braved the steep, narrow road down into the valley.
May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 25
From left: Aerial view of the huge vineyard on Saturna Island; Mark Anderson, David Goudge and their dog Hudson. Previous page: Saturna Vineyards property; Goudge with a bottle of Sea Star Vineyards wine at the Pender winery.
Wineries on the Gulf Islands have always faced considerable challenges: water scarcity, freight costs, limited populations, lack of help and accommodation are just some of the drawbacks. Wineries opened, and too often closed, as did North Pender’s own five-hectare Morning Bay Vineyards, up for sale in September 2010. But along came a realtor who had dreams of an early retirement on Pender Island and no knowledge whatsoever about making wine. A little kayaking, beachcombing, boating and exploring the islands, those were the plans when he and his partner, Mark Anderson, arrived in 2009, but it wasn’t long before grapes took precedence and his semi-retirement morphed into entrepreneurship. He purchased Morning Bay the following year, gathered together a small team that included Anderson as general manager, viticulturalist/winemaker Ian Baker, originally from Mistaken Identity Vineyards on Salt Spring. Then he built fences, planted vines, re-branded Morning Bay as Sea Star and two years later bottled the first vintage. Penderites emptied the bottles and the crates. One of their favourite playgrounds had been returned, where events could be held, visitors could be taken for a bragging “look what we’ve got” wine tasting, and shows and exhibitions could be presented. “I got attracted to the businesses that were trying to make a go of it on these islands and I liked that Morning Bay was doing music and events and becoming part of the community. I wanted to continue that,” says Goudge. In no time at all the entrepreneur was discovering he could not keep up with demand. “It’s remarkable. We could sell all of our wine out of the front door. Sixty-five per cent of our wine goes to people on Pender, either the locals or the visitors. The reason it isn’t a higher number is because we don’t have any more wine to sell them!” Even leasing an additional 2.2 hectares from Pender’s Clam Bay Farm to grow more vines was a mere drop in the barrel. And there was neighbouring Saturna, a siren just a 10-minute boat trip across Plumper Sound. You could stand at the top of Sea Star Vineyards and look across at Saturna’s languishing vines — 44 acres of them. Page 26 – AQUA – May/June 2019
Thus the stars aligned. In September 2017, Sea Star Estate Farm & Vineyards purchased the Saturna lsland Family Estate Winery. “I was aware it was for sale,” says the buyer. “The property is enormous; the largest vineyard on the coast. It was the leader before vineyards were even on Salt Spring.” He lights up when telling of his acquisition. “Fundamentally it comes down to the viability of the property to grow great wine grapes. I am very pleased to report that after we purchased the vineyards in the late summer of 2017 we had little expectation of finding any healthy grapes because they had been completely abandoned for five or six years. Yet we did! There were perfectly healthy Pinot Noir grapes and we were able to harvest eight tons.” (Pinot Noir has been called the “heartbreak grape” because of the challenges to grow it. It’s notorious for having diseases.) “In 2018 we picked another area of Pinot Noir and in both years these grapes went into our Blanc de Noir.” Last year three tons of Chardonnay were harvested from grape vines that were also perfectly healthy. “That is being added to our Stella Maris in production. To top it off we also have pear trees and apples trees and these fruits were blended into our 2018 Prose dessert wine, so the grapes on Saturna have already been part of Sea Star’s vintages. Our short-term plans will be to continue to use the Pinot Noir from Saturna to make our Blanc de Noir.” All in all it seems a perfect marriage of vineyards, enabling Goudge to quadruple the production of his award-winning wines while providing employment for Saturna Islanders, resurrecting what once was a lively part of the island, and hopefully within a few years, returning the festivities and celebrations that used to enhance the island. “In my opinion the terroir is well suited to growing exceptional grapes,” says the new owner. “With its south exposure, its plentiful onshore winds, its location beside exposed granite cliffs that capture the heat, and its situation on a shelf where the warmer air drops away causing air movement in the evenings, it’s perfect. This naturally helps to prevent mold and fungus from developing. All that water coming through the valley naturally irrigates the vineyard as well. What was
planted here predominantly were the Pinot Noir, the Pinot Gris and the Chardonnay and those grapes work. As we properly prune the vines and get the grapes growing in a fruit zone near the ground they should further ripen and improve in quality.” But how is it that this winery owner has succeeded so quickly when so many others did not? What is his secret? “It all comes down to what’s in the bottle,” he says. “I attribute my success largely to finding the right winemaker. Also, the tide has risen on the quality of wine in B.C. and the coastal wineries, which did not use to have a high reputation, have also improved. Another factor is the trend in buying local. A lot of restaurants have turned to island wines. Sourcing locally is what everyone wants to do now. A lot of investment is going on in wineries across the islands and a few of them are really raising the brand.” He also says it helps that the wine Sea Star produces is “trending.” “They’re food appropriate wines in that they’re not flabby, i.e. have too much sugar. They have a nice balance and go well with seafood, which is a natural draw on the coast.” Other draws might be less obvious: wine labelling, for example, and the attraction of the branding and the bottle, simplistic but celebrating where it is from. “We were also fortunate in both scenarios to have established vineyards to start with,” Goudge points out. “Wineries that start from scratch and need to plant vineyards have all these outrageous costs and often initially bring in grapes from the Okanagan. The problem then is that you are immediately off brand because you are doing something that is not what you ultimately want to do. Certainly there is a lot of work to do, but the vineyards are there. That’s a big plus.”
