“Anyone can take a bean and roast it,” says Dyan Spink, with husband Gary at their gas-fired coffee roaster. “But to create great coffee using this special equipment is considered to be an art.”

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Dyan Spink’s entrepreneurial journey started in 1986, when she moved from Quebec to British Columbia. Along with her household belongings, she brought 11,500 pounds of maple syrup. Her plan was to sell the syrup at Expo but, once Expo ended, she found herself with remaining inventory. She started making and marketing gift baskets so she could unload the rest of the syrup. This home-based enterprise was a huge success. Always on the lookout for the next trend, she then mastered the art of hand-painted leather jewellery-making and developed a product line that was distributed in boutique stores across Canada.

Spink’s enthusiastic entrepreneurial spirit and achievements did not go unnoticed. In 1997, she was hired by the Business Development Bank Canada to teach people in the Comox Valley how to be self-employed and write business plans. Always eager to take on a new challenge, she moved up Island from Coombs.

Dyan teamed up with Gary Spink soon after moving here. The couple clicked—partly because the entrepreneurial spirit bug had bitten him, too! Gary had been successfully self-employed for many years as well. After selling his Parksville/Qualicum-based business, he had moved to the Comox Valley to help Tory & Sons Plumbing and Heating grow what was then a new business.

While Gary worked full-time at Tory & Sons, Dyan was kept busy with the teaching contract during the fall and winter months. She loved what she was doing but needed to generate some income during the summer. Not one to sit back and simply smell the coffee, she decided to build a business based on her favorite beverage.

Dyan had previous restaurant industry experience and was a barista, so she bought a mobile coffee cart and christened it ‘Joe Cartos.’ She began selling Joe Cartos specialty coffees at the Comox Valley Farmers’ Market. The locals quickly learned to love their signature mochas topped with chocolate whipped cream, Chai lattes, espressos and other decadent specialty coffee beverages.

A few months later, the Spinks launched Joe Cartos Coffee Cart Manufacturing. Gary’s technical background and Dyan’s business experience proved to be a winning combination. They introduced Joe Cartos to entrepreneurs across Canada by selling their Food Safe-certified mobile kitchens at industry trade shows.

“We didn’t just sell coffee carts,” explains Dyan, “we made it a complete turnkey operation. I taught people how to operate their new enterprise, giving instruction and support on everything from how to make coffee to keeping financial records.” In 2002, the Spinks were recognized for their efforts with the Vancouver Island Business Excellence Award (BE) for Small Business of the Year.

While attending trade shows to sell Joe Cartos to others, the Spinks became sold on the idea of artisan custom coffee roasting and began researching this as another possible business venture.

In 2004, their coffee cart business moved in a somewhat unexpected direction. In preparation for Westjet’s then new airline service to the Comox Valley, Dyan responded to a Request for Proposal to operate a new restaurant at the airport. (She was, after all, an expert at writing business plans.) The challenge was to build a menu based on a food service operation that could not have a grill. Of more than 30 submissions, Spink’s innovative plan for ‘Joe Cartos On the Fly’ was selected. A modified Joe Cartos Coffee Cart formed the basis for the food service operation—who knew you could make scrambled eggs using an espresso machine!

The Spinks operated Joe Cartos On the Fly from 2005 through 2007. In addition to building a successful food service operation that focused on local and organic food, they also won more awards. Joe Cartos On the Fly was voted by airport patrons as #1 in Food Service for airports under 500,000 passengers by the Airport Council of Canada. In 2005, they earned another BE Award for Small Business of the Year and were the runner-up for Restaurant of the Year.

While Joe Cartos On the Fly was deemed a success, the Spink’s interest in building a coffee roasting business continued to brew.

“We were in Mexico—and in the process of buying a coffee roaster—on the day we learned that we had won the airport restaurant bid,” says Dyan. “We walked away from the roaster at that time but never let go of the idea. We continued to learn about coffee roasting and, by 2007, knew it was time to take the idea of a roasting company off the back burner, so to speak. We sold the restaurant and bought a vacant lot in Royston. Over a two-year period, we built a home for our family and a Carriage House for our new venture— Royston Roasting Company. The Carriage House zoning in Royston also allowed for us to include a two-bedroom suite above the roastery, where our guests could, quite literally, wake up and smell the coffee!”

During its first season of operation, the two-bedroom vacation suite, called A Great Place to Stay, attracted visitors from all over the world. Guests enjoyed all the comforts of home, a view of the ocean and, of course, fresh Royston Roasting coffee.

I am impressed by the Spink’s success and ask how this growing enterprise has been funded. “This company was ‘funded’ with sweat equity and my credit card,” explains Dyan with a laugh. “That, and the support of friends and family. Gary, my daughter Sareh, son Tannaar, and family friends Natasha Mew and Holly Ha, have all been a tremendous part of our success to date.”
My attention is now drawn to the large steel and hand-tooled copper coffee roaster positioned just a few feet away from Dyan’s office area. To me, the assortment of knobs, dials and gizmos on the front of the machine resemble a big smiley face and remind me of the cartoon characters Thomas the Train or The Little Engine that Could. I can imagine how ‘perky’ it looks when its ‘mouth’ spews toasty brown coffee beans into the big cooling dish positioned below.

The roaster, explains Dyan, is a gas-fired OZTURK, imported from Turkey. When they bought it in 2008, it was the first of its kind to be sold in Canada. (I am not surprised when Dyan tells me that they have been asked by the Turkish Company to be the exclusive Canadian distributor of OZTURK products.)

It is capable of roasting about 15 kilos (33 pounds) of coffee in about 20 minutes. The roasting process combines state-of-the-art high tech instruments with old-fashioned hands-on techniques. Green coffee beans poured into a hopper on the top are then dropped into a rotating drum where the temperature easily reaches 200 degrees Celsius. The roastmaster controls the roast by paying close attention to timing, temperature, smell and color. In this business, mere seconds can make the difference between the perfect espresso or over-roasted.

“Anyone can take a bean and roast it,” adds Dyan, “but to create great coffee using this special equipment is considered to be an art. We are attentive to the roaster throughout the entire process, carefully recording the time and temperature while we wait to hear the distinctive ‘crack’ that tells us the coffee bean has reached a particular stage. The size and moisture content of the individual beans, the type of beans used, and many other criteria all factor into the roasting process. When I know the beans are just right I empty them in the cooling tray where a blade rotates and a fan circulates air around them to ensure they cool quickly and evenly.”

Dyan then guides me over to an assortment of 40-to-75-kilogram burlap sacks that contain fair trade organic raw green coffee beans. Then, she starts opening bulks bins that contain the soon to be packed finished product. Royston Roasting has four signature roasts—Swiss Water Processed DeCaf, Dark French, Medium Colombian and Espresso. For their Christmas Blend, they package a special mix of espresso and medium roast. They also make a ‘half-caf’, a 50/50 mix of medium and decaffeinated beans. She takes a scoop of each variety and points out the special attributes of each one. Color, size and aroma are part of the analysis. I inhale deeply—they all smell exquisite!

Coffee doesn’t grow like a typical bean. It grows on trees and, prior to being handpicked, the ‘fruit’ looks like cherries with the coffee ‘bean’ as the ‘pit.’ Coffee is grown in several equatorial countries and is typically harvested from January through March. The beans used at Royston Roasting Company are purchased from several countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Panama and Nicaragua.

“All of our coffee is Fair Trade Organic,” adds Dyan. “At the moment, the concern with Fair Trade coffee is that the farmer is required to pay big dollars to certify that he has received a fair price for his coffee. Then, when those certified Fair Trade coffee beans land in distribution centres in the US, a broker pays the Fair Trade License Fee again to the US government, the cost of which is added to the price. When those fair trade beans arrive in Canada, the Canadian government requires the Fair Trade License Fee over again for the same beans. In the end, the price we pay for green coffee beans is nowhere near what the farmer was paid!”

In an effort to truly give farmers fair prices for their coffee beans, considerable effort is being put into a system to buy Direct Trade. No broker. No Government. As a member of collective buying group called the Roasters’ Guild of North America, Royston Roasting is now working toward buying all their coffee direct from the individual farmers or through the Collective, paying them in advance to secure the harvest. The Spinks have been personally visiting farms where their coffee comes from and this spring Gary will be working and participating with one of the harvests. Now that’s a nice perk of owning a coffee roasting company!

While Dyan Spink takes pride in her abilities to roast fabulous coffee, it is her efforts in packaging and marketing her product that are setting a new standard of excellence.

Royston Roasting Company packages are made with 100 per cent biodegradable rice paper. A zip-lock top eliminates the need for the cumbersome (and wasteful) twist-tie foil strip that is commonly used on other packaged coffee and tea products. As an added bonus, the zip-top keeps the coffee fresher, longer. A modification of the package design ensures that it doesn’t tip over as easily as other coffee bags and the insertion of a special one way valve that prevents air from getting in and staling the coffee, but keeps flavor and aroma fresh by allowing the roasting gases to escape.“The other great thing about Royston Roasting is that we can be anybody’s coffee,” claims Dyan. “We offer personalized labelling for corporations, individuals, Christmas and birthday gifts, and non-profit groups.’

Interest in Royston Roasting coffee has spread by word-of-mouth. In addition to wholesaling coffee to non-profit groups, custom packaging for business promotions, and selling at the Farmers’ Market, Royston Roasting Coffee is sold in a select group of local specialty or convenience stores. See their website for a list of locations.

Again, Dyan Spink’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Last spring, she applied for and was invited to a preliminary screening for a potential appearance on the hit TV show Dragon’s Den. She didn’t make the final cut but had a blast meeting the crew! She has also had to make more room on her awards shelf, adding the Business Excellence Award for 2011 Manufacturer of the Year.

If past success is any indication of the future, there is a good chance that Royston Roasting Company will soon be up for another award. “I am excited to announce that this December, we will officially open the Royston Roasting Coffee House,” Dyan says.

“Renovations are almost complete in our new digs in downtown Royston, the former Fat Bonos Ribs restaurant. In addition to exclusively serving Royston Roasting coffee, we will be offering a variety of healthy and local menu items. We anticipate being open for the early morning and lunch crowd only. In the afternoons, the coffee house will close to the public and be used to roast and fill wholesale orders as well as coffee barista and latte art training.”

The Spinks are excited about this latest venture. The new location will enable them to employ several local people, continue to promote Vancouver Island products and tourism, and educate others about something they are obviously very passionate about—a great cup of coffee.

FMI call 250.338.7511 or stop by the coffee house: 3904 Island Highway S, Royston. www.bccoffee.ca

“My nose knows when I get the fragrance ‘just right’,” says Anita Kalnay. “There is a lot of technical skill and accurate note-taking—as well as sniffing—involved in the perfume-making process.”

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

It seems fitting that I would meet with Anita Kalnay on a day when the autumn air is ripe with the aroma of changing seasons. I take a deep breath to savor the scent of ripe apples, cedar, wet leaves and other fragrances of fall, and then settle down to chat with this woman of many talents. In addition to being a perfume-maker, Kalnay has a university degree in recreation administration. She is also a certified aromatherapist, reflexologist and yoga instructor.

To be perfectly honest, I never knew that the art of perfume making, which combines artistic talent and intuition with scientific knowledge, existed outside of laboratories in perhaps Paris or New York. But here I am, sitting on a deck in Courtenay, chatting with a woman who creates award-winning perfumes in a modest laboratory in the corner of her kitchen!

Personally, I am allergic to store-bought perfume, so I asked Kalnay why she makes perfume. Is there a market for fragrances when many public places—such as churches and theatres—are now mandated as ‘Scent Free?’

“I am actually allergic to synthetic perfumes, too!” says Kalnay. “Natural perfumes are different. For the most part, I work with 100 per cent natural plant-based ingredients that are blended with a small amount of organic alcohol or jojoba oil. I guess you could say I am like a vegan perfumer. Most people who can’t wear synthetic perfume are fine with these botanical blends. They smell nice and they can even have a ‘remedy’ effect. Often, they are so subtle that only the person wearing it can detect the scent.”

