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Page 1: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page

TheGreenGazette

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August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 3

TheGreenGazette

Features: 04/ Mount Polley Mine Disaster There are more questions than answers concerning the Au-gust 4 breach of Mount Polley Mine’s tailings facility near

Likely, BC. It’s being called the single worst environmental disaster in British Columbia’s history. And that’s before all the details are in. - by Sage Birchwater

06/ �ature’s Classroom

When September rolls around, many families head to the

mall to stock up on school supplies, backpacks, and lunchboxes, not to mention the yearly closet full of clothing meant to help kick off a new school year with a sense of newness and a fresh start. Us? We go camping. - by Jessica

Kirby

11/ Little Bodies Out of Sync?

Ask any parent-to-be about their top concerns for a new baby or for their young children and they will often say au-tism. - by Cindy Sage, MA

18/ The Pull of a River

We have come from all across the Fraser Basin, travelling from the outskirts of the city, meeting for the very first time on the overnight Greyhound bus. For the next 25 days we will live beside the gaping presence of the Fraser River. - by Jacquie Lanthier

20/ BC Brewing at its Best It may come as a surprise—and a source of great pride—that modern day Canadian craft brewing has roots in Brit-ish Columbia. - by Jessica Kirby

27/ Five Sure-fire Fall Mushrooms for the Beginning

Fungivore There are many reasons to take part in the free bounty of wild mushrooms we have in the Cariboo. First and foremost is that wild mushrooms are to the farmed mushroom as the

tree picked peach is to supermarket picked variety, that is, unbelievably more flavourful. - by Bill Chapman

Contents August / September 2014

Publisher / Editor-in-Chief

Lisa Bland [email protected]

Senior Editor Jessica Kirby

Contributors

David Suzuki, LeRae Haynes, Jenna Sipponen, Sage Birchwater Pat Teti, Jacquie Lanthier, Michelle Daymond, Ciel Patenaude, Wilf Geier, Lisa Bland, Jenny Noble, Tera Grady, Van Andruss,

A.K. Amy, Jasmin Schellenberg, Terri Smith, Susan Tritt, Jessica Kirby,

Ray Grigg, Betty Geier, Adam McLeod, Diane Dunaway Bill Chapman, Cindy Sage, Jessica Knodel

Advertising Lisa Bland

Creative Directors Lisa Bland / Teena Clipston

Ad Design Teena Clipston, Rebecca Patenaude, Leah Selk

Published by Earthwild Consulting

Printing Black Press Ltd.

Cover

Mitchell River wetlands in Cariboo Mountains for Quesnel River Watershed Alliance. Photo by Ian MacKenzie

Index Photo: Sockeye Salmon, Pniesen

TheGreenGazette is published by Earthwild Consult-

ing. To subscribe call (250) 620-3419. To view the

web s i te an d on l in e f l ipb oo k, v i s it

www.thegreengazette.ca

© 2014 all rights reserved. Opinions and perspectives

expressed in the magazine are those of authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the owner-

ship or management. Reproduction in whole or part

without the publisher’s consent is strictly prohibited.

PO Box 164

Horsefly, BC, V0L 1L0

250-620-3419

www.thegreengazette.ca [email protected]

TheGreenGazette

Issue # 28

05/ Letter from the Publisher: Quesnel River Watershed Tragedy - by Lisa Bland

05/ Letters: Life was a Bowl of Cherries before Polly Mine Disaster

07/ Peace Talks Resume … at Bedtime - by Jessica Kirby

07/ Don’t Give Away our Forest Lands - by Van Andruss

08/ Grainy Griddle Flatbread - by Pat Teti

09/ Science Matters: It’s Time to Save the Bees - by David Suzuki

10/ Growing the Seeds of Change for Healthy Communities - by Michelle Daymond

12/ Youth Perspective: It’s All About the Music - by Jenna Sipponen

14/ Horsefly River Salmon Festival 2014

14/ Salmon Trip

15/ Choices: Selecting the Climate We Want - by Ray Grigg

15/ What’s in Your Well (part 4 ) - by A.K. (Sandy) Amy

17/ A Thousand Jars of Salmon - by LeRae Haynes

19/ Making Connections in Education - by Ciel Patenaude 22/ Confessions of a Farmer: The Story of Baby Goat - by Terri Smith

23/ Changing Course - by Jenny Howell, CCCS

23/ Chickens - by Susan Tritt 23/ Speak up for �ature in BC Schools - by Jenny -oble

24/ Cariboo Growers Co-op Q & A - by Jessica Knodel

24/ Wood Waste (Part of the CRD Solid Waste Info Series): Becoming Waste Wise

25/ �aturopathic Medicine and Cancer - by Adam McLeod, -D, BSc

26/ Simple Green Home Design - by Wilf Geier

28/ Featured Green Business: Adorn and Beauty �aturally - by LeRae Haynes

28/ Thoughts on Rivers - by Betty Geier

28/ Di’s Honey Garlic Salad Vinaigrette & Vegetable Marinade - by Diane Dunaway

30/ �ourishing our Children - by Jasmin Schellenberg

30/ Calendar of Events

31/ The Green Collective

Also in this Issue:

TheGreenGazette

25/ Upper Fraser Salmon Sustainability Protecting and conserving sustainable salmon stocks and supporting First Nations in becoming re-engaged with their traditional economy is the mission and the primary goal of the Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alli-

ance (UFFCA). - by LeRae Haynes

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Page 4 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

T here are more questions than

answers concerning the Au-

gust 4 breach of Mount Polley

Mine’s tailings facility near

Likely, BC. It’s being called the single

worst environmental disaster in British

Columbia’s history. And that’s before all

the details are in.

The full impact of millions of tons of toxic mining waste spilling into one of the most pristine deepwater lakes in the world may never be known. It is a night-mare unimaginable. The fact that Quesnel Lake is a sig-nificant part of the Fraser River water-shed—the largest salmon-producing river system in the world—deepens the signifi-cance. The lake supports three major Sock-eye runs as well as Chinook and other sal-monid species. An event this massive in one part of the Fraser system affects the whole river. As far as the salmon go, the timing of the disaster couldn’t have been worse because it occurred during the height of the summer migration runs. What we know for sure is that around 1:15 a.m. on BC Day, August 4, 2014, the four-kilometre-square tailings facility that has served Mount Polley Mine since 1997, breached its banks. As Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch explained it, the pump that recy-cled “supernatant” water from the 10-million-cubic-metre tailings lake, and sent it up the hill to the processing plant so it could be reused in the production of cop-per concentrate, stopped working. At that point mine staff went down and discovered the breach. At a public meeting the day after the breach, Kynoch attempted to alleviate fears by saying the supernatant water is almost fit to drink. For the uninitiated, “supernatant” water is the term used for the liquid lying above a solid residue in a tailings pond. The problem is, along with the 10 million cubic metres of almost-fit-to-drink water that poured into Quesnel Lake, mil-lions of tons of contaminated sand and sludge also got washed into the water. The exact volume of toxic material in the lake has not been determined. Witnesses at the spill say the lake was fizzing and popping like a can of Pepsi being poured into a glass. The specific chemical composition of mine sludge in the lake and residue left behind along Hazeltine Creek is also un-known. Jennifer McGuire of the Ministry of Environment said MOE staff only sam-pled the water in the lake near the spill and not the solid material. She said it was too dangerous for MOE staff to go into the area to get samples. The other bright note that Kynoch tried to convey was that the waste rock from Mount Polley Mine is not acid-generating. PAG or potentially acid-generating waste material must be kept submerged forever so it doesn’t oxidize and generate acid, which would release heavy metals and toxins into the environ-ment.

Mount Polley Mine Disaster: More Questions than Answers It is fortunate that the giant swath of previously submerged tailings waste lining the course of Hazeltine Creek is not acid-generating because it is now exposed to the air. What was once a two-metre-wide water course through the rainforest is now a 150-metre-wide wasteland. So what will happen when it rains? How much more toxic mud and sand will get washed into Quesnel Lake? Whether it is PAG or NAG (non-acid-generating) material hardly matters. The residue is nasty stuff. According to the Canadian Environmental Protection Agency file on Mount Polley Mine, the five-year accumulations of toxic material dumped into the tailings pond that make up its chemical cocktail include: 311 tonnes of nickel; 278,000 kg of lead; 472,000 kg of arsenic; 2,250 tonnes of zinc; 39,000 tonnes of copper; 7,070 tonnes of vanadium; 8,600 kg of cadmium; 653 tonnes of cobalt; 50,000 tonnes of phosphorus; 48.5 tonnes of antimony; 24,260 tonnes of manganese; 2,645 kg of mercury; and, 24,000 kg of selenium. Those are the totals for the past five years and the mine has been operational since 1997, so do the math. And no, I’m no chemist. I flunked chemistry twice in university, but I cer-tainly wouldn’t walk my dog in that mess. So what about the incidental interface with wildlife? Deer, bear, fox, moose, marten, eagles, crows, songbirds, and fish all live there. These are just some of the questions Imperial Metals and the Ministry of Envi-ronment must address, sooner rather than later. Meanwhile there’s a foreboding in the community of Likely. Jerked from the blissful sanctity of the summer tourist sea-son, where people come to get away from it all, there are strong feelings of uncertainty and outrage. Across the province people are furi-ous that the government and industry have betrayed their trust. Brian Kynoch told the people of Likely that tailings pond facilities are not supposed to fail. But the one at Mount Pol-ley did, and the consequences are irreversi-ble. Quesnel Lake is no longer the purest deepwater lake in the world. Instead it is tainted and will never be the same. Will the landscape recover? Proba-bly, eventually. Will the Fraser River salmon runs survive the impact and will healthy salmon runs make their way back to Quesnel Lake, Horsefly, and Mitchell River again? Hope-fully. What about the confidence people have in mining companies and government? Time will tell. Right now people’s confi-dence is shattered. So what has to change? “We need to know why the tailings facility failed,” Brian Kynoch told the peo-ple of Likely. “It will take a lot of time for the company to earn the people’s trust. We are going to do everything to clean it up once we know what has to be done.” And, yes, the company’s confidence in its own abilities has been shaken. “We need to know why it failed and

convince ourselves we can build a tailings facility that won’t fail,” Kynoch concluded. And what about government? There’s a culture of deregulation that pervades government with less capac-ity for oversight. How did this contribute to the Mount Polley disaster? Is there a will-ingness by government to be more respon-sible? Some people are calling for an inde-pendent public inquiry into the spill. What about other tailings facilities in the region? Gibraltar Mine is pumping effluent from its tailings facility directly into the Fraser River to avoid a similar breach from happening, and is applying to double this volume.

By Sage Birchwater

What kind of scrutiny and monitor-ing of the effluent quality is there? How can people trust that it is being done prop-erly? These are just some of the questions that need to be answered, and now is the time to ask them. Sage Birchwater is a freelance writer

based in Williams Lake. A resident of the

Cariboo-Chilcotin Coast since 1973, he is

the author of several books on local history

and people of the region. Sage lived on a

trapline in the Chilcotin for 10 years,

worked in the field of cultural research and

education in various First -ations commu-

nities, and has worked as a reporter for the

Williams Lake Tribune and Coast Moun-tain News of Bella Coola.

Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett and Premier Christy Clark on August 7, 2014 respond to questions from the crowd gathered at the public information meeting in

Likely, BC. Photo: Lisa Bland

Councillor JoAnn Moiese for Soda Creek and Williams Lake Indian Band speaks to

the crowd gathered in Likely, BC after a charcoal ceremony by elder Julianna John-

son, held to show respect for the land. With words full of emotion, JoAnn explains how

important the Quesnel River Watersed is to their community. “It feels like there has

been a death in our community. Keep us in your prayers today and for the months and

years of long-term studies to understand what has happened.” Photo: Lisa Bland

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August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 5

TheGreenGazette

D ear Readers,

It’s hard to find words to express

the scale of the impact of Impe-

rial Metals’ Mount Polley Mine

tailings pond breach and spill into Quesnel

Lake on August 4. The magnitude of this

disaster is staggering. For those who live

and work in the area and treasure the pris-

tine gem of the Quesnel Lake watershed, it

is heartbreaking. As the shock and disbelief

wear off, sadness and fear for the river, fish,

animals, ecosystem, and people who love

and depend on this area, now covered in a

river of gray sludge, continue to flow. Anger

and mistrust grow towards an industry regu-

lated by a government that should have pro-

tected this beautiful place.

Anyone watching the aerial footage in the early days of the disaster is impacted by the horror of the scene. The mountain of de-bris and river of toxic gray effluent blasting through the once tiny Hazeltine Creek, ooz-ing down into the turquoise depths of Ques-

nel Lake, is beyond tragic. In this place, re-nowned for its pure waters and rich salmon and wildlife habitat, it’s hard to imagine a bigger blow. At the time just before press, with early water test results in, Health Canada has confirmed the safety of the drinking water for the residents of Likely and some areas along the Quesnel River system, yet countless ques-tions remain. The long-term impact of this disaster on the local residents; impacts to First Nations people and their reliance on the food, medicine, and salmon of the watershed;

and, the extent of the toxic effects on the wild animals, fish, and waterways are all in ques-tion. What are the cumulative effects of the millions of gallons of tainted water that coursed into Quesnel Lake, down Quesnel River, and into the Fraser? Will we ever know? With reports coming in from First Nations of sickly salmon in the Fraser River and an estimated 1.5 million Sockeye head-ing up into the Quesnel system, what impact, if any, will this have on their migration? If

there are no effects to the fish now, then how will this play out in their life cycles in the years to come? In what ways will the ecosys-tem, animals, and fish continue to circulate and bio-accumulate the toxins present in Quesnel Lake? Who can we trust for an-swers? The pressing concerns of reducing the water levels in Polley Lake to avoid another devastating release of tailings into Quesnel Lake, how to clean up the mass of sludge in Hazeltine Creek and surrounding area, and cost and responsibility of the clean-up, will

play out in the days and months to come. While a government inquiry is being conducted into the cause of the disaster, some are calling for an independent investigation. Despite assurances from the province and Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett that the mine was well within compliance, claims of local mine workers that the tailings pond

Letter from the Publisher

Lisa Bland Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

Quesnel River Watershed Tragedy was showing obvious signs of stress tell a different story. The state of environmental regulation of industry in our province, the political affiliations and monetary ties be-tween the Imperial Metals mining company and the Liberal government, the relationship between First Nations and industry, and the safety of industrial mining and other toxin-producing industries across the world are now being brought into question.

When I first arrived in the Cariboo over 20 years ago, I learned firsthand how special Quesnel Lake and the surrounding watershed were. The Quesnel River Water-shed Alliance (QRWA), worked tirelessly to protect the water, salmon, animals, and habi-tat for the generations to come. Never before had I encountered a group of people so pas-sionate about protecting the pristine beauty of a place. They organized Voyageur canoe trips on Quesnel Lake to enjoy its rugged beauty, and challenged industrial logging activities in the area, monitoring their impacts on the wa-

tershed. It was here, near Quesnel Lake, that I began to understand the depth of love and connection people can have for a place. In a cozy log cabin, a group of people young and old—researchers, ranchers, biologists, tour-ism operators, and wilderness enthusiasts—gathered together to discuss strategies for protection of the watershed. These people were diverse. They were not what people might label “hippie environmentalists.” What they shared was a love for something beyond themselves and a calling to protect it so

strong that they were called to action. I would like to dedicate this issue to long-time Beaver Valley rancher, conserva-tionist, and QRWA member Nora Nicol, who passed away peacefully on August 4, the night of the Mount Polley disaster. She was a passionate advocate for the wild places of the Quesnel River Watershed and it was in her log home, eating her home-made cookies, that I first met the QRWA members, and became friends with this group of remarkable people. Nora was a beloved and important

part of the Horsefly community and will be sadly missed. In her memory, I hope that we can continue to speak up and fight for the natural world that so inspires and feeds us with life. Maybe we shouldn’t accept every-thing we are told about how things need to be in order to prosper in the modern world. We are all consumers of the products of modern industrial mining and industry, but when there are profits on the line, impacts will be kept hidden and shortcuts will be taken. It’s up to us to keep questioning what it means to live in a modern world and how

we impact other life-forms and subsequent generations. Nora and the QRWA taught me to listen to the wilderness of my heart and to speak up for those that have no voice. I learned that you can also have a lot of fun doing it. In this time to savour the last days of summer and anticipate the return of the salmon, on BC Rivers Day, September 28, many of our thoughts and prayers will be with the Quesnel River watershed. The Horsefly Salmon Festival on Sept 27 and 28 is an opportunity to celebrate the return of

our Sockeye salmon run. Please come out and support our watershed and community and the salmon that find their way home. Clean waters and healthy salmon runs are the gold that will sustain us for generations to come. See page 14 for more details on the Horsefly Salmon festival.

Letters: Life was a Bowl of Cherries before Polley Mine Disaster

B C Holiday weekend: “Life is a bowl full of cherries,” I an-

nounced at a family gathering.

We were all having a beautiful

time. We were at the family cabin at Ques-nel Lake. Early Monday morning, I got

up to pee at 3:00 am and I was sleeping

on my boat, which was docked in front of

the cabin. I heard this continuous roar, like a 747 jet towards the town of Likely.

Then I noticed that the boat was rocking,

while a minute ago Quesnel Lake was like

glass. That’s odd. I knew that Polley Mine

was within a few miles, but I just returned to bed, puzzled by the strange noise.

In the morning, I swam in the lake and drank out of the lake (love that cof-fee). When we left the cabin and entered the realm of cell, TV, and radio coverage, I found out that I was swimming in and drinking toxic sludge laced with arsenic, mercury, cynanide, etc. The full horror story of the Polley Mine disaster was re-vealed. Nice ending to my weekend. Life is not a bowl full of cherries. I found myself back in 150 Mile House scrubbing my body over and over like I was borderline insane. I was mad as hell that one could not swim in or drink water from Quesnel Lake. This incredible lake was no longer pristine and I was now caught up in a political mad-ness wanting to know why and how this happened. I received a call Monday that a radio station wanted to talk to me about my experience. Take a listen, but start at 3:32 minutes. https://soundcloud.com/cjsfradio/august-5th-2014-mount-polley-disaster-and-salish-sea-summer-gathering?in=cjsfradio/sets/wild-salmon-warrior-radio-1 Three days later, I am sitting in the Likely Lodge Restaurant and who walks in? I will give you a hint. She was not

wearing a hard hat. You got it. It was Christy Clark. “Could you please tell me where the washroom is?” Christy asked. The restaurant lady gave her routine speech, “You have to use the outhouse.” Christy looked puzzled. “The outhouse is across the street,” said the young lady. Numerous people had entered the restaurant looking for a bathroom, all get-ting the same answer. It shows that we are all unaware of the ramifications from this disaster. Even Christy forgot for a mo-ment that there was a water ban in effect. Every day we read more info on this spill of toxic sludge. This lake is the deepest lake in North America. This lake has a vortex, said one resident. Many believe the lake currents are related to wind currents. You would think that the debris from the spill would head towards the out-flow river. However, the debris is heading in the opposite direction. Then there was a green plume, which many could see. It seemed to reappear at times. Many believe the green was part of the 18,000 plus ton-nes of copper in the tailings pond. The 2.3 million Sockeye salmon will most likely pick up contaminants as they head to the salmon grounds to spawn. Therefore, up the Quesnel Lake and up rivers, such as the Horsefly River, the salmon could be acting as a vector for con-tamination. It is possible that these salmon are carrying some of the one million pounds of arsenic in their gills. All that eat the salmon could be also contaminated. Who would have thought salmon could be a vector for arsenic or other chemicals? Another ramification I never thought of. Rod Marining 150 Mile House, BC

25 km from Horsefly along Ditch Road, Rod Marining looks downstream of what was once a 2 meter-wide-creek that grew hundreds of meters wide due to Mnt. Polley's tail-

ing pond collapse. Imperial Metals Corp. stated they do not have the estimated $400

million to clean up this site. Photo: Chris Blake

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TheGreenGazette

B ig Brothers Big Sisters of Wil-

liams Lake will be holding the

22nd Tour de Cariboo event

this September. This annual

event is a highlight for many cyclists in

the Cariboo and beyond.

This 75 km ride from Williams Lake to Gavin Lake is an event for riders of all abilities. Whether you want to chal-lenge yourself to ride the event as a solo rider or as a part of a relay team this is an event that you will enjoy participating in. All revenue generated by this event supports programming for over 100 local children. Programs supported by this event include Big Brother Big Sister matches, In-School Mentoring to children

W hen September rolls

around, many families

head to the mall to stock

up on school supplies,

backpacks, and lunchboxes, not to men-

tion the yearly closet full of clothing

meant to help kick off a new school year

with a sense of newness and a fresh start.

Us? We go camping. There is really noth-

ing like enjoying all the amenities of pro-

vincial campsites when there is barely a

soul in sight.

Our kids look forward to this time of year and to the quiet, relaxed approach we take to fall. Our almost nine-year-old son attended Montessori preschool and kindergarten, and although he strolled con-fidently out of his kindergarten graduation with six years of hands to heart work under his belt, we just knew the traditional class-room wasn’t going to cut it for this little guy. My husband was a little sceptical of our options—continuing with Montessori was way out of our reach financially, and he was still a bit old school in thinking homeschoolers were basically either weir-dos or fundamentalist Christians—and although he has nothing against either of those groups, he wasn’t exactly identifying with them either. But in the end it was our son’s per-sonality and learning style, my work-from-home career, and the sheer joy of fostering creativity, open-mindedness, and passion in the learning process that helped us de-cide to keep our son home. (I’m not even sure “keeping him home” is the right phrase, because he’s never been as relieved in his life as he was to hear he wasn’t go-ing to have to brave “that great big build-ing with all those kids and stuff on the walls.”) Everyone has their reasons for their learning at home choices, and be they

By Jessica Kirby, Senior Editor of TheGreenGazette

Nature’s Classroom learning challenges, flexible schedules, the desire for specialty curriculum, weirdness, or religion, the growing number of families who cherish the choice are finding it’s a real plus living in BC. British Columbia is the only prov-ince that has retained a section in its edu-cation act to allow real, actual “homeschooling” in the truest sense of the word. Under sections 12 and 13 of the School Act of 1989, BC parents have the legal right to provide an educational pro-gram of their choice for their children. This means the parents create, deliver, and assess the program, if there is one, and the students are not required to meet any pro-gress requirements. Homeschoolers have to be registered with a BC certified school, but this essentially helps the province keep track of what children are in what place. Homeschooling families aren’t offered a great deal of support or resources although they do receive a small funding amount that would normally go to the school a child was attending. In 2006, the BC government en-acted Bill 33, which made Distributed Learning programs part of the School Act. Under DL programs students are enrolled in a private or public school somewhere in BC, from which they receive resources, support, and overseeing guidance from a BC certified teacher. DL programs can be as traditional as your neighbourhood school district’s government mandated curriculum completed at the kitchen table and graded by a school teacher, or as flexi-ble as Self Design, in which parents are encouraged to help students and teachers decide on a learning plan for the year un-der which the student’s abilities are dem-onstrated in ways that reflect his or her interests. DL families receive a larger por-tion of funding that can be used for materi-als and supplemental classes or instruction. Homeschoolers relish in the free-dom to learn from life, to pursue passion in everything from community engagement to video games. Their “programs” are es-sentially about interacting with the world and learning life skills as their parents of-fer (or not). Their core principles are often curiosity, fulfilment, responsibility, and