While not certified organic, Sea Star’s grapes are grown organically. “We also are biodynamic and sustainable. We don’t use pesticides. “We have sheep that go in and do the weed eating and process the weeds into fertilizer. We buy electric equipment and rain catchment, so we are not using any ground water. The vineyard is all captured water and Saturna will also be all captured water. Lots of water pours into that valley and then there’s a large irrigation pond there too that captures the water. We’ll be adding lime to the soil there because the grapes have a high acid level. It’s calcium magnesium carbonate and as such is organic and promotes utilization of soil nutrients.” Saturna Vineyards is no longer lonely. Four full-time employees, three who live on Saturna, are keeping it company, and site manager Tyler Cox now lives on the property. When things are in full production a whole lot of employees will be needed. What’s in the future? Well, in 2020 Goudge is certain they will have more grapes than they know what to do with. He will also be looking at re-opening the tasting room and leasing the rest of the expansive building to someone who just may want to fire up the bistro once again. Let’s hope! “Saturna has been outrageously supportive about this,” Goudge asserts. “The Saturna Store sells an enormous amount of our wine, which shows the level of support of islanders.” This new owner, who is confident Sea Star can make a Pinot Noir from the property, concludes, “I’m looking forward to having some exceptional wines come from Saturna.” Could those rumours about a sparkling wine actually be true? So Sea Star – Saturna Vineyards, welcome to the world.
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– AQUA – Page 27
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History
A
Farming Life Val Hughes and the Burgoyne Dairy
By ROGER BRUNT Photos courtesy Val Hughes
O
n the cover of Farms, Farmers and Farming, the first 80 years of Agriculture on Salt Spring Island, written
by Mort Stratton, the photograph on the cover is of a typical turn-of-the-century Salt Spring Island farm house — square and boxy, clad in white-painted siding. These were the early days of farming on Salt Spring, with oxen and draft horses, split-rail fences and ragtag kids in hand-me-down overalls with a chore-list much more daunting than downloading a few tunes onto their iPhones. In the background, the Burgoyne Valley stretches away towards Mount Maxwell, a sea of freshly cleared fields punctuated with boulders and stumps, the land wrested from the brooding rain forest with little more than raw muscle, sheer determination and dreams of a better life. “That was my house,” Val Hughes tells me as we sit having coffee at Dagwood’s restaurant. “That was my home on the cover of the book.
Page 30 – AQUA – May/June 2019
Above: Harvesting silage corn on the Hughes farm. At right: Fulford-Ganges Road and Mount Maxwell in the 1960s. Previous page: Burgoyne Dairy farm house; Fred Hollings, who was Val Hughes' father, a well-known Salt Spring logger, firefighter and rhodonite miner.
“I was living in Fulford Harbour with my mom and dad when I met Roger Hughes,” Val continues. “The year was 1961 and I was 20 years old. We lived right behind Patterson’s Store, which is now the Mercantile in Fulford Harbour. That’s the house I moved to when we got married.” The Hughes family had been in England before coming to Canada and starting a dairy farm in the Fraser Valley near Langley. Roger’s parents had visited Salt Spring and were much impressed with the Burgoyne Valley. They moved here and bought what had been the Reid’s dairy farm, bringing some of their cows from their Langley dairy, adding to the herd on Salt Spring until they had around 80 cows, black-and-white Holsteins. “They are very good milk producers,” Val says. Val and Roger were married in 1961, and Val moved the two miles up the valley to the farm which was located right behind where the little white United church stands today. The old house is still there (now with porch and addition) beside a more recently built house nearby. Their old dairy barn is gone.