Kalnay’s natural perfume line is marketed under the name Flying Colors: Genie in a Bottle and it is, she says, “Inspired by nature.”

Her unique botanical blends are produced by painstakingly calculating the perfect combination of all-natural (no synthetic) ingredients, counting minuscule drop by drop, inhaling deeply, pausing for thought, and then adding a little more of this or that, until it is perfect. “My nose knows when I get the fragrance ‘just right’,” says Kalnay. “There is a lot of technical skill and accurate note-taking—as well as sniffing—involved in the perfume-making process.”

Inspiration for each individual perfume usually comes from personal life experiences. A stroll through a forest near Cumberland, for example, resulted in the creation of a fragrance called Cumberland: Wild Forest Apple and Spearmint. Mountain biking at breakneck speed through the warm, dry forests of Oregon inspired her to create Hood River. A quote by iconic actress Mae West—“I generally avoid temptation… unless I can’t resist it”—resulted in a coconut-scented massoia, tuberose, and chocolate perfume called VVAVOOM! (It will be officially released with her spring 2012 White Floral collection.)

The raw materials to create these perfumes are very expensive. As a result, the finished product may be pricier than some nationally branded synthetic perfumes. To keep costs in check—and because ‘a little dab will do ya!’—Flying Colors perfumes are packaged in smaller bottle sizes. The cost of a 4.5 ml roll-on is about $60. In addition to her signature blends, she also customizes fragrances for individual clients.

While I am impressed by the imaginative names and descriptions of her product line, as well as the professionalism and creativity of her promotional materials, I still wanted to know how one becomes a professional perfumer.
Kalnay smiles and explains that her grandmother was a professional wine taster in southern France. Fragrance, of course, plays an important role in wine tasting. Maybe there is a genetic connection?

“But the real reason I ended up becoming a perfumer, and acquiring such a unique range of skills, was because my husband, Chris, and I have spent much of the past 20 years living in very isolated places. I had a choice—keep busy or go crazy! I chose the path of educational enrichment!”

She laughs. “It’s quite a story… how much time do you have?”

After graduating from the University of Alberta in 1981, this native of Swift Currant, Saskatchewan, got her first real job teaching outdoor education at a junior high school in Fort McMurray, Alberta. It was where she met Chris, also a teacher. They married in 1984.

In 1990, Chris accepted a position at a private school in Kemano, BC. The remote town of only 350 people existed solely for the purpose of housing the families of people who worked for Alcan Hydro and was located two hours south of Kitamat. It could be accessed only by boat or helicopter.

“We thought this would be a good place to live for a couple of years and save some money,” says Kalnay. “In hindsight, I guess we didn’t pay much attention when they told us that supplies were only brought in twice a week and that a trip ‘to town’ and back would be a 24-hour turnaround! When you combine living in the shadows of towering mountains with over 1200-centimetres of annual precipitation, you seldom see the sun. The average length of time most people could stand living there was three years. We stayed for 10.”

While Chris taught school, Anita made every effort to keep busy. She drove a frontend loader in the winter and worked alongside a master gardener in the local greenhouse in the summer. With her background in recreation administration, she served as a volunteer to help plan recreation activities for the community.

“Working with the gardener for two years was a great experience for me,” says Kalnay. “It helped me move beyond being an intellectual to become more grounded. It awakened in me a desire to nurture my creativity, and I began to expand my interests.”

During breaks from the solitude of Kemano, Kalnay attended as many continuing education classes as she could, including an art therapy class in Victoria. While living in Kemano, she took distance-learning courses through the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She studied reflexology, aromatherapy, metaphysics and more. A friend taught her to quilt and, while she found all the straight lines and precision of quilting “a little anal for me,” she did learn that she loved working with fabric. To elevate her mood during the long, dark days of a Kemano fall and winter, Kalnay crafted with fabric, using bright colors, aromatherapy, and lots of fluorescent lighting to keep her motivated.

In 1993, Kalnay secured a grant from the Terrace Community Futures Program. The grant enabled her to market a line of one-of-a-kind sweatshirts created with fabric she had hand-dyed in her basement. She marketed them under her own label: Flying Colors – Let your imagination fly! Her shirts were sold through local markets and she became known as the ‘Flying Colors Lady.’

Eventually, the people of Kemano learned that Kalnay could perform aromatherapy and reflexology treatments, so she started doing that, as well. When they asked for massages, she took some courses and then added massage to her repertoire of services. She soon learned that, in addition to body treatments, she became a confidant. “These people were stressed and needed a massage or reflexology treatment and someone to listen to them with an open heart. I felt privileged to be able to be there for them.”

In 1999, the residents of Kemano were informed that the town was going to be completely shut down. Of the 80 homes there, 10 were moved, four were left standing, and the remainder were used by BC firefighters for ‘practice’ and they were burned to the ground. The closure of this town was so significant that Canadian Geographic Magazine did a feature story on it.

In 2000, the Kalnays moved to Gabriola Island. They spent the next year building a log home while Chris looked for work. Kalnay started a massage/reflexology/aromatherapy business in a yurt—and by now had added hot stone massage to the mix—still continuing to peruse advanced education, focusing now on aromatherapy.

Kalnay was consumed with learning more about the use of various essential oils as a complement to other alternative health services. She learned that ‘scent’ could be used to relieve stress, enhance mood, improve sleep, boost the immune system and much more. She traveled to Washington and earned a diploma in the holistic science of Spiritual PhytoEssencing, which is based on an interface of aromatherapy, herbal medicine, physiology, homeopathy and other natural healing modalities. She is one of only six people in the world to have received this level of accreditation. She also studied under international aromatic consultant Michael Scholes of LabofFlowers.com and organic chemist Dr. Kurt Schnaubelt of the Pacific Institute of Aromatherapy in California. Somehow, she also found the time (and energy) to become certified as a Kundalina Yoga instructor. This style of yoga is designed to strengthen the neuro-endocrine system, ‘exercise your potential,’ and increase self-awareness through meditation.

In the meantime, Chris’ efforts to secure a teaching post on Gabriola Island had not been successful, so he began looking elsewhere. “He applied for a job in Alert Bay and got it. At the time, we didn’t even know where it was on the map!” recalls Kalnay with a laugh.

The couple sold their island home, packed up and, in 2004, moved north to the rugged coast of British Columbia. This time, they were able to make regular escapes from the solitude of a small town and they traveled to the Comox Valley almost every second weekend to ski and enjoy many of the other recreational activities offered here.

Anita rented a storefront location in Alert Bay and, for the next four years, operated a successful aromatherapy, reflexology and massage business. She also offered yoga classes out of space donated to her by the local Family Resource Centre.
In Alert Bay she got serious about mixing personal essential oils blends for clients. She started another division of her Flying Colors brand and called it Genie in a Bottle. In 2007, one of her spiritual teachers said to Kalnay: “You are only operating from one per cent of your full potential.”

Kalnay tells me this just as I am taking a long sip of herbal tea. This seems so absurd I almost choke on my tea. I was still trying to figure out when this woman had time to sleep. Surely this ‘teacher’ had to be kidding.

“Seriously! That’s what he told me,” Kalnay replies, then pauses. She takes a sip of her tea and then continues: “Anyway, I did some soul searching and decided to take my business to the next level. I signed up to apprentice under Vancouver-based Ayala Moriel Parfums, an Israeli artisan perfumer dedicated to the art of natural perfumery. For the next three years, I traveled to Vancouver once a month to learn from her.”

In 2009, Chris was offered a teaching job on Cortes Island. They bought some property there and, while Chris commuted from Cortes, Anita continued building a life (and her business) in the Comox Valley. Along with her friend and colleague, Sandra Shotton, she also opened an Ayurvedic Spa in Nanaimo at Island Yoga Vista. She spends one week a month in Nanaimo giving ‘intuitive’ massage treatments, which use herbal-infused massage oils from India.

In 2010, during her final year of internship, Kalnay produced a line of artisan perfumes called the Flying Colors Muse Collection. This past summer she was one of several perfumers from five countries who accepted a challenge to create a new blend in a ‘soli-flore”—a single-scent perfume. Another Canadian perfumer, Lyn Ayre, of Coeur d’Esprit Natural Perfumes, sponsored the contest. Kalnay’s wild azalea blend she labeled as Kokoro—inspired by a visit to the Mount Shasta region of Northern California—took top honors.

“I am very grateful to Lyn for opening me up to the ‘world’ of perfuming and encouraging me to enter challenges such as hers,” says Kalnay. “The entire fragrance industry is based on responding creatively to ‘briefs’ that poetically describe the needs of the clients. So, perfumers can’t shy away from competitions and the artistic challenges they bestow. As a result of my success in this competition, I have now been invited to participate in a ‘top secret’ international challenge in 2012.”

It has been a long and sweet-smelling journey, but it is time to let this ‘genie’ out of the bottle! Flying Colors: Genie in a Bottle now boasts a product line of more than a dozen blends and Kalnay has been busy creating her 2012 spring collection, as well as developing marketing materials, building her website, and promoting her natural perfumes. As a result of her diligent efforts, Flying Colors perfumes are catching the attention of natural perfume aficionados across North America, putting both Kalnay, and the Comox Valley, in the spotlight.

For more information call 250.650.1204 or visit: www.genieinabottle.ca

Doveside Christmas Tree Farm is one of those surprises—a family-owned and locally operated cut-your-own-Christmas tree business on Todd Road in Dove Creek. You know you’ve arrived when the pasture, woods, and horse trails that make up Dove Creek give way to rows and rows of Christmas trees.

Looking for the perfect Christmas tree? Head out to Doveside Christmas Tree Farm in Dove Creek for an authentic holiday experience. “We offer a little something more,” says Mike Day, taking his wife Libby, son Ian and niece Damaris Brown for a spin on their antique Doukhobor wagon.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

I arrived at the farm just before sunset a couple of days after the first snow of 2011. The ground was white, the trees green, and two golden retrievers barked my car up the driveway past a large, modern barn to a parking area. The whole scene looked like a station stop for the Polar Express en route to the North Pole. And when I opened my car door, I couldn’t help but think there was a little bit of Christmas wonder in the cold air.

Owner Michael Day would smile to hear anyone say that. He, along with his wife Libby, have spent the last 10 years transforming their 13.5 acre tree farm into a place for families to make Christmas memories. Not only does the farm sell Christmas trees, they also offer wagon rides, carol singing, hot chocolate and bonfires, along with the opportunity to hike around their rural property. These are all the sorts of things Day remembers from growing up, first in the Lower Mainland and later the Alberta Rockies.

“I have a sister whose birthday is in December,” says Day, noting that every year, his family would head out on the weekend closest to that sister’s birthday and cut their own tree. It’s a tradition Day continued with his own family and hopes to share with everyone that comes to Doveside Christmas Tree Farm. “My goal was trying to recreate the experience of going into the Rockies and making it an event, making it a day.”

This isn’t to say, however, that Day grew up wanting to be a Christmas tree farmer. He and his family (which includes two sons, now grown) moved to the Comox Valley in 1993 for other work opportunities. Day is a teacher by training, working at Vanier. His wife Libby is a surgeon.

It was one of Day’s teaching colleagues, Bob Tsable, who started the farm 25 years ago to gain farm status and generate income on the property. The rural location, though, made it a popular spot for Vanier staff parties, providing a spectacular backdrop for teachers like Day and their families to kick back and enjoy themselves. However, by 2001, Tsable was ready to sell the property, and the Days took the opportunity to buy.

“My wife had fallen in love,” says Day with a laugh. “I was just scared, which was probably justified on my part. I knew nothing.” In fact, the incentive to buy was the property and the location—not the tree farm. However, the Days were determined to keep farm status on the property and that meant figuring out how to be tree farmers

“The trees at the time were well established,” says Day. “Bob worked them very hard, but after he retired he found it a bit of a hassle. He let the trees go so they weren’t marketable.”