play, and skills are often learned through work experience, mentoring, elective classes, and books. DL programs are better suited for families who like some structure, but who still appreciate a student and family cen-tered program. Flexibility and student-focused are the keys here, in that a student who struggles with handwriting or math may be able to act out, sing about, or sculpt his language assignments or use manipulatives to express her math skills, for instance. Children are encouraged to follow their interests and obsessions with particular projects or subjects, all while being evaluated and supervised to some degree by a BC certified teacher. In our case, we went with our local school district’s Learn @ Home program, which uses the province’s learning out-comes objectives, but allows a great deal of flexibility in how students meet the ob-jectives. Ours is also one of a handful in BC considered a hybrid DL program in that students are offered three, six-week-

long blocks of on-site classes at a local school, taught by L@H-employed, BC certified teachers. The classes are for L@H students only and cover basic subjects like math, language, science, and phys ed, ca-tering more or less to the structure and social components of the school experi-ence. Most of all, it simultaneously met my desire for creative, open education for our son, and my husband’s desire that our son experience structure and interacting with teachers and other students in a traditional way. This fall when the leaves are falling and the air is crisp, enjoy not just the change in seasons, but also the quiet and bounty of nature’s classroom. I know we will.

***

Distributed learners Sebastian, Hunter, Solomon, Kaeden, and Mackenzie practice

their social studies, science, and construction skills during an average school day

near Oliver Woods Park in �anaimo. Photo: Kelly Davalos

22ND Annual Tour De Cariboo – September 6, 2014

in School District 27, as well Couples for Kids, Aboriginal In-School Mentoring, and Teen Mentoring. On the day of the event you will be supported by many volunteers along the way. There are rest stops with water and some snacks to give a boost along the way. At the mid-point at Big Lake a deli-cious lunch will be provided for riders.

First Aid and support vehicles will also be provided along the route. At Gavin Lake there will be an ap-petizing buffet, presentation of prizes, and a fun evening of music and stories. Bring your own tent or trailer, stay in the cabins on site, and keep the enjoyment going. Visit our website at www.bbswlake.com or give us a call at (250) 398-8391 for more information. Registration is on our website. Registra-tion is $40 and a minimum of $100 in pledges. Make this an important annual fundraising event for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Williams Lake. Sign up for the Tour de Cariboo today and support your community!

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August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 7

TheGreenGazette

T his year the BC government

carried out an online public

inquiry called an “Area Based

Forest Tenure Consultation,”

which ended May 30, 2014. Advertised as a

response to a dwindling timber supply and

particularly to the devastating beetle kill of

the past decade, the Consultation invited

comment on a proposal regarding “tenure”

for large-scale logging interests.

Basically, two kinds of tenure exist in BC. Both involve logging rights. One is known as an FL, or Forest Licence; the other is known as a TFL, or Tree Farm Li-cence. There is a big difference between the two. The Forest Licence gives the right to harvest a certain volume of wood, while the Tree Farm Licence gives the licensee man-agement control and near-exclusive harvest-ing rights over a specific area of land. The government’s proposal is that, in selected cases, tenure shift from “volume-based” logging rights (FLs) to “area-based” logging rights (TFLs). The evil here is that the Tree Farm Licence offers a degree of property rights only slightly less complete than Fee Simple, meaning ownership of the land. The provin-cial government’s “Discussion Paper” states that only existing tenure holders are to be considered and only in beetle impacted ar-eas. These specifications necessarily refer to forest companies on a grand scale. You can be sure that converting FLs to TFLs will make it much more difficult than it already is for the general public, and even for the present government, to influ-ence forest management plans and opera-tions, to protect vital forest functions, and to carry out non-timber economic activities like ranching, tourism, and recreation. Un-der this regime, it is certain that First Na-tions will have greater difficulty negotiating just and honorable treaty agreements and any kind of protection in their lands. In fact, granting big corporations TFLs must be regarded as a final step to-wards the government’s de facto privatiza-tion of public forests, which began with dismantling the BC Forest Service and their approval-authority over company logging plans. The shocking truth is that the present Ministry of Forest Lands and Natural Re-source Operations is no more than a proc-essing agency for issuing cutting permits, while the power to decide how cutting plans should be executed is currently in the hands of company-hired RPFs who cannot deviate from their employers’ fix on timber extrac-tion and the maximization of profits. TFL holders have consistently de-graded the land under their control, after which they are free to sell their rights to “what’s left over,” yielding further profits at public expense. In reality, the pressure for new corporate tree farm licences is being driven by overcutting in the interior of BC, not only beetle kill. Issuing new tree farm licences can only worsen the problem and skirt the necessity to address the history of unsustainable logging, the lack of commu-nity control, and the many other compli-cated issues resulting in mismanagement

Don’t Give Away Our Forest Lands!

and environmental degradation. The government’s focus—I would say “obsession”—with timber extraction alone is narrow and destructive. Respond-ing to the Consultation’s “Discussion Pa-per,” ecology-based forestry advocate, Herb Hammond of the Silva Forest Foun-dation, reminds us that “providing timber products is a relatively minor role that for-ests play in BC and elsewhere on Earth. Necessities of life like clean air, pure wa-ter, carbon sequestration and storage, and climate moderation are all important func-tions of forest ecosystems” and “these functions are best carried out by old, natu-ral forest ecosystems, as opposed to tree farms/managed forests.” TFLs effectively privatize ecosys-tem functions as well as timber supplies. The simple fact is that logging cor-porations, big or small, do not make ac-ceptable stewards of public forest lands and giving away near-ownership of our pre-cious heritage will not reverse dwindling timber supplies. Back in1989, the Social Credit gov-ernment tried to convert FLs to TFLs. Pub-lic meetings were held and the outcry pre-vented the conversion from happening. I wish to remind the board of “Consultation” that, strictly speaking, nei-ther corporations nor government, for that matter, own the Crown Land of this prov-ince. The people of BC, both native and non-native, own the Crown Land of this province. Crown Land is our version of the Commons. A better solution to the declining state of forest lands is to begin a process of re-claiming TFLs and FLs from large cor-porations. Besides this, to set about re-instating a socially responsible forest ser-vice charged with supervising a respectful stewardship of the land, legally empowered to deal with all aspects of forest health and forest use. In this vision, private enterprise will not control the land or set the rules for its use, and government policies will shift to favour small scale forestry operations whose products accrue to the economic benefit of local communities. In this way, “profits” will be counted in terms of jobs (meaningful and friendly) for local work-ers. For further appraisal, please visit Forestethics.org and Silvafor.org. Van Andruss is editor of the magazine

Lived Experience. He enjoys the biore-gional life and community in historic Moha

outside of Lillooet, BC.

Originally published in Bridge River News.

By Van Andruss

Photo: Chris Stubbs

So, what is peace? I ask him, brushing the hair away from his forehead as we lay on his bed, spooning, his back to me. What does peace look like? Quiet, he says. Quiet and no fight-ing. What about fear? I ask. Some peo-ple say peace is the absence of fear and

worry. I guess so. As long as you’re quiet

at the same time.

Is that important? I ask. That you be quiet to be peaceful? It means sitting quietly and calmly

with nothing in your head.

Do you feel peaceful most of the

time or just sometimes?

Mostly I am not peaceful, he says. Oh?

Well, I’m pretty active, you know.

I’m always running.

