The Final Days

Well, my time on the farm is drawing to a close. I have to say, I've had an amazing time on this trip. This farm is a really special place, and I've felt very lucky to be a small part of it. It's strange to think that after I leave, things will start to change here very soon. Patrick and Colleen will be moving to their new farm in the Kootenay region of BC, and new tenants moving in to farm Brian and Rebecca's land.

The work I've done over the past few days has been typical of what we've been doing here over the past few weeks, but it has also been timed perfectly for me leaving with a sense of accomplishment. The last of the garlic varieties is now out of the ground, we finished weeding the onions, and we harvested the last of the green onion seed. Also, I captured my first hummingbird on film! I've seen a few since I've been here, but this time I had my camera ready:



After work yesterday, Brian and Rebecca invited us along to a dinner at the Neskonlith Community Center. The Neskonlith are a band of the Secwepemc Nation, who are indigenous to this region of British Columbia. One interesting thing I learned while I was here is that Canadians use the term "First Nations" in the way we use "Native American." I like this usage because when people here "Indian" or "Native American," it makes it seem like all people who were indigenous to the Americas were part of the same ethnocultural group. Of course, this is not the case--the Americas were inhabited by people from many different nations with distinct languages and cultural practices. "First Nations" does a nice job of recognizing this.

In any case, the dinner we were invited to was actually the kickoff for a workshop about the struggles that indigenous peoples have with their governments. The people who organized the event recognized that many of these struggles were shared by indigenous people around the world, so they were hosting a pair of South Africans who could describe their experiences with organizing their people to end apartheid. These guests, and several others, took an opportunity to speak and introduce themselves. In addition, three Neskonlith elders spoke to everybody about their experiences and struggles.

The Neskonlith are also working with the Shuswap Regional Food Network to try to secure their future independence from the corporate food network (that is, companies like Safeway). A lot of people spoke about how the land in the Shuswap region used to provide for their people, and that it should return to that model--local agriculture, combined with sustainable hunting/fishing on their traditional lands. The meal we ate was a demonstration of this goal. They served elk meat that was hunted locally and pit-cooked in the traditional way, locally-grown produce used in a variety of dishes, salmon, and a dessert made from "soapberries." While I didn't eat any of the elk or salmon, I did get to try soapberry foam. The berries are gathered in the mountains, and then their juice is whipped into a foam and mixed with sugar:



The result is a bittersweet, lathery foam that is quite pleasant. The fluffy mixture of sweet, bitter, and berry-flavor is really very unique. Brian compared the experience to a good ale--creamy foam, sweet at first, with a bitter finish. While it's a good comparison, I do have to say that the bitter finish reminds me more of the bitterness of quinine in tonic water. Then after dinner, the evening was concluded with a traditional song/prayer to wish their guests a safe journey home. While this was intended for the workshop guests who traveled from places like South Africa and Nova Scotia, hopefully it will help me on my drive home, as well.

And, just to top everything off, we had a vibrant rainbow over the mountains to gaze this evening: