Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Dianne Hawkins shows off their Chamber of the Year award, achieved with the help of the Chamber board and community partners, from left: Kip Keylock, Shirley de Silva, Bill Anglin, Jeff Lucas, Greg Phelps, Bruce Brautigan and Paul Ives.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Over the course of more than 90 years, the Board of Trade—now known as the CVCC—has been required to adapt to changing times. It has supported economic development and community collaboration through the Great Depression, the market crashes of the 1980s and today’s global economic crisis.  Despite recent trade and industry challenges—or perhaps because of them—membership in the CVCC has increased dramatically in the past five years and is currently at a record high.  If there was ever a time to “rally the troops” this is it!

Alongside the long list of new CVCC members are many who have supported the Chamber for decades. CIBC, for example, joined the Courtenay Board of Trade in 1919; Central Builders lays claim to a 50-year membership, with the exception of a short lapse in membership during a change in ownership; and Mike Finneron Pontiac-Buick (Now Hyundi) has been a member for more than 25 years.

“It is not just the local Chamber that has grown, there are now 130 Chambers of Commerce in BC,” explains CVCC’s Executive Director, Dianne Hawkins. “This is the third largest Chamber on Vancouver Island and the 10th largest in the province. Despite the fact that we have had three name changes over 91 years, our mandate remains true to the vision of our founders—to be a voice in the local community and beyond, and to promote the commercial well being of the Comox Valley.”

The ways in which the CVCC promotes our region are both varied and impressive. Its main goal is to create and sustain programs designed to help member businesses build relationships and create strategic alliances that will promote economic growth.  That said, while promoting ‘business,’ Chamber members never forget the importance of ‘community.’ It champions grassroots programs such as environmental awareness initiatives and, along with various other community partners, was one of the sponsors of the recent 30-Day Local Food Challenge.

A great example of an environmental awareness initiative is the CVCC’s Bagless Comox Valley program, launched in 2009.  This was a major undertaking that was embraced by both businesses and individuals in the community. After lengthy discussions and collaboration with retailers, CVCC secured a bulk order for 85,000 reusable shopping bags that retailers could purchase and then sell or use as giveaways. The bags, which featured the Comox Glacier on both sides, came with the option of being printed with each individual retailer’s name and logo.

“The ability to include all businesses, large and small, was imperative to the success of this program,” says Hawkins.  “As a result, an estimated 85 per cent of all local retailers participated by ordering and distributing reusable shopping bags. The project was well promoted by the Comox Valley Regional District, who are now considering a full ban on the traditional plastic shopping bags.”

An initiative of Our Big Earth, the Second Annual 30-Day Local Food Challenge, for example, encouraged Valley residents to ‘Dig in and Eat Local!’ (www.eatlocalcomoxvalley.com).  The Food Challenge is a series of hands-on workshops, tours and fun community events celebrating the agricultural sector in the Comox Valley.  More than 30 vendors representing food producers and restaurants banded together to present this event and encourage people to taste, explore, connect and learn about farmers, food producers and the people who create our food.

“Look around and you’ll see that the agricultural sector is alive and thriving in the Valley.  You can see it—sometimes you can even smell it!” says Hawkins with smile. “I think that sometimes people lose sight of the fact that farmers have always been at the core of this community and the Chamber is committed to support this and other agriculture-based initiatives.”

The CVCC, which operates the Visitor Centre out of their building in Courtenay, also forges partnerships with various community stakeholders to promote tourism and commerce in the Valley. A recent project that gained considerable media attention was sponsoring the Ghana Ski Team’s 2010 Olympic training. Hawkins worked with Sarah Nicholson, manager of Tourism Mount Washington, to find 10 Chamber members to sponsors the ‘Snow Leopard.’ This backing included extensive media coverage, team accommodation, a team vehicle for transport, and even a Tourism Vancouver Island sponsored eco-tour in the Seymour Narrows with the team and the Australian television media.

“The team was well aware that without the vision and determination of Tourism Mount Washington and the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Ghana ski team would not have had a pre-game training facility in Canada,” says Richard Harpham, team manager.

Not only did the Snow Leopard program help the Ghana ski team, it helped bring some of the thrill of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics to the Comox Valley.  Kids lined up to get Snow Leopard autographs and waved with excitement when the gaily-decorated Snow Leopard van drove by.

The Chamber is also the voice of business in the Comox Valley and effectively advocates to all levels of government on issues relevant to the local business community.  In 2009, for example, CVCC made formal presentations to both the Town of Comox and the City of Courtenay, asking that a reduction in the property tax multiplier for business properties be considered.  They were successful in getting the multiplier reduced in Courtenay and were invited back to both councils for 2010, to ensure the issue is given due consideration for future budget discussions.

Another major initiative of the CVCC was providing input to the Regional Growth Strategy.  Working in partnership with the Cumberland Chamber of Commerce, The Comox Valley Regional District, Comox Valley Land Trust and local business leaders, CVCC drafted two working papers with specific recommendations; these are posted on their website.  The Regional Growth Strategy covers a wide range of issues, from population and demographics to affordable housing, farmland, food security, economic development, transportation, infrastructure and much more.

“The goal is to ensure that the Regional Growth Strategy takes into account a combination of our current environmental attributes and pairs it with good business practices to lead to a sustained positive business environment,” explains Hawkins.  “This is still a work in progress for the Regional District and we are very hopeful that many of our recommendations will be implemented.”

Another important aspect of the Chamber is creating an environment for members to encourage connections.  Efforts in this area are believed to be one of the major reasons for the Chamber’s growth in the last five years.  “Networking is a word that is overused—it is really about developing relationships and it is not easy to make business connections on your own,” says CVCC past president, Linda Oprica of Ascent Coaching.

“Various Chamber events provide opportunities where members actually get to speak with one another in person—it is not distant and impersonal like web-based communications.  Interacting one-on-one generates ideas for cross promotion, links people with like-minded values, and, in the end, true friendships often develop.”

The efforts of the CVCC have not gone unnoticed.  Impressed by the work the Chamber is undertaking in our community, Courtenay Mayor Greg Phelps submitted a nomination for it to be considered for the BC Chamber of the Year Award.  This nomination required the CVCC to submit extensive supporting documentation outlining some of the group’s key initiatives, as mentioned above.  In early 2010, they learned that they, along with the Greater Victoria and Langley Chambers, were finalists for this prestigious designation.  On May 29th, at a gala reception at the BC Chamber Annual General Meeting and Conference in Vancouver, the Comox Valley Chamber was presented with the award.

“While the Chamber of the Year award was given to the CVCC, it really could not have been achieved without the support of the Comox Valley as a whole,” says current CVCC president, Jeff Lucas, territory manager for Labatt Breweries on north Vancouver Island.  “Everything we do is an inclusive effort.  It was this collective support that allowed us to shine.”

The CVCC may soon have another opportunity to shine. Dianne Hawkins has been nominated for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Executive of the Year Award.  To the best of their knowledge, it is the first time anyone from Vancouver Island has been nominated for this honor.  The winner will be announced in September at a ceremony in Gatineau, Quebec.

Hawkins bubbles with enthusiasm when asked about Chamber activities, but appears humbled when one mentions the most recent nomination and her individual contribution to the recent achievements of the CVCC.

“I was born and raised in the Comox Valley and then spent 10 years working in Victoria,” Hawkins says. “When I moved back here with my family in 1989, I wanted to get involved with something that would help this community grow.  I spent the next 14 years working at Excel Career College and helped grow that small business.  In 2004, the opportunity to work at the Chamber presented itself.  I thought, ‘This is it!’  I work hard and I really love what I am doing.”

Don Sharpe, another CVCC past president and director of business operations at Mount Washington, explains that Hawkins was hired six years ago in an effort to create better credibility for the board.  “Dianne’s leadership and enthusiasm, under the direction of the Board of Directors, supported by a great staff and amazing volunteers, has resulted in the CVCC having a voice that is not only heard, but one that is listened to,” says Sharpe.

“The Chamber of Commerce makes a difference in the community. We are proud that this has been recognized on a provincial level and Dianne is well-deserving of the nomination as Executive of the Year.”

Oprica agrees.  “The BC Chamber of the Year award is justifiable recognition of the last six years of very dedicated and focused effort,” she says. “There has been a real shift in energy since Dianne was hired as the executive director.  It is important to have one key person to maintain the vision and carry it forward, but it is a cumulative effort.  We all rolled up our collective sleeves and got to work.  It was time for change and Dianne was the right person to lead the charge.” Sharpe adds that one of the key reasons for the success of the organization, especially in the past decade, is that considerable effort is now put into succession planning.  Key positions on the board change annually, which encourages new people to bring fresh ideas and energy to the various roles.  Substantial effort is also put into ensuring that each new board is diverse, representing a variety of industries and commerce. “It is important to have varied opinions and areas of expertise,” Sharpe says.

Hawkins says she likes this about the board, as it gives her a new “boss” every year. “When you work with good leaders you gain so much knowledge,” she says.  “They become mentors to me and the staff.”

For current President Jeff Lucas, the Chamber is well-situated as the voice of business in the Valley.  “I think that we are in a very fortunate position right now,” he says. “Our membership has never been stronger and there is open communication and strong dialogue between us and every governing body in the Comox Valley.

“Ten years ago we would not have been solicited for our opinion on matters such as regional planning, but we are now being consulted for our input and we are grateful for that.  Much of this is a result of our Advocacy Committee, which was formed almost three years ago.  The Chamber wanted a vehicle that could look at current events and move at a faster pace than we had historically done. With board meetings only being held once a month it was hard to react quickly when required.  With this new committee, we are not only advocating but we are effectively advocating.”

Still humble, Hawkins explains that she lives her life and does her job at the Chamber guided, in part, by the wise words of one of North America’s most highly quoted individuals, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Emerson said: ‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us’,” explains Hawkins. “To me, this means while we must honor the achievements of the past, we must also respect the views of those working with us in the present… and look forward to the future with eyes wide open and full of optimism. Who knows what the future will hold?”

The Chamber office is located at 2040 Cliffe Avenue, Courtenay.

For more information about the Comox Valley Chamber, upcoming events, benefits of membership or to become a member phone 250-334-3234 or visit their webste at www.comoxvalleychamber.com.

According to Palardy, your tour might start with a stroll through a bustling farmer’s market, then visit a world-renowned cheese factory. Maybe you will roll up your sleeves to create traditional artisan pasta.

You might wander over to an oyster or scallop farm, head down to the docks to meet the fishermen coming in with the day’s catch or have a gourmet picnic. Later, you might choose to meander through an organic berry or vegetable patch.  One thing’s for sure, you will experience the taste of Vancouver Island.

“This project is combining my experience in food and tourism and education.  It is kind of a mix of all my previous experience and my love for discovering things, including discovering back roads,” says Palardy, noting that the roots of her interest in food began at home.

“I have always been interested in food,” she says.  “Going back to my earliest memories, I remember watching my mother cook, bake, preserve and entertain.  These experiences, along with helping my family grow and harvest our own food, inspired me.”

“This project is combining my experience in food and tourism and education,” says Gaetane Palardy, leading her group for a tour of Beaufort Vineyard and Estate Winery. “I have always been interested in food.”