Luckily for Day, he had another Vanier colleague whose husband happened to be a tree farmer. That farmer was Brian Black, and the two formed a partnership. “He advises and directs; I provide the grunt labor and the marketing,” says Day.

Part of that advice the first year was a massive haircut to bring the trees back to a manageable and marketable condition. “It looked like a bomb had gone off,” remembers Day with a laugh. “We didn’t sell any trees. But by the next year we had enough trees to legitimately make our farm status.

“It’s not strictly a commercial operation,” adds Day. “What we discovered the first year, we recognized that to compete with established operations we had to offer something a little more.” And that’s where Day’s own Christmas memories come in.

“From the first days we offered hayrides and bonfires,” he says. From there, inspiration just seemed to keep striking. Take for example a trip through Grand Forks several years back. On the drive home, they happened to pass a shop with an antique Doukhobor wagon parked out front. Day bought the wagon and had it shipped to the Valley, where he fixed it up to tow behind the tractor. Customers now get to ride through the trees, singing Christmas carols on a piece of history.

Then Black suggested Day reach out to the local schools, offering the farm up for class tours on silviculture. Although not organic, Day and Black have experimented with low-impact and ecologically sensitive farming methods that offer a lot of learning opportunities for students.

First, there’s stump culturing. “Some people tend to stay away from cutting a Christmas tree because they think they’re increasing their carbon footprint,” says Day. “When we cut the tree, we don’t kill it. We grow new trees off the existing root system.” A branch is left on the stump, and that branch eventually becomes a new tree. That means the tree keeps doing things like absorbing CO2 and releasing oxygen into the air even as it re-grows.

“We can get four or five trees off a stump before it dies back,” explains Day.

Then there are the sheep. “The grass needs to be kept down to maximize tree growth, otherwise the grass competes for nutrients with the trees,” says Day. That means either extensive mowing with gas powered mowers, or some alternative. The Days recently tried sheep, and liked the results.

“There are a lot of advantages to sheep over say goats—like they don’t eat the branches,” says Day. Instead, they eat the grass and fertilize the trees, making for low-impact maintenance.

Finally, the farm offers a unique opportunity to explore the relationship between ecology and farming. Much of the Day’s property is made up of wooded areas left to grow wild. The property is also bordered by Dove Creek, a salmon-bearing stream that’s undergone significant rehabilitation over the past decade. And like many other salmon-bearing streams in the Valley, the benefits are starting to show in increased salmon returns. “Two years ago you couldn’t step in the creek without stepping on salmon,” says Day. That means visitors to Doveside farms get to learn about how farming practices and the sort of fertilizers you use can impact something like a salmon-bearing stream.

“We wanted to talk about the environmental aspects of Christmas tree farming,” says Day. “We talk about erosion and the effects. We don’t use herbicides, but we try to be thoughtful about what we use.”

The kids love the tours, and their families appreciate a local business giving back to the community. In fact, many of these kids and their families have become some of Doveside’s most loyal customers. There’s Amethyst, who first came to the farm as a six-year-old on a school tour with her mom chaperoning. They’ve come back every Christmas since, and even approached the Days about partnering with YANA to raise funds through donations for the hot chocolate and hot dogs. They raised $300.

Then there are the families that just seem to find the farm by chance. “We had a family that came six years ago,” says Day. “They were from Victoria on a ski trip to Mount Washington and decided to stop at the farm on their way home.” Every year since then, they’ve come back and brought other families with them. “They have multiple families that come for a ski weekend and then cut a tree on their way home.” One year, they even showed up on a bus to accommodate all the people and the trees.

When asked what keeps bringing such a determined group back, Day has a simple answer.

“What drew them back was the opportunity to be together, and that is what the farm is about,” he says. “Sharing the blessings that we’ve been given.”

“It’s labor intensive, and you’re not going to make money,” continues Day. “There’s got be something else you’re doing it for. What makes it worth it for us is the people. Where else can you go out and sing Christmas carols all day?”

Doveside Christmas Tree Farm is open weekends from 10am to dusk.

For more information call 250-703-2047.

Doveside Christmas Tree Farm is located at 6077 Todd Road in Dove Creek. Visitors are advised to dress for the weather, and be prepared for uneven ground —boots are a good choice for everyone. Wagon rides (fleece blankets provided), bonfires and hot chocolate are available during the selling season and there are washrooms on site in the barn. You are also welcome to hike through the property, but know that you’ll likely be accompanied by the Day family’s golden retrievers Amber and Honey. You can get there from Courtenay along Cliffe Avenue, through downtown. Make a right on 1st Street and a left on Anderton. Cross the Condensory Road bridge and through the flashing lights at Piercy. Continue straight through for 5.7 km before turning right onto Todd Rd. Go 250m to Doveside Christmas Tree Farm on the left.

“The whole idea of Prontissima Pasta was born of busy nights, not feeling like cooking, but not wanting take-out food and not wanting to go to a restaurant,” says owner Sarah Walsh at her Tintown storefront.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

It’s a typical Friday afternoon at Prontissima Pasta in ‘Tintown’—otherwise known as Rosewall Crescent in Courtenay.  Customers are browsing the products in the storefront coolers and shelves, lining up to get ingredients for the evening dinner.  Proprietor Sarah Walsh is preparing for the Comox Valley Farmers’ Market on Saturday, but being a master at multi-tasking, manages to satisfy everyone with a full shopping basket and a whetted appetite.

“The whole idea of Prontissima Pasta was born of busy nights, not feeling like cooking, but not wanting take-out food and not wanting to go to a  restaurant,” says Walsh in between customers.   “The idea is that it’s a quick gourmet meal that you put together at home but takes only 15 minutes total.  Then you have a meal where you know all the ingredients are good and it hasn’t taken any time to put together.  Pronto means ready, so Prontissima means ‘really ready’!”

A few minutes earlier Walsh was behind the scenes in the kitchen, labeling containers of Artichoke & Roasted Garlic Pesto.  “This is our number-one-selling pesto,” she says, sticking the circular labels on multi-sized containers.  “It’s our own creation, from a recipe just from my head.  It turned out to be a great hit—we have to make it every weekend.”

Their products have a wide-ranging distribution.  “We sell the pasta to Edible Island, the pesto to Butcher’s Block, Edible Island, Seeds Market in Cumberland, Healthy Way Organic Foods in Campbell River, Sunshine Organics, which is a home delivery of organic groceries, then we sell here and at the Farmers’ Market.  We stay at the outdoor market until October 22, and then move indoors to the Native Sons Hall—we go all year round now.”

While the labeling continues, a couple of plumbers in the kitchen replacing a faucet seem to be getting distracted from their work as Walsh describes her products. Everything is natural with no preservatives.  “We started with a traditional egg pasta,” continues Walsh, “then the Citrus Black Pepper, and the Chipotle and Lime, and the Spinach.  The Spinach pasta has real spinach in it.   A lot of fresh pasta will have dehydrated spinach powder, but ours, you can see the fibers of spinach.

Recent additions to their pasta menu include Paprika and Oregano, and Curry, but perhaps their most exotic pasta creation is flavored with squid ink.  “We’re waiting for our shipment of squid ink to come in,” says Walsh, smiling.  “The pasta becomes black—it’s not a strong flavor, but the oils from the ink give the pasta a really nice texture.  You just put a little lemon and salt on it—it has a really silky flavor.”

The plumbers are definitely listening now.  “You’re making me hungry!” says a voice from under the cabinet.  Walsh has barely begun to describe the mouth-watering pasta and pesto combinations possible.  “Some pastas we do seasonally, like the Pumpkin pasta—people wait for it.  Our first batch was yesterday, so people were coming for it. We finish making that around March.  We also do beet pasta; it gets the real beet flavor.”

With all these flavors, Walsh has trouble choosing a personal favorite.  “If we’re having prawns, I really like the Citrus Black Pepper with the basil pesto,” she says.  “With salmon, I love the Carrot and Dill pasta; with red meat, I would go with one of our tomato sauces like Sun-dried Tomato.  The fun is making all the different combinations. Customers often tell us what they’ve done and give ideas.”

As if on cue, a flurry of customers entering the shop interrupts the descriptions.  Walsh is instantly out providing suggestions to the first young woman for tonight’s dinner.  “We made a batch of Pumpkin pasta yesterday—it’s very pumpkin-y!  The combo with walnut pesto and fresh chopped parsley is really good.”

As the customer browses the shelves for other ingredients—including such delicacies as Bison Sausage, Black Truffle Purée and Apple and Sage Jelly—Walsh greets the next couple, who are regulars.  They had Chipotle and Lime pasta the last time and want some recommendations on combinations.  “I would go traditional or Spinach with tomato sauce so you get the flavor of the sauces,” Walsh recommends.  “With the Curry pasta, I would do the Black Olive or Artichoke Roasted Garlic pesto.”

Along with the nuances of the dozen different pasta shapes, Walsh calls out the preparation instructions as they leave the shop: “The instructions are all on the package!”  The next young woman, with a baby, is buying shell pasta stuffed with spinach, ricotta and basil.  “It’s the same filling we put in the lasagna,” says Walsh, indicating the coolers packed with prepared servings.  “It’s pre-made, but not baked—when you bake them it tastes just like you just made them.”

Many customers get their entire meal in this one location.  “The storefront allows us to offer all the other things that go with pasta and Italian fine food.  It’s basically about completing the meal,” says Walsh.  “You can get everything from an appetizer to dessert, like Benino Gelato or Dark Side Chocolates.  If you need olive oil, it’s here.  Parmesan is here.  Or if you want some meat with the meal… I try to keep all the meats local.”

Walsh appreciates the support of the Tintown community—many parents stop in after classes at the Motif Music School or Gemini Dance Studio.  “Rosewall is a good location, a nice community,” she notes.  “It’s the right location for a production area.” 

The Freakin’ Coffee Shop on Rosewall Crescent is another supporter.  “We make a pasta bake for them—a short pasta combined with a pesto and local Natural Pastures cheese that we sell, then they serve it up hot on a Friday and people can go and try it there.  We’re not going to get into being a restaurant!”

Several restaurants already serve Prontissima Pasta products.  “Locals Restaurant has been with us since the beginning,” says Walsh.  “The Kingfisher, Atlas, Toto’s in Comox, the Royal Coachman in Campbell River, Strathcona Park Lodge, the Old House—they order every week.  Then we have a Quadra following—my mom and dad live on Quadra so my mom picks up a Quadra delivery every week.”

Walsh’s husband, Wally, also helps with the deliveries, though he has another job. “He’s really a carpenter!” she says with a laugh.

Prontissima pasta.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Walsh’s career in pasta began as a result of the couple’s adventures traveling.  After getting married in Canada in 2001, the couple sold their house in Dublin and headed to Spain to buy a sailboat. Their plan was to fulfill their dreams of traveling by sailboat and explore the different cultures and food of the Mediterranean.

Three years into their sailing adventure, they pulled into one of the most historic ports in history; Venice, Italy.  It was there that they fell in love with Italy and met friends Toni and Anna, who inspired them and planted the seed of passion for Italian food.  In addition to teaching them the Italian language—they had arrived knowing only a few words—Toni and Anna also taught them many traditional family recipes and the art of making fresh pasta, “La pasta fresca”.  From their first lesson in Toni and Anna’s kitchen, they were convinced that fresh pasta was something special and delicious.  A month later, their Venetian friends threw Walsh a birthday party and gifted her with her first fresh pasta machine.

When they returned to the Canada and the Comox Valley in 2005, they decided to put the skills Walsh had learned to good use, and started Prontissima Pasta.  She still counts on the moral support of her friends and mentors, Toni and Anna.  “We speak on the phone often—they get very excited about what we are doing.  Anna is just a really great woman, and Toni always wants to know how many kilos of flour we go through!”

Today, Walsh shares pasta-making duties with Judith Storring, “our other ‘Pasta Master’.”   Prontissima Pasta started out home-based before moving to Tintown a year ago.  “The whole time we’ve been in business there’s been a steady increase every year,” says Walsh.  “The whole local food movement has been a big hit.”

