Greenhouses & Moose: Taking Local Eating Up North
NOVEMBER 3, 2007 - After working at the farm during the summer, “eating to live” became a new concept for me, a spiritual experience engraved into my soul. When I returned to Prince George [British Columbia] for school in September, I tried to transport the Richmond experiment of a 10-mile diet to my new Prince George home. Sadly, that didn’t work out as well — only if I wanted to hunt my own moose or steal my neighbour’s potatoes.
Nonetheless, there is now a small group of students who are playing with the idea of
permaculture indoors, inside campus buildings. We still are in the initial stages of planning but I can’t help but imagine a day when I won’t need to buy groceries but could harvest carrots at school.
I feel very blessed at the age of 19 to have been able to have had experiences working on the Richmond Sharing Farm, and learning about choices about food (like reading your book). I admire how at the end you and James went and collected sea water to make salt. I’m curious if you guys had any worries about the sea water though (pollution etc.) — would the process of boiling out the water filter out contaminants or do you have to choose wisely where you get the water?
Anyways, reading your book brought moments of both laughter and pride to me. I love Vancouver, and don’t want to ever not be able to live there permanently. It feels good to know that if I wanted to make some serious lifestyle choices . . . I wouldn’t have to hunt moose.
-Robin Chang, Vancouver & Prince George, BC
About the salt: Boiling would like destroy any germs or biological contaminants, but pollution is another story. (It certainly made us think it was very wrong the water near our home in Vancouver was too dirty for human consumption!) James and I chose the most remote part of our 100-mile circle we could think of, and rowed on an incoming tide to the open sea, for the cleanest water possible. We felt confident it was cleaner than any coastal waters of France or Portugal, where all that famous fleur de sel comes from. -ADS