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Her formal entry into the food world began with her professional cooking certificate from Institut de Tourisme et d’Hôtellerie du Québec (Quebec Tourism and Hotel Institute), one of Canada’s leading chef training facilities.  Her resume includes work in the kitchens of many fine hotels, including the ultra-luxurious Mandarin Hotel in Vancouver.

Palardy moved to Vancouver to work as part of the team being assembled for the Hotel Vancouver’s Roof Restaurant during Expo ‘86.  This contract, which she expected to last six months and help her to improve her English, turned out to be a permanent move to British Columbia and a pivotal point that would later lead her to the Comox Valley.

At the Roof Restaurant Palardy worked with chef Ronald St. Pierre and became friends with him and his then new girlfriend, Tricia.   Once Tricia and Ronald settled in the Comox Valley, Palardy visited often, sowing the seeds for her eventual decision to move here.   The three long-time friends have worked together to develop the business idea of a Comox Valley culinary tour operation.  The St. Pierres’ restaurant, Locals, is a certified BC Culinary Tourism Association destination.  The Courtenay restaurant opened in 2008 and specializes in providing a unique dining experience utilizing “Food from the Heart of the Valley”.

In addition to the restaurant industry, Palardy has also spent a number of years working in education.  She had returned to work at the Hotel Vancouver in 1989 but, as she explains, over the next 10 years she found her focus was shifting.  “I wanted to go into teaching because in my job as a sous chef at the hotel I was doing a lot of work with the apprentices and training.  So I took some education courses and got my provincial adult education instructor diploma.”  That diploma led her to move to Prince George, where she taught culinary arts at the College of New Caledonia for eight years.

Combined with her work skills Palardy adds her own experience as a traveller to her creation of a tourism product on Vancouver Island.  “When I travel, I enjoy visiting local food markets, from going to the fish auction in Sydney, Australia, visiting the spice souk of Dubai, the date market in Abu Dhabi or taking a Cajun cooking class in New Orleans. Food always gives the tone to my trips.”

Palardy elaborates on one particular experience that made her think about providing a similar tour back home:  “When I went to Australia, there is the Victoria Market in Melbourne and there was a guided tour of the market.  And I thought ‘Gee, that’s a neat idea.  We should have that in BC.’  I lived in Vancouver at the time and I was thinking of Granville Island and thinking maybe one day I’ll do that.”

Thus it is no surprise that the Comox Valley Farmers’ Market is featured in Island Gourmet Trails’ tours.  The Saturday morning market is the launching point for the half day Taste of the Comox Valley tour.  After breakfast, coffee and a guided tour of the market, where you’ll meet the vendors, the tour takes you to the Beaufort Vineyard and Estate Winery and the Blue Moon Estate Winery to meet the owners and sample their products.

Custom-made tours running on Wednesday are very likely to stop at the afternoon Farmers’ Market.  The range of options for the custom tours is extensive as the Valley has hundreds of farms and a growing list of interesting food and beverage producers.  In addition to land-based farms, tours can include oyster and scallop producers, bakeries, cheese and chocolate makers, coffee roasters, cafes and restaurants.

Culinary tourism is a new but growing concept and thus, in mid-July, Island Gourmet Trails, in collaboration with Locals Restaurant, provided an opportunity for local media and tourism operators to experience a day-long culinary tour.  From the moment I read the itinerary my curiosity and taste buds were stimulated.

Our day began at Rhodos Coffee Roasting Company in Courtenay; we then boarded a van to visit Surgenor Brewing and Aquatec Seafood in Comox, then were on to Nature’s Way Farm north of Courtenay, which also encompasses Blue Moon Estate Fruit Winery and Tria Culinary Studio.  After a lovely picnic lunch of local foods we travelled south to Island View Lavender in Union Bay and Royston’s Innisfree Farm and Royston Roasting Company.  We concluded our excursion with an exquisite dinner at Locals Restaurant in Courtenay.

It was a superb introduction to culinary touring that included interesting conversations with the various company’s owners and staff and generous samplings of their products.  Palardy was a knowledgeable and entertaining guide who thoughtfully provided us with everything we needed—from background information, to water, sun screen and an umbrella for shade.  Tricia St. Pierre took care of the driving so Palardy could concentrate on providing commentary.

We learned a tremendous amount about each place; the following are simply some of my highlights: Discovering that Rhodos Coffee Roasting Company not only serves great organic Fair Trade coffee but also makes their own gelato.  One popular flavor is created using Island View Lavender.  Bob Surgenor’s sense of humor made for a wonderful visit filled with laughter.  Surgenor Brewery makes great beer and their newest, In Seine Pale Ale, is delicious.  Aquatec Seafood is a 35-year old family-run business that provides visitors and locals with a custom fish processing and shipping service.  We happily sampled their various award-winning smoked salmon products at the Hooked on Seafood retail store.

Marla Limousin describes their combined operations as “food, farm and wine under one roof.”  Limousin runs Natures’ Way Farm, her husband George Ehrler takes care of operations at the Blue Moon Estate Winery, and chef Kathy Jerritt offers cooking classes, catering and private dinners in the Tria Culinary Studio.  The studio is a very inviting kitchen and dining area adjacent to the wine shop/farm gate store.  It was with great sadness that we learned that the monthly Full Moon Feasts are already sold out for 2010.  Our sadness was soon turned to joy as we toured the fields and Marla invited us to eat as many tay berries—a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry—as we liked.

I think it is safe to say that Innisfree Farm dispelled any stereotypes that we may have had about farms.  Thierry Vrain and his partner Chanchal Cabrera bought the property about five years ago and they are well on the way to transforming it into a must see culinary/agri-tourism destination.  They are combining vegetable, fruit, nut and Christmas tree cultivation with horticultural therapy, medicinal herb production, apprenticeship and seed saver programs, and one of BC’s largest labyrinths planted in Blue Fescue grasses.

The afternoon got even more relaxing when we stopped at Island View Lavender in Union Bay.  Owner Kathleen Kinasewich began by telling us about her house, the oldest home in Union Bay.  She then walked us through the A to Z of lavender species, 22 of which she grows.  Kathleen also offers a unique living mandala workshop, where participants create succulent wreaths.  We all left happy with a lovely bouquet of fresh picked lavender.

Gary and Dyan Spink were wrapping up a very busy day greeting people partaking in the 30 Day Food Challenge, but they happily put on a new pot of coffee and gave us a tour of their facilities.  The Royston Roasting Company makes four types of coffee and specializes in custom labeling orders for businesses or personal gift giving.  Their elegant Ozturk roaster imported from Turkey gives the small facility an aura of serious coffee buzz.

Chef Ronald St. Pierre has been working in the Comox Valley for 20 years but Locals Restaurant is his first solo venture.   In two short years it has gained a reputation for excellence that is now being discovered across the country—they were recently featured in Where to Eat in Canada.  This notoriety comes as no surprise to our group, who was treated to a fantastic three course meal featuring local fish, produce, pasta and fruit.

Palardy explains why Locals is a natural fit with her tours:  “I like to take my visitors to their restaurant because they commit themselves to showcase local producers, the same ones where I take my visitors,” she says.  “There’s nothing better than trying a scallop dish when we visited the Island Scallops in the afternoon, or finishing the meal with a lavender gelato using the lavender of Island View Lavender Farm.”

One thing stood out for all of us—the Island Gourmet Trails culinary tours would suit both visitors and locals wishing to be tourists in their own region.

“It’s opened my eyes,” says Sarah Nicholson from Tourism Mount Washington.  “I think we are all very blasé at times and living in an area and not experiencing it, but we have some incredible hidden gems in the Valley.  I would strongly recommend anybody doing this tour.  It’s ideal for all ages, there is something for everybody, and the really great aspect is they can be custom designed.”

Al Morton, a volunteer with the Comox Valley Visitor Centre, particularly enjoyed hearing people’s stories.  “I guess the biggest thing is the interesting people that I met.  I mean we’ve really run into a lot of very interesting people, in many cases it seems to be a secondary career or third thing they’ve done.  They all have these interesting backgrounds.”

Linda Oprica, a business and executive coach, was on the tour representing the Comox Valley Airport Commission.  She was enthusiastic about the contribution Island Gourmet Trails could make to the Comox Valley:  “The concept that she has put together is really phenomenal,” she says.  “It is a wonderful event for two people to a bus full of people; it’s great for locals.  I think it will actually revitalize tourism in the Valley because it really is all about tourism in the Valley—agriculture and culture and different communities in the Valley, so I think it will revitalize it.  I think it is outstanding.”

Palardy is constantly enlarging her network of destinations.  She has also partnered with three other companies to offer a package that includes a vacation rental on Comox Bay, sailing trips and training, a guided nature walk and a culinary tour.  This package, as with all her tours, is provided in either English or French.

For more information visit: www.islandgourmettrails.ca

Karen Fouracre, along with her partner Jaki Ayton, runs Snap Dragon Goat Dairy in Fanny Bay.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Karen Fouracre and Jaki Ayton have been developing their compact 1.6 acre farm for the last 14 years.  A mixed farming operation, they raise hogs for meat, goats for milk, and chickens for eggs.  There are gardens and a 40-foot greenhouse in the front yard.  Peach, pear, cherry, apple and plum trees are sprinkled around the property.  Behind the house you’ll find various small buildings, the new milking parlor, several paddocks and pastures.

Over the years they have tried raising ducks, turkeys, sheep, rabbits, peacocks and cows to see what works best for them and their property.  Goats have been part of the herd from the start.  In addition to providing milk, the goats have contributed to Ayton and Fouracre’s recreation opportunities and extended their network of friends.

Ayton shows some of the purebred Toggenberg goats at the summer fairs.  One of them, La Mountain Dutchess, is very close to achieving permanent grand champion status.  Both women are active in local 4-H Club activities giving goat care workshops and assisting as judges.  “They can’t have the parents sitting in on their kid’s presentation; they need spare adults to come,” says Fouracre.  “They do some amazing presentations, it is the most fun, and it is really entertaining.  They put a lot of work into it.  So it has really enriched our lives.”

The idea to establish a micro dairy came when David Wood, the owner of the Salt Spring Island Cheese Company, approached the Vancouver Island Goat Association (VIGA) last fall looking for milk from Island producers.  He was buying milk in the Fraser Valley and wanted to find sources closer to home.  As members of the VIGA, Fouracre and Ayton heard of the enquiry and they immediately began to investigate whether or not they could start a dairy.  Selling their milk to the cheese company would provide them with a way to offset the costs of keeping their ever-growing goat herd.

“I have quite a few goats now and quite a few purebreds and they’re not cheap,” says Ayton.  “We did some stats for the Vancouver Island Goat Association a couple of years ago and it is about $750 per year to keep an adult female goat.”

Logistically it worked because Salt Spring Island Cheese was already purchasing sheep’s milk from a farm in Black Creek, thus making a Fanny Bay stop convenient.  High start up costs had always been a stumbling block to the idea of setting up a dairy.  Cow dairies have setup costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Also, the milk marketing board establishes quotas that can be both difficult and expensive to purchase.  They discovered that the small number of goat dairies in BC makes quotas unnecessary thus leaving the question of the start up costs.  “We got a tour of the sheep dairy,” says Fouracre.  “The fellow was very nice and let us come and take a look.  He has a very simple operation and we went and looked at it and said we can do this.”