While well-known locally, the pasta will soon be known nationally.  “We actually just found out on the weekend that we were mentioned in Chatelaine Magazine with Locals Restaurant,” says Walsh.  “We didn’t know that was going to happen!  The Chatelaine food writer went across Canada—they called it a ‘Tasty Road Trip’. They highlighted quite a bit of the Comox Valley, like Fanny Bay Oysters, and our Farmers’ Market.  We were mentioned with Locals by Ronald St. Pierre who uses our pasta.  So that was exciting! It’s the October issue, out now.”

Walsh notes only Canadian Durum Semolina flour is used in their pasta.  “They can grow it in the Ukraine too, so in Italy, they would get it from there,” she says.  “It’s an unbleached flour, ground from the kernel of the wheat so it’s considered a whole grain. It’s a slow release carb so it’s considered a good carbohydrate.  Also it’s lower on the glycemic index, so can be in the diabetic diet once a week or so.”

A couple other specialty products are wheat free. “We make an ancient grain pasta with organic spelt and organic kaput,” says Walsh.  “We want to do more products, more stuffed pastas—we eventually want to get a machine that makes ravioli, because you can be creative with the fillings, and it’s a nice frozen meal too.”

The entire range of pasta shapes are made from only two machines at the back of the kitchen.  Walsh laughs.  “That’s it!  Our machines have all the different attachments—we don’t need a lot of space.  We make up the pasta flavor and then decide what shape to make it—everything from fusilli to shells to penne to linguini or fettuccine. We can do sheets for lasagna and cannelloni.”

For now, local gourmets can not only get a taste at the restaurants, but at the Rosewall storefront.  “We do ‘Sample Saturdays’ between 1:30 and 3:30, every Saturday but the long weekends,” says Walsh.  “We give out free samples—different combinations of pasta and pesto.  It’s a good way for people to try different combos.”

Remembering that tomorrow is Saturday, Walsh heads back into the kitchen. “I have to get back to work to make pumpkin pasta for tomorrow’s Farmers’ Market!”

“Shelter Point Distillery is designed to be an artisan distillery,” says Patrick Evans, left, with James Marinus. “Right from the start, the concept has been quality over quantity and we have put an emphasis on sourcing as many of the ingredients directly from the farm or the surrounding region as possible.”

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Long before it became trendy to “eat local,” farmers in the Comox Valley had been feeding area families and the local economy for more than a century.  While some producers have remained committed to a particular farm product such as milk, beef, eggs or vegetables, others have—often out of necessity—diversified their operations.  Shelter Point Farm and Distillery, located halfway between the Comox Valley and Campbell River, is a prime example.

With the Oyster River bordering the farm to the south, and 2,000-metres of oceanfront on beautiful Oyster Beach and the Strait of Georgia to the east, Shelter Point is one of Canada’s few remaining oceanfront farms.  For decades, this 405-hectare (1,000-acre) property was known as the University of British Columbia’s Oyster River Research Farm.  In 2005, UBC made the decision to divest some of its collection of 14 different land titles that had been bequeathed to it in 1962 by New York stockbroker Barrett Montford.  Marking the end of an era, the Oyster River operation was one of the properties that the University elected to put up for sale.

Having spent his entire life in the Comox Valley, Patrick Evans was familiar with the farm and he and his family jumped at the chance to buy it.  Evans is no stranger to farm life and he foresaw a great future for this land.

Together with the support of his family and operations manager, James Marinus, a bold vision for a new type of farm was created.  They dreamed of a property where wild areas, native animals, and birds would co-exist with humans and farming; where fish habitat and natural ecosystems would be restored and preserved; and where innovative value-added agriculture would allow for a financially viable farm for future generations… a production model with a sophisticated ‘farm gate’ retail side.  A true testament to thinking outside the box, Evans and Marinus decided to focus on producing single malt Scotch, earning Shelter Point Distillery the distinction of being only the second of its kind in Canada!

For Evans, a third generation farmer, this foresight comes naturally.  He is a descendant of a family of visionary pioneers who had settled in the Comox Valley in the early 1900s.  His great grandparents acquired land from the original Soldiers Settlement in the Tsolum River area and the family has operated Evansdale Dairy Farm for generations.  It is interesting to note that, after close inspection of the original deeds following the family’s purchase of the farm, Patrick Evans discovered that his grandfather had once owned a quarter section of land encompassing a portion of this property.

Marinus also brought a wealth of experience to the venture.  He has been employed in the agricultural industry for almost 25 years, working with the Evans family on multiple key projects over the years.  This experience, combined with a love for architecture and an eye for detail, would soon be evident in every facet of the Shelter Point Distillery’s development.

Shelter Point whiskey

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

First on the agenda for these ‘farm-preneurs’ was a new name.

“We wanted a name that would reflect the farm’s unique geographic location on Vancouver Island,” explains Evans.  “The name ‘Oyster River’ did not resonate with us and,” he pauses to show me Kuhushan Point on an aerial-view map of the property and says with a smile:  “while we respect this historic name, we worried that people would not know how to pronounce it, so its marketing potential was limiting!  Ultimately, we decided on Shelter Point Farm.”

The idea to build a whiskey distillery at Shelter Point came about after several meetings with John Watson, executive director of the Comox Valley Economic Development Society.  “Economic Development has a mandate to support agricultural diversification,” explains Marinus. “But farmers, in general, can get stagnant and complacent by focusing solely on what has worked in the past.  We wanted to think well beyond the parameters of traditional farming operations and move from niche farming to a mixed operation that produced a product with a high return on investment.

“Through our on-going conversations with John, and a group of Scottish investors, the concept for a distillery was conceived.  Blessed with a near perfect mix of fertile soil, sunshine, abundant fresh water and mild weather, the ingredients to produce a true ‘Field to Flask’ single malt whisky were already in place.  The idea of a unique, high-value beverage that would be produced completely on the farm, and where the used barley waste from the production process would become food for dairy cattle, spoke to our vision of environmental sustainability.”

Shortly after the land purchase, Evans, his wife Kimm and their four daughters, and Marinus, along with his wife Pamela, two daughters and son, moved into two existing farmhouses on the property. The planning for the construction of a distillery and planting of crops began in earnest.  Andrew Curry, a distiller from Scotland, and Jay Oddleifson, a chartered accountant and a consultant on several local development projects, were instrumental in the development of the project.

Crop trials in 2006 produced a bumper crop and proved the viability of growing malting barley on site.

Along with the special strain of barley, which will eventually provide the basic ingredient for the distillery, raspberries have also been planted for the fresh fruit market and potential use in other distilled spirits.  Winter wheat and grasses are now sown in the fields, for the benefit of the many visiting waterfowl that overwinter on the farm.  Some areas remain in forest, providing alternative habitat for resident species of wildlife, as well as a sustainable source of wood for future building projects on the farm.

The architectural design for a distillery building that, according to Evans, is “reminiscent of an old dairy barn,” took years to perfect.  After three years of construction, the distillery was completed in December 2010.  The towering, 7,500-square-foot building that now stands near the front of the property is sure to become a local landmark.

While the building may have the outward appearance of a dairy barn, if cows were to be housed here it would be considered five-star bovine accommodation!  The Shelter Point Distillery ‘barn’ is solid timber frame construction, built with lumber harvested from the property and accented with an abundance of stonework and a copper roof.  Where possible, construction materials were sourced from Vancouver Island suppliers and skilled craftsmen from the Comox Valley—including father and son team, Chris and Kyle Henderson, and Hans Deneer—were contracted to do the work.  About the only items in the building that aren’t local are the oak barrels, ordered from bourbon distillers in Kentucky, and the custom-made copper pot stills imported from Scotland.

In addition to the all-important purpose of making whisky, the building has been designed to accommodate tours and special events.  This past summer, the first year they have opened their doors to the public, more than 150 groups toured the facility and an average of 400 people were guided through the distillery every weekend.

Visitors discovered meeting rooms and offices lavishly decorated with enormous leather chairs and wrought iron furnishings. The walls boast a collection of exquisite photographic art—all shot on the farm by local wildlife photographer Lee Simmons, whose work is also featured on the distillery’s website.

In the wall that separates the meeting/banquet room from the distillery area is a series of nine etched glass windows and a set of double doors that feature the work of local artist Robert Lundquist.  The etched glass art walks you through the distilling process step-by-step; starting with barley in the field and ending with the founders raising glasses in a celebratory toast.

As impressive as the building is, it is the immaculate distillery system that is most extraordinary.  You enter though frosted glass doors to find a high vaulted ceiling under which two enormous copper pot stills and five copper and stainless steel fermentation tanks glisten under the bright lights.  All are connected via a network of stainless steel tubing that runs behind the walls and under the floor to carry liquids in various stages of distillation from one tank to another.  All of this is controlled by a state-of-the-art computer system.

In July 2010, when they were ready to start their first batch of whisky, Mike Nicolson, a master distiller, joined the team to lend his expertise.  The art of whisky distilling is very much in Nicolson’s blood.  Both of his grandfathers were distillers on Islay, Scotland, and his father was a Lowland Grain Distiller.  Scottish-born Nicolson himself learned the trade over three decades at some of Scotland’s finest Scotch distilleries.  In 2003, he was recognized for lifetime industry achievement with a prestigious award from Whisky Magazine.  What a fortunate co-incidence that he had semi-retired and relocated to Vancouver Island and was able to lend his expertise to the Shelter Point Distillery!

Over the past few months, Nicolson has been teaching Evans and Marinus the art of traditional Scottish distilling methods.  They are using the best ingredients available and some of the purest water in the world with the intent of creating a medium-bodied premium single malt Canadian whisky.  It is being distilled batch by batch in the traditional copper ‘pot stills.’

As exciting as the whole process is for them, they will have to be patient before they see a finished product.   In an age when technology changes at rapid pace, their focus is on slowing down to do everything right from the beginning.  It will be August 2014 before they can make the premier release of Shelter Point Single Malt Whisky.

“Under Canadian law,” says Marinus, “whisky can’t be called whisky until it has been stored in an oak barrel for three years and a day.  In the meantime, because of our connections with other distilleries, we have been able to purchase small lots of specially selected whiskies to blend on site and bottle for the enjoyment of our customers.”

The whisky-making process starts with up to one ton of barley being ground and mashed for five hours in a ‘Mash Tun,’ as up to 6,000-litres of hot water are filtered through it to extract the barley sugars from the grain.  The spent grain that is created is then removed and transported to Evansdale Dairy Farm to be fed to the cows.  The sugar water or ‘wort’ is then pumped into one of five 5,000-litre fermentation tanks.

Yeast is added to the stainless steel tank to kick-start the fermentation process and, after five days ‘rest,’ it moves into the wash still where it is distilled for eight hours.  After the distillation and vaporization process the liquid—now called ‘low wines’—is about 25 per cent alcohol.

From there, the liquid is moved back into the spirit still where the magic of the final distillation process turns it to liquid gold—a product that can not yet be called ‘single malt whisky’ but is now more than 65 per cent alcohol.

The liquid is then siphoned through a testing station where the ‘head, heart and tail’—or in layman’s terms, the beginning, middle and end—of the draw is monitored for alcohol strength.  The ideal strength, explains Marinus, is about 63.5 per cent, which is generally at the ‘heart’ of the liquid stream.  The ‘head and tail’ go back in spirit still to be re-distilled and the premium product is pumped into a holding tanking before it is poured into single use oak barrels to age for a minimum of three years, plus a day.  That one ton of barley will ultimately produce about 900 750-ml bottles of single malt whisky.

“That’s an amazing return on investment… if you can hold your breath long enough!” says Evans.

While they wait for their first batches to come of age, Evans and Marinus are developing a range of other Vancouver Island spirits.  In addition to the single malt whisky produced from 100 per cent malted barley, products in development include aged custom-blended whiskies and fruit and berry-infused spirits and cream liqueurs made from berries grown in their fields and fruit grown on local farms.