Val says, “My son went into the old house and had a look around. It has been renovated, but still holds lots of memories. It has lots of history. Mac Mouat is said to have been born there. I still have a bundle of the old newspapers from the 1930s that lined the walls of some of the rooms for insulation.” Val’s father, Fred Hollings, had come to Salt Spring in 1941. He was a successful logging contractor. He had planned to stay a year but, like so many of us, he succumbed to the island’s charms and stayed. He did well and owned 600 to 700 acres on Mount Bruce, and another several hundred acres at the foot of Mount Erskine. The Mount Bruce land was to make him famous, but he had no way of knowing that when he bought it. “Life on a dairy farm is hard,” says Val, “and ours was no exception. Aside from the rigorous twice-daily milking schedule, I remember nights we had to get up and chase the cows off Fulford-Ganges Road, or out of our garden. I’ll never forget my daughter, Paula, in her gumboots and PJs, in middle of the night, trying to repair the damage the
May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 31
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“Those days were so different. When it snowed, the big kids would push the school bus up Lee’s Hill.” — VAL HUGHES
cows had done to her little patch of garden. “But for the kids, for the most part, it was a great life. Aside from our garden and the crops we grew to feed the cows, mainly hay and cow-corn for silage, we also grew corn for sale. The kids helped tend our farm-stand. We staggered the planting so we had fresh corn nearly all summer long for a dollar a dozen. Of that the kids got 10 cents a dozen. They learned how to deal with people and how to deal with money. The neighbourhood kids were never far away, building tree forts and roller-skating along Fulford-Ganges Road. Those days were so different. When it snowed, the big kids would push the school bus up Lee’s Hill. Can you imagine them doing that today?” As well as 80 milking cows, the farm had a few hundred chickens. “I remember being pregnant and every night washing dozens of eggs, along with all the dairy’s milk bottles,” says Val. “For a while, we had an old English farmhand. Every day he would get a glass of fresh warm milk and break a freshly laid egg into it and drink it right down. I still shudder when I think of it, and I still don’t like runny eggs. We also raised meat birds and kept pigs. I recall one chicken that weighed 12 pounds — as big as a young turkey! It was a good life. For a long time after I left the farm it would really upset me to go by and see it. Growing up, the kids never got bored and they all learned a really good work ethic.” Living in the old farmhouse, as picturesque as it might sound, posed its own challenges. “I raised our four kids there, and I’m surprised the house didn’t burn down like so many of Salt Spring’s other original buildings, including the Fulford Hall, Beaver Point Hall and the old Fulford inns. The chimney of the wood stove would glow cherry red in winter. It was right near a wall of wellaged wood. Fire scares me, but it didn’t seem to bother my
Above: Aerial photo of the Hughes farm taken in the 1960s. Below: Roger Hughes at a barn on the dairy property.
husband. I’d get my dad to check it out. He was a volunteer fireman until age 75.” The Hughes’ Burgoyne Dairy was one of several operating around that time. There was Luton’s dairy on Blackburn Road, Cunningham’s near Central, Shaw’s across from Fulford Hall, Heinekey’s in Vesuvius, Crawford’s on Beddis Road and Harkema’s at Fernwood. Some of these dairies were small, with only eight or 10 cows, so even with all this competition the Hughes delivered milk all over the island. They also had a good quota with Island Farms, and later acquired Cunningham Dairy’s quota to add to it. To handle 80 milking cows, automation was essential. At first the automatic milking machines were emptied into buckets. Later on a piping system was installed that took the milk directly to the cooler. May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 33
“We grew 15 to 20 acres of corn for silage and put up thousands of bales of hay every year,” says Val. “In winter, the cows mainly stayed in a loafing barn, in summer they stayed pastured out, which meant less work. We had a bunker-silo for grass and corn silage, with molasses added. Our 80-year-old neighbour would come over and drive the tractor over it to pack it down. We bought alfalfa in the Interior and in Washington State, and bought our own truck, then several more. Our sons got into trucking. As well as for our own use, we sold alfalfa that we brought to Salt Spring Island.” Val says, “When we sold the farm, I didn’t know how I was going to survive. As a school girl I’d worked summers in the ferry, Cy Peck’s coffee bar (the ferry held 12 cars) and the Pender Queen coffee shop, with its 30 to 40 cars, so that’s what I went back
to. I worked at Nan’s coffee bar in Fulford (now Rock Salt café), at the golf course and at Greenwoods for 25 years. Often that was sad, seeing so many of the island’s old-timers taking their last long ride.” One of the old-timers that never let age slow him down was Val’s father, Fred Hollings. Aside from his successful logging business, in 1950 he had discovered a large deposit of high-quality rhodonite on his Mount Bruce property. A semi-precious stone much in demand by jewellers and craftspeople, rhodonite is second only to jade in commercial importance in B.C. Over the years he developed his discovery and thousands of rock hounds came to Salt Spring to acquire the mineral, so much so that, according to an old Driftwood article, one day enough rock hounds had gathered at Swartz Bay that BC Ferries made a special run to Fulford to accommodate
them all. At the same time, Lynn Matthews’ gift shop in Ganges became the largest supplier of rhodonite in B.C. Eventually, all the old dairy farms on Salt Spring Island closed, in part due to changing government regulations to do with pasteurization, changing packaging requirements and increasing herd health regulations. “At the time these changes were coming,” says Val, “the residents started a petition saying they didn’t want them. My kids were raised on un-pasteurized milk and they all have really good teeth. I was raised on unpasteurized milk from the Shaw Farm on Fulford-Ganges Road. In the winter, the milk would freeze in the bottles and the cream would come up — we’d eat it with a spoon. “Nowadays people talk about sustainability in Salt Spring agriculture. We had it, and my family and I were part of it.”
