l etters
Seeds of Food Security
new landlord
Congratulations to Tom Eisenhauer for acquiring this wonderfully water-rich farmland and preserving the proud history of Honeywood/ Mulmur and its surrounding water table. (“Dufferin’s New Landlord” spring ’14). Formerly Ontario’s only Arctic char farm founder (just south of Honeywood), my father and I experienced firsthand the 1,000-litresper-minute, nourishing cold springs. They were cleansed by nature and meandered across northwest Mulmur. Proximity to market and capital investment for safe and expensive farm equipment will bring employment and needed income for entrepreneurial Melancthon residents and Dufferin County. Dr. Peter Benedict PEng, PhD, from Muskoka, Toronto, and 50-year former farmer at Falling Brook Springs, Mulmur Thank you for this informative article. I was not able to attend the NDACT meeting in Shelburne on April 5, and this gave me much of the news. I have long anticipated hearing about the future of the former Highlands’ lands within our community. While I still have some con cerns, I will say that the greatest ones I held around the safety of our water and the division of our community have softened into relief. Shelley Hannah, Wasaga Beach (formerly Mulmur)
Re: Sowing the Seeds of Food Security (spring ’14). I am an Anishinaabe/Ojibwe woman in Ontario. 1. Nowhere have you promoted information about protecting seeds of old plant life foods indigenous to Canada, the United States, Mexico, or Central America. Our old corn, bean and squash seeds need protection, but so do many others. 2. When is your target date to start doing so? 3. Our First Nations thrived on plant life which evolved within the North American climate zones. Why are you only promoting seeds of plants of heirloom varieties sold in grocery stores? 4. If you are ecologically minded, why are you doing this? Phylmarie Fess / Manidoonaateshing-ikwe, from growing zone 5b
For he’s a jolly good fellow
Aabir Dey, Ontario regional co-ordinator of the Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, responds:
Our little gang of Orangeville High School grads of ’49 to ’52 are still meeting twice a year since your article “Friends of Their Youth” appeared in the magazine last autumn. At our last gathering we paid tribute to one of our regular attendees, the once notorious Billy Waters. It seems in December our professor emeritus of economics and busi ness from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management was named a member of the Order of Canada “for his engagement in broadening access to higher edu cation for students in Toronto and for his generous support of musicians and arts organizations alike.” We are so proud! Jim Welsh and the Orangeville High School Gang
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and questions. Learning about seeds from the perspective of indigenous cultures is one of the priorities for our program this year. Today’s farmers and gardeners are indebted to the seed saving and adaptation conducted by indigenous cultures for millennia in Canada and all over the world. We want to honour and respect these efforts. Our program is just beginning to work with different indigenous groups and organizations across the country. I am interested to hear your perspective on how we can best include and involve indigenous cultures in our work, and also to share with you the steps our program has taken so far. If you would like to speak further, I can be reached at aabir.dey @ everdale.org or 519-855-4859 x 103. Also, Seeds of Diversity Canada maintains a seed library at Everdale where we store samples of varieties of all kinds of seed from all over Canada, and then grow out and share those varieties with other growers so they are continuously in circulation in the country. Information on the crops and varieties being kept at this collection is available at seeds.ca. Thanks again for your comments and I hope to hear from you.
Bruce Trail birthday Thanks so much to Nicola Ross for her article on the 50th anniversary of the Bruce Trail (“An Audacious Idea” spring ’14). I think it is excellent and captured the sense of my approach to the whole hiking business. By doing so you have shown it can be an activity that most people can enjoy. When a “novice” walks into a place like Mountain Equipment Co-op, it can be very intimidating and that is the feeling I hope people can avoid. Sometimes it is just a walk in the woods, it’s not an expedition hike. I have passed on the online link to the article to all the board and some friends, and we’ll have a few hard copies available at our 50th AGM. Thanks again for such a positive article about hiking and the Bruce Trail. Jean Kerins, President, Caledon Hills Bruce Trail Club
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pete pater son
Dufferin’s
IN THE HILLS Summer 2014