They have decided to milk 14 of their 33 goat herd.  Most of the commercial goat dairies in BC have herds of 200-500 animals.  The approximately 300 litres of milk per week that Snap Dragon will produce would be the equivalent of a large dairy’s single day output.  However, that amount of output spread over the eight months of the year that they will sell to Salt Spring Island Cheese should achieve the objective of “getting the girls to pay for themselves.”

In order to get licensed as a Grade A dairy, Fouracre and Ayton had to absorb the very detailed regulations of the BC Dairy code and build to its strict specifications.   “It was a matter of finding people who could help us out,” explains Ayton of how they approached the task.  “Island Dairy Products is the guy who services all the big dairies.  So we phoned Lawrence, we talked to him.  He’s been a really good resource.  We talked to Gerald Smith who has a sheep dairy and asked him tons of questions.  I talked to some of the big goat dairy people on the mainland, and just asking questions, reading it, checking, emailing the BC licensing place back and forth, etc.”  In the Fanny Bay community they found many people to help them, including retired dairyman and neighbor Glenn Plewis, who assisted with contacts to source the various components needed.

“One of the hardest things is to do was find a dairy tank that was small enough,” says Fouracre.  Adds Ayton: “Getting the equipment small enough has been expensive.  Everything is very big.  There is commercial stuff that is big or there is specialty stuff that is completely out of line expensive.”

It took three months to find a dairy tank that would work.  They finally found one in the Fraser Valley—at 1,000 litres it is bigger than they need but the smallest they could find.  Karen had to significantly modify the plans for the milking parlor/processing building in order to make it fit.  In order to meet the goal of shipping milk in May, many of their friends and Holiday Road neighbors have been called upon to assist with their expertise and a helping hand.  They are most appreciative of all the assistance they have received and they look forward to paying it back with their own labor.  “We’ve had friends, three or four times now, we’ve had anywhere from two to seven of them show up for a day and help us build,” says Fouracre.

A goat.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

On May 10 their dairy dream became a reality when Salt Spring Island Cheese owner David Wood came to help pick up the first shipment of milk.  Wood, originally from Scotland, moved to Toronto in 1973 to work as executive director of Pollution Probe.  His entrepreneurial endeavors prior to establishing Salt Spring Island Cheese in 1994 included Solartech, a renewable energy company, and, the David Wood Food Shop, which by 1989 included three Toronto stores and a catering division.  Salt Spring Island Cheese specializes in handmade goat and sheep cheeses.

Fouracre and Ayton are pleased to share their knowledge of raising goats and how to approach setting up a micro dairy.  “If you are going to start with animals, join all the animal clubs first,” says Fouracre.  “Then get your animals.”

Ayton agrees.  “It’s like getting a dog.  You want to know the community, know the breeders, get the history and background and then start spending large quantities of money.”

Mastering the art of animal husbandry is their number one recommendation for anyone thinking of setting up a dairy.  Get to know your animals and how to care for them.  This will keep them healthy, which will ensure a good product and will keep the vet bills down. They are very proud of the fact that their goats have nice personalities and, on average, they live to be about 24 years of age.  The average life span for a goat is about 15 years.

Another tip from Fouracre:  “Keep the farm clean and tidy because if you don’t, you’ll have a vet bill.  If there is something lying around that shouldn’t be there, you should move it.  Either that or it is going to be tripped over, stepped on or swallowed.

“One thing we learned early is there is no such thing as tomorrow,” she adds.  “There’s no such thing as later either—we’ll do it later.  It’s like, okay, that fence is looking wobbly.  No, you fix it now!  Whatever you were doing you fix the fence now.  Or you’re searching for the goats later, or you’re getting up because they’re in the garage and they’re in the feed.  Or, the buck is breeding the does you didn’t want bred, you know!  When all you had to do was stop for 20 minutes, get the nails and the hammer and fix the fence.  But you didn’t do that so now you’ve got this!”

Ayton outlines some of the essential elements for setting up a dairy:  “Estimate high on all your expenses—we had a business plan and a business plan budget.  There are a couple of really good ones online and we went through and figured it out,” she says.  “I know our price point of how much each goat has to produce per day.  Each one has to produce a good amount of milk, we can’t have loafers.  And you have to be willing to be a farmer, which means cull.  And cull to us means kill.  It means different things to different people.  You have to be willing to look at your herd and say. ‘Okay that one’s no good; they have to go to the butcher.’  I mean you love them to death, like the babies, you get lots of babies every year, you can’t keep them all.  And that’s just part of the animal part of it.  Seeing these are the good ones, these aren’t good ones.  Taking the time to figure it out and then getting rid of the ones that aren’t productive.”

Fouracre agrees, adding, “That took a long time to learn.  That is a whole mind set that took two or three or four years to start thinking that way; to actually be able to do it.”

Adds Ayton:  “Most people only have goats for four years, because they’re not farmers and they don’t get rid of them.  If you start with two goats you can have 15 in four years if you don’t get rid of them.”

The women have obviously worked hard to learn all the necessary parts of farming.  Listening to them describe their dairy and how they take care of their animals it is easy to assume that farming is in their background.  In fact, says Ayton, it took some years to learn how to view their goats like farmers.  “I wasn’t raised on a farm; I grew up in a townhouse.  We’re not farmers by birth.”

But they are now dedicated farmers by choice.  Ayton still works off the farm in public health but with the launch of the dairy, Fouracre is now working at home full time.  In addition to her dairy chores, she will also be selling produce, flowers, eggs, fruit and hand-drawn art cards from a farm stall.   They love what they do and where they live.  They also love sharing the experience with others.  This past April they held their second “Open Farm Day” where anyone interested was invited to visit the farm and see the animals up close.  Donations are collected to go to YANA and it also serves as a form of self-preservation.

“It’s just for fun,” says Ayton.  “Everyone wants to come and see the babies.  They want to see the farm and see the goats, so we open the farm.  We have so many people who want to come and see the babies we figured we better designate a day, otherwise you don’t get anything done.”

Watch for their ads next year so you don’t miss the chance to visit these two interesting women and see this most unique micro dairy operation.

“I delivered 20,000 litres last year,” says Martin McNabb of his GreenRelease product, a vegetable oil substitute for diesel oil used in concrete building forms. “That’s 20,000 litres less of toxic oil being trucked hundreds of miles to end up in our watershed. That gives me a lot of hope.”

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Martin McNabb believes education is a catalyst for change.  It’s the main reason he became a teacher, however his ‘education’ encompasses a wider world than the official world of formal schooling.

“A friend of mine was complaining to me that his wife was refusing to wash his work clothes. ‘She says I should throw them out, they stink so much, but I can’t put on a new set of work clothes every day,’ he was saying to me,” says McNabb.

That friend works in the construction industry and is required to work with wooden forms for concrete to be poured into.  The traditional method of preparing the forms involved spraying the wooden forms with diesel oil.  This allows the forms to be pulled off the hardened concrete.  “That diesel oil—it stinks!” McNabb says.   “It’s also toxic.  If you’re working in summer heat, it makes you feel all woozy.   If you’re working in an enclosed space, you have to wear a mask.”

McNabb pondered the dilemma his friend—and many other construction workers—was in.  “As a person who knows a little about science, I thought there has to be a better way… and that was the beginning.  I experimented with various substances and came up with a mixture of vegetable oils and some secret ingredients.  After a good bit of trial and error, I eventually came up with a formula—and voila—it worked!”   Thus was born GreenRelease, McNabb’s company.

Six years have passed since that experiment and quietly and single-handedly McNabb has been going to professionals in the construction industry and telling them about his invention.

“It’s a win-win situation,” McNabb says. “Not only is the oil available locally, it’s non-toxic.  When the concrete made in diesel-sprayed forms is finished, the rain eventually washes the diesel off—into our groundwater, into our drains, poisoning everything it touches.  Trucks were bringing the diesel up from Texas and Ohio—more poisoning of our air.  Almost the whole of Vancouver Island has converted to vegetable oil for their concrete forms.  It’s fantastic.”

Surprisingly, in the age of internet and hard-sell, most of McNabb’s customers have been swayed by word of mouth.  “No one liked using the diesel oil,” he says frankly, “but at the time, there were no alternatives.  Prolonged use of diesel makes the skin on your hands crack, and the strong smell permeates your body—not to mention your clothes.

“When I began my rounds of concrete companies and construction sites, the first question was invariably, ‘Is it more expensive?’  You see, even although people know what they’re doing is harmful, we’re all conditioned to putting money first.  Fortunately, my product isn’t more expensive, and once people heard it was vegetable oil, they were keen to give it a try.  One man told me recently that when he went to pull the forms off the concrete, he pried off the first board and the rest just fell off!  ‘I’m sold,’ he told me.”

Born in Toronto 52 years ago, McNabb is the child of immigrants from Northern Ireland.  “It was easier to get into a commonwealth country back then,” he explains, “but my parents held the United States as the ideal place to live, so when I was two years old, we moved to Los Angeles.  After 13 years there, McNabb moved to Oregon where he stayed for the next 27 years, completing a Bachelor of Arts degree.  He had a four year stint in Germany and a year in South America before coming to Vancouver and earning his teaching degree at UBC.

“I initially went into teaching because I had a desire for a world run on better principles, but found the reality extremely frustrating,” he says.  “The education system is a world unto itself and many teachers and administrators are not in the slightest interested in shaking the status quo.  I wasn’t too popular with quite a few head teachers!”  He laughs.  “I was too much of a free-thinker, didn’t wear a suit and tie, and had a non-authoritarian rapport with the kids.”

But, he adds, “I always got on really well with the kids and still do.  I work as a teacher-on-call and when I go to a class I regularly sub for in Port Alberni, the kids have a big smile and say, ‘Hooray, we got the McNabb again.’”

Finding his chosen profession to be rather hit-and-miss, McNabb had been dabbling in various other business ideas.  “You know, it’s a bit frustrating in Canada as a small business person,” he says.   “Having grown up in the States, I saw that small businesses were encouraged and seen as a positive force in a local economy.  The Canadian government seems to have no interest in supporting small business; they’re more concerned with protecting their benefactors.  I found Canadians to reflect that attitude, and be rather suspicious of small businesses.  They seemed to be under the impression that large corporations would be more reliable, and they felt somehow safer dealing with them—not that there’s any real evidence of the truth of that belief.  The reverse, I would say.”

McNabb shrugs his shoulders and looks thoughtful before continuing.  “I think that attitude is changing though, and it’s part of the slow ‘greening’ of our ideas.  Certainly in the Comox Valley there is growing support for small businesses like mine.  Also, I think the slump in the construction industry last summer gave everybody involved in it a bit of time to reflect.  They were all so frantically busy in that building boom that swept through here, no one had time to consider new ways of doing anything.  ‘If it’s working, let it be’ seemed to be the philosophy.  People are more open to listening to what I have to say about not using diesel oil, and really, we all know the writing is on the wall as far as the oil industry is concerned.”