“Shelter Point Distillery is designed to be an artisan distillery,” explains Evans.  “Right from the start, the concept has been quality over quantity, and we have put an emphasis on sourcing as many of the ingredients directly from the farm or the surrounding region as possible.  This in itself will establish us in the industry, considering that distilleries that grow their own barley and distill it on premise are very rare.”

When asked how they maintain their patience, having to wait several years before they can begin to bottle and sell Shelter Point Scotch, Evans smiles and says:  “Playing the waiting game is what farmers do best!  On a dairy farm you have to wait at least two years from the time a calf is born before she can produce milk.  With berry crops you have to wait three to seven years before you get a decent harvest.  Forests take 80 to 100 years.

“When you look at the big picture, three years—plus a day—for whisky to mature in an oak barrel isn’t so long to wait for a product that will retail for $50 to $80 a bottle.”

For more information visit www.shelterpointdistillery.com.

“We are confident our furniture will stand the test of time,” says Brian Bloomfield, at his workshop.

Photo by Lisa Graham

Brian Bloomfield stands in his woodworking shop and surveys an assortment of cedar boards that are neatly laid out against a wall.  The rough-hewn Western Red Cedar is standing vertically—like a dense forest of trees.  Bloomfield examines each one carefully, sometimes reaching out to touch this one or that, as though the wood might energetically relay a message to him or tell a story.

He has hand-picked every single piece of cedar in his shop.  During the selection process at local suppliers he looks for the best old growth lumber harvested from Vancouver Island.  He has an artistic eye for fine details, matching colors and wood grain patterns, while imagining whether the individual piece of wood is destined to become part of a chair or a table… or something else.

Bloomfield developed an interest in woodworking when he was a boy growing up in rural Manitoba.  His first introduction to the craft was at a church at the age of six.

“I lived in Napinka, a small town of 250 people,” he recalls.  “There were four churches and one offered woodworking projects for kids.  It was there that I discovered that I liked the smell of fresh cut wood.  When I was a little older, I spent endless hours working alongside my grandfather and uncle, both of whom were carpenters.  They stressed to me that anything I build should be built to last.  It is a life lesson that I have never forgotten.”

Decades later, Brian Bloomfield is now the wood craftsman/designer/manufacturer/owner behind a successful Vancouver Island enterprise called Bloomfield Flats Custom Cedar Furniture.  His wife, Judy, “does everything else”—including managing orders and keeping the books from their home-based office just south of Courtenay.  While they are a company of only two, the Bloomfields have built a solid reputation for excellence in custom-crafted cedar furniture.  Their furniture has been sold to hundreds of customers on Vancouver Island and the mainland, as well as clients across Canada, the United States and into Europe.  People recognize a superior product when they see it and appreciate the beauty and durability of Western Red Cedar.

Brian Bloomfield moved from Manitoba to Vancouver in 1979, where he continued what would turn out to be a 35-year career in the aircraft industry.  He also worked hard to build a life on Vancouver Island.  From 1981 through 1989, he commuted from the Comox Valley to his Richmond-based job—often by motorcycle—every weekend.

“We met in 1981, on the lawn of the Heriot Bay Marina on Quadra Island,” recalls Judy, a Vancouver Islander by birth.  “There were a group of us traveling by boat to view real estate on Maurelle Island.  I was looking for a recreational property, not a relationship.  Four years later, we were married.  Our son, Orie, was born in 1989.  Orie still lives on Vancouver Island and has acquired a skill for working with wood from his father—he is a third year carpentry apprentice.”

The chair that would change the course of the Bloomfield’s lives appeared soon after they met. Judy came home one day with a couple of rickety old wooden chairs that she had purchased for $5 each at a garage sale.  She had no idea these ‘treasures’ would be the start of a new enterprise built around her husband’s hobby.

“Sure, the paint was chipped and they wiggled if you sat on them but I knew that Brian might be able to fix the chairs,” recalls Judy with a smile.  “At the time, the only outdoor furniture we owned were two very flimsy and uncomfortable folding chairs.”

“I immediately threw one of the chairs onto our burn pile,” says Brian with a hearty laugh.  “The other—a Cape Cod-style wooden chair—looked interesting.  I brought it into my workshop, dismantled it, analyzed it… and then burned it!  But that chair became the inspiration for a pattern to construct a modified version with twice the thickness of cedar (not fir), a wider seat, extra reinforcements, routered edges, and lots of sanding.  Now, THAT was a thing of beauty!  Thirty years later we are still using that chair!”

‘That chair’ was a welcome addition to the couple’s yard.  It was so comfortable that friends and family fought over who would get to sit in it.  Soon, he had to make more for the yard—and for others.  The orders started coming in.

“Brian, can you make me one just like that but higher for my long legs—or shorter for my short legs?”

“Brian, can you make me one just like that but a loveseat?”

“Please make me two chairs with an attached table in between.”

Lorna Bridge of Country Catering and Brian Walker of Walker Small Engine Repair placed the first ‘official order’ of six chairs.  They still own and enjoy them 28 years later.

The Bloomfields soon realized that they had found a market niche.  They decided that Brian would officially make chairs as a sideline business and attend a couple of events per year to showcase his products.  This would give some focus to the furniture enterprise without cutting into other work commitments and family time too much.  They needed time to work on the hobby farm and to enjoy the cabin they had built on Maurelle Island.

In the mid 1980s, the general public got their first view of what was then sold as ‘BNB Cedar Furniture’—short for Brian N. Bloomfield.  They displayed their wares at the Comox Valley Farmers’ Market and the Filberg Festival.

In 1986, the Bloomfields purchased a 20-acre parcel of raw land from Comox Valley environmental crusader Ruth Masters.

“We had been living in a small house across the road from this spectacular piece of land, located on Fraser Road, just south of Courtenay,” explains Brian.   “We loved the mix of trees and natural pastures and that Millard Creek—a spawning bed for Coho and Chum salmon— ran across the back half of it.  We made a solemn promise to Ruth Masters that we would respect the environmental integrity of the land.”

The Bloomfields then began carefully selecting trees and milling timber from their new acreage. “The land gave us enough lumber to build a workshop, a barn and corrals for Judy’s horses, and a home,” explains Brian. “The first building constructed was, of course, a workshop, so I could continue to build cedar furniture on weekends. The last building to be completed was a large timber frame home. Where possible, I used re-cycled materials, some of which I brought home from the mainland on the back of my motorcycle.”

The farmstead became known as Bloomfield Flats when a family friend made up the name, crafted a wooden sign, and hung it on the entrance gate.  The name stuck.

Years later, the Bloomfields fulfilled the environmental stewardship pledge they had made to Masters when they purchased the property.  They registered the first legal covenant in the British Columbia Agricultural Land Research (ALR)—a designation that ensures the land will remain undeveloped in perpetuity.  Inspired, in part, by Masters’ commitment to environmental stewardship, Brian became a dedicated social and environmental crusader, too.  In addition to many volunteer commitments over the past 25 years, he is the outgoing president of the Millard-Piercy Watershed Stewards, a local non-profit organization with a mission to maintain and restore the watershed.

The Bloomfields would enjoy life at Bloomfield Flats until 2006, when they decided to sell the farm and downsize.  Fond memories and many friends had been made during 20 years of community gatherings and potluck dinners held at the acreage.  The chicken wire backstop and ball diamond that Brian had built in the corner of the hay field had become an integral part of almost every gathering and had provided seemingly endless hours of fun and laughter. But it was time to move.  Considering that they loved living in the rural triangle between Courtenay, Royston and Cumberland, they purchased an existing home with a view of the bay, just down the road from Bloomfield Flats.

Says Judy:  “We enjoyed living in this neighborhood so much, we just didn’t have the heart to leave the area!”

In 2009, Judy left her job with the School District.  One month later, due to the economic downturn, Brian’s 35-year career in airframe sheet metal abruptly came to an end.  Once again, their lives would take on a new direction because of ‘that chair.’

In January 2010, with the help of Community Futures Strathcona, Bloomfield Flats Custom Cedar Furniture became a fulltime business.  Weekdays you will find Brian busy building furniture in his workshop.  Weekends (and some evenings) he, Judy, and their Australian Cattle Dog, Winnie, take a trailer packed with furniture and hit the road.  The product is displayed at venues throughout Vancouver Island.

“The feedback from customers of all persuasions has been nothing short of phenomenal,” says Judy.  “People appreciate Brian’s craftsmanship, attention to detail, design and comfort.”

Over the years, Brian had continued to tweak the design of the Cape Cod/Adirondack or Eastcoast-style chair he had started with until he was 100 per cent satisfied with the finished product.  Now, with more time on his hands for research and development, plus a number of customer requests for a chair that was easier to get in and out of, he designed his own style of seating that he labeled the ‘Westcoast’ chair.  It was officially launched in January 2010.

“My Westcoast chair is ergonomically designed with the seat higher off the ground, a more upright back for better lumbar support and—as requested—it is easy to get in and out of,” explains Brian.  “These comfort and ‘ease of exit’ features are especially appreciated by the Baby Boomer generation.  The Westcoast model has been very well received and now out-sells the Eastcoast chairs.  I also build short or tall versions of my chairs, to custom fit people with longer or shorter legs.”

Brian guides me through his workshop, which is piled high with cedar furniture in various states of assembly. He points to one of his custom-crafted Westcoast chairs. “Please be seated,” he says with a smile.

I settle down into the chair and am amazed how comfortable it is.  Without a doubt, “sitting is believing!”  The only thing that could improve the experience is a cold beer and an ocean view! I get a flashback to when I was pregnant more than 20 years ago.  I had made the mistake of settling down in a low-slung Eastcoast-style chair at a friend’s house.  It took a Herculean effort on my part to exit that chair without the assistance of a crane!  I remind Brian that a wide variety of people will appreciate the ‘ease of exit’ feature of the Westcoast chair, not just Baby Boomers.

While the custom-crafted range of chairs built to accommodate most sizes of individuals remain a customer favorite, Brian also makes loveseats, combination table/chair models, plus a variety of tables, barstools, footstools, garden trugs, and other custom-built items upon request.  For example, he crafted the beautiful 12-foot long cedar banquet table in the lower level of the Old House Restaurant.

“Growing from a side-line business to a full-time venture was a huge leap of faith for us,” adds Judy.  “Thirty years ago we never could have imagined that Brian’s love of building things with wood could be our main source of income.  We are grateful to Community Futures Strathcona, the Comox Valley Home-Based Business Association, the members of the Chamber of Commerce, and the hundreds of customers who have been so supportive of this adventure.”

Brian agrees.  “As we celebrate our 30 years of success this summer, Judy and I extend our sincere thanks to the people of the Comox Valley and beyond for supporting our business,” he says.

“We are confident that our furniture will stand the test of time.  In our ‘throw away society’ it feels good to know that Bloomfield Flats Custom Cedar Furniture will last.”

For more information visit www.bloomfieldflats.ca.

“They have a right to good feed, a good bed, a good environment,” says Christine Gauvin of her philosophy on animal husbandry. “You get what you put into something.” At right, older Muscovy ducks roam her Comox property, along with laying hens and sheep.

Photo by Lisa Graham

One of the great things about the Comox Valley is the ability to travel the back roads and find just about anything you want to eat.  Take for example Christine Gauvin’s duck farm on Idiens Way in Comox.  Gauvin runs a five-acre operation located just north of the busy intersection of Anderton and Guthrie.  She raises ducks, ducklings and duck meat along with meat chickens, egg hens and lamb—all for sale directly off the farm.

It’s a business Gauvin has been growing for the past nine years, almost entirely by word of mouth.  Officially Gauvin is Christine’s Quackery on Misty Haven Farm.  But to many in the Valley familiar with her product she is better known as “the duck lady.”  Her specialty is Muscovy duck.

For the last two years, Gauvin has produced 500 ducks for sale one of three ways—fresh, frozen or live.  Those numbers make her the largest producer of duck meat on Northern Vancouver Island and one of the few year-round suppliers.  That is, if she doesn’t sell out first.

