By LeRae Haynes – Ranching with Heart and Vision from the Soil Up. Beautiful, nutrient-dense, healthy, and organically-fed meat is available from SW² Ranch, where owners Sherry and Shawn Wiebe practise regenerative agriculture, ensuring that the soil sustains the animals and the animals sustain the soil, contributing to a strong, diverse ecosystem. Located on Bells Lake Road near Horsefly, BC, the 220-acre ranch is surrounded by Crown land and produces organically-fed pasture pork and free-range chickens for both meat and eggs, as well as grass-fed-and-finished Highland cattle for meat and breeding stock. All the meat they sell is processed at…
Author: thegreengazette
By Amy Quarry, Owner, Long Table Grocery — “The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is look underfoot You are always nearer to the divine and true sources of your power than you think The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive The great opportunity is where you are Do not despise your own place and hour Every place is under the stars Every place is the centre of the world.” —John Burroughs This winter marks 18 years since I returned to Quesnel after living away in the city, and every year I find myself reckoning with…
By Al-Lisa McKay — I don’t know what you did for New Year’s eve, but I found myself cuddled up to a box of tissues and crying my eyes out watching displaced kangaroos, koalas, and bats get bandaged up from severe burns as wildfires raged across the beautiful gem of Australia. I felt so helpless and had a deep yearning to find a way to be of service. I sent out a message on the Australian Animal Rescue Facebook page, enquiring about the possibility of there being an existing Canadian page working on behalf of Australia’s aid, and to my…
By Terri Smith – So much of Kate Patterson and Elliott Morton’s story of becoming farmers so closely mirrors my own that I’m afraid I kept interrupting my interview with them to exclaim and tell them bits of my own story. As with many of us millennials, Patterson’s awareness of the dire state of our planet was with her for as long as she can remember. As early as elementary school those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s saw how bleak our future would be if humankind continued its current path. We were all taught the…
By Oliver Berger — We are slowly beginning to understand the value of treating the life under the surface of the ground we walk on with a bit more respect. In late January, the Young Agrarians along with the Cattlemen’s Association held a seminar at Thompson’s River University, Williams Lake Campus with this exact topic in mind: soil health. At a balmy -30 degrees C outside there was a great turnout. Farmers, ranchers, composters, and eager soil geeks from around the region gathered to soak up everything we could. Speakers came from across British Columbia, Manitoba, and even the United…
By Jessica Kirby — Since 2004, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released an annual list of the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15—produce items that contain the highest and lowest concentrations of pesticides. The purpose is to promote the value of shopping organically with a specific focus on balance. “The Dirty Dozen is a list of products we recommend buying organically,” EWG says. “We believe the Clean 15 are the safest foods to buy conventionally. EWG recommends buying organic whenever possible—reducing your exposure to pesticides is a smart move and buying organic sends a message that you support environmentally friendly…
By Jessica Kirby — “I don’t think we have the option of despair. Hope is a duty. It is something we cultivate with daily consciousness through our actions.” —Vandana Shiva, environmental activist There are more than 1,000 seed vaults around the world—places where natural and heirloom seeds are stored, saved, and studied in a global effort to preserve them. They are both a symbol of hope and of worry, but most importantly, they introduce tangible acknowledgement of the importance of biodiversity. Seeds vaults are as diverse as their regions. The Millennium Seed Bank Project, located at the Royal Botanical Gardens,…
By Brianna van de Wijngaard, Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society — Every year, UN-Water promotes the international World Water Day campaign. World Water Day is like National Lima Bean Respect Day or National Ballpoint Pen Day, but a lot more important (no disrespect to lima beans). The theme this year is water and climate change: like so many initiatives in the last year, the focus on curbing or minimizing climate change impacts is top of mind for environmental and human rights organizations around the world. The policy brief posted on the UN-Water website summarizes the relationship between climate change mitigation measures…
By Ron Young — “Don’t doubt it’s you.” These words from a recent soundtrack Elon Musk released seem like some really good advice for the beginning of this decade filled with uncertainty, doubt, transformation of our social norms, and mind-numbing onslaught of disinformation. It’s even more striking that these words of wisdom are coming from a man who is literally changing the world we live in by trusting his vibe and acting on his beliefs. Many of the companies he founded or co-founded are household names: PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla. Musk’s stated goals are to change the world and humanity (including)…