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Lost Frequency-
a Salish Sea thriller
By GAIL SJUBERG
While the Gulf Islands boast a huge number of writers, not a lot of fiction or mystery books are actually set in our region. A recent release from Pendrell Sound Press by Salish Sea author Barry Swanson, who lives across the border in the San Juan Islands, brings the reading world to our doorstep, however. Lost Frequency: A Novel of Sound, Speed, Power, and Greed is a thriller set partly in the San Juans and starring some of our shared neighbours: the southern resident killer whales. Lost Frequency opens with the capture of two orcas for an aquarium in California by Orcas Island
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resident James Parker way back in 1964. But we are quickly transported to the year 2020, when Parker’s son DJ is about to unveil a game-changing, artificial-intelligence technology called Soti. Another son — JJ — has remained on Orcas Island, living in the family home. JJ is autistic and brilliant and his remarkable abilities have a real impact. He and a former marine world trainer also provide fascinating information about the killer whales. Corporate sleaziness and attempts to steal Soti are part of the unfolding action, and it would be easy to see Lost Frequency transformed into
a fast-paced popular movie. I am definitely not a regular thriller or mystery reader, and appreciate more literary depth and nuance in the fiction I read, but it took no time at all to be immersed in Lost Frequency and I could not put it aside until I knew what would happen. Swanson is passionate about saving our southern resident orcas and hopes his novel will help people become more aware of their plight and efforts to help them survive and thrive. Lost Frequency is available at local bookstores, online and as an audio book through www.audible.ca.
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Comfort Food
From Swedish Seas Gravad lax a treat on Salt Spring You’d be surprised by how many different nationalities live on Salt Spring Island. And each one of them has their own comfort food. BY MARCIA JANSEN
Marcia Jansen is a Dutch journalist and writer who has lived on Salt Spring since 2012. www.ssicomfortfood.com
Page 36 – AQUA – May/June 2019
C
Charlotte Erlandson, from Sweden, on the boardwalk in Ganges.
harlotte Erlandson came to Canada to improve her English in 1995. Two years later she came back to study art at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design and never returned to her home country of Sweden. “I didn’t know much about Canada,” says Erlandson. “It was an intuitive decision to come here 18 years ago. My teacher told me that Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto were good options, and when I saw in a video the ocean and the mountains, I decided to go to Vancouver.” Erlandson spent three months in Vancouver, went back to Sweden, but decided to pack her bags again in 1997. “I was into art, applied for the Emily Carr University in Vancouver when I was 26, and got in,” says Erlandson, who majored in painting and photography. “I studied full time for five and a half years and had an absolutely amazing time doing artwork in combination with academics. I did so many different things, spending time in the darkroom, painting, working with mixed media and I learned about contemporary First Nations art. I felt I could be myself there, I felt free.” After she graduated, Erlandson had half a year left to explore British Columbia. “I was very drawn to the Interior and wanted
to check out the mountain town of Nelson. I’d heard it was a great place for artists. Nelson had the same vibe back then as Salt Spring. It was a hippy town with people who thought differently. I felt at home right away, so I tried to get a work visa, but then I met my son’s dad and that made it a lot easier for me to stay.” Erlandson grew up in a suburb just outside of Sweden’s capital Stockholm, close to the sea and nature. “It is very similar to the south end of Salt Spring Island where I live. Especially Weston Lake reminds me of home. Stockholm itself is a very green city with a lot of trees and big parks. It is beautiful there.” Many have wondered why she left Stockholm, a place that was voted the most liveable capital in 2015. “A lot of people think of Sweden as this great, romantic country, but a lot has changed after the assassination of prime minister Olof Palme in 1986. There are still amazing social programs, like hot meals in school, a five-week paid holiday a year and 480 days subsidized maternity leave for parents, but many things have changed over the years and not for the better.” Erlandson had her son in Nelson, but also seriously thought about going back to Sweden a few times.
Many have wondered why she left Stockholm, a place that was voted the most liveable capital in 2015.