“I’m sold out,” is the first thing Gauvin says when asked about her business.  “Last three years, sold right out.  People are just waiting for my ducks to get big so they can get here, and I’ve got two big orders to fill in two weeks!”

Gauvin says all of this with a laugh that tells you she’s looking forward to the challenge. And with that you get the sense of how one woman went from a pet duck to a quality, in-demand farming operation in less than a decade.

“I’ve always had animals, my whole life,” says Gauvin.  “And I’ve always loved ducks. My neighbor at the blueberry farm, I was getting one of her kittens because I wanted a barn cat.  So when I went over to pick the kitten up because it was ready to go, and she hollered over the fence at me ‘Do you want a duck?’  I said ‘Sure, why not?’  I took it sight unseen, a big male duck.”

Unfortunately, the duck—which Gauvin named Donald—wouldn’t stay at home.  He would head down the driveway and off the property every time Gauvin put him out. Gauvin decided he was lonely, and got Donald a girlfriend she named Daisy.  Then she read in a book that a male duck could have up to five females, so she got some more females and eventually another male. The inevitable outcome was, of course, babies.  Lots of them.

“I ended up with all these baby ducks,” says Gauvin laughing.   “I thought, ‘Well, now what am I going to do ‘cause I can’t kill anything!”

Ducks!

Photo by Lisa Graham

Instead Gauvin found a facility in Coombs to process her ducks for her.  On her way back she drove past the Kingfisher Resort, and decided to take a gamble.  She stopped in and introduced herself to then-chef Ronald St. Pierre (now owner and chef of Locals Restaurant).  She gave him a complimentary duck, and asked him to let her know if he was interested in buying from her.  He called back the next day, and Gauvin had her first client.  The business has done nothing but grow ever since.

There are her regulars from Vancouver who come every year to stock-up on duck meat. Many of them tasted her product while staying at the Kingfisher.  Other clients are in Powell River, and of course there are the locals.  Then there’s Local’s Restaurant, the Butchers Block and Avenue Bistro, to name a few of the businesses she supplies.  Gauvin can hardly keep up with the demand.

She attributes a lot of her success to timing.  The Muscovy is known as a greaseless duck. It doesn’t have the same oils other ducks use to stay afloat when they swim, and so there is very little oil to cook out of the meat.  That also means Muscovy ducks don’t swim—they also don’t quack, and sometimes aren’t even considered a true duck. The lack of oil makes the Muscovy duck popular with today’s health conscious consumers on the lookout for leaner cuts of meat.

Then there’s the operation itself.  Gauvin’s ducks are free range—they have access to an open air duck barn with feed, but are able to come and go as they please.  The ducks forage on bugs, seeds, roots and stems on the property, and make use of the creek that runs through the farm.  Gauvin’s been told she has some of the cleanest ducks in the business, and she believes that’s a big advantage to her product.

However, it’s Gauvin’s need to keep busy that really drives her entire business. She came to the Comox Valley in 1982 after falling in love with the area on a visit.  She didn’t know a soul, and she didn’t have a job.  But she did have the firm conviction she could find work, even if it was picking strawberries.  True to her belief, Gauvin quickly found work as a cook at the old Wrangler Pub, and was able to pick-up part-time, casual work doing the same thing at St. Joseph’s Hospital.  In 1989 she got on full-time at the hospital, and kept taking night shifts at the pub until it burned down.  In between, Gauvin raised her family, and eventually found herself in a little trailer off Plateau Road.

“It was great, but you go home and what do you do?” asks Gauvin with a genuinely puzzled look on her face.  “I don’t have any artistic talents like painting, so that was out of the question for me.  And I needed something to do.”

She knew that something had to do with animals.  “I’ve always been looking for a place,” explains Gauvin.  “And I saw this place and it was so convenient between here and the hospital.  And that’s how I started.  I took a chance and I’ve been here nine years.”

Her records show a total 31 ducks in May of 2002.  Along the way she added donkeys, pigs, chickens, sheep and cattle.  Her day would start at three or four in the morning with the morning feed before heading to the hospital for 5:00am shifts.  Gauvin would then come home, do the evening chores and eventually head to bed.  A badly healed total knee replacement forced Gauvin to downsize and focus on the smaller animals a couple of years ago.  Today she breeds 12 ewes and a single ram for lamb meat, raises meat birds, and has just added 50 new laying hens to the 50 she already has.  That’s in addition to the 36 ducks (three males and 33 females) that make up the heart of her business.  She’s hoping to produce 700 ducks for sale in the coming year.

Ducks!

Photo by Lisa Graham

Gauvin takes all of her animals for processing herself at a government inspected facility in Coombs (the same facility that processed her first batch of ducks), and bags and labels the finished product before delivering it to customers up and down the Island.  Gauvin is determined as few people as possible handle her meat before it gets to the customer.  She believes fewer hands touching the meat means fewer chances of the product being ruined or contaminated by bacteria.  It’s not unusual for her to meet regular clients in Parksville and Qualicum and sell out of the back of her truck.

It all adds up to a lot of work, but Gauvin is adamant she’s never been afraid of work in her life.  That and her animals provide a kind of stress relief she really can’t do without.

“I’ve not about the money,” says Gauvin.  “We can’t get rich on farming.  It’s just a little hobby.”  But then Gauvin adds, “This is the job I do for myself.  I should have been a farmer’s wife!”

In the end, though, it’s genuine care and respect for the animals she raises that distinguishes Gauvin’s product from anything else available on the Island.  “They get to be a duck (or a chicken or lamb),” declares Gauvin.  “I let them be who they are.  You buy chicks these days and half of them don’t even know what they are.”

At Gauvin’s farm, mother ducks sit on their eggs, hatch their eggs, and stay with their babies for as long as they want, or up to four months when they’re taken for processing (whichever comes first).  Lambs stay with their mothers and are able to nurse until six months of age.

And if an animal falls ill, she nurses it back to health.  Gauvin brought her ram into her house when he fell ill with a leg injury, despite most of her farmer friends telling her to send the animal to slaughter.  She bottle-fed the animal, who is now convinced he’s more a dog than a sheep.  To this day the ram limps, but “he has 13 babies out there so he did okay.”

Gauvin is always cleaning her pens, enforces a no chasing policy that even her two dogs follow, and constantly interacts with her animals.  The familiarity pays off.  Her animals grow up in a stress-free environment, and go to slaughter extremely well cared for.

“They have a right to good feed, a good bed, a good environment, and killed right,” says Gauvin, summing up her personal philosophy of animal husbandry.  “I think that’s what makes your meat taste good.  You get what you put into something.”

To visit the farm stand at Christine’s Quackery go to 2051 Idiens Way, Comox (off Anderton).  Duck meat, chicken meat, and eggs are available year-round.

For more information visit www.christinesquackery.com.

“We’ve really gotten to realize what an amazing experience the kids are having here and how it is impacting their lives,” says Barbara Odegard, far right, with from left, husband Bryne and WWOOFers Anna Pape, Alice Cazzola and Hirofumi Ozawa.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

The Odegard’s moved to Fanny Bay in 1996 from Parksville where they had operated a one-acre market garden and nursery.  Bryne had been a troller fisherman on the West Coast for more than 20 years and a combination of factors lead to the decision to make the switch to farming.

“The industry was dying and it wasn’t much fun anymore,” Bryne says.  “I was noticing that all my friends were dying at sea.  It didn’t make sense, you know, everyone else was dying, maybe I’m going to die out here, you know.  The more that died the less I enjoyed the idea of it.”

Barbara fills in the rest of the thinking behind the transition:  “We wanted our daughter to have a healthy life and we thought this was a good lifestyle.  Plus we love plants and growing.  We realized that as we were married and spent more time together that our real passion together as a couple is growing things.  Love it, you know, love, love, love it!”

When they found the 11.5 acres that had been fallow for 10 years but still had good soil and water potential, they knew they had found the key to launching their dream of becoming full time organic farmers.  Established in 1948 by Mildred Halgren, the farm had mostly produced hay and housed goats.   The Odegards loved the farm and the unpolluted Fanny Bay area right from the moment they saw it.   They chose to name it Ironwood Farm because they felt it signified strength.  Ironwood is also one of the names for a native hardwood bush that is best seen in June when it produces sprays of white flowers.

The mice had to be evicted from the house and the floors needed more support, but eventually they had a comfortable home and were able to focus on developing their crops.  “It takes time to get to know your piece of land and weather patterns,” says Barbara.  “When you first start out you want to do everything and you realize very quickly that there are many factors that don’t make things work.

“Number one you take stuff to the market and you realize people don’t want that.  One thing we have learned is that consumers are very stuck in their ways and it is a challenge to get people to eat a vegetable that looks even a little bit different from what they are used to.  And then we learned very quickly too that you have people say, “Oh you have to grow lemon cucumbers, everybody will buy them!”   How many times did we try doing stuff like that?

“So we’ve learned over the years what does well here, what crops you get good money from, what crops keep producing for the minimum output” she adds.  “We always indulge in a few new things every year because you can and its fun to, but, by in large, it took about 10 years to figure out what is going to make you the money and what will the land produce for you.  They have to go together.”

“We’ve learned over the years what does well here,” says Barbara Odegard, at work in their Fanny Bay gardens.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Their mainstay crops include lettuce, greens, rhubarb, leeks, spinach, chard, kale, green onions, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, arugula, squash, zucchini, radish and parsley.   They also grow bedding plants, potatoes, various fruit and, occasionally, they have sold eggs and organic chicken.  Over the years they have experimented with selling directly from the farm and while they are not currently doing that, it remains in the planning mix.  Mostly they sell off-farm at the Comox Valley and the Tofino Farmers’ Markets.  They also supply goods to a local food box program, Sunshine Organics, and the Tofino/Ucluelet Culinary Guild.  The purpose of the 65-member Guild is outlined on their website:  “As members of a dynamic culinary community, our mission is to work closely with each other and our region’s farmers, fishermen and foragers to provide unique food experiences that rely on sustainable farm/boat-to-table practices and the freshest local ingredients prepared with integrity and passion.”

Passion is something Barbara and Bryne have in great abundance when they talk about farming and living sustainably.  Given our cool spring I thought asking about how they deal with the weather might dampen their enthusiasm.  Not so, as Bryne responds: “We grow so many things that something is always happy.  Luckily this year we planted a lot of stuff that likes the cool weather.

For example, “We knew that it was La Nina this year and that it was expected to be a cool spring, so you sort of consider that and don’t think that you’re going to be planting something that really likes the heat early in the year.”

Adds Barbara:  “We are constantly paying attention to the weather forecast for sure, and as far as planning months ahead that is difficult, but I think this is where the small market farms really have an advantage because we potentially prepare ourselves to grow everything.  The diversity makes it like Bryne says—something will always grow.  As long as you have all the bases covered and you get it out there and get it in the ground, if we don’t get the heat and the zucchinis don’t grow then you’ve got lettuces, etc.”

One topic that definitely brings out their passion is when they describe the difference that working with “WWOOFers”—World Wide Workers on Organic Farms—has made to Ironwood Farm and their lives.  WWOOF was originally founded in Britain in 1971 as Weekend Workers on Organic Farms.  The organization has spread out across the globe and is now referred to as World Wide Workers on Organic Farms.  The Canadian branch of WWOOF was formed in 1985.  In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.

The Odegards found out about WWOOFers from a presentation at a Courtenay Earth Day soon after they started Ironwood Farm.  They signed up to be hosts the next year.  Barbara laughs, noting that “we realized very quickly that we couldn’t do it alone!  But, I think a lot of farms like ours find they’re in the position that you don’t make enough money to pay people to help you and a lot of people don’t want to do this kind of work.”

The first year they hosted a young couple from Ontario.  It was quite a task to figure out how to utilize their help.  Fifteen years later, Ironwood Farm is an extremely popular destination for people from all over the world.  They host three to five people at a time, and ask workers to make a minimum three-week commitment, and if possible to arrive on a Sunday and leave on a Saturday.

