Letter from Lillooet Canada, by Sarah Barret

Hands or rather garden forks across the ocean

The world is a much smaller place now, and we can travel it and see what other groups are doing, just by the click of a mouse.
Sara from a group in Canada, emailed about what we are doing, and agreed to write for us about how there group is addressing the same issues.
Here is her Letter From Lillooet

Over to Sarah

“Our group – Lillooet Food Matters – formed just over a year ago. It’s made up of a great mixture of folk, some with a lot of expertise in food growing, herbalism etc., and others just plain keen. We feel concern about the effects of Peak Oil on our food supply, much of which comes up from California, but the big push comes mainly from knowing that our community could grow a LOT more than it does … and we all love growing and eating good food. We’re keen to promote organics where possible, using open-pollinated seed that can be saved. This is Canada’s hot spot: a semi-arid climate with summer temperatures occasionally over 40C and it’s very dry indeed. Water is an issue for many. We live close to wilderness and most of our gardens are visited by bears and deer. Bobcat and cougar eye up our chickens! This year there were shocking forest fires and many people were evacuated from their homes (and precious gardens). You can visit the town website at http://lillooetbc.com/

Our first project was to hold a Seedy Saturday. The success of it exceeded our wildest dreams, with droves of people armed with their seeds to share! Some were donated to a seed bank – Seeds of Friendship – which is attached to our local food bank. We want to invite food bank users to grow food if they’d like to; maybe even save some seed to return to the bank. Supporting this venture with workshops is part of our plan this year.

During Earth Week and at other times we’ve shown movies that highlight what’s happening to our food supply.

Next was to hold organic food garden tours. On three Saturdays through the summer we visited two food gardens on each day (with our picnic lunch!). The gardeners shared what they were doing, what worked/didn’t work etc. They were a great success – we met new people, learned tons of new things and created an enthusiastic network which we’ll build on next year.

Lillooet is in the First Nations territory of St’at’imc, so we’re keen to learn from the St’at’imc people about indigenous plants, foods, cooking methods etc. In the Fall we shared in a three-day series of workshops, featuring chicken butchering, herbal salve making, preserves including sauerkraut, smokehouse building and lots of other foodie/craft topics – all topped off by a harvest feast including local vegetables, salmon, and the meat of deer and wild sheep!

Now we are needing to face the dramatic fall in sockeye salmon in the Fraser River – the biggest salmon river in the world. This is the main food source of the First Nations people and it is under threat.

We’ve loved reading about Todmorden’s success! We’re thrilled by your ‘bottom-up’, action based approach and community-wide involvement. We’re particularly inspired by the vegetable planters, guerilla gardening and what you’ve managed to do in schools. The egg map is a great idea too. Actually, we like it all and will enjoy staying in touch ….”
Sarah (Barrett)
Lillooet Food Matters”

Sarah also sent a photo of this guy, I think he could steal a lot of apples, a bit bigger than the squirrels that may steal some of hours

Thanks Sarah we are definitely working along similar lines it would be fab if the distance between us filled with folks doing the same.

Keep us posted on Lillooet Food Matters

You can find Lillooet on our world map