Secotan Market brings fresh foods, handcrafted items together

by Summer Stevens

The green metal roof of the Secotan Market shelter comes into view as you round the corner toward Wanchese village. It’s a quiet morning and the market vendors are arriving and setting up inside the shelter. On warm days, the vendor tables spill out beyond the covered structure, offering fresh vegetables and fruits, fermented foods, locally canned jams and salsas, and handcrafted artisan items.

The gravel crunches beneath the tires of the Heavenly Portion Family Farm pickup as it pulls off onto the small driveway. Morgan and Paul Mathews begin unloading coolers full of fresh eggs and pasture-raised beef, lamb, chicken and pork.

Above her table, artist Vicky Lowe strings a bunting of cheery fabric made of watercolor artwork she painted herself and had printed in Raleigh. The Real McCoy sets up jars of hand whipped honey from local bees. Brandon Fearns of First Flight Fungi is already chatting with an older gentleman about his favorite subject – edible mushrooms.

Eric Soderholm, owner of Croatan Gardens, comes in from tending his plot just down the lane to check in on arriving vendors and help with set up. He started the Secotan Market about five years ago with eight vendors with a common vision “to rekindle an era where neighbors rely on each other; sharing food and goods, grown and made by our own labor.”

“We knew a bunch of people in the community who were growing and mak- ing things who were interested in having a producer market,” he said.

A producer market is a place where the community can come to buy food or homemade products from the people who actually produce them.

With the help of a $9,000 agricultural reinvestment fund grant, which helps farmers find alternative ways to make additional income, Soderholm and his mentors and friends constructed the market shelter in 2018.

Frederick Inglis of Somerset Farm felled and milled all the lumber himself on his farm, and the trusses were made from a salvaged chicken house by the late Winkie Silver. John Bliven served as lead carpenter for the project. “We built this thing as a group together,” Soderholm said.

Creating a sense of togetherness is one of the foundations of the Secotan Market. It was named after the Secotan Tribe represented in one of John White’s 1585 paintings. Unlike other villages, White portrayed the Secotan community with its gardens and homes as unfortified, suggesting that the people did not live in fear of attack. They lived and ate together surrounded by their small farms.

“It’s a name that kind of tries to pay honor to this tradition … we can still maintain that kind of network connection.”

Part of that connection is formed through the relationships that develop between seller and shopper. For Soderholm, that’s one of his favorite parts about the market.

“Folks come to a farmers market because they want relationships with the people who are growing and making things that are part of their daily life,” he said. “I like hearing people’s little anecdotes about what they made from what they bought the week before.”

Secotan Market is the only year-round farmers market in the Outer Banks. From May to September, the market is open every Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon. During the cool season (December to April) it is open on the first and third Saturdays of the month from 9 a.m. to noon. Fall season, from October through Thanksgiving, hours are 9 a.m. to noon every Saturday.

Depending on the season, there are an average of about a dozen vendors at each market, which include the food producers or “anchor” vendors, plus several artisans on a rotation. Many of the vendors are family operations – multigeneration or husband and wife teams.

Some market items change with the season, so April brings, among many other things, new asparagus, June brings sweet strawberries and Hyde County blueberries, and the mid to late summer bounty brings tomatoes and cucumbers bursting with flavor, unique pepper varieties, and watermelon (the way it’s supposed to taste). The year comes to a close in autumn with tender cabbages, sweet potatoes, squash and homegrown pumpkins.

Most of the fruits and vegetables are purchased within 24 to 48 hours from when they’re harvested so they are ultra fresh and last longer than grocery store produce. “The flavors are a whole lot brighter and just different than when you’re buying stuff that’s mostly been trucked in from Florida,” Soderholm said.

Many of the vendors source their produce from within the market, like the juice stand coming to the summer markets using fruits and vegetables purchased or traded from co-vendors.

Though tourists do visit the market, it is primarily frequented by Outer Banks locals, who appreciate a place to find local produce, meats and unique gift items.

The mission of the market is to connect people directly with local sources of sustenance, elevating careful stewardship of land and craft to build community.

As the clock ticks toward 9 a.m., the parking lot fills up with people anxiously anticipating not only the day’s market offerings but also engagement with those who provide them, it’s clear that the Secotan Market has fulfilled its mission.

“Special things happen,” Soderholm said, “when you bring a lot of people who are passionate about the same stuff to a space like this.”

No two days look the same at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. With so many moving parts and countless tasks to be completed daily, the staff are in agreement that it takes a lot of hands on deck working collectively together to run the facility, while ensuring every person who walks through their doors has a great experience and leaves with a smile on their face.

At 9 a.m., Dana Thomason, lead specialty activity instructor/camp coordinator, is preparing for a “Behind the Scenes” tour, where registrants will be guided through the Cape Fear Shoals shark exhibit and learn what it takes to feed these majestic animals while watching first-hand. This particular tour is available on feeding days (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and requires a good amount of preparation. “I will contact husbandry, prep all the materials for the feeding and look over the information I’ll share with the guests,” Thomason explained.

Thomason enjoys teaching others about the animals that are featured within the aquarium, and has planned several topics to touch on during the tour: how the aquarium acquires the animals, filtration, water quality, target-training, animal diet and welfare, to name a few. While preparing for the tour, the educator also works on other on-going projects, such as recruitment, summer camp programs, upcoming birthday parties and working with local partners.

“What’s really cool about my job is that I dive into all sorts of different things, not just education but hitting on conversation, working with husbandry, and then with summer camps and I get to work with local partnerships.”

Thomason isn’t the only one who works with outside partners to bring life to the aquarium. While she continues to prep for the afternoon’s tour, Joleena Jewel, exhibits curator, is getting ready to collaborate with external partners – such as the North Carolina Coastal Federation, North Carolina Sea Grant or the Coastal Studies Institute – to develop plans for new exhibits at the facility.