Barbara handles the scheduling and both of them work directly with the WWOOFers because the vast majority of them have never worked on a farm or done any gardening at all.

Arranging a good mix of applicants is what Barbara strives for because she believes one of the biggest joys of having WWOOFers at their farm is helping them to learn about each other.  The day I visited there were WWOOFers from Japan, Germany, Italy and Belgium.

Many WWOOFers stay in touch and some have returned to visit to underscore in person how pivotal their experience at Ironwood Farm has been for them.

“We’ve really gotten to realize what an amazing experience the kids are having here and how it is impacting their lives,” says Barbara.  “It is a humbling experience.  They are realizing there are more ways to live than to just think about how much education do I need to be a doctor, lawyer or accountant?  And, is money the only thing I need to be thinking about?  What about, how do I want to live in the world?”

She cites as an example a current WWOOFER, Hiro Ozawa, a 26-year-old man from Japan.  “He says we have totally changed his life,” says Barbara.  “He says he has become organic man.  He never thought about it, and he’s a chef working with food, and he never thought about how different food can taste when it is grown by hand.”

Ozawa is from near Tokyo, Japan.  He tells me he decided to try WWOOFing because as a chef he wanted to learn more about growing herbs and vegetables.  Before coming to Ironwood he made a bicycle journey from Alaska to San Diego.  So he is fit, but at Ironwood Farm, he says he has become more fit and he has learned a lot about good food and working.

Alice Cazzola, pronounced Alicea, is visiting from Turin, Italy.   At 19, many of her friends thought she was crazy to come to Canada to work on a farm.  I asked what she thought about her experience.  “You need much patience but it gives you satisfaction,” she says.   “You can see the result of your work.  Maybe with other jobs you don’t see so clearly.  And it is manual work.  Not only mental and thinking so you need both your brain and your body.  Sometimes jobs are too much in one direction but here you have a good mix.   Maybe the right one, I don’t know.”

Anna Pape, also 19, from Germany, adds:  “I like the moments when we have good laughs and sharing the dinners and sitting together at the table.   It’s always fun and interesting.”

There are journals filled with enthusiastic messages written by WWOOFers about their time at Ironwood Farm.  It is obvious that it is an arrangement that works well and adds a unique dynamic to this farming operation.  Barbara summarizes its importance: “Here was a way for Bryne and me to get some help and to teach at the same time, and, to give something back.  It has become such a huge part of our experience.  We probably would not be farming if we did not have these, mostly young people, coming here.”

Farming is a difficult life.  Few farmers in Canada can make a living without working off the farm.  The Odegards have faced these challenges and they continue to try to creatively overcome them.  In addition to their daily farm work, they contribute to organic growers’ organizations, sit on boards, teach courses and give lectures.

After 16 years of running Ironwood Farm they still love each other and love what they’re doing.  Would they, I asked, suggest that others give farming a try?

Bryne’s answer epitomizes the essence of my visit to Ironwood Farm:  “I don’t know if I’d recommend it to anyone, but, there’s lots of satisfaction.  Just when you put the seed in and three days later it has popped up.  It’s a pretty good feeling to see that new energy coming out of the ground again and again and again.  And when you transplant something and it rains the next day or that night and everything just gets their feet and they take off.  That’s a good feeling too.  Or, you run the hoe down the row and you’ve killed millions of weeds in five minutes just by walking with the hoe and they’re all dying.  You know.”

FMI go to ironwoodfannybay.blogspot.com or search for them on Facebook.  Purchase their produce at the weekly Comox Valley Farmers’ Market in Courtenay.

How do you know a good wine? “I say, taste it, and if you like it, it’s good wine!” says Abel O’Brennan.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Abel O’Brennan is a winemaker with a mission.  As the driving force behind the Comox Valley’s newest winery, Coastal Black, his work is all about broadening the horizons of wine-drinkers (whether they are casual sippers or connoisseurs) by welcoming them to the world of fruit wines.

The term ‘fruit wine’ refers to all wines made with fruit that is not grapes.  It can be made with tree fruits, berries, pomegranates and more—even, in Hawaii, naturally—pineapples.  Fruit wine has been around as long as classic grape wine, but hasn’t (yet) come on board as a full-fledged member of the mainstream North American wine industry.

“I missed the memo that says grapes are not longer a fruit,” says O’Brennan with a good-natured laugh.  There are no grapes in any of Coastal Black’s products, but there are plenty of blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, all grown on the 820-acre Coastal Black farm in Black Creek.

Their newest product is a sparkling blackberry wine.  It joins a blackberry table wine, raspberry table wine, and blueberry table wine, and a blackberry as well as a raspberry dessert wine.  As well, Coastal Black makes three types of mead (spiced, blueberry, and plain) from honey produced on the farm.

“Fruit wines don’t get enough respect here in North America,” he says.  “People think it’s something Grandpa makes in his basement.  They don’t know that these fruits make really excellent wines.  And there’s a misconception that it’s all really sweet, but in fact our blackberry table wine is fairly dry and pairs well with many foods.  It’s our flagship product and is hugely popular.

“If you look at other parts of the world like Finland or Australia, fruit wines are very well established.  In Asia, they love their fruit wines.  Here, it’s a market that is not being capitalized on.”

O’Brennan was interested in filling that market gap, and all the signs seemed to support him.  The farm was already moving into berry production for processing, so using some of the crop for wine made sense.

O’Brennan wanted to work with what grows well on his soil and in his climate.  Clearly, blackberries grow extremely well: currently, Coastal Black has the largest cultivated blackberry crop in Canada.

“The soil isn’t great for grapes here, and it’s hard to find a grape varietal that can be ripened to its full potential in this area,” he says.  Also, fruit wine appealed because it allowed O’Brennan to sidestep some of the solemn, occasionally pompous attitude that tends to prevail around wine.  “There’s such a mystery around wine.  People get all worried and ask what they are allowed to drink it with or what wine they should be buying.  I say, taste it, and if you like it, it’s good wine… no matter how many stars it’s rated.”

O’Brennan, dressed in worn jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap, perfectly fits the role of the unpretentious, down-to-earth farmer.  Standing somewhere above six-foot tall, with a good strong frame and capable looking hands, he looks like someone who can fix a tractor, frame a barn, or tell you all about the soil just by squeezing a handful.

He is also, clearly, a capable businessman.  A closer look at his baseball cap shows it sports the Coastal Black logo, a subtle reminder that this is no hobby winery but rather an ambitious commercial operation.  Since opening for business last August, Coastal Black has produced 80,000 litres (that’s 108,000 bottles) of wine and mead.  The winery boasts state-of-the-art equipment which, says O’Brennan, was only possible because of the relatively large scale of the whole operation.

“We definitely jumped into this business with both feet.  I remember when I was starting out, I was chatting with a wine-making veteran, and he said, ‘Y’know how to make money in the wine industry?  Start with a big one.’  We’ve definitely found that to be true.  We have a lot of investment.  Sure, it is a romantic and fun way to make a living, but the reality is that it is a capital heavy business.  We are working with a business plan that has to come to fruition on schedule,” he says, sounding serious, but not worried.

Coastal Black already has loyal customers—“People are buying the blackberry sparkling wine by the caseload,” says O’Brennan.  Their whole product line is available at close to 60 stores across the Island.

And, well before its first birthday, this fledgling winery has already brought in some prestigious awards.  This past April, Coastal Black entered four wines in the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition in Rochester, New York, and all of them won awards: the Blackberry Dessert Wine won gold, the Blackberry Table Wine and the Spiced Mead won Silver, and the Raspberry Dessert Wine won Bronze.

“It was a nice bit of validation.  There were 3,300 wines entered from 18 countries, and 64 wine experts were flown in from all over the world to judge.  Ours was one of only two BC wines to get a gold.  What a feather in our cap!” says O’Brennan.

Coastal Black wines recently won four awards in an international wine competition, including gold for their Blackberry Dessert Wine.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

It’s a pretty impressive start, and there’s more growth to come. The day after I interview him, O’Brennan is heading off to Italy for an educational tour with a company he’s buying a fancy bottling plant from.  “It’ll be the first of its kind on the Island,” he says, enthusiastically.  The winery is currently in the final stages of getting a patio licence, which will mean they can serve wine by the glass to visitors.  He has plenty of plans for the future—a traditional wood-fired oven by the patio, a venue that can be rented for events such as weddings, a new barrel cellar, and more.

Obviously, O’Brennan is as much businessman as farmer.  He is also very much a family man.  At 26 years old, he’s expecting his third child and is a very-involved member of the four-generation extended family that lives and works on the Coastal Black farm.

For O’Brennan, who was born and raised on Vancouver Island, the story began when he joined the Ludwig clan by marrying Amanda Ludwig six years ago.  With that ceremony, he stepped into a story that goes back to 1989, when Terry and Bonnie Ludwig bought a 250-acre homestead with a house and a lot of brushland in Black Creek.  They cleared the land to create pasture, built barns, and brought in a herd of dairy cows.  The farm thrived and at one point they were milking 260 cows a day.

Over the years the Ludwigs expanded, adding land till they had 820 acres.  They also had three kids, Amanda, Daniel and Phil.

In the early 2000s, after going full tilt for over a decade, the Ludwigs began to contemplate making a change.  Their kids were moving into adulthood, and the whole family, including its new member O’Brennan, had a series of conversations about what could happen.  No one wanted to take over dairy farming (O’Brennan is allergic to cows and breaks out in hives when he gets too near them), but there were other promising ideas for the using the land.

Daniel, the youngest son, was a beekeeper who wanted to move seriously into commercial honey production.  Phil, the oldest son, was ready to go forward with his dream of founding a specialty sawmill that would provide custom-cut lumber.  And the O’Brennans were interested in fruit farming and wine-making.

“It wasn’t an easy decision,” says O’Brennan.  “My in-laws had done very well with the dairy farm.  A lot of long conversations had to happen.”

The first fruit was planted six years ago, while the dairy farm was being phased out.

“The year I was 22 was a huge year for me.  Our first child was born, and that was the year we went big into fruit.  We brought a team of Mexican workers here as labor and I had to learn Spanish,” O’Brennan says.  He was also learning how to make wine, under the guidance of a consultant whose help, he says, was invaluable.

“It was a learning curve, I tell ya!” he says, laughing and shaking his head as thinks back on the intensity of that year.

The sawmill and beekeeping operation partner perfectly with the winery.  The bees pollinate the berries, the honey supplies the main ingredient for the mead, and the sawmill provided the lumber to transform the cow barns into the winery and tasting room.

The whole family lives on the property: the original dairy farmers Terry and Bonnie, Terry’s parents, their three grown-up kids, with spouses, and a couple of grandchildren (and more on the way). This set-up seems like an unusual throwback to an old-fashioned world of farming that, if we believe media reports on the dwindling of rural culture, is dying out.

Although statistics have been telling us that young people are leaving the farming life behind to move to cities, O’Brennan offers an alternate point of view.

“That trend is coming to a bit of an end,” he predicts.  “People are realizing the value of producing agricultural products that can be enjoyed.  There so much more awareness about where our food comes from and how it is processed.  If you look over at Europe all their chefs are rock stars and agricultural production is in a whole other league.  That’s the trend we’re starting to follow now.  There’s a new appreciation of farming and the rural life.”

O’Brennan loves his farming lifestyle.  “What could be more romantic than running a winery?  Sure, it can be really, really busy—for instance harvest is an eight-week marathon when we work 18-hour days to bring everything in—but on the other hand things slow down in the winter and we can take a nice family holiday.

“I work long hours lots of the time but I don’t see what I do as work.  Everything I do I’m doing because it’s meaningful to me.  When I bend over to pick up a stone, I’m improving the ground.  I love what I do.  It’s a kind of freedom,” he says.

He also appreciates the way the business allows him to manifest his values around community and environmental sustainability.

“We like to do things naturally here.  We can’t use anything that might be harmful to the bees.  We don’t spray our fruit from blossom to harvest.  We control aphids by releasing ladybugs; in fact, there’s a short video on the website about this, which is kind of fun,” he says.

Another big value for Coastal Black is relationship.  Hosting tours and tastings isn’t just good for sales, it’s a way of creating a sense of community with clients, educating them, and giving them a connection to the land and people that produce the wine they drink.

“These days, people really appreciate knowing the producers of what they consume,” he says.

Coastal Black runs a wine club that anyone can join.  Members get special opportunity to buy exclusive releases, enhanced flexibility in booking tours, and a 5% discount on all purchases.  As well, Coastal Black donates an additional 5% of all wine club member purchases to one of three charities (chosen by the member): the Canadian Cancer Society, the Vancouver Children’s Hospital and KIVA, a global organization that provides micro-loans in developing countries.

“We’re grateful to be able to support these charities,” says O’Brennan.  “Everyone knows someone who’s been affected by cancer.  And what is more important than the health of our kids?  The KIVA grants often go to support agriculture, which is very close to our hearts here.”

There’s no doubt that all aspects of O’Brennan’s work lie very close to his heart.  He’s doing something he loves, with people he loves, in a place he loves.  And at the end of a busy day, when he sits down finally to sip a glass of wine and look out at the incredible view of the mountains, he surely can feel he’s fulfilling his mission.

Coastal Black Estate Winery is located on Endall Road in Black Creek.

coastalblack.ca

“We are so pleased to be ambassadors for Vancouver Island in general, and for the Comox Valley in particular,” says Carolyn Touhey, with husband Steve at their Union Bay bed & breakfast.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

If her high school classmates could see her now, Carolyn West’s friends would not be surprised to learn that she has become an award-winning marketing expert and co-owner of an extremely successful bed and breakfast enterprise called Two Eagles Lodge. A gregarious and energetic high achiever from an early age, USA-born West went on to earn multiple awards including being named one of the Top 100 Women in the state of Maryland in 1996, and Maryland’s Women in Business Advocate of the Year in 2000 from the US Small Business Administration. She taught marketing at both Loyola College and John Hopkins University, in addition to hundreds of entrepreneurial workshops; and, at the age of 25, started her own marketing consulting company in 1990—which is still going strong today. And those are just a few of her remarkable achievements!

What her classmates and colleagues might be shocked to learn is that at the age of 35, just 12 years into her marriage to Jeff Price, Carolyn became a widow. The massive heart attack that took her 40-year-old husband’s life came without warning.

“I was happily married, enjoying my life and career and then, suddenly… a widow,” she recalls. “No-one I knew had lost a spouse so early in life.  To say it was life-changing would be an understatement, but that experience is part of what inspired me to follow my heart when I discovered Canada.”

People who knew Carolyn when she was growing up would also be shocked to learn that she is telling me this story from her new home in Union Bay, British Columbia, thousands of miles and another world away from her old Maryland stomping grounds.

Carolyn’s second husband, Steve Touhey, is a fun-living, down-to-earth kind of guy who is most comfortable working outside or kicking back to relax with friends and enjoy good music.  When they first met, he loved motorcycles, boating and target shooting, while Carolyn was an avid horsewoman and a scuba diver. Initially, they may have had different interests but they shared the same strong work ethic and innate desire to excel. While Carolyn is a ‘wizard of words’, Steve is a master craftsman of construction and a veritable ‘wizard of wood.’

How the couple came to be a married and move from the USA to Canada could form the basis for a romance novel. While I arrived at Two Eagles Lodge in Union Bay prepared to take notes for an InFocus Magazine profile of a successful business, I soon found myself listening to a love story—not just love between two people, but love for their new country and Island life as well.

Carolyn had known of Steve for many years—he was a college classmate’s brother.  Six months after Jeff’s passing, she needed an escort for a friend’s wedding.  She asked her friend, Laura Touhey, if her brother was still single and would he consider being her escort?

“The chance to go out with a pretty girl and have a meal and free beer!  I was up for it,” Steve declares, followed by a hearty laugh.

That first date blossomed into romance and, in 2001, Steve and Carolyn married.  Carolyn became instant stepmom to Steve’s then nine-year-old daughter, Mary, and they began their lives together. Carolyn continued to run her home-based Maryland company, Impact Marketing, and Steve managed his construction company, which he had started in 1990.

Knowing full well that life is precious—and sometimes all too short—the Touheys talked endlessly about their dreams for the future.  The most frequent conversations focused on moving somewhere where the pace of life was slower.

“I watched people all around me continue to brag about 80-hour work weeks,” explains Carolyn.  “And I had spent years listening to my father say, ‘When I retire I will…’ and I listened to my mother, who was a diabetic, say, ‘When I feel better I will…’  My mom died in 1997.  She and dad were never able to do the things they dreamed of together.  And then there were all the plans that Jeff and I had made that never had a chance to happen.”

Together, the Touheys decided they wanted to live near water and mountains and they were seriously considering relocating to Arkansas or Montana, based on research they did on the website www.FindYourSpot.com. But their focus unexpectedly turned to Canada when Carolyn was invited to speak at a June 2004 conference in Vancouver and someone suggested she and Steve visit the Island.

“Honestly, I had to ask, ‘What island?’” recalls Carolyn.  “We weren’t that familiar with what Canada had to offer but we took our friend’s advice and boarded the ferry to Nanaimo.  As the ferry docked in the harbor Steve and I looked at each other with wide grins on our faces.  Now this was paradise!  We travelled around Vancouver Island to Tofino, Gold River and all the towns along the way and we fell in love with what we saw.  As an added incentive, the dollar was strong and it was easy for Americans to buy land in Canada, so we embarked on a mission to move here.”

Feeling “called to the Island”, the Touheys returned to Vancouver Island for another visit just two months later. After that trip, they did a lot of research and returned for a third visit in October 2004, when they embarked on a whirlwind tour of properties.  They considered more than 70 real estate listings in the Comox Valley area.

After four days of searching, they decided on a 12-acre parcel of heavily treed land overlooking the ocean in Union Bay. To add another romantic twist to their love story, they signed the offer to purchase the property on their third wedding anniversary.

The Touhey’s returned to the US to work on the immigration process and create conceptual designs for their new home, leaving a contractor with instructions to clear the land for development. During her research on immigration, Carolyn discovered a provincial program that encouraged entrepreneurs and new business start-ups.  It required jumping through a few hoops so they came up with a plan to add an extra wing to the home they would build, and turn it into a bed and breakfast.

With all of the immigration paperwork in order and construction on the house already underway, in March 2006, the Touheys packed up their Maryland home, loaded their five horses into a trailer, and made the pilgrimage to Canada.  In the middle of all the packing and preparation, Carolyn’s 84-year-old father passed away, so they also had to pack up the family home she had grown up in and prepare both houses for sale.

Once they arrived in Union Bay, the Touheys lived in a motor home for the first few months.  Carolyn continued to work for her clients via the internet.  Steve oversaw the construction of their new 3,000-square foot home while he personally built the barn, run-in shelters for the horses, all of the outbuildings and fencing, as well as all of the landscaping.

The home designed by this dynamic duo boasts a massive stone-clad centre peak flanked by two dormer windows, a sharp contrast against a backdrop of towering cedar trees.  A wide expanse of glass across the front of the home invites visitors to enjoy the panoramic view of Baynes Sound, Denman Island and the coastal mountains.  Their horses, quietly grazing in an adjacent field, add even more charm to the home’s rural ambiance.

As an added touch of romance, the large storm-water collection pond located on the property is shaped like a heart. (A surprise design, courtesy of their excavation contractor.)  A lovely handcrafted cedar chair, made locally by Bloomfield Flats, sits adjacent to the pond, inviting visitors to wander over with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine to sit and enjoy the ocean view.

In July 2006, the Touheys were finally able to move from the RV into their new home.  Two months later, Steve broke ground, laid the foundation and began construction of an adjoining wing for the B&B accommodations.  “We settled on the name ‘Two Eagles Lodge’ for our B&B because eagles mate for life and build a sturdy nest,” explains Carolyn.  “We wanted to incorporate the strength and majesty of the bald eagle in our branding.”

The B&B wing Steve built features two large main floor rooms and a luxurious 950-square-foot suite on the second storey. All rooms feature private baths, separate entrances and ocean view.  The interior décor showcases the work of Island artisans and the songs of local musicians can be enjoyed in the private rooms or the common area.  Not surprisingly, art and sculptures featuring two eagles are a common theme.

“Every piece of trim, square foot of flooring and coat of paint was done by Steve, and he did it so beautifully, especially considering that we were under tremendous immigration deadlines to have our first guests within eight months of breaking ground!” says Carolyn.

After months of hard work, everything was completed and Two Eagles Lodge welcomed its first guests in May 2007. Since then, they have been a ‘home away from home’ for hundreds of visitors from around the world and they have earned a reputation as true ambassadors for the Valley.

Carolyn says most guests are “just friends we didn’t have a week earlier,” and they “come in with a handshake and leave with a hug.”  A stay at Two Eagles usually includes evening chats around the fire with roasted marshmallows, wine and chocolate.  They even cook crabs ‘Maryland style’ for guests—living up to their marketing that says they are not a typical B&B.

Although not part of the original plan, Two Eagles Lodge eventually started hosting community fundraisers and became a venue for various group meetings, workshops, and even holiday parties for businesses and local groups.  They are now annual sponsors of the Vancouver Island Music Business Conference.  Ever generous community supporters, the Touheys have also donated more than 100 gift certificates for one- or two-night stays and breakfasts to more than 50 organizations.

After only four years of operation, a quick peek at the guest page on their website or a review of TripAdvisor.com shows that the couple’s commitment to making people feel at home is much appreciated.  Their genuine desire to please and knack for hospitality has not gone unnoticed.  Last year, Two Eagles Lodge was presented with the Vancouver Island Better Business Bureau’s 2010 Torch Award for Hospitality (they are finalists for the 2011 award as well).  And, in January 2011, they were named the 2011 Tourism/Hospitality Business of the Year as recipients of a Vancouver Island Business Excellence Award.

“We are so honored to win these prestigious island-wide awards. To have them in a place of honor on our mantle leaves us a bit speechless when you think about how many tourism businesses are on the Island, including businesses much, much bigger than ours,” says Carolyn.  “We are so pleased to be ambassadors for Vancouver Island in general, and for the Comox Valley in particular.  We are happy that guests recognize our efforts and our sincere desire to turn their vacations into incredible memories, living true to our motto—where new friends and great memories are made in paradise.”

With the B&B in full operation and the confidence that their decision to immigrate to Canada had been a good one, in 2008, Carolyn transitioned ownership of her 18-year-old US marketing business to a former student of hers and launched SmartBiz Strategy in the Comox Valley.

In typical style, she hit the ground running.  She was acknowledged for her marketing savvy with another award. SmartBiz was named the Comox Valley Home-Based Business Association’s 2010 Business of the Year.  Most recently, in March 2011, Carolyn received Honorable Mention in the Enterprising Women Magazine’s “Women of the Year” awards—she was one of only a handful of women from around the world to be recognized.

While it may sound like life is all work and no play for the Touheys, that is not the case.  What once may have been separate interests are now shared passions.  The couple spends time with their horses and scuba dive together, they enjoy skiing at Mount Washington and they learned to kayak and enjoy the island’s great hiking. As they explore Vancouver Island together they make mental notes about great places for day trips and picnics, and they make a point of getting to know local shopkeepers and businesses so that they can provide guests with first-hand knowledge of things to see and do around the island.

This summer, the Touheys should be eligible to become Canadian citizens and they will attend the citizenship ceremonies with glowing hearts and wide grins.  We still love America,” Carolyn says, “but our home is here, and our heart is here.  Why wouldn’t we be citizens?”   Without a doubt, these ‘Two Eagles’ have built a sturdy nest and they are here to stay.