This is the first place I’ve been to that I’ve properly fallen totally in love with. I'm currently in the Kispiox Valley, just outside New Hazelton in northwest BC. The scenery is breathtaking – snow capped mountains rise on all sides, forests stretching as far as the eye can see, and beautiful rivers winding through. Every place I’ve visited (and even different parts of the farm) has a new and different view, and each is a bit magical. In addition, the area has a thriving alternative scene – a lot of young people are moving here (a number of whom were just passing through and never quite left), there’s a growing number of organic farms, an intentional community in its early stages, and a lot of people seeking the self sufficient and slower life. It’s the first place that I could imagine myself living (note – this is not me saying that I’m going to live here, just that I could see myself enjoying life here).
When I first arrived, my initial feeling that was life here was slow. I even started a blog post with the words “life here is slow”. The farm here is run by a guy in his late 30s who lives alone. He’s a quiet guy, who likes his peace and space, hence why he’s picked living in a remote corner of a sparsely populated area. The farm is small – a market garden selling vegetables and occasionally grain (that he grows and grinds himself) at local farmers markets. The reason I came here though is mostly to learn about self sufficiency, as most of the food he eats comes from the farm (more about that further down...).
The pace of life at first was a bit of a shock. I’d just come from a busy family farm in Saskatchewan, and I’m naturally an extrovert, drawn to social situations and spending time with other people. If I’d landed here five months ago, I’d have gone crazy. Or driven the farmer crazy. But I’ve really eased into the pace of life here, and it’s turned into an amazing experience.
Yes, life is quieter. I’ve done a lot of reading (making use of the awesome food and farming library he has), writing and photography. I’ve been hiking on my days off, and taken the dog for walks around the farm. But it’s actually turned out to be a surprisingly social time too. It’s an interesting experience to be thrown into living with a complete stranger, especially someone who is quite different to yourself. But the farmer and I have found our balance – he realises my need for conversation at times, and I’ve adapted to his need for quiet at others. In addition, there’s a young couple living in the cabin on the property over the winter months, and while they aren’t around every day, I’ve spent a lot of time with them both working and just hanging out, and learnt a lot from their farming and food experiences along the way.
In addition, a combination of hosted meals, thanksgiving, potlucks and just people popping by the farm, have meant I’ve met and got to know a lot of the people from the local community. It’s really given me a sense of the wider community, and the warmth and hospitality of everyone I’ve met has been inspiring and made me not want to leave. It’s also been interesting to see a community uniting against a common threat – they’re considering building a LNG (liquid natural gas) pipeline through the area, which is unpopular both for the initial impact of the pipeline itself, but also for the door it will open to future natural gas extraction in the area.
But the best thing about the experience here has been the food. Having just realised that the reason I came wwoofing was to strengthen my connection to food, this farm is the perfect place for me to be right now. On the wwoofing profile, the farmer talked a lot about how wwoofing is about food, and that he aims to be as self sufficient as possible. This is what drew me to the place, and this seems to have been a great decision.
During the past 5 months, I’ve eaten the odd meal that’s been completely sourced from food on the farm. But here, pretty much everything I’ve eaten since I’ve arrived has come from within 100m from where I sit. Apart from things like oil, spices, rice, coffee and condiments, almost everything else is grown, raised and produced here. The farmer is completely dedicated to living like this and it’s admirable. As well as fresh vegetables and fruit from the garden, milk from the cow, eggs from the chickens and occasional meat from the animals (mostly male chickens and cows that are a side product of egg and milk production), he does a lot of processing. Beets pickled, cabbage into sauerkraut, many other vegetables blanched and frozen, basil into pesto, tomatoes canned, strawberries into jam, eggs into mayonnaise, milk into cream, butter, yoghurt, ice cream and cheese, grains into flour and sourdough bread, homemade granola and beer... the list just goes on.
It’s a lot of work to eat like this, and the processing can be time consuming. At the moment we’re getting 3-4 gallons of milk a day, so cheese and butter making happens twice weekly or we run out of jars to store it in. And making sourdough bread takes a whole day – there’s no quick fix if you run out. But by putting proper time into preserving and storing things, he even manages to continue this self sufficiency over the long cold winter where it’s not possible to grow any fresh produce (we’re pretty much at the end of it in mid October – only kale and a few things in the greenhouse left). And you start to see the sense in so many different types of preservation when you’re living with the seasons. Cows produce less milk and of a lower quality in winter, so cheese is a great way to preserve some of the summer excess for winter months. Pickling and fermenting means you can preserve without needing space to freeze. A good root cellar allows your carrots and potatoes to last all year long and squashes, cabbages, leeks and onions can all be kept for months if stored properly. Forethought means he freezes enough milk to get him through the period where his jersey cow will be dry.
Each meal is a bit magical. The pizza made with a homemade sourdough base (from wheat he grew and ground himself), homemade tomato sauce with tomatoes, onions and garlic from the garden, vegetables I picked straight from the field, and cheese we made from the cow. The poutine with potatoes from the field, curds from the cheese made that morning, and homemade gravy. The pate made with the liver from last years pig (frozen, needless to say), other pork meat, onion and garlic from the garden and breadcrumbs from the end of the loaf, served with homemade sourdough bread and fermented pickles.
I’ve worked hard here, but enjoyed the work. I’ve done my fair share of weeding and harvesting, but also had the chance to do some different tasks. Most notably, I build a dry stone wall around his well, building on a bit of knowledge I picked up in Quebec. It’s still standing a week later, so fingers crossed it makes it through the winter. By far my favourite task though has been milking the cow. He has a beautiful (and very gentle natured) jersey cow by the name of Hazel, and I’ve taken on the evening milking. No milking machine here, so I’ve been milking by hand, something I’ve come to love doing. The warmth of the cow on my shoulder, the rhythm of the motion, the froth in the pail of milk. And much to the amusement of the farmer, I often get up to half a gallon (about 4 pints) more milk than when he does it. Beginners luck?
I’ve also had the fortune of visiting a couple of other local wwoofing farms during my stay – one is an eco building and alternative energy homestead where they’re doing some pretty remarkable things, another an intentional community in its early stages who are living off grid and looking at community living as well as become self sufficient. Who knows where next year may take me, but I’ve got one eye on coming back to the area for a month or two next summer...
(Apologies for the lack of photos – slow and expensive internet here means I can’t upload any right now...)
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