“All my family, my parents, my siblings, are there and that’s sometimes hard. I also miss the culture, the language, the food. But in the end, I decided to stay because my son’s dad lives here — we divorced years ago — and I want them to be close to each other. Plus I like the free-spiritedness of this part of Canada. In Sweden, you can’t home school your kids, for example, and that’s what I wanted for my son.” But despite being here for more than 20 years, she still feels very Swedish. “When I feel down I listen to Swedish music and watch Scandinavian television shows. You can also see my Scandinavian background in my paintings, as I use Nordic ancestry mythology a lot.” Three years ago she and her now 15-year-old son left Nelson for Salt Spring Island. “It was great to raise my son in the mountains, with bears in the backyard, it was very magical. But Nelson was changing too. Our housing situation was unstable, drugs were a problem in schools and Nelson didn’t have a great high school, in my opinion. A friend of mine had moved from Nelson to Salt Spring and I had been here a few times when I lived in Vancouver. I missed the ocean and I thought that Salt Spring Island, with Victoria and Vancouver close by, was a great place to live and to work as an artist. And we absolutely love it, there is a much gentler energy here.” Erlandson felt pretty good during the long period of snow toward the end of this past winter on Salt Spring Island, but at times she misses Sweden. “Especially during the holidays — around Christmas and Saint Lucia, the Goddess of Light — on Dec. 13, the darkest day of the year. Stockholm is at the same latitude as Whitehorse, so it wasn’t dark the whole day, but we were always looking forward to Saint Lucia and the days getting longer again. It is a beautiful tradition with women and girls in white dresses and lights in their hair, singing beautiful songs. Traditionally they serve saffron buns — with saffron and almonds — and I make them every winter solstice. My son and I love those buns.” She also has special memories of the summer solstices in Sweden at the end of June. “Midsummer is actually a public holiday in Sweden and we celebrate it with a lot of food and drinks. I regularly cook Swedish dishes. Luckily I can buy the big, round Swedish crispbread here at Country Grocer and I make my own rye bread. One of my favourite snacks is Gravad lax, an old traditional Nordic dish consisting of raw salmon, cured in salt, sugar and dill and served with a mustard sauce. I used to make it only around Christmas, but I am planning to make it more often because it is so healthy and not that difficult to make.” Charlotte's artwork website is www.frejasejd.com.
Gravad Lax Ingredients 1 kg. salmon filet (coho or sockeye) 1/2 deciliter salt 1/2 deciliter sugar white pepper 2 deciliter chopped dill Clean the salmon filet. Mix salt and sugar. Cut the filet in half on the length and rub the whole filet with the salt-sugar mixture. Put the part with skin on the plate (with skin down). Put chopped dill on top and press the other part back together (with dill in the middle). Wrap it in tin foil, put a heavy weight on it and put in the fridge for two days. After two days cut it into thin slices and eat with mustard sauce on toast or crackers as an appetizer or super healthy snack.
Mustard sauce Ingredients 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard 2-3 tsp. sweet mustard 1-2 Tbsp. sugar 1 egg yolk 1 1/2 to 2 deciliter olive oil 1 Tbsp. vinegar salt white pepper 1/2 to 1 deciliter finely chopped dill Mix mustard, sugar and egg yolk, vinegar and add oil first in a few drops and then more and more constantly whisking. Add salt, pepper and dill.
May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 37
Food Security
To feed a
Harvest Farm provides food security, community and belonging Story and photos by MARC KITTERINGHAM
I
t does not look like much in the spring, but soon enough the wet and muddy fields in the shadow of Mount Maxwell will be bursting with enough food to feed a community. At least, that is Simone Cazabon’s hope. Cazabon is the coordinator for Harvest Salt Spring, a food security program run through Salt Spring Island Community Services. The idea
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Be Water Wise
Use Only What You Need Water is a precious resource and supplies on Salt Spring are much more limited than in other parts of BC. Please join islanders as we work together to ensure that this summer, and every summer, we use this limited resource wisely. Try these conservation tips: • Keep showers short. • Run only full loads in dishwashers and washing machines. • Shut off the tap while brushing teeth, shaving, and washing. • Flush less often. • Inform guests about our island’s limited water supply, and ask them to be part of the solution.
Together we can make a difference
www.northsaltspringwaterworks.ca May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 39
behind the program is simple: Make sure everyone has access to highquality food. “Not everybody has the chance to eat fresh food. People think Salt Spring has a good garden farming community, but there’s a lot of people who don’t get access to this nice stuff. Good food shouldn’t be so elitist. It should almost be a right,” Cazabon says. “The people who need it the most aren’t getting it. That’s what we’re aiming for.” Under the Harvest umbrella are myriad other programs to help make food and community accessible to all. The program takes control of the entire system through production, distribution, preparation and consumption. It also gives opportunities to people in the community who need work or connection through its social enterprise programs, the Salt Spring Island Food Bank and the Tuesday market coupon program. Cazabon is trying to build a community around food, and to give people a sense of connection to the land, the food and the people around them. “It just matters to show up and see that the community cares about you,” she says. “It is about the food, but it’s also about the community and the connection that happens through that. That’s the magic.” In the late spring and into the summer, things are starting to take more shape on the farm. The warm sunlight pours down from the sky,
island
beckoning the plants to grow faster and taller. Bees and other pollinators come from everywhere to help the process along. This is where things start to happen. The farm is the base of all of the other Harvest programs. Food from the farm goes toward SSICS’s winter shelter program, other Community Services programs, the food bank, a by-donation market located at the Harvest Kitchen on the Core Inn property in Ganges, the cafe itself, and the various cooking workshops that are held throughout the year. Harvest Farm does not experiment with new kinds of vegetables, or things that tend to wilt. Chosen plants have a knack for longevity, and are meant to keep the community’s larders full well into the winter. “It’s about the proper quantity, rather than having variety. There’s definitely a practical priority. We’re not growing what market gardeners are, we’re looking at what can actually feed people.” The farm is part of the Shaw Family Community Gardens operated by the Salt Spring Island Farmland Trust, and the land is leased from that group. It is managed by Milo Stuart and employees from the Success Works program work in the fields two days each week. Success Works is set up to help people who have barriers to employment find meaningful work. Farming is one kind of meaningful work, and it lets the
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We want to make our farm a bit more of a showcase where we can conduct more talks and we want to create more avenues to give food and create sit-down meals with people.
