Farm 9...

Haida Gwaii is a magical place. It's not just the scenery, the people, the remoteness or the culture, it's a fantastic mix of all these things. It's the place I’ve been to with the most integration between the first nations and other communities (with first nations making up about half of the population), and is also incredibly proud of its first nations art and culture.  It’s remote, accessible only by plane or ferry, and over the winter the population is a mere 4000 people. Located here, just off the north west coast of British Columbia, it's not exactly an easy place to get to, but for some reason my heart was set on going. And so I went.

And sometimes life work out well even when things go wrong, which is kind of how it’s gone with Haida Gwaii. I injured my wrist on the previous farm, after feeling pressurized to keep doing heavy lifting despite having pains in my right wrist. It looks like it's mild tendonitis, the cure for which is rest. The problem is that on most farms at this time of year, there’s a lot of firewood cutting and digging to do. I called up the farm I was due to go to on Haida Gwaii and explained the situation, and much to my relief, they were happy to work around it. So instead of putting the garden to bed for the winter, shifting firewood and doing small construction jobs, I was mostly cleaning, feeding the chickens and ducks, fixing computers and doing other household jobs.

Fortunately for me, it didn't spoilt my experience at all. I went to Haida Gwaii to learn about hunting and foraging, something that is intrinsic to the culture there. I didn’t know anything about the seasonality of either of these two things when I went, but I somehow got lucky with both. I arrived during the start of the best hunting time of the year, when the deer rut (the females go into estrous, and the males get stupid and easy to hunt as a result). And I should have been too late for mushroom season, but a mild fall meant mushroom picking was still in full swing.

My hosts, a couple called Donna and Claudette, are enthusiastic hunter gatherers. Their meat comes from hunting, primarily the deer from the islands. The deer on the island are small, but a pest who destroy the forests if left uncontrolled (they aren’t native). As a result the hunting season is long (June to February for bucks, shorter for does), and each person is allowed to hunt up to 10 deer each year. Donna will occasionally go elk hunting, and cut down on the deer they get to compensate. In addition, they fish a lot in the summer, primarily 3 different types of salmon, but they also get halibut and trout, as well as clams and other seafood from the beach. Deer and fish are canned or frozen and this feeds them all year round. They also forage a lot of other wild food, including mushrooms in the fall. They pick 6 different types of mushrooms, and I learnt to identify 3 during my stay (belatos, chanterelles and shaggy manes).

Despite my main work being mostly housework, I managed to experience a lot of the hunting and foraging during my time off. On two days, Donna and Claudette took me out on a day long hunting and mushroom picking trip. The first time we went to a shooting range, and I got the chance to fire a gun for the first time – much to my surprise, something I was actually quite good at. No luck that day on the hunting front, but we did return with two large buckets of chanterelles. The second trip, Donna shot two large bucks, we picked three different types of mushrooms (which we turned into an amazing wild mushroom soup that night) and as a bonus, saw 3 black bears (a mother and two cubs) – the first I’ve seen since being in Canada. During the rest of my time off, I got the chance to get out and explore some of the rest of the beautiful area; looking for agates on the beach, walking the dogs, hiking to a shipwreck and a lake, going to the local museum, seeing totem poles and some amazing local first nations art... 

It was amazing to experience a different way of living, where hunting and foraging makes up such a massive part of their diet. Given how expensive imported food is, and how poor the soil is for growing, it makes a lot of sense too. The hunting was a great experience. These guys hunt for food, not sport. They only take the older male deer and if they ever shoot a doe, they make doubly sure she doesn't have a fawn with her. Donna takes time to practice her shooting and make sure she gets the deer on her first shot. And the provenance for them is amazing - they know exactly where their meat comes from - woodland reared, killed and butchered by their own hands.

My journey has now taken me down to Vancouver Island where I’m taking a few weeks off from wwoofing to properly rest my wrist and travel a bit round the island. Then I’m off to two farms on the northern gulf islands, taking me to the end of December/early January. After that, more wwoofing on the southern gulf islands, a trip to Vancouver, Portland and San Francisco, then who knows...

House in the woods

Sunset at Port Clements

Chanterelles!

Bears!

Looking over the island

Totem pole