B.C.

Back up to Canada!  With some help from the abilities of the internet as well as great connections through our good buddy Tim DeMasters, a solid week of City & Farm adventures came together.


Starting in Vancouver, we had a big day on the bikes, exploring this "City of Glass".  We moseyed through outlying neighborhoods and the cosmopolitan center on very bike-friendly infrastructure, dwarfed by the countless residential hi-rises.  Minutes later we were in Stanley Park, now dwarfed by massive old cedars, feeling lost in a forest, nowhere near a bustling metropolis.  We stayed a block off a good section of "The Drive" (Commercial Drive) and tasted the diverse local culture both nights we were in town.  Thanks to Jason and Ryan for putting us up for a couple nights!

Before leaving the big city we quizzed Seann of SOLEfood Farm for a half hour.  SOLEfood was started by a larger non-profit that operates in Vancouver's gritty east side.  Seann expressed bold hopes to eventually provide meaningful employment for 60 people from the neighborhood, many who struggle with addiction and mental illness.  He cited that urban farming is now "en vogue".  It is trendy, cool, hip to be involved in something like SOLEfood, and he thinks with continued support from the right people in Vancouver, they might become a leader of this urban farming movement.

We ferried over to Vancouver Island to meet up with Tim D and Tim S for a few days that were filled with city and countryside bike rides, chilly ocean dips, locally-sourced feasts at Tim S's waterfront cabin, and gawking at the strong bio-luminescence and clear views of the milky way on the beach.

Carol at Dragonfly Hill Vineyard gave us a good tasting and tour of her operation. Unrelated to the impressive grape vines and their tasty result that she proudly showed off, we learned that kiwis can be grown this far north.

We found Trevor online (oddly enough he is an alum of our own high school in Denver).  He met us for breakfast one morning and shared about his business, Pedal to Petal. It is  "a permaculture-based collective of bicycle loving food security activists who are taking direct action to reduce carbon emissions and landfill waste and to feed the soil and the city's hungry. This mandate is realized through bicycle powered kitchen scrap pick-up, the building of edible landscapes and composting." (from their website).  Three years in, Trevor spoke with excitement about the project and its future.  

We had hoped to shadow Trevor on a couple pickups and to see one of the several composting sites across town, but our ferry was to set sail soon.  Wagon South!