Above: Simone Cazabon picks a carrot at the Community Services' Burgoyne Valley farm last fall. At right: Sunflowers in bloom. Page 38: Cazabon and Milo Stuart; sun-drenched zinnias.
workers be part of something that is bigger than just punching a clock. Success Works participants can get certifications like FOODSAFE and first aid that help them find employment. They also get a reference for future jobs. “There’s a broad range of barriers to employment,” says Cazabon. “It could be because they’re homeless, it could be high anxiety. The point is that these people have talents, abilities, do contribute and do belong. If it’s just because they need a bit more patience or encouragement, maybe a regular business can’t provide that, but we can give them more space for grace. We help them build their confidence that they can do something. “I think there needs to be a major mind-shift to start investing in people a little bit more. People who are showing up and who want it. That’s what these people are. They’re not just lazy people hanging out in the park, they’re people who want to step it up in their life,” she adds. May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 41
As the season begins to change into fall, the literal fruits of the farm workers’ labour start to come out. Colder weather vegetables are harvested — things like squash, potatoes, pumpkins — which are all chosen to last long into the winter. They are put into storage in the program’s large refrigeration unit or turned into a preserve. The food will go back into the program, feeding people who seek warmth through the SSICS emergency shelter, as well as anyone looking to take part in the various programs. Food is an all-encompassing aspect of people’s lives. We all need to eat every day. For a lot of people, eating organic and sustainable food is easy. It is about making certain choices at the supermarket, visiting the farmers’ market in the summer or signing up for a CSA box. However, for a large proportion of the population, this kind of food — the kind that nourishes and improves lives — is inaccessible. “There’s so much abundance. Why aren’t the weakest members of our community getting what they need? Why are we holding back? You’re only as strong as the weakest member, that’s something I’ve always got on my mind. We have to reach out to these people,” she says. “These people are lovely, but they just need their hands held a little bit. They need to be looked in the eye and told that they have something to give, they can be part of something and that they deserve to have food and connection and belonging.” Winter is down time for the farm. Winter is also when preparations for the coming season take place. It is a time to look to the future, to see the gaps and try to fill them. The Harvest program is far from complete. It will be transforming every year, changing to fit the needs of those who depend on it. Stuart wants people to come to the farm to learn.
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“I’m really keen on [having a] demonstration site . . . having folks, students and schools out here and people who are just starting to get into gardening and farming,” he says. “I want to have a few different options of how to integrate everyday vegetables with some of the more untraditional these days, but really more ancient foods and crops that we’ve been growing and sustaining ourselves with for a long long time.” The education aspect is on Cazabon’s radar as well. She envisions holding talks, workshops and lessons to help people be able to use the food they get. “We want to make our farm a bit more of a showcase where we can conduct more talks and we want to create more avenues to give food and create sit-down meals with people,” she says. The Harvest Food Security Program is not just for people who need the food bank. Cazabon explains that everybody goes through some kind of food insecurity from time to time. The program is instead geared towards creating a sustainable food resource on Salt Spring that can give everyone the healthy, high-quality food they need and deserve. “Watching it grow, I’ve seen people change for the better. They’ve gotten out of their depressions and feel that it’s just not about a 9 to 5 [job] all the time,” she says. “Watching people’s lives change and watching kids eat food that they’d never had access to, having seen parents feel empowered that they can cook better, having seniors feel noticed and having their name being known in town because they participate in these things, they get food and they get big cries and hugs. “There’s a lot of magic.”
Island Artists
Keep on
Exploring
South Pender Island artist Dorset Norwich-Young STORY AND PHOTOS BY CHERIE THIESSEN Think BIG, because this artist does. In Water Music, (48”x48”), bubbles, seaweed and water reflect light, like shattered glass. In the aptly named Raw Energy (36”x60”), trees shudder and cling precariously to a tilting shore while rocks punch through an unbalanced sea teeming with life. It’s dizzying. My absolute favourite, Westcoast Zen (60”x60”), where moody trees look across at cloud-shrouded mountains and a stilled sea, is wisely positioned on the wall behind me. If visitors saw it first, they would enter it and not come out for a long time. In fact, all of Dorset Norwich-Young’s studio has that riveting effect. “It used to be a garage. When I first saw it I thought, 'Something has got to happen here.'” She points to the beautiful log beams overhead. “It was way too beautiful for a garage so when I came to Pender 12 years ago, I designed some changes and had it closed in. I think of it as a country modern combination now with the big log supports, white walls and track lighting.” She needs those white walls on which to mount her expansive, vivid and vibrant canvases. Her Sea Blossom studio resonates with the same pulsing energy and vibrancy as the work it shelters and showcases. Her space reflects a busy artist at work but also one who likes everything in its place. I can’t see her asking, “Now where did I put that?” May/June 2019 – AQUA – Page 43
Above: The artist's dog Bonnie Lass. Previous page: Dorset Norwich-Young at her studio. Below: Raw Energy Tofino, acrylic, 60"X36". Next page: Tofino Beach Bums, acrylic, 30"X60".
Page 44 – AQUA – May/June 2019
Sometimes the solitary nature of creating art can render an artist insecure and uncomfortable with being in the public eye, but this artist reflects a level of professionalism and confidence that success and a long history of practising her art have helped to shape. She greets me in the “uniform” she always wears in her studio, paintbesmeared overalls, freshly laundered. After I pull my eyes reluctantly away from the looming canvases, Norwich-Young laughs and tells me that sometimes the works are so large she has to do them on the floor. Why go so big, I need to know? “Instinct draws me to large works; they make me feel I’m part of the paintings. I get into them. Besides, I have a big paint stroke, so it’s hard to go small.” What came first, I wonder? The brush stroke or the canvas size? But now the artist points to another painting. “See, I do paint a few smaller works.” Looking at what she’s indicating I can’t help but think that even when she paints small, the effect is large. It’s a portrait of her dog, Bonnie Lass, so immediate that I expect to be licked, even though it’s across the room. “I want my works to invite the viewer in too,” she says, noticing my reaction to the rendition of her pet. “I also love a big canvas in order to experiment with balance. I like to create lots of vibrating multi-colour detail against big flat spacious areas of colour. This push-pull of the eye allows me to play the contrast of design and energy in a painting. If the canvas is too small it just gets too busy for that balance to work.” A member of Artists for Conservation Association (AFCA) since 2012, some of her work hangs in the Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson. The AFCA mission of supporting wildlife and habitat conservation and environmental education through art that celebrates nature synchronizes exactly with the artist’s own values. “I know what the basis of my work is: it’s about the environment and about saving it. For about two hours a day I walk with my dog. I get outside. Just living here fills my heart.” The long-time signature member of the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) knew from an early age what she wanted, graduating in 1975 from Emily Carr College of Art + Design with honours. After 35
years of practising art full time she is still evolving. She outlines a little of that evolution: “I started out large and was using oils, then I changed to watercolours, but even then I was working large and my work had a lot of intensity, colour wise. I took big risks with my watercolours; I didn’t want just wishy-washy colours. I think because I took so many risks then and asked so many questions that I learned a lot: not to be complacent and settle for just OK, for example, and how to be patient in order to get more. Eventually I switched to acrylics. It’s much more forgiving and allows me to have more freedom. For example, if I’m going to make a shift in my work, no problem. I can change it all I like and I find my work more playful, more adventuresome as a result. I was very abstract with my oil paintings for about 10 years, but then as soon as I got to Pender, I thought, ‘It’s about landscape!’ However, now it’s getting a little more abstract again. I can see my paintings as opportunities to see beyond the obvious scene of nature and although I now consider my artwork reasonably representational, I continue to include abstract elements of colour and form.” Looking at works like Water Music, I agree wholeheartedly. You can see what it is, but is that really what it is? Although her accreditations, awards and honours hang on the wall of her studio, Norwich-Young herself is modest about these honours, saying they are important to her because they show where she’s come from; they document her journey as an artist. She is a Signature Status member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, a designation for members who have demonstrated consistent superior ability and are thus eligible to judge the federation’s future shows. With other numerous awards to her palette, Dorset Norwich-Young’s work hangs in private homes around the world as well as in the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the City of Victoria Collection and the Sonora Desert Museum. Her work is exhibited from Beijing, China to Montreal, Canada, and from Port Townsend and Seattle in the U.S. to numerous other countries. She has juried many a show and been featured in four books, on television and in numerous magazines. I am grateful when the painter verbalizes perfectly for me the tug of war I am seeing
in her work and trying to define. “My drawings and forms are representational but my colour and technique are quite abstract for such a realistic form. That’s what makes my artwork quite hard to categorize, a kind of painterly play between the abstraction and the non-abstraction.” Yeah, that’s it! Norwich-Young, who is an excellent photographer and rarely without her camera, explains a little about her artistic process: “I usually paint five days a week and I give myself a 30-hour work week unless I have a deadline or a push on. If I have a show I will work into evenings. Sometimes I know exactly where the work is going and I want to keep going and then in the morning I come in and take a look at it and I will re-balance it, or give it more excitement, something fresh. “I love to paint an old subject in a new way. That’s what I’m looking for. I want something in the next painting to be a little beyond what I’ve already done. I’m always stretching, asking, ‘How do I make that tree flow? How do I show the wind there? How do I add to the work and how do I take away? How do these colours work together?’ Sometimes I tell myself, ‘This is working, but it’s not enough. How can I make it more?’ I put a fair amount of time into my drawings too. I do a lot of sketching and then I move into drawing it in purple. It’s a colour that works with everything I use. It blends and is not a hard line. “But I always start with something. I don’t just go to the canvas. I used to, but I don’t do that anymore. My beginnings are planned. My endings are not.” I say goodbye to the artist whose mantra is “keep exploring.” And don’t even think about acquiring Westcoast Zen. I’m collecting bottles to afford a bigger house for it.
Artist website: www.dorsetnorwichyoung.com Sea Blossom studio visits are by appointment. Call or email: 250-629-9912; 250-384-2456; dorsetnorwichyoung@gmail.com. Although she still does some commissions, these days NorwichYoung is focusing more on original work. Visitors to the studio, however, will still find lots of cards, prints and small works to browse. What do these initials stand for? AFCA (Artists for Conservation Association). The association consists of 700 leading nature artists from 30 countries. Norwich-Young has Signature Status (top level designation). (www.artistsforconservation.org) FCA (Federation of Canadian Artists). Canada’s foremost association of professional and emerging artists. The artist’s SFCA status denotes her as a senior member, a top-level status.
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Q&A
Healthy Tonic Q. How did you come to form Salt Spring Island Kombucha Co. and how did it evolve from there? A. Salt Spring Island Kombucha involved out of my desire, as a mom of two young ones, to have an income of my own and also to do something fun to get me out of the house. I had really wanted to sell something at the Saturday market ever since we first moved here, and so I thought it would be fun to try selling kombucha there. It was really popular, and so it just sort of grew from there. We started selling in stores, and on tap, and just kept getting bigger every year. Q. What has been the biggest surprise and/or challenge as you’ve developed the business? A. Well, we were the second kombucha company on the West Coast, in fact in all of British Columbia. It has been really surprising and exciting to see the popularity of our kombucha taking off in such an exponential way, but at the same time that has meant that the competition has grown ever faster. We have kept our business small, manageable and family sized, but there are lots of kombucha businesses in Vancouver that have been able to grow much faster. So we see this as both a challenge and an opportunity. Q. The whole family is involved with the business? Tell us about that. Well, definitely when we started it was just me, desperately sanitizing and filling bottles in our small commercial kitchen when the children were asleep. But now my husband Graham is doing much of the day-to-day work in the business and I have a little one-year-old here, so I am doing mostly administration. Our two older boys have definitely grown up within this business and we always consult them on new ideas and potential changes. They have some really great ideas! Q. Which flavours are each family member’s favourite? A. Mine is wild rose and my husband is most crazy about the chaga chai, and the boys all love the deep red of the hibiscus Page 46 – AQUA – May/June 2019
?? photo
Lea Weir is the founder of the Salt Spring Island Kombucha Co.
Cutline
lemon balm. But I have a feeling that for all of us, our new flavours — strawberry mint and blue algae — are going to be the obsessions of the summer. Q. What is the history of kombucha and what are its health benefits? A. Kombucha mythologically comes from ancient Japan and was discovered by the emperor there about 2,000 years ago. Nobody really knows the actual roots but certainly it is from East Asia a very long time ago. It is said that the samurai carried it around in flasks for strength. Kombucha is a powerful probiotic, it is incredible at helping people digest their food better and get any nourishment out of the food that they eat. It helps to balance and detoxify the body. It is a general all-around health tonic. Q. Where can people find Salt Spring Kombucha products? In so many places on Salt Spring! Natureworks, Country Grocer, and lots of other cafes and stores. We are available in many fine establishments in Vancouver, Victoria, all around Vancouver Island, as well as on several of the other Gulf Islands, such as Hornby and Mayne. For more information about where we are located, check out our website: www.ssikombucha.com. Q. How do you and your family make the most of living on Salt Spring when you’re not busy with the business? A. We are very aware that we live in a magical fairy land, and we don’t take that lightly. We are constantly going for walks, hanging out at beaches, and just enjoying this incredible place in all of its different moods and weathers.
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