Over the past two years, McNabb has seen a big shift in attitudes.  “Lots of the guys I talk to in the construction industry love to fish, and I say, ‘Why would you want to pollute the oceans and poison the fish when there’s an alternative?’  They can’t disagree, and ultimately, most people want to do the right thing, so if it’s made affordable, they jump right on board.”

One of the delights in operating GreenRelease for McNabb is that all his oil comes from restaurants that would dispose of their frying oil anyway.  Oil can only be used for a limited time for frying before becoming a health hazard and has to be thrown out.  Most of it used to go into pet food, but now there are quite a few businesses that are more than happy to take used oil.  As more cars convert to bio-fuel, there is more demand for used oil.

McNabb’s attention to his own ‘carbon footprint’ is obvious in his enthusiasm for GreenRelease’s growing number of clients.  He also runs his own car on used vegetable oil, and sees that although bio-degradable oil isn’t a total solution, it’s part of the puzzle of finding better ways of doing things.

At the moment, McNabb is still doing most of the collection and delivery of oil himself.  “I collect all the used oil myself in containers in the back of my truck, and take it to a little plant I have and mix it into GreenRelease and then I deliver it from Campbell River down to Victoria.  I’m not really a salesman, though, and just recently I’ve been able to hire another man to work with me, and he drums up more customers.  Up till then, though, I’ve had to do everything myself—advertising, delivering.  It’s been a lot of work over the past six years, but it’s beginning to pay off, finally.”

One of the first commercial outlets to use GreenRelease was Island Forms in the Comox Valley.  “I talked to the owner and asked what he was using, and it was diesel oil, or engine oil, of course.  Everyone used that because it’s cheaper than regular oil, as it’s used off-road and isn’t taxed.  He was using 3,800 litres a year—all of which was going into the environment afterward.  One of the other beauties about GreenRelease is that it’s totally bio-degradable—it turns into mold within a month,” McNabb says.

“Island Forms tried it and really liked it, and it’s a small community where the concrete delivery people talk to their customers, and word spread.  Another big outfit is Highland Concrete and they’re now using GreenRelease—it’s exciting.

“Concrete is in everything,” McNabb says.  “It’s ubiquitous—in our roads, our homes, all the pipes that carry waste, as well as clean water—and for centuries we’ve been using products that are harmful to the environment, as well as ourselves.  But slowly and surely, things are coming around.  I knew from my own experience how toxic diesel oil was—I’ve done my share of spraying it on forms—so I’m delighted that there’s something better for us all.

“Of course, there are still some people who are stuck in their old attitudes, even though they know it’s bad for them.  Some people don’t like to change,” McNabb says.  “But I look on the fact that I delivered 20,000 litres last year—that’s 20,000 litres less of toxic oil being trucked hundreds of miles to end up in our watershed.  That gives me a lot of hope.”

For more information visit www.greenrelease.ca.

“We think home delivery is a really nice service to offer and our customers appreciate freshly baked food,” says Bev O’Hara, mixing up some home-baked treats in her Union Bay bakery, Just Like Mom’s.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Who could ask for anything more?  I get to do what I love, and have a great view at the same time!”  This from Bev O’Hara, a woman who took a leap of faith in November of 2009 when she transformed a small room in her Union Bay home—overlooking picturesque Baynes Sound—into Just Like Mom’s Bakery.

“I’ve always baked,” says O’Hara with a laugh.  She holds her arm out to waist height from her short frame:  “Since I was this high!  I baked with my mom, so it’s something that’s been a constant in my life, but it’s only recently that I ‘came out’ as a baker, so to speak.”

Now 56, O’Hara grew up in Kyle, Saskatchewan.  Her first trade also had her working magic with her hands—as a florist.  While in her early 20s she started a small greenhouse and sold the plants she’d grown, plus ran a flower shop.  Under her green hands that small shop bloomed into a large commercial business in the 20 years she ran it.  When she decided to sell the business, O’Hara hired on as the production manager of a similar operation in Saskatoon.  She worked there annually from January to July, overseeing the growing of their plants, and although she enjoyed the work, missed her own home in Kyle.

When she heard of a dude ranch close to Kyle that was looking for a cook for their summer season, O’Hara took on the task.  “It was an easy job for me,” she says.  “I had to provide three meals a day of good farmhouse cooking, and the guests ate what was offered—there wasn’t a menu. It suited me well, and of course, baking was an intrinsic part of the daily fare.  I did that for five years, but it was the winters I grew tired of.  I began to look online for work in BC, on the coast and lo and behold, there was a job for the curling club in Campbell River.  I was the concession manager and catered to banquets and parties and anniversaries, that sort of thing. That was a winter job, of course, but after one winter on the coast, I decided I wasn’t going back to freezing cold Saskatchewan winters.  I worked summers in a fishing lodge for a while, then the Campbell River Golf Club.”

After four years in Campbell River O’Hara met her partner, Franc Charpentier, another small business entrepreneur who runs a cash register company.  O’Hara moved to Union Bay and she and Charpentier decided to buy a mobile coffee van.  Home-made goodies were a natural addition to complement their drinks. As the coffee business was usually for special events and festivals, which tended to fall on weekends, O’Hara was also cooking for The Pier Pub in Comox.

Laughing, O’Hara says it was an accident that led to her launching Just Like Mom’s into a business on her own as a baker.  A colleague she met and worked with at The Pier, Kevin Munroe, decided to open his own bistro-style restaurant, The Mad Chef.   O’Hara was going to be his partner in providing baked goods, breads, buns, ciabattas (a special pizza-style dough that’s crispy on the outside and bubbly and soft on the inside) and so on.

“When I went into the new building with Kevin, we took one look at each other and said, ‘This isn’t going to work.’  The kitchen is far too small for a baker and a chef.  I looked into the possibility of baking somewhere else and supplying Kevin that way.”

After checking out available rental space and weighing the costs of converting a space into a bakery, which seemed too expensive, “Kevin had the brainwave that I should cook from home,” says O’Hara.  “I thought about it for a while, talked in over with Franc, and found out what the health requirements would be, and decided I would give it a go.  We converted a room in our home that had been full of junk into this bakery.”

Since that decision, O’Hara’s compact bakery has been providing an ever increasing number of local businesses with buns, breads, scones, cookies and brownies.  Showing canny business acumen, O’Hara also began to offer home deliveries.

Her face lights up as she describes a part of her business that is obviously close to her heart.  “There are lots of older people who don’t want to be baking for themselves, yet they’re used to home baked food.  We now have a number of seniors who order from us.”

She smiles as she explains more about this unique part of her business.  “Quite a few of our customers don’t get out a lot, so when we arrive with their order, we’re perhaps the only people they’ve talked to that day.  We’re more than happy to chat with them for half an hour or so.  A woman who now lives in California came up for the Olympics, and came over to visit her mother in Union Bay.  She saw one of our fliers and asked us to start making deliveries to her mom, who was thrilled!  We think our home deliveries are really important.

“We take half a dozen buns or cookies to lots of people,” says O’Hara.  “We ask the order be at least $25, but that’s easy to get to, and people put some products in their freezers.  We think it’s a really nice service to offer and our customers appreciate freshly baked food.  We take orders into Courtenay every morning to The Mad Chef, The Coffee Love Bug, Brambles Market and The Pier Pub, so we add the home deliveries in. We’ve recently started supplying The Royston Shell and the Union Bay Market with scones and cookies too.”

O’Hara’s baking sounds extremely creative.  “I make scones for The Coffee Love Bug and began to try out different ingredients.  I make a Greek Goddess scone with lots of feta cheese, avocado and basil pesto, a Mediterranean Goddess with feta cheese again, spinach, and olives and a Southwestern with peppers and havarti cheese.  It’s great fun—I think of a cool name and mix tasty ingredients together.  I make berry scones too, of course, cranberries, apricot and oranges, blueberry and lemon, and cinnamon and raisin scones.  I have a basic buttermilk recipe that I adapt to whatever I think will be tasty.  I use yogurt in my sweet dessert scones, too.

“I get lots of good ideas from Kevin,” O’Hara adds.  “I’m going to try a smoked buffalo scone and my husband came up with a good idea—The Couch Potato.  It’s going to have beer, cheese and potato chips.

As O’Hara’s grandson is diabetic, she’s been experimenting with baked goods that are suitable for people on restricted diets, although she doesn’t plan to make gluten-free doughs.  “That requires more space,” she explains, “as there has to be a special place only for gluten-free flours to be used.  The flour can’t be contaminated with anything else, and other people provide that service.”

Although scones and cookies are the most popular items O’Hara bakes, she’s pulling out a tray of plump bread buns from the oven as she speaks. “I make breads and loaf muffins too,” she says.

“This business suits me down to the ground” she adds.  “I’m not an early-riser baker.  I don’t like getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning and this way I can choose my own hours.  If I want to start a batch of bread at 9 o’clock at night, I can do that.  While things are cooking I can putter about my own house or do something on the computer.”

O’Hara point to a gleaming stainless steel bowl and mixing arm. “I just recently invested in a small commercial dough-mixer,” she says.  “My other ones were smaller and, besides, they’ve done me great service for 25 years—I didn’t want to over-tax them!”

Such is the success of her home baking that O’Hara is contemplating moving her business to a larger shed on her property.  “If I had someone else to help me with preparation, I could make more items, I could make cakes and so on, but this space is too small,” she says, gesturing at the space around her, which is approximately 3×4 metres.  “I made a special birthday strawberry cheese cake for a Union Bay man and he said ‘Oh, you’ll be getting lots more orders for these!’  But I’m not set up for it.”

“Although.” she continues with a gleam in her eye. “we experimented with doing lots of canning and preserving last year, and that might become another branch of our business.  There’s any amount of people who grow too much food to eat in the season and either don’t want—or don’t know how—to can and preserve their produce.  And again, lots of older people who grew up preserving their own food and making their own pickles don’t feel able to undertake that task anymore.  We could offer that service, perhaps.  If somebody wants to buy cucumbers when they’re in season and cheaper but doesn’t want the bother of pickling them, we could help.”

For O’Hara, working at home is the icing on the cake.  “I love working at home” she says.  “I’ve always had my own businesses, and although I might make more money working for someone else, this is great.  I mean, who could ask for anything more?”

To order Dough to Door deliveries from Just Like Mom’s contact Bev O’Hara at 250-335-0239 or visit JustLikeMoms.ca, where O’Hara’s current menu is on display.

David Bossom creates water features that are beautiful, easy to maintain and support plants and wildlife.or some people, owning a business is a mundane obligation undertaken with the sole purpose of paying the mortgage and putting food on the table. But for those lucky enough to have found true passion and purpose in life, going to work every day is a joy.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

David Bossom, owner of Island Waterscape & Design Ltd., fits into the latter category.  Catch him standing in line to order a cup of coffee and he’s just your average Joe.  But ask him about his business and his passion for creating beautiful ponds and waterscapes bubbles up like water in one of his fountains!

When it comes to career choice, you would have to consider David Bossom to be more of a late bloomer—he didn’t grow up with a dream of creating award-winning watercapes.  In fact, until about seven years ago, he had never even given them much thought.  He laughs when he explains that he must give credit to a couple of turtles for forcing him to take a critical turn in his career and life path!