By Lisa Bland, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, The Green Gazette – Dear Readers, As the daylight grows with each passing day, it’s time to emerge from winter dreams into the promise of spring. We made it to 2020, and in this dawning of a new decade, it’s ever more apparent that we live in a global community. What befalls other people and places befalls us, too. We are in this together. I remember thinking about 2020 as a far off, futuristic era with many possibilities, strange and wondrous, yet wrapped in a sense of foreboding for the future. I loved to read as…
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By Jim Cooperman — There is no doubt we are immersed in a climate crisis, as already we are experiencing the impacts—floods, fires, storms, and rising temperatures. Due to the still rising CO2 levels and the activated feedback loops, including the release of methane, recent predictions are suggesting that there could be 5 to 6 degree C rise in temperature by the end of this century. The big questions for us now are, what could we expect to happen where we live, what can we do to protect ourselves, and what can we do to make a difference? The province’s…
By Venta Rutkauskas — Falling Home Land from a fall from grace Cradled in moss’ embrace Repose in that belonging Rise up, unclench your fist Drink in the balsam fir mist Digest the medicine, repair Kiss the bark of this Hemlock tree Where the afterbirth is buried deep Mother and child planted The hole is marked with stones It’s here that ‘home’ was sown Anchored by living cells now a web of life Autumn signals transition, a fitting time of year to contemplate letting go. There are so many ways we can and sometimes must move on. Like selling a…
Escape to the Wild: A Family’s Return to Simplicity By Andrea Hejlskov Published by Caitlin Press Andrea Hejlskov was certain of one thing: life could not continue as it was. She and her husband had become disillusioned with their jobs and the pressures of urban living, their four children were spending too much time alone with their computers, and family conversations had become elusive. No matter how fast they ran they never really got anywhere; no matter how much they worked they never had enough money. Facing a constant feeling of failure and always falling behind, the family made a…
By Barbara Schellenberg – Here is what hair care was like for my family of five: We spent $1,200 a year on shampoo and conditioner. That’s 48 single use plastic bottles to recycle and 24 litres of questionable substances washed down the drain, not to mention time spent each month shopping for products. I wanted to make a change. These were my criteria: I wanted to spend less, waste less, and use fewer chemicals. I wanted to have better results with my hair and find a simple solution that we could easily maintain. Who would have thought to find the…
By Terri Smith – By now you must have heard of “slow fashion,” but do you really know what it is? In case you’re not sure, here is a great explanation from www.thesustainableedit.com. “Slow Fashion” means: quality over quantity caring for the environment protecting human rights conscious buying and thoughtful purchases Slow fashion isn’t about never buying new clothes; rather, it’s about making more informed, thoughtful decisions about our purchases. If you’re trying to make better-informed decisions about your clothing purchases, Felice Trotter-Wanner, owner of “My Own Collection,” and her team can help. For over 10 years now she has…
A Film by Robert E. Moberg – It was August 4, 2014 when the provincial news media called requesting footage of an “incident” at the Mt. Polley mine. I grabbed my camera gear and set out on the short flight via helicopter, my nephew, Kelly, at the controls. From about ten kilometres out we began watching for the strange bright green water of the lake-sized tailings pond, a well-known landmark. As we approached the mine, I remember feeling confused at not being able to locate the huge pond. “Where is it?” I asked. Kelly was looking ahead, equally confused and…
By Patrick Lucas – “We’ve struck gold!” I hear a voice shout out, and then it is quickly followed by another: “This is it. This is the money spot, boys.” I come out of the trees on a ridge over-looking Atlin Lake in northwestern British Columbia, the lands of the Taku River Tlingit, to find my good friends and trail building aficionados, Thomas Schoen and Justin Darbyshire both standing with their arms outstretched, framing the wild and spectacular scene below us like artists extolling the setting for their next masterpiece. Atlin Lake. Its ethereal mix of teal green and steel…
By Angela Gutzer – I wrote this story for the Swan Song festival, which was held October 26 at the Central Cariboo Arts Centre in Williams Lake, and I read it aloud at the event. It was inspired by “The Moth” podcast (themoth.org), a site that promotes the art and craft of storytelling to honour and celebrate the diversity and commonality of human experience. Letting go has been my theme for the past five years. Thanks to a friend I recently met up with in Haida Gwaii who looked at my astrology chart, I now know Pluto has been…