Me too, I say. But when I run, I feel very much at peace.

How is that possible? he says, roll-ing over to look me in the eye, like he thinks I’m up to something. You can’t be calm when you’re flailing your body

around.

Well, for one thing, I don’t flail

when I run. I just run. And, I am very

much at peace because my mind is empty

of worry. I am quiet in my thoughts and

feel no stress.

Aren’t you worried an animal will

jump out an eat you? That must disrupt

your peace.

-ot at all, I say. That is why I bring the dog.

What if a cougar ate the dog?

Would you be at peace then?

-o, I say, imagining that horror for a brief moment. I certainly wouldn’t be. We are quiet for a moment, both, I think, imagining the horror. Then I ask him: You know about the International Day of Peace? That it

falls on your birthday?

He grins at this last part, as though the United Nations did it just for him and he owes them the awe of this moment. Why do you think the International

Day of Peace is important? I ask. Because of my birthday? he asks, then giggles. Because it’s a reason to talk about peace. That’s my real answer.

Yea, I say, that is a good reason. It is also a chance for the whole world to

think about ways to be present and not so

worried about everything. A chance for the U- to spend every September 21 talk-

ing about how to keep people safe and the

world calm.

What’s the U-?

Oh, right. It’s a group of people

representing almost every country in the

world. They get together regularly to talk

about things that affect the whole world

like whether we have enough clean water

or access to food, what rights children

have, and how to handle it when people

aren’t treated nicely by their own govern-

ments.

And peace? he offers. They also deal with peace?

Correct, I say. Or, they try to. What does that mean?

Peace Talks Resume … at Bedtime By Jessica Kirby

That means that they try to deal

with peace, but sometimes the issues are

too big or so much has happened to fuel a

fight and so people can’t agree on how to

make peace.

He says nothing. -ot only that, I continue, but there are five original U- members who can

cancel out a vote whenever they like.

Seriously?

Seriously.

How is that peaceful?

It isn’t, really.

Well, if I were mayor, I would

make those five countries give up the right

to cancel other people’s votes.

You would?

I would.

You would make a great mayor,

then.

Thanks.

We are quiet for a few minutes and then: I think peace is when you aren’t

afraid, he says, rubbing his eyes. The absence of fear?

Yea, I guess so. But I guess that’s

impossible because there is always some-

thing that could scare you.

Like what?

Like spiders or fire or leaving your

book on the bus and never finding it

again.

Well, what if you could remain

peaceful in those situations?

That’s impossible.

Really? Why?

Because you would be sad, not

peaceful, he says, yawning. You can’t be calm and still when you feel like that.

The Buddha says you can. He said

the whole experience of living was about

finding a way to be calm and compassion-

ate—peaceful—no matter what is happen-

ing around you.

He raises up on one elbow, sud-denly more awake, because he’s serious now. So you’re never mad? I though being mad is okay …

Of course it is, and of course you

still get mad. But the anger just comes and

you notice it, and move on.

He flops over onto his back, laugh-ing. That’s ridiculous, he says. It is? Or is it just unusual and hard

to imagine?

It’s ridiculous, he says, yawning again. Why?

Because even if you kept your mind

calm, the librarian would lose her pickle

when she found out you lost the book and

then POOF! your peace would be gone.

You think?

I know.

Maybe she reads about peace when

she’s not serving customers and she would

just be at peace with the lost book.

Maybe then she would want to

come to my birthday.

Who? The librarian?

Sure, Mom, he says, his eyes drift-ing a little closer to closed. Anyone who can be that calm can come to my birthday.

Good night, Mr. Mayor, I say, kiss-ing his forehead. Peaceful dreams.

Page 8: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

Page 8 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

L ike eggs, beer, wine, and

cheese, “bread” refers to a sin-

gle food category while encom-

passing endless variety. Part of

the variety comes from using different

ingredients but altering the proofing, loaf

size and shape, and baking conditions can

also add great diversity to the finished

product. When you are following a recipe

and trying to replicate a loaf you see in a

photo, this also means that getting the

ingredients right is only the beginning.

The temperature and duration of the

proofing (rise), dough handling and

shaping, and oven temperature and hu-

midity also affect the outcome. Those

variables that come into play after the

ingredients are in the bowl are seldom

described in detail in bread recipes. They

are best learned through experience but

on the bright side, the result of your ef-

forts will almost always be delicious, even

if it doesn’t turn out exactly as you had

hoped.

The amount of oven rise that a loaf achieves has a large effect on the texture and appearance of bread but a nice puffy loaf is not easy to achieve with breads con-taining large amounts of whole grain, like the 50 per cent in this recipe. It is much more reliable to make a grainy dough into flatbread. There are all sorts of advantages to flatbread. It doesn’t require an oven, doesn’t have to be sliced, is durable for packing, can be made from any dough rec-ipe, and it’s fast. You can convert dough into delicious flatbread in a few minutes instead of an hour. I chose to write about flatbread because it lets you experiment with high proportions of whole grain with-out the frustration of low oven rise. It’s meant to be flat, so aim low and achieve your goal! While flatbread can be made with chemical leavening such as baking soda, or no leavening at all, this recipe uses yeast. Well-proofed yeasted dough is easy to roll out and you have the option to make part of it into loaves and part into flatbread. Like my pizza recipe in the April/May 2014 issue of TheGreenGazette, this one uses a long, slow rise in a “cool Cariboo kitchen.” Recipe

This can make 16 to 32 tortilla-sized flatbreads, depending on their thick-ness. I often divide this into two and make half into loaves and half into flatbreads. You’ll need a heavy duty camping griddle that spans two burners on a range, or at least one large cast iron skillet.

Grainy Griddle Flatbread Day 1

• 5 cups water in a large bowl • A pinch of instant yeast (less than 1/8

tsp) • 2 cups whole wheat or other all-grain

flour • 2 cups cracked grain such as 7 grain

cereal Cover and let sit at 15 to 18 degrees C for two days. Allow more time if cooler and less if warmer. Day 3

After this “pre-ferment” the dough should be bubbly and have a nice fer-mented aroma. Mix in the following: • 2 cups rolled oats or other rolled grain • 1 cup all-purpose flour • ½ cup flax seed • 2 tsp turmeric Cover and return to cool room tem-perature. Day 4

• Add 2 tsp salt • Add about 5 cups more all-purpose

flour or bread flour a cup at a time, mixing after each cup. Don’t worry about the amount.

When it comes away from the bowl (after mixing in about 3 or 4 cups), turn it out onto a floured surface for kneading. If you use a mixer I’ll leave that up to you because I don’t have any experience with them. I’ve read that it is possible to over-knead with a mixer but not by hand. Kneading is one of those things that are easier to do than they are to describe. You can find “kneading dough” videos online but I haven’t found any that do it the way I do. Large, grainy batches of dough like this are much harder to knead than small batches made with white flour. In fact, this batch is much too large to knead all at once in a consumer countertop mixer. My kneading method is to repeat-edly push and roll the dough so that it forms a baguette shape. When it gets long and skinny I simply double it back on itself and continue rolling. This makes it much easier to knead because you are not knead-ing all of it at once. Unlike a stand mixer, this method is slow and quiet. Listen to the radio, music, or your own thoughts. Keep the dough and the work surface dusted with flour to keep it from sticking. One of my favourite tools for a wooden kneading surface is a metal cabinet scraper to scrape up the sticky bits and corral the flour. If

you have a concrete or stone surface, a wooden or plastic scraper might be better. Keep kneading and adding flour until the stickiness is mostly gone. This takes at least 20 minutes for a recipe this size. When done, fold it up into a flat ball dust it with flour and place back in the bowl, which has been generously oiled. Cover and let rise at a suitable tempera-ture. Final rise

This can be done overnight at down around 15 C but I generally put the dough in a warm place to speed it up so I can bake it the same day. If you are making just flatbread, there’s no harm done if the dough “over proofs” (that is, rises as much as it’s going to rise and then starts sink-ing). However, if you are making part of it into loaves, you don’t want it to over proof. I won’t go into how to determine when the dough has risen just the right amount before baking into loaves because this recipe is about flatbread. I use a digital meat thermometer to check dough tem-perature. If you want it to rise fast, try to get it up to 25–30 degrees C for the final rise. Grainy dough such as this doesn’t rise as much or as fast as dough from white flour alone but it should rise by a factor of 1.5 to 2, or nearly double its starting vol-ume. The amount of rise isn’t critical for flatbread. When nearly doubled in bulk, turn out onto a floured surface and divide in two. Place one half back in the oiled bowl.