“I studied engineering at the University of Victoria for two years after I graduated from G.P. Vanier Secondary School,” says Bossom.  “But I decided that wasn’t really what I wanted to do.  So I came back to the Comox Valley and worked in my parent’s business for while and eventually took a job at the pulp mill in Gold River.  During my days off, I began helping a family member with her garden. That’s when I discovered that I loved landscaping.”

Bossom began taking correspondence courses through the Okanagan University College and, after the pulp mill closed in 1998, he went back to school full time.  He graduated from the University of Guelph’s horticultural program in 2000.

He started working with his friend, Steve Royer, in a landscaping business.  He eventually bought Steve out and started his own company, West Coast Garden Solutions.  The new company focused on providing landscape maintenance and construction services for commercial and residential properties.  By 2003, West Coast had secured contracts to service more than 100 customers and employed six people.

One of those landscape maintenance contracts was for a property owned by Mike and Joanne Hamilton, of Hamilton Logging.  The Hamiltons asked him to install a pond for their two pet turtles. Bossom had never built one but he set to work, engaging the services of a stonemason, Brian Stevenson, to help construct it.

Bossom says that this was his proverbial “light bulb moment” where he knew he had discovered his passion.  He went on a mission to learn everything he could about pond design and construction, eventually finding a company called Aquascape™ that offered a “Build a Pond in a Day” seminar in Vancouver.  After attending this seminar, Bossom began fazing himself out of the maintenance part of his landscaping business and focused his efforts on the design and construction of water features.  In 2006, he sold West Coast Garden Solutions and started Island Waterscape & Design.

As Bossom’s business grew, his wife, Jane, began helping him with office administration on evenings and weekends.  Her extensive customer service experience—gained from 17 years in municipal government and seven years in the non-profit sector—was a definite asset.  In 2007, she was able to quit her regular day job to become the full-time office administrator and bookkeeper for Island Waterscape.

Island Waterscape is a certified contractor with Illinois-based Aquascape Inc., the second largest water garden component manufacturers in the world.  Through this affiliation, Bossom has had the opportunity to attend seminars and training conferences across North America, learning the trade from some of the most highly respected people in the industry.  In 2009, Island Waterscape was recognized for his efforts as the Top Certified Aquascape Contractor in Canada.  This recognition, in addition to his work, has also caught the attention of Canada’s horticultural community.  Bossom is now also writing articles for Gardens West magazine.

“While it was amazing to be recognized for my efforts, I’ll be the first to admit that the first few years of this new venture were really tough,” recalls Bossom.  “Many of the people I initially talked to had bad experiences with old-style ponds—the kind where you simply put a bowl shape in the ground, line it with plastic or concrete and fill it with water…  and then hope it will sustain plants and fish.  This type of pond often turns into a green and slimy eyesore.  I had to work really hard to explain that my ponds and water features went far beyond that.  My purpose is to create water features that are not only beautiful but are easy to maintain and will support plants and wildlife.  It is about creating an eco-system in your backyard that is as close as possible to the ones designed by the grand master of water feature designs—Mother Nature herself!”

Whether you own a patio home that only has room for a bubbling fountain or an acreage that could accommodate a large pond with a waterfall, the installation of a water feature is an investment that pays off in improved property value, says Bossom.  As an added bonus, water features are also good for your soul!  Listening to the sound of moving water can help reduce stress and taking a few minutes every day to spend time in silence watching fish swim lazily about can be very relaxing.

Large or small, Bossom and his crew put a lot of time, effort and TLC into every project.  For most backyard projects, the digging and land contouring is done manually and most of the rocks are set into place one at a time. A special EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) synthetic rubber liner is used in all Island Waterscape designs.  Unlike some materials that have been traditionally used for pond liners, EPDM is very flexible, has a strong resistance to tearing and is non-toxic to fish and plants.  It also has a 20+ year life expectancy when exposed to ultraviolet rays from the sun. When it is covered with rock and gravel, it can last about 75 years.

But the real magic behind every Island Waterscape masterpiece is completely hidden from view.  The soul of every water feature is the plumbing and filtration system that aerates and filters the water to ensure it is clean, fresh and biologically balanced so fish and plants both thrive.  No need for water test kits and chemicals.  Once established, an Aquascape™ water feature is almost maintenance free.

While the all the hard work over the years has paid off, it also helped that Bossom is well connected in the Comox Valley.  He was born in Comox and his parents, Alec and Diane, were business owners in Courtenay from the mid-1950s until the mid-90s. (They have been retired for years but still call the Comox Valley home.)  Brothers Rick and Mike also live here and his sister, Linda Lemieux, is not far away. His uncle, the late Fred Bossom, was also well known here for his role in building Comox Valley Insurance, now called InsuranceCentres Vancouver Island.  All of them provided much-needed support and encouragement as he embarked on his new enterprise.

Since 2006, Island Waterscapes has constructed more than 200 ponds, streams and waterfalls from Victoria to Campbell River.  With construction projects ranging from small backyard ponds and bubbling fountains to a 55-foot-long stream and a massive waterfall with more than 30,000 gallons per hour cascading over the top, Bossom and his crew of three have the experience to build any waterscape you can dream of.

While many of the installations are at private homes, there are several in the Comox Valley that can be enjoyed by the general public.  Island Waterscape designed and installed the water features at Trumpeter’s Landing, The Old House Restaurant and Tree of Life Veterinary Hospital, to name a few.  Take a walk down 5th Street and you’ll see one of his indoor pond creations in the window at WAGS pet store.  The naughty dog taking a piddle in the pond is guaranteed to make you smile.  (The dog was Jane’s idea.)

In an effort to meet the needs of their ever-growing client list, the Bossoms took a chance last spring and opened a water feature showroom in the garage of their home.

“We were a little nervous at first,” explains Jane.  “We thought that with the downturn in the economy it might be a bit risky, but it turned out to be fantastic.  Not only did the showroom help us get more installation jobs, it opened a whole new market for do-it-yourself projects.  People came to us for advice and went away with the products and knowledge needed to build their water features.  If they did run into problems, they called us for help.  David feels strongly that education and support for those people who want to embark on do-it-yourself projects is just as important as it is for the water features we are contracted to install.  Sure, you can go to the big box stores and buy pond construction supplies and accessories but you may not get the help you need.”

This spring, Island Waterscape is going through yet another metamorphosis.  They recently moved the showroom away from their home and opened a new retail store that is being managed by Jane—Copper Turtle Landscape Connections.  The store features Island Waterscape’s water garden products and accessories from Aquascape™, as well as gold fish, fish food, wind chimes, birdhouses, bird feeders and seed, rain chains and much more.  They are also very excited to introduce a new product called RainXchange, a unique rainwater harvest system facilitates the capture and re-distribution of rainwater through a decorative water feature.

—The Copper Turtle is located at TruLine Masonry and Landscape Supply at 2750 Cumberland Road in Courtenay.  TruLine’s complete line of retaining wall blocks, decorative rock and patio pavers will continue to be manufactured and sold onsite, but the store and yard are undergoing a major renovation.  Over the spring and summer you will see big changes at this location.  Bossom and his crew intend to gradually transform the front lot into an outdoor showroom that will, of course, feature a number of his spectacular water features and showcase both Aquascape™ and TruLine products.

The public will be invited to come and learn how to build a pondless waterfall, patio, retaining walls and more through a series of hands-on workshops to be held at TruLine in the coming months.  Dates and times for the various workshops will be posted on the Island Waterscape website.

“It makes a huge difference for both of us to be able to get out of bed in the morning and know that we are going to work at a job we love,” says Jane.  “When building waterscapes we know we are building something that will last.  It is an awesome feeling when a water feature is powered up for the first time and the water starts to flow.  This is, by far, the coolest thing I have ever done.”

David agrees.  “With the climate we have on Vancouver Island we are lucky that we can enjoy water features in our yards throughout the year,” he says.  “On those rare occasions when we do get some snow, the water feature will continue to operate and it looks amazing.”

He smiles. “Who says we can’t all have waterfront property?”

islandwaterscape.ca

250.897.1358

“The look of a guitar is important, but really it’s a tool, and as everyone is differently shaped, each one has to be custom-designed,” says Al Hosokawa, with one of his hand-made guitars in his workshop.

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

The home of Alfred Hosokawa is much like its owner—compact, with a quiet charm and rustic attraction.  The house sits modestly overlooking a small piece of garden, yet it hides a treasure trove.

Behind the house is Hosokawa’s workshop and entering it is like walking into another time—inside, there is nothing made of plastic, nothing glowing and bleeping.  The walls and posts are warm, brown unfinished lumber and the small space is filled with tools of all manner.  Some are recognizable—woodworking tools, augers of differing widths, screwdrivers and chisels—while others look like art sculptures; a wooden arm with a stone wired on top of it, for instance.  Three instruments gleam among the supplies of raw wood and wooden tools on the shelves, their bodies shining, their shapes inviting touch.  These are some of the treasures wrought by Hosokawa in creating his hand-made guitars.

“I had to invent lots of machines and tools for myself once I started making musical instruments,” explains Hosokawa with a smile. “Once I took a trip across Canada with a backpack, and I think I stopped at every secondhand store across the country, looking for old woodworking tools.  They were hard to come by then.  There has been a revival of Luthiers (instrument makers) in recent years, but back then, I had to be creative.”

There is now a school in Qualicum—the Summit School of Guitar Building—which has been in existence for about 15 years, that inspiring Luthiers may attend to learn the ancient art of guitar making.

Hosokawa built his first guitar in 1972; it took him six months to complete. “I’d grown up around woodworking,“ he says.  “My dad was a boat builder and I’d worked with him as a teenager, so I was quite accustomed to using my hands and had always enjoyed it.”

The Hosokawa family grew up in Salmon Arm.  But the family—although all had been born in Canada and Hosokawa’s grandfather had fought with the Canadian Infantry in the First World War—was forcibly moved from their home by the Canadian Government when all people of Japanese ancestry were forbidden to live on the coast.  The government’s rationale was that Japanese-Canadians might assist Japan in an invasion of Canada after Japan dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor during the Second World War, destroying much of the American fleet.  It is only within the last 10 years that Japanese people have been compensated for the homes and businesses the government seized at that time.

Hosokawa and his parents eventually made their way back to Salmon Arm.  “My parents liked it in Salmon Arm and stayed there.  I was a child when we were expatriated, so to me it was home,” Hosokawa says simply.

Despite the turmoil of being uprooted from his home, Hosokawa had a happy childhood.  “It was a farming community, and I spent a lot of time working on ranches with animals, haying—one of our neighborhood friends had a ranch with cattle and I worked there quite a bit.”

He began playing guitar when he was 15.  “Actually, all my brothers and sisters—12 of us in total—enjoy music and when we get together we still sing and play.  I remember sitting around bonfires as a child and my older brothers playing guitar.”

A dyed-in-the-wool BC boy, Hosokawa spent his working life moving around, part of the boom of the seemingly never-ending supply of natural resources.  He worked in the woods, as a logger, in pulp mills, sawmills, fishing and more.  When he did begin making instruments, Hosokawa followed every lead he could to meet other instrument makers, learning from them and exchanging ideas.  “There were no schools back then, like there is now where you can go and learn the skills to make instruments, so it took a lot longer to amass the knowledge necessary to make instruments.”

Hosokawa smiles and gives a shrug, adding:  “When it’s your passion, though, you don’t care.

“I think I must have read every book there was on the subject to get ideas and information, some of the tricks of the trade.  It’s funny though, lots of the people who wrote them weren’t very good builders, so I got a lot of misinformation as well.”

Hosokawa worked from books and experimentation, mostly on his own, until he began working in Vancouver and Victoria in the 1970s.  “I remember working at Bill Lewis Music, a shop in Vancouver.  I was making speaker cabinets there for a while and I saw all these people in the back building instruments.  There was another guitar shop up on 10th Avenue and there were people building there, too.  Ray Nurse, Michael Dunn—they were the established builders of the time, and Anton Smith, a lute builder.  I talked to him for a long time and, you know, I got a lot of information in that one talk.  He really got me going.”

He found more established builders to draw from in Victoria too.  “I set up a shop with two others and we were making dulcimers, violins, guitars—everything you could think of.”

He smiles, remembering a fellow builder who worked near his shop.  “There was an old guy just round the corner, and he was building huge organs for churches—that was his job.  He came round and talked to us and lots of people were taking him guitars to get fixed, and he didn’t really know about that.  He was building these big organs with long metal tubes for churches—of which there were many—and they all had wonderful organs.”

Today, her red curls spill out from under a soft grey, short brimmed cap and she adjusts it slightly before telling me about the evolution of her business, Equilibrium Lifestyle Management, or ELM. Now in its ninth year, ELM has grown from a company focused primarily on boot camp classes and personal training to a wonderfully diverse business expanded to include women’s-only fitness clinics, learn-to-run classes, hiking clinics, adventure race training, trail running skills, orienteering, and, more recently, adventure travel trips and new writing projects.

“There has been a big evolution with ELM,” says Seads, 33. “It has changed with the needs and requests of my clients.”

“Adventure racing is my way of staying motivated with my own training and blowing off steam,” says ELM owner Sarah Seads, leading a run at Tomato Creek near Comox Lake.

Photo by Photo by Boomer Jerritt

Seads’ dedication and attentiveness to clients has obviously paid off as she was recently voted the “Best Personal Trainer in Western Canada” in Get Out There Magazine’s People’s Choice Awards. This was an honor Seads knew nothing about until the congratulatory call, and she was floored. She blushes as she recalls that moment: “It was a total surprise and it made my day. It is such an honor because this award comes straight from my clients. They matter the most, so it was a great pat on the back and nice to know that people would take the time to show their appreciation.”

A Channel News did a piece on ELM recently and interviewed Seads’ client, Brenda Dean, who summed up Seads’ effect on her own life: “Sarah is passionate about what she does. She believes in it. It is her life. And through osmosis, just by being with her, you walk away with that feeling…and it’s become a template for my life.”

ELM has become a fixture in the Valley and participants recognize the company brand or the women’s only clinic “swirl” logo on passing runner’s shirts and give a wave or a cheer to a fellow member. Seads’ only frustration is that “because we offer a few women’s-only clinics, some people don’t realize that all of our other programs are co-ed.” She is hoping to attract more men to the clinics in the coming years because they “bring balance, strong energy and a little healthy competition.”

Healthy competition has always been a part of Seads’ life. Chuckling, she recalls her days as a hyper kid growing up in Victoria. “When I was little I was fast on my feet. When I was in Grade 2 or 3 they asked me to run track in two grades up because I was a hyper kid and a fast runner. That gave me a taste for competition and then I started playing whatever sports I could. Being on a team then became a part of my life.”

She pauses, then says, “I can’t imagine growing up without that special bond you get with your teammates. I met my friends there, learned about rules, fair play and hard work.”

Seads ended up playing almost every sport at Victoria High because it was a small school without a lot of athletes. Her hard work earned her the “Jock of the Year” award in Grade 12 because she was on all the teams—everything from badminton to soccer.

From there Seads went to the University of Victoria and played junior varsity field hockey. Her initial university interests, however, were unrelated to athletics. “I went to university to become a photo journalist and writer,” she says. “I ended up switching direction in the first year because the entry level history and English didn’t inspire me.” So, she took a semester off to tree plant and travel with the earnings.

This is where serendipity stepped in to push Seads toward her true calling. While tree planting she hurt her back. “Inevitable,” she says, “when you are bending three million times a day with a bag of trees on your back and driving on bad roads in crummys.” So, she went to a physiotherapist at the university and learned about injury rehabilitation/exercise physiotherapy. She decided to enrol in Kinesiology.

“I put my application in, went travelling and left it up to fate,” Seads says. While she was away her parents told her that she had been accepted, so she returned home. “I loved the program right away. I was learning all the secrets to how the body works. It wasn’t work for me. It was fun and interesting.”

She smiles. “This was my passion. Up until that point sports were something I did but I didn’t even know that a stream of education existed that I could tie into my love of fitness.”

After graduating with a degree in Kinesiology from UVIC, Seads worked half time between her Kinesiology career and her work as a forest fire-fighter. She was a Rapattack fire-fighter based out of Salmon Arm for five summers. “It is just like any other forest fire fighting once you are on the ground,” she explains, “except that you get there by rappelling out of a helicopter. Primarily we fought small, lightening-caused fires that are inaccessible by road.”

To become a fire-fighter Seads had to undergo a rigorous fitness testing and interview process. But it was the boot camp after becoming a fire-fighter that “ratcheted” up the intensity and ultimately inspired her first ELM fitness program. “We spent over five weeks in training boot camp before we were certified to fight forest fires in BC,” says Seads. “Our boot camp included daily physical training that was constantly changing. It was extremely challenging, as we did this along with long days of classroom and skill training for the job.

“I have taken plenty of physical training ideas from those long, hard weeks and carried them into my own ELM Outdoor Fitness Boot camp program,” Seads says. “Although the consequences were a wee bit different (work vs. play) the training is quite similar: it is outdoors, using the natural environment and your own body weight, plenty of variety and group teamwork.  Many of my drills and exercises come straight from those weeks in training. I only wish I had more time each day to push my own recruits so they could get a better taste of what I went through!”

Sitting across from me Seads looks strong and healthy. It isn’t hard to see why she has built such a successful business and accomplished all that she has in the 10 years since graduation. And this doesn’t even include her prowess as an adventure racer, which she humbly says is “a ton of fun.  Adventure racing is my way of staying motivated with my own training and blowing off steam.” A quick look at ELM’s new website shows that Seads has placed first or second in almost all of the 18 adventure races she has participated in over the last few years.

In between all of this, Seads has written two books and is about to publish a third. “I have been working on a few writing projects over the past two to three years,” she says, “and it has been a wonderful, creative experience for me.  I started by producing a yearly fitness logbook in 2006 and this past December I released the first edition of my cookbook: NRG Foods That Will Move You.”

The cookbooks have been hugely popular, selling out of the first two print runs in two weeks. Both books are available in the online store on Seads’ website—www.elmhealth.com. The store also has online coaching, and a new video series. The first video, SCORE is a video of actual ELM class sessions taking place this winter.  Each class is 55 minutes and combines core and flexibility training into one great mat workout.

“The most exciting writing project is my next non-fiction book, which is due to be released this March,” add Seads. The book is titled Fit & Free and it walks the reader through their seven key steps to achieving fitness for life. It is written for anyone who has ever struggled to stay on the fitness “train”.  Pulling from her years of experience in the fitness and rehabilitation field, these steps are critical to ensuring success over the long term.

“You can’t do it on willpower alone, and I want my readers to know that.  There are ways that you can make your journey more difficult, and there are ways that you can set yourself up for success. This book works through these.”

Each chapter has a tool to be completed by the reader.  There is some work involved, but these tools are simple and easy to use and they personalize the experience.

Fit & Free is only the beginning of Seads’ writing career. She is starting to weave her earlier love of writing into her work in the fitness field and, more importantly, she says, learning to make more time for writing in my life.

Now I pop the question that has been on the tip of my tongue since Seads walked in. “What is this I hear about an ELM hiking trip to Peru?” Seads brightens, gesturing and speaking quickly as she describes her most exhilarating trip yet: “This year a dream is coming true for me and for 12 women. I have joined forces with one of my clients, Jane Hay, who is an adventure travel agent, and Karavaniers, a Canadian guiding company, to offer a 12-day trip to Peru to train and trek the Inca and Salkantay trails.

“This isn’t the kind of trip that you will find on an internet site or at a travel agent,” Seads adds. In fact, their journey to Machu Picchu will not begin in Peru at all. It will begin here in the Comox Valley, with the help of this unique trio.

Six months before the trek starts, the women who signed up for this trip more than a year ago will begin a physical training program designed by Seads that will ensure they reach their own ‘peak’ in hiking fitness when they arrive in Peru.

“This program has been designed specifically for the demands of the trek and will include three months of group hikes where the women will have the opportunity to train together and create a special bond while they get miles under their boots.”

Seads beams with pride as she outlines the program and training. “Education and coaching will be provided along the way, and each trekker will receive a detailed training manual, monthly guidance as well as specialty knowledge from local gear experts, Valhalla Pure Outfitters, at the start of their training program.
“And,” she continues, “it doesn’t stop there. Once the women are physically ready to begin their trek in September, they won’t have to stress about any of the travel logistics as every detail has been taken care of. From accommodation to travel, equipment and meals, each aspect of the trekker’s journey in Peru has been organized by the three of us to ensure a smooth, safe and unforgettable travel experience.”

After a moment’s pause she adds that even though the trip sold out a year in advance, one spot has recently opened up for this special journey.
Unfortunately, Peru won’t be an annual trip for ELM, but Seads has big plans for possible future fitness travel adventures, including cycle touring in France, rafting the Grand Canyon, training for Hawaiian marathons, or trekking up Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Seads and her company are a testament to the Comox Valley’s support of local businesses. Her open nature and endless enthusiasm have drawn a following of fitness enthusiasts and trainers that can’t say enough about how fabulous their ELM experiences are.

An ELM participant since 2002, Korky Richardson says the clinics have had a wonderful impact on her fitness, and her life in general. “I have met and made a lot of my close friends through the clinics. I also keep up my activity level with all of the different seasonal clinics. Being in a group like this is an incredibly positive experience.”

Richardson loves that there are “new and exciting” clinics on offer every year and hopes that she will always be a part of “the many adventures that are offered!”
“When I first started up the company it was just me,” Seads says. “Over the years the ELM team has grown to include five trainers, an admin/marketing manager and a big family of very special volunteer clinic leaders.

“I am so fortunate—not only to have these amazing people working at ELM but also to have them in my life. ELM as we know it would never exist without them and I am more grateful for their support, passion and energy than words could ever express. I have met so many amazing people since starting ELM. Running a business in the Valley has shown me what a wonderful community we are surrounded by and I feel lucky to be a part of it.”

For more information about Equilibrium Lifestyles Management, to find out about upcoming classes or to secure the last spot on the hiking trip to Peru, please visit www.elmhealth.com or call Sarah at 250.338.8998.