The following instructions apply to the first half. Preheat the griddle or skillets over medium heat while getting the dough ready. Gently pull and push the dough into a uniform log and place little marks with a knife for dividing it into four equal parts. Gently shape one of the quarters into a smaller log and divide it into four equal pieces for small or thin flatbreads. If you want thicker breads, divide into two rather than four. Dusting with flour as needed to avoid sticking, press or roll out one piece of dough at a time into the desired thick-ness and size. Flax seeds help gauge the thickness for thin flatbreads and sunflower seeds could be used in a similar way for thicker flatbreads. Grill each flatbread on both sides, rotating as needed and flipping once until they look and feel done. It only takes a few minutes. You can use high heat if you’re careful and don’t mind a bit of smoke. If the flatbread was floured well enough to roll out, it won’t stick to a well-seasoned steel griddle or iron skillet. This bread is quite low in salt. I like to drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle with a little more salt. You can use it for sand-wiches or make it into crackers by cutting it into pieces and drying them in a warm oven. Enjoy! Pat Teti was a research scientist with the

BC government for 18 years and has al-

ways enjoying making things.

By Pat TetiBy Pat TetiBy Pat TetiBy Pat Teti

I divided this recipe in half to make 14 flatbreads and two loaves. I brushed the loaves

with egg yolk and sprinkled them with sesame seeds before baking at 450 F for 25

minutes. Photo: Pat Teti

Page 9: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 9

TheGreenGazette

It’s Time to Save the Bees and Ban Neonic Pesticides

B ees may be small, but they play a

big role in human health and

survival. Some experts say one

of every three bites of food we

eat depends on them. The insects pollinate

everything from apples and zucchini to

blueberries and almonds. If bees and other

pollinators are at risk, entire terrestrial

ecosystems are at risk, and so are we.

Well, pollinators are at risk. And we know one of the main causes of their alarm-ing death rates. A new report concludes that neonicotinoid pesticides, or neonics, “pose a serious risk of harm to honey bees and other pollinators.” They also harm butterflies, earthworms, and birds, and because they’re now found in soils, sediment, groundwater, and waterways, they alter “biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and the ecosystem services provided by a wide range of af-fected species and environments.” The report, produced by the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides, is the work of 50 independent scientists from around the world who spent four years analyzing more than 800 peer-reviewed scientific studies. “Far from protecting food produc-tion, the use of neonics is threatening the very infrastructure which enables it, imperil-ling the pollinators, habitat engineers, and natural pest controllers at the heart of a functioning ecosystem,” says lead author Jean-Marc Bonmatin of the National Centre for Research in France. Other research shows they may not even increase agricul-tural yields. Neonics are a family of chemicals with names like thiacloprid and imidaclo-prid. They disrupt the central nervous sys-tems of insects and are undeniably great at killing pests like aphids and grubs. Unlike traditional pesticides, neonics are “systemic pesticides” that are most often applied to seeds and roots so the chemical becomes incorporated into the plants’ leaves, pollen, nectar, fruit, and flowers. According to the Task Force, “Neonics impact all species that chew a plant, sip its sap, drink its nectar, eat its pol-len or fruit” and can remain toxic for weeks or months—even years. The impacts cas-cade through ecosystems, weakening their stability. As nerve poisons, they can kill targeted and non-targeted species and can cause “impaired sense of smell or memory; reduced fecundity; altered feeding behav-iour and reduced food intake including re-duced foraging in bees; altered tunnelling behaviour in earthworms; difficulty in flight; and, increased susceptibility to dis-ease.” There’s also evidence they can harm human health, especially in infants.

Neonics make up about 40 per cent of the world insecticide market, with global sales of US$2.63 billion in 2011, and grow-ing. That may explain why, despite increas-ing evidence that they’re harmful, there’s been such strong resistance to phasing them out or banning them. After experts con-cluded in 2013 that neonics pose an unac-ceptable risk to bees, the European Union imposed a temporary ban on the use of three neonics in applications that are particularly hazardous to bees—despite fierce opposi-tion from the agrochemical industry and several governments. At the same time, Canada re-approved clothianidin, one of the chemicals banned in Europe. In the face of conclusive findings from hundreds of studies, industry reaction has been astounding. “There is very little credible evidence that these things are caus-ing untoward damage because we would have seen them over 20 years of use,” said Julian Little, spokesperson for neonicotinoid manufacturer Bayer. Canadian agricultural pest control trade association CropLife Canada also re-jected the science, blaming bee deaths on varroa mites, another serious threat to hon-eybees. And even though Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency confirmed neonics used on corn seed contributed to bee die-offs in Ontario and Quebec, federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose has so far rejected a ban, saying her department’s re-search is “inconclusive.” What will it take to get governments and industry to put people—and pollina-tors—before profits? Around the world, concerned individuals and organizations are calling on decision-makers to get serious about this threat. At writing, more than 27,000 have signed a David Suzuki Founda-tion action alert asking federal and provin-cial governments to ban the use and sale of neonics. It’s the government’s duty to protect us from potentially harmful chemicals. With neonics, the science is clear: they’re unsafe. Researchers say, “there is clear evidence of harm sufficient to trigger regulatory action.” They’re calling them “the new DDT.” It’s time to ban these harmful pesti-cides. Written with contributions from David Su-

zuki Foundation senior editor Ian Haning-

ton. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

By By By By

David SuzukiDavid SuzukiDavid SuzukiDavid Suzuki

Science Matters

Honey Bee. Photo: Bob Peterson

Page 10: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

Page 10 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

A s Food Action Co-ordinator, I

have been writing articles on

behalf of the Williams Lake

Food Policy Council (WLFPC)

for a number of years now (and it still

amazes me that I have actually been in the

Cariboo that long!). As I was thinking

about what to write this month, I realized it

has been a long time since there has been a

description of what the Food Policy Coun-

cil is, who we are, and what we do.

The WLFPC was formed as a result of a Community Food Action Forum held in November, 2006. We are now currently a sub-committee of the Cariboo-Chilcotin Child Development Centre, and work in partnership with the City of Williams Lake, Thompson-Nicola United Way, and Interior Health, as well as a large number of local businesses and, of course, all of our fabu-lous volunteers. Over the last eight years, we have been working towards addressing priority issues of food security and helping to create sustainable and healthy communities. The goals of the WLFPC are to: • Promote opportunities for skill develop-ment and increase self-sufficiency around food

• Increase production, consumption, and access to locally grown and produced foods

• Encourage practices and policies which promote healthy eating, active lifestyle, and sustainable communities