“Our mandate is it has to taste good, it has to support the economy, and it has to help the producers make a living,” says Angeline Street, with husband James and their kids inside Brambles Market in Downtown Courtenay.

Photo by Photo by Boomer Jerritt

These days it’s quite possible to go out grocery shopping and for very few dollars you can score yourself a fresh-from-Hawaii pineapple that tastes like it just recently left a Maui plantation.

Angeline Street has no problem with our ability to do that, and she confesses that there are times she has a hankering for out-of-season strawberries and will make that purchase, knowing the strawberries didn’t originate here.  At the same time the philosophy and marketing belief she shares with her husband and business partner James is to encourage a local and healthful connection for your grocery marketing wants and needs.  The bonus is, the Streets provide access to localized shopping.

That’s partially what Brambles Market is all about, though it’s also more than that.  The ‘more’ part is for us, the consuming public, to be able to explore the wonders of our foodstuffs, their purchase and how much better the eating and family feeding experiences can be with a shift in long-held attitudes about convenience and access.

“Our mandate is it has to taste good, it has to support the economy, and it has to help the producers make a living,” says Angeline.

Brambles Market has just celebrated a year in business at its site in Downtown Courtenay, on 4th Street across from the Courtenay Museum.  Situated in a highly popular spot that boasts a rather European town square ambience—what with a popular coffee bar and café with its extensive patio, as well as a gelato purveyor—Brambles effectively completes the picture.

“We saw a need,” Angeline says quite simply of their inspiration for bringing Brambles into being.  With her long background in retail, and James’ training as a chef, food purveying seemed like a natural.  That, combined with their beliefs, was the guiding force behind their move into the former Island Inkjet site.

“What we had come to realize was that a lot of small producers couldn’t sell their meat and produce to the big supermarkets,” Angeline says.  “They had no outlet other than the Farmers’ Market, and not everybody goes to the market.  While the larger stores take some local produce, for example, that access has been diminishing.”

The other belief revolves around buying locally whenever possible, followed by items from elsewhere on Vancouver Island, and ultimately from the rest of the province.  She notes they had arrived at this local purchasing conclusion well before the now widely-embraced 100-mile-diet came into vogue.  At the same time, the renewed boost by the 100-mile philosophy was welcomed because it both raised public awareness and gave a nice boost to business.  It was a good bit of synchronicity, Angeline says.

“People have no idea about the array of local items that can be bought,” she says.  “Of course there are exceptions to this, and we’re certainly not fanatical about it.”

She notes that various fruits like bananas and oranges obviously don’t grow here. Likewise, if you are fond of rice and rice dishes, it has to be imported.  But, at the same time, people will automatically buy a certain brand of, say, flour, and be understandably oblivious to the fact that there is flour available—carried by Brambles—that is grown and milled on Vancouver Island.

“Part of our role is to provide access not just to the obvious items like fresh produce, but also to brands packaged on Vancouver Island,” she says.

While the current store is fine for their needs at the moment, Angeline says they would ultimately like to be bigger.

“We started the process five to six years ago,” she says.  “Once the book (The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon www.100milediet.org/book) came out, along with the TV show, we really started thinking seriously about it.  From there we had to find a place and financing for it.”

One of the motivations they wanted to satisfy with Brambles, she says, was to recognize that, as affectionately regarded as the Farmers’ Market is amongst Valley residents, it has its limitations.  There were gaps.  Brambles was designed to fill in those gaps.

“There are many other options beyond meat, bread and vegetables,” Angeline says.  “We can provide those in terms of products that originate locally or on the Island.  You want to buy frozen French fries?  We have those but they don’t come from McCain’s—they come from Victoria.  For a while we were offering, though sadly it’s no longer available, Worcestershire sauce from Saltspring Island.”

As far as competition goes, the opening of Brambles begs the question as to whether Edible Island doesn’t have that market sewn up locally.  Angeline says their direct competition isn’t actually Edible Island, but the Courtenay Thrifty Foods store.  In that context, she says, any chain supermarket gets a huge customer base because of not only the vast array of products available, but also due to shopper habits. It is those habits that Brambles wants to change.  And thus far they are succeeding nicely.

Human beings are creatures of habit, Angeline asserts, and contemporary householders are busy.  When they shop they think of it not as an experience for the most part, but a task to get over and done with.

“We shop by routine and rote,” she says.  “We buy the same things all the time.  It’s not necessarily brand-loyalty, but habit.  Something is familiar and we buy it yet again.  Not necessarily because we like it, but because it’s familiar.  What we want to do with Brambles is let the buying public know there is a wide world of options.  We want people to know they can buy items with healthful ingredients.  In terms of BC produced and packaged items we have stringent standards in the province and we don’t permit genetically modified items.  For products from elsewhere, such standards aren’t as stringent.”

Brambles’ produce all comes from organic growers, and local growers as much as possible in season.  Meanwhile, none of their meat has been adulterated with steroids or antibiotics.

Another area of motivation, adds James, is respect for local farmers and producers.  He is quick to assert that the agricultural community of the Comox Valley—one that is much more extensive than many residents realize—is a significant part of his heritage.

“My grandmother was a Piercy and they were among the pioneering farmers of the Comox Valley,” he says.  “I want the Comox Valley to respect and preserve what we have here, and one way we can do this is to buy their products.

“The Valley holds huge potential agricultural capacity,” James adds.  “The mainstream population of the Valley doesn’t know what we have here.  For example, we’ll go to a supermarket to buy peppers.  The peppers could have originated anywhere.  But, do people know we have a major pepper producer in the Comox Valley?  And those peppers are often cheaper than the ones from elsewhere, and much better.”

As they have to compete with the big chain stores, and that can be a daunting objective, it is essential that Brambles offers alternatives in order to retain and also expand its customer base.  James believes that their meat offerings cannot help but entice those who are seeking unadulterated quality.  Their sausages, for example, contain no binders or fillers.  That puts them well ahead of most commercial sausage brands which can actually contain such fillers as silicone dioxide—or sand, in other words.  Likewise many commercial chickens are injected with water, and the law permits up to 30 per cent water. Brambles’ chickens are 100 per cent actual chicken.

“Quite frankly our meat and poultry products are excellent,” James says.  “All the beef or pork comes from one animal that has been slaughtered locally, and we have a huge advantage of having an abattoir in the Comox Valley with Gunter’s.  What we have is delicious and unadulterated.”

In one respect what Angeline and James are offering at Brambles is nothing new.  This was the way marketing was carried out by everybody a few decades ago before chain stores established themselves and offered the conveniences they do.  At the same time, what Brambles is offering isn’t retro either.  That’s because all that is available must meet the scrupulous standards of the proprietors, as well as meeting stringent provincial codes. That wasn’t always the case in grandma’s day, not to mention the fact that marketing regulations were virtually nonexistent in days of yore.

So, what is this customer base that is seeking ground beef with which you can actually barbecue a hamburger and know the meat was just ground that day, on site, and finds its source in a single side of beef from a steer raised in the Comox Valley rather than perhaps multiple heads of cattle, slaughtered elsewhere with how long ago being anyone’s guess?

“Our beliefs go back long before the current ‘foodie’ trendiness,” Angeline says.  “What we are doing with the store is exactly the model we’ve had in mind for years.  Agreed there is a certain battle to sell a concept like this because most of society doesn’t buy in for reasons stated earlier.  At the same time, we have a definite customer base.”

While you might think that the bulk of Brambles’ trade would originate locally—and they assuredly have an ever-growing Comox Valley customer base—Angeline has also found it interesting how much the store appeals to newcomers, and especially those from larger centres like Vancouver and Calgary.

“They really buy into what we’re doing here,” she says.  “They want a certain standard of quality and service and that’s what we give them.  We actually had a call from some people from out of town wanting to buy a house here but also wanting to know what we had to offer in terms of what they had gotten used to in the city.”

That the Streets convey a combination of gratitude and support for their community goes without saying.  In the same context they are strong advocates for other localized businesses and believe that the public should give them all the support they can for fear of otherwise losing them.

In that sentiment they cite the case of the speculation around a large international chain restaurant considering setting up shop in the Comox Valley.

“The possibility made the front page of local newspapers and that’s really disheartening,” Angeline says.  “There’s a trickle-down effect with such places and people don’t seem to realize what happens to locally owned and operated restaurants when yet another big chain outlet comes to the community.”

Another service offered by Brambles lies in the realm of research of products, since, as Angeline explains, “We don’t always carry the full line of any particular product, but if you want to know anything about a particular product or whether other products are available from the company, we can call up the distributors and get you the information.”

She notes that to qualify as a BC product, the item must be at very least packaged in this province.  As there is no olive crop grown here, when you buy olive oil you are obviously getting something that originated elsewhere.  But, the olive oil can be bottled here—and some labels are—and hence becomes a BC product.

At the end of the day, what it comes down to is education, the Streets say.  It’s a matter of learning to appreciate what we’re eating both nutritionally and taste-wise.  “Eating for good taste and good nutrition has a lot of potential once you get into the swing of it,” Angeline says.  “Get into the habit of buying good food and preparing good and nutritious meals, and they can be done simply and quickly, you’ll never look back.

“And, with children, start them young,” she adds.   “If kids have a role in buying food they love being a part of it.”

“I know that after some films the audience feels that they’ve been on a shared journey,” says Sara Turner, in the theatre at Reel Films in Cumberland. “That’s the feeling I want to engender.”

Photo by Boomer Jerritt

The main street in Cumberland has changed somewhat since the inception of the town in the late 1800s, when thousands of miners uprooted themselves, from Britain primarily, to follow King Coal to the land of opportunity, Canada. Back then Cumberland was a boomtown and Courtenay’s population was dwarfed by that of the instant, industrial domain of Robert Dunsmuir—a miner who became a millionaire.

One feature of the Cumberland landscape that time hasn’t changed is the front of Frelone’s Grocery Store on Dunsmuir Avenue. It still retains the carved name in the stone lintel above the door, although the exotic turquoise paint is a recent innovation.

Frelone’s Grocery is now the home of Reel Films, the brainchild of Sara Turner, a 28-year-old entrepreneur who has launched into a new field of endeavor. Turner was looking for a new way to make a living after giving birth to her son, Cohen, now a year and a half. “I’d been working as a cook in tree-planting camps—which isn’t a lifestyle particularly conducive to parenting—for about seven years, and cooking had palled for me. I was actually studying traditional Chinese acupuncture just before Cohen’s birth, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but it’s also very intense. I wanted something that would allow me to parent Cohen in a more relaxed fashion.”

Turner’s brown eyes sparkle with enthusiasm and her elfin face lights up as she continues her tale. “I was sitting with my older sister, Jessie, last Christmas, throwing around business ideas, and that’s when the seed of a cinema first planted itself. I was mulling over my options, having moved from Victoria to Cumberland, and looking after Cohen most of the time. His dad, Mike, also works in a tree planting camp, so is gone for long periods of time.”

The history of Frelone’s Grocery seems to be an integral part of the building. “So many people come in to watch a movie and tell me, “Oh, I used to come here to listen to jazz, or they’ll say, ‘I had my first Chinese acupuncture treatment in here.’ It’s a fascinating part of running Reel Films. In fact, an elderly woman came in the other week and told me she used to buy candy here as a child.”

The original grocery store was built in 1935 by Louis Frelone, whose family ran the modest shop for many years. The next owners, Leo and Barbara LeBlanc, continued it as a grocery store until 1981. After that, Frelone’s Grocery had a variety of incarnations, including a motorcycle shop and a health food store. In the more recent past, it has been a weekend entertainment venue and an accountant’s office.

Interestingly enough, Frelone’s has come full circle in that once more it is a venue for movie watching. At another time it was also home to a film projector. Turner has been told that there used to be a large, hand cranked metal wheel projector that the cellulose film would run round. “Apparently the equipment had to be shut down in the middle of a film to stop it going up in flames caused by the friction of the cellulose film,” Turner says, laughing. “A fan had to be employed to cool everything down! At least I don’t have that worry—the current equipment is all digital!”

Turner confesses to not knowing anything about running a movie house at the time she had the initial idea. “I just thought the Comox Valley would support another movie venue, The Rialto being the lone movie house now, when there used to be three cinemas. It also seemed to me it would be a creative and satisfying thing to do.
“I wanted to show films that would be thought-provoking and stimulate discussion of ideas, rather than just fill people’s heads with mindless images of destruction and mayhem, which is much of the fare on offer from Hollywood these days. I also thought it would be fun!”

What followed was a huge learning curve for Turner, as well as lots of ‘sweat equity’. She took advantage of a program offered by Community Futures, which provides a three week business course for those eligible under the Employment Insurance umbrella. Participants have to present their business proposal, which if accepted, leads to basic living expenses being paid for 10 months. During this time, the business has to become self-supporting. Not an easy task, as statistics show that most businesses take a five year period to show a profit.

Turner is extremely grateful for the business courses. “I learned so much,” she says. “Things I didn’t have a clue about—advertising, accounting, internet use. It was hugely valuable, and now I run my business, and they deposit money into my account every month. I’m so grateful to live in a country that provides us with that kind of support. I like to see the money citizens pay to government being made available for our own uses.”

Turner’s aunt, who lives in New York, was also able to offer the fledgling movie mogul some sage advice. “My aunt had been involved in running film festivals, editing film and presenting tributes to actors no longer in the prime of their youth, so she had a wealth of experience. I wasn’t shy about phoning her to ask, ‘OK, what about this aspect’ or ‘how do I go about doing this?’”

With the idea and plan in plan, Turner set to with a will. She bought a huge piece of canvas and experimented painting it with strips of shades from white to dark grey, then showing film on top of it. She discovered the light grey shade brought out the color and contrast of the DVDs to their best. “I laid the canvas down on the floor and ran around with bare feet and a long roller and put about seven coats of paint down. It was quite the project!” That canvas was then pinned to the front wall of Frelone’s, in front of the bay window, where it takes up the whole wall. DVDs can be formatted to fit onto the canvas, which is actually slightly bigger than a typical film screen.

“The technical side was mind boggling, actually,” Turner says. “I didn’t realize I’d have to learn so much about it all. Fortunately, I was able to hire a friend who taught me the ropes.”

The next task was finding seats for the theatre—35 of them. “I felt a bit daunted to begin with. New theatre seats costs a fortune, and likewise old re-vamped seats. I had a limited amount of savings to spend, and was in a bit of a quandary. Then I thought of the wonderful old Palace Theatre, which was closed for renovations a couple of years ago, and the roof was set on fire accidentally. The water damage was such that the owners decided to demolish the whole place.

“I tracked down the man who had done the work, and asked him about the seats. ‘What happened to them,’ I asked. ‘They’re in my barn, waiting for you to buy them!’ he joked. I went out to see them and they were in a huge higgledy-piggledy pile in this hay barn, with cats sleeping on them. Some of them had been broken during removal and I had to sort through them to find the best. Once I got them bolted into the new, raised floor at Frelone’s then came the back-breaking job of cleaning them all.”

She laughs, remembering how hot it was at the time. “It was the beginning of the heat wave we had this summer. I had to steam clean them numerous times and there was as much water dripping off my face as coming out the machine. It was worth it though—after days and days of cleaning them and emptying out gallons of filthy, sooty water, they finally came up a rich crimson—it was thrilling. They give the air of elegance I wanted to create.”

That old time elegance is an important part of her vision for Reel Films. “People have used movies as a means of escape since their inception,” she says. “During the Depression, in the ’30s, movies were never more popular. Of course, it was a new technology then, plus there wasn’t the option of sitting in the seclusion of one’s own home to watch a movie.

“That feeling of being a part of a larger humanity is what I want to re-create. There’s a sense of having shared an experience with other people when the movie is on a big screen and in public. The difference between laughing at something on a home video, alone, or laughing with other people, is a subtle one, but I think it engenders a sense of sharing and belonging.”

Turner pauses before adding, “That’s part of my objective—to create a sense of community, to bring home the truth that we share this planet with others who are, basically, just like us. We might have different outward appearances, varying opinions and views, but those differences are superficial. I think what connects us as humans is deeper than what appears to separate us.”

Turner believes film can help a person come to terms with their own reality, and often put one’s life in a different perspective, bringing a sense of gratitude and clarity. “For many Canadians, it’s an eye opener to recognize that we have a highly privileged lifestyle here,” she says. “Some of us may not have much money, but we have tremendous everyday things, like clean water and air, which is often taken completely for granted. Film can take us into another person’s life and that gives us cause to reflect on our own.”

Choosing the films to be presented is the fun part of Turner’s job. “I watch a lot of movies,” she says with a smile. “I only present second-run movies, which means that they’ve already been round the circuit, like to The Rialto, and the other movie houses that are tied into a distributor. With a set up like mine, I actually choose which movies I want to present. One of the most popular up to now is Tootsie. That one drew a larger audience than others.”

Turner has a suggestion box for patrons to use. “I don’t want to only show movies I like,” she explains. “It’s an interesting part of running Reel Films—sharing ideas and suggestions with other small specialist movie house owners, and movie fans in general. Most of this dialogue happens over the internet, and there are sites that deal with alternative movies as well. When I’ve been in contact with someone who shares the pleasure I have had with a particular film, then I can pick their brains about others they’ve enjoyed, with the knowledge that I may like them too. Of course, I don’t have to like all the movies I show, either.”

She pauses. “It’s such a curious thing—a person of whom one is really fond and share a multitude of common likes and dislikes can recommend a movie, yet when you watch it, you don’t like it one bit—which again, doesn’t mean I won’t show it. Art is such a subjective, slippery preference.”

Her criteria for choosing films is broad. “It may be that a movie has a fabulous soundtrack, perhaps it has become a cult movie, and I want people to have the opportunity to explore what made it a cult movie. On Thursday nights I only show documentaries, and Sunday afternoons are for family films, so they’re more general.”

Recognizing that often hard-hitting documentaries can leave viewers feeling doomed, Turner consciously mixes lighter subject matter in the menu of film fare. “I recently screened Baraka, which is a highly watchable film that shows many aspects of humanity as well as the natural world, with images cleverly juxtaposed. Without using any dialogue, the film says a lot with its use of images and sound. I know that after some films the audience feels that they’ve been on a shared journey. That’s the feeling I want to engender.”

At the time Turner was applying for funding she took part in the annual World Community Film Festival, whose goals are similar to Turner’s. They want to educate and inspire people to become more politically active, in whatever way they chose. “At the time, I was still slightly unsure if I was doing the right thing,” says Turner. “I like to do things I’m good at, and this was uncharted territory, but being there, seeing those films that would never be available in Courtenay without a group to research alternative films, have the contacts with other communities that have already been presenting Film Festivals, and then obtain those films that are definitely not in the mainstream, really inspired me. Sensing how important it was to other people to share those experiences, have that new information about an event or an occurrence that otherwise we wouldn’t have had knowledge of, convinced me.

“It really solidified my intuitive feeling that when a group of people come together to share something, like watching a film, we’re subconsciously bound together in our experience,” adds Turner. “To begin with, all the people with their talents and skill who came together to create the movie in the first place, and then all the viewers watching it together, sharing that information combined with the visual experience. It feels really special and unifying, kind of sacred. It connects us to our human-ness. The more of that feeling that I can promote in my own way, the better I feel about what I’m doing, and the outcome of my efforts.”

Turner sees a huge difference between films and television. “I think most of what’s shown on TV is garbage,” she says bluntly. While she recognizes that many films are churned out to a target audience and follow a predictable format like many TV programs, she does think films are usually made with more intent. “And I don’t show run-of-the-mill dross at Reel Films,” she says. “There has to be something interesting or curious—some aspect that makes a film worth watching to begin with.”

When Reel Films had its very first showing, BC was sweltering in an unusual heat wave. “I opened at the end of July,” Turner says. “Everyone stared at me in amazement when I told them I was opening a cinema then. ‘Really? Who’s going to come? It’s belting hot, people want to be by the river or the ocean,’ my friends said. And it was hot! On the day of opening, the heat was so intense in Frelone’s, with the heavy curtains over the doors and windows and the high temperatures, I rushed off into town to try and get an air conditioner.”

Turner rolls her eyes and pulls a face at the memory, and adds, “Of course, I used it once and now it sits there taking up space!” Despite the heat, the opening of Reel Films was well supported by Turner’s friends, family and movie fans who turned out to watch Cinema Paradiso, an aptly chosen first film, as its subject is a boy whose dad runs a movie house.

A business entrepreneur with principles, Turner was recently put in an awkward position. “A family wanted to hire Frelone’s for a teenage birthday party, and show a teen movie. I cringed at the idea of showing this particular movie as it perpetuates a lot of unpleasant stereotypes, as far as I’m concerned. Particularly as to how young men and women need to be in order to be popular and fit in; the males are judged by their cars and the females by their bodies. I suggested that the girls might like to watch something else—with some trepidation I add, as I could have done with the money—but I just didn’t want to be part of perpetuating values I don’t hold. The girls were very curious as to why I didn’t like the movie, and more than interested to know what other movies were available. We had quite a long chat and they chose another movie which they thoroughly enjoyed, and I felt good about what I was doing.”

Turner is hoping more families and groups will be interested in renting Frelone’s space. “There’s someone who wants to screen Jazz on a Summer’s Day, which is a film from the ‘70s, in black and white, about the Newport Jazz Festival, and invite jazz fans; another idea is a live Stevie Wonder gig that his fans and admirers would enjoy. I really want the community to use this space.”

Despite the headaches of maintaining an old building—“The electrics are most unusual and needed some looking at”—plus the new reality of going from being a highly-paid seasonal worker to running a cinema that sometimes has five people, sometimes a full house, Turner is relishing her new endeavor.

She has developed her own recipe for home-popped popcorn and makes cookies and other treats for movie-goers. So delicious is her popcorn that many locals call in only for that! One Cumberland resident came into Frelone’s and said that he’d already seen the current film and his pregnant wife had asked him to come for Turner’s popcorn, which she was craving.

Delicious home-made goodies and movies chosen with intent sounds like a winning combination for Frelone’s latest makeover.

To find out what’s showing, log on to reelfilmsatfrelones.com or phone 250-336-0190.

Documentaries show on Thursday, general films Friday and Saturday and family movies on Sunday afternoons.