• Grow a viable local food economy In addition to our goals, the WLFPC uses the framework of the City of Williams Lake’s Official Community Plan to guide our actions, ensuring that we are in align-ment with, and have the support of, the City itself. The Food Policy Council is primarily a hands-on, action-oriented group; we hold quarterly meetings to discuss priorities, but our work in the community is ongoing throughout the year. Perhaps the most current and visible projects of the Food Policy Council are our two successful community gardens. The Cariboo Lodge Community Garden was built in 2010, and offers over 15 gardening spaces for individuals and community groups. This garden has been growing strong for the last four years, and we are looking forward to continuing to beautify and enhance the space in the future. If you’ve driven down Carson Drive this year, perhaps you’ve wondered what exactly is going on in the previous empty lot below Williams Lake Secondary. This is where the Williams Lake Food Policy Council, with all of our partners, has estab-lished a 25,0000-square-foot community gardening space. Named the Memory Gar-den by a high school leadership class, stu-dents wanted to create a beautiful space and positive memories for those living in the area. The Memory Garden currently offers over 50 garden beds, which are all lovingly tended by local families and community groups. With a huge thank you to Success by Six, we have begun construction on an area dedicated to local preschools, daycares, and families: our new Lil’ Sprouts Chil-

Growing the Seeds of Change for Healthy Communities: The Williams Lake Food Policy

dren’s Learning Garden. When complete, this child-friendly space will engage the senses and imagination of our Lil’ Sprouts gardeners. Prior to 2010, both the Cariboo Lodge site and the Memory Garden were virtually unused patches of bare land, with nothing but a few weeds growing on them. Today, they are alive with organic food-growing beds, enthusiastic community members, a community composter, a dem-onstration xeriscape garden, and many more developments to come. They have, and will continue to, host gardening demonstrations and workshops, art-making events, harvest celebrations, and much more. Although Williams Lake has been home to a handful of backyard community gardens and our two established gardens over the last eight years, there are still many misconceptions out there about what a Com-munity Garden entails. So, to clarify, here are a few key points: • The Williams Lake Food Policy Council works hard year-round to fundraise to continue supporting the growth and main-tenance of all our Community Garden sites, and to ensure we can continue to allocate beds free of charge.

• Garden beds are currently free, although donations are always appreciated.

• Beds are given away on a first-come first serve basis to any interested community member or organization (with preference given to returning gardeners).

• The gardens are NOT a U-Pick. If you would like to enjoy fresh, seasonal pro-duce, please contact the WLFPC to sign up for your own garden spot.

• The produce you grow is yours to keep or donate—whatever you choose to do with it.

There are always plenty of opportu-nities to become involved: weeding, garden work bees, attending our quarterly meetings (give your input into future plans), and much more. Please contact us if you would like to be kept up to date on volunteer op-portunities, or if you would like a space in one of our Community Gardens. Michelle Daymond is a Food Action Co-

ordinator with the Williams Lake Food Pol-

icy Council, a sub-committee of the Cari-

boo-Chilcotin Child Development Centre.

The Food Policy Council is concerned with

food security for Williams Lake and the

Cariboo Region. For more info contact

f o o d p o l i c y c o u n c i l@h o t ma i l . c o m ,

www.facebook.com/WLFPC, or (250) 302-

5010.

By Michelle DaymondBy Michelle DaymondBy Michelle DaymondBy Michelle Daymond

Photo: Tortie Tude

Page 11: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 11

TheGreenGazette

A sk any parent-to-be about their

top concerns for a new baby or

for their young children and

they will often say autism. Par-

ents of a child (or children) with an autism

spectrum condition (ASC) can tell you

about its impact on a family’s emotional

well-being as well as the financial chal-

lenge to provide for basic education, treat-

ment, and healthcare.

The prevalence of ASCs has grown so fast that the numbers dwarf any other disease or developmental disability in chil-

dren. Autism now affects about 1 in 50 chil-dren, and costs an average lifetime cost of more than $3 million per child. The situation

is getting more severe every year. We know that genetics alone cannot be responsible, given the staggering rise in

prevalence. Multiple environmental factors may act together—it’s not just wireless—that can muck up delicate developmental

patterns in early childhood. In 1975, before widespread use of cellphones and exposures to wireless tech-nologies, autism was a comparatively rare

health issue. Since then, the nurturing envi-ronments that direct the growth and devel-opment of humans from fetuses to young

children have massively changed. The ex-plosive growth of wireless technologies in the last few decades represents one of the

most staggering alterations of the built envi-ronment that has ever occurred. And, there is compelling evidence that this alteration

are negatively affecting human health. According to the BioInitiative 2012 Report, exposures in everyday life from electromagnetic fields (EMF) and wireless

radiofrequency radiation (RFR) may be con-tributing to autism. The World Health Or-ganization’s International Agency for Re-

search on Cancer classified radiofrequency radiation in 2011 as a Possible Human Car-cinogen (Group 2B) which applies to all

RFR exposures. So, it is already known to be an environmental toxin of consequence to human health, which justifies taking EMF

and RFR seriously as a possible health risk. Many of the behavioural and biologi-cal characteristics seen in autism are similar or identical to those produced by typical

daily exposures to cell and cordless phone radiation, cell towers, baby monitors, wire-less tablets, Wi-Fi, and other sources of

pulsed electromagnetic radiation. EMF/RFR exposures appear to contribute to chroni-cally disrupted homeostasis consistent with

many key symptoms of autism. Lead author of BioInitiative 2012, Martha Herbert, PhD, MD of Harvard Medi-

cal School and a paediatric neurologist with Massachusetts General Hospital, says, “such exposures can have a disorganizing effect on the ability to learn and remember, and can

be destabilizing to immune and metabolic function.”

Evidence for Effects on Autism Spectrum

Conditions

ASC prevalence continues to rise,

now affecting up to 1 in 50 children in the US, and averaging one per cent globally, according to the latest Centers for Disease

Control report. More American children will be diagnosed with ASCs this year than with AIDS, diabetes, and cancer combined. ASCs

cost the US $137 billion a year and, having become a huge healthcare burden and global threat, have been categorized by the CDC as a national public health crisis.

Several thousand scientific studies over four decades point to serious biological effects and health harm from EMF and RFR.

These studies report genotoxicity, single- and double-strand DNA damage, chromatin condensation, loss of DNA repair capacity

in human stem cells, reduction in free-radical scavengers (particularly melatonin), abnormal gene transcription, neurotoxicity,

carcinogenicity, damage to sperm morphol-ogy and function, effects on behaviour, and effects on brain development in the fetus of human mothers that use cellphones during

pregnancy. Cellphone exposure has been linked to altered fetal brain development and ADHD-like behaviour in the offspring of

pregnant mice. Many disrupted physiological proc-esses and impaired behaviours in people

with ASCs closely resemble those related to biological and health effects of EMF/RFR exposure. At the cellular and molecular lev-

els many studies of people with ASCs have identified oxidative stress and evidence of free-radical damage. Lipid peroxidation of cell membranes, altered brain wave activity,

and consequent sleep, behaviour and im-mune dysfunction may occur. Mitochondria may function poorly, and immune system

disturbances of various kinds are common. Changes in brain and autonomic nervous system electrophysiology can be measured

and seizures are far more common in ASCs than in the population at large. Sleep disrup-tion and high levels of stress are close to

universal in ASCs. Disruption of calcium metabolism is known to occur; calcium metabolism being absolutely critical in maintaining many

metabolic processes. EMF/RFR exposure can cause calcium leakage in the cells, by disrupting voltage-gated calcium ion chan-

nels, and may interfere with vesicle trans-port of molecules into cells. Elevated intra-cellular calcium in ASCs can be associated

with genetic mutations but more often may be downstream of inflammation or chemical exposures. All of these phenomena have

been documented to result from or be modu-lated by EMF/RFR exposure. EMF/RFR exposure also makes chemical toxins more damaging, adding another layer of ‘allostatic

load’ or body-burden on healthy functioning of living tissues. We know that cellphone radiation

can cause pathological leakage of the blood-brain barrier. This allows toxins to cross this critical protective barrier and to damage

neurons. It also is linked to memory, learn-ing, and behaviour problems in children and pathological changes can be seen directly in

the hippocampus (the memory and learning center of the brain). But, what other blood-barriers can EMF/RFR impair? It raises the

question whether EMF/RFR may contribute to the widely observed condition of im-paired gut metabolism in ASCs (chronic constipation, diarrhoea, and inflammatory

bowel disease). Chronic inflammation of the gut wall by passage of immune cells through it can lead to severe GI problems. Pain

caused by GI issues can prompt behavioural changes such as increased self-soothing (rocking, head banging, etc.) or outbursts of

aggression, or self-injury. And, what does this infer for the placenta-blood barrier? What if EMF/RFR also causes pathological

leakage of the placenta and exposes the fe-tus to toxins in the mother’s blood? EMF/RFR can cause deficiencies of antioxidants such as glutathione, leading to

a build-up of excess glutamate, which can lead to neurological hyperactivity and possi-bly overload conditions of the nervous sys-

tem and sensory processing. Problems with sensory integration, sleep, seizures, speech, language, and other brain-based issues in-

crease stress, and make adapting and learn-ing more difficult. According to Dr. Herbert in The Autism Revolution, too much gluta-

mate equals non-stop electrical signals—like a cartoon character with a finger stuck in an electrical socket getting shocked over and over. Your glutathione supply runs low, and

you are so overwhelmed by non-stop

neu ro lo g ic a l activity that it’s hard to

interact, keep track, or calm yourself.

O n e new s tudy reports that the brains of autis-

tic children generate more information at

rest—a 42 per cent increase on average.

This offers a scientific ex-

Little Bodies Out of Sync? By Cindy Sage, MA

Sage Associates, Santa Barbara, CA USA

Co-Editor, BioInitiative Reports (2007 and 2012)

Why Electromagnetic Fields and Wireless

Radiofrequency Radiation Exposures Matter for

People with Autism Spectrum Conditions

According to Autism

Speaks autismspeaks.org

the prevalence of Autism

increased dramatically

from 1 in 5000 (1875) to

1 in 68 (2010) as seen in

statistics published by

the U.S. Centers for Dis-

ease Control and Pre-

vention (CDC).

Cindy Sage is the co-owner of Sage Associates—an internationally known environmental sciences

consulting firm in Santa Barbara, CA. Sage’s specialty area of practice is the science and public

health effects of electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation (non-ionizing radiation). She

is the co-editor and principal author of the BioInitiative Reports (2007 and 2012) and a founder of the international BioInitiative Working Group. Dr. Herbert is an expert on autism and has studied

physiological abnormalities in autism and environmental influences on neurodevelopmental disor-

ders, and brain development and function.

planation for the most typical characteristic of autism—withdrawal into one’s own inner world. The excess production of information

may explain a child's detachment from their environment. Reducing or removing EMF and

wireless RFR stressors from the environ-ment is a reasonable—no, a vital—precautionary action given the overall

weight of evidence for a link to ASCs. Can-ada’s Safety Code 6 and the Federal Com-munications Commission thermal safety limits do not address low-intensity (non-

thermal) effects, and thus legalize massive exposures and the rollout of hazardous wire-less technologies without regard for children

who are more sensitive than adults to envi-ronmental toxins. Public safety limits must be rethought in terms of fetal, neonatal, and

childhood neurological and electrophysio-logical development. Children are more vulnerable than adults to environmental

toxins, and can be affected in utero as well as during the rapid growth of early child-hood. Brain and nervous system develop-ment in young children appear to be particu-

larly sensitive. The evidence is more than sufficient to warrant new public exposure standards benchmarked to low-intensity

(non-thermal) exposure levels causing bio-logical disruption. In the meantime, it is possible to de-

toxify the environments of fathers-to-be, pregnant women, and young children by eliminating obvious sources of EMF and

wireless radiofrequency radiation. Given the evidence for health risks and the possible links to autism spectrum conditions, these are reasonable things you can do.

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Youth Perspective: It’s All About the Music

S ometimes your body responds to

good music with goose bumps,

sometimes you just can’t help

but sing along, and sometimes

it’s proper to just quietly listen. Depend-

ing on your music choice, you may have a

combination of these experiences. Music

keeps us alive in many ways, keeps us

happy, and even inspires us to do great

things in our lives. Music keeps the party

going, and we all have to admit it gets our

toes tapping.

“Those darn teenaged youngsters

listening to their darn rap music!” scowls

a wise grandmother, clutching her vinyl

record in one hand and her tea in the

other.

I’ve witnessed teens listening to Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Howard Shore, Saint-Saëns, and Rachmaninoff for enjoy-ment purposes. To assume that all teens listen to rap is kind of like… well, it’s kind of like assuming all wise grandmothers drink tea and only listen to vinyl records.

Music and musical ex-periences are stored in our brain in what is called the hippocampus. Our emotional reactions to music are controlled by the amygdala, permit-ting you to feel tears well up in your eyes after a beautiful guitar solo. The nucleus accumbens is also where your emotion comes from while hearing music. Next time you start crying from a certain song, just yell, “I HATE YOU, NUCLEUS ACCUMBENS!” Peo-ple will turn and stare because you sound so smart. Your auditory complex has the responsibility of the perception and analy-sis of sounds. Also, the motor cortex and cerebellum is where foot tapping, dancing, and playing an instrument are processed.

Our creative energies are height-ened when listening to ambient music. Having a moderate noise level while prac-tising your creative passions is possibly the best thing you could do to obtain more creativity. High noise levels stunt the proc-ess because they are overwhelming and make it difficult to process information efficiently.

By Jenna Sipponen

Predictably, our music choices tell people about our personality. “In a study of couples who spent time getting to

know each other, looking at each other’s

top ten favorite songs actually provided

fairly reliable predictions as to the lis-

t e n e r’ s p er s o n al i t y t r ai t s . ” -

blog.bufferapp.com

They compared test scores of children who played musical instruments,

to those of children who did not. The ones trained with at least three years

of musical instruments tested better with vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning skills. They also tested better in fine motor skills, and in auditory discrimi-nation abilities. Auditory dis-crimination is to recognize lan-

guages and properly understand conversation with background noise. This is where many speech impediments stem from.

Music is also a great tool to use when it comes to exercising. Bikers

pedal faster when listening to music, according to a study done by Leonard Ayres. We are actually able to push past the pain and go for longer when listening to music, giving us a better workout!

In fact, the entire time writing this article, I was listening to music. Mu-sic gives us something to rely on for our physical, mental, and creative needs. So let me just pause my obscene rap music to tell you this: we would not survive with-out music. It is everywhere—in our hearts, in the tree branches of a forest, and in your car on your way to work. Let the music flow through your body!

Jenna Sipponen is in Grade 12 and lives in a cute little valley called the Similkameen.

Her hobbies include procrastinating, thea-

tre, and yoga in random places.

“Without music,

life would be a mistake”

- Friedrich >ietzsche

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TheGreenGazette

A fter the devastating spill of tailings from

Mount Polley Mine in Likely, we have more

reason than ever to honour the sockeye

salmon as they come back to their Horsefly

River spawning grounds after an arduous adventure

from the Salish Sea.

The Horsefly River Roundtable invites all to the annual Horsefly River Salmon Festival on September 27 and 28. Celebrate BC Rivers Day on T'exelc (Williams Lake Indian Band) and Xatsull (Soda Creek/Deep Creek) territory by welcoming the Sockeye salmon as they return to their place of birth after one of nature’s most epic and commendable journeys. The mouth of the Horsefly River is 760 km by water upstream from the mouth of the Fraser River at Steveston. Averaging 27 km a day, Sockeye that elude the nets of the fishermen make this trip in about 28 days. From Hell’s Gate the Sockeye continue their jour-ney up the Fraser River. They swim past the mouths of both the Thompson and Chilco Rivers to the mouth of the Quesnel River (at Quesnel, BC). They make their way up the Quesnel River to the mouth of the Horsefly River and continue up the Horsefly River to their spawning grounds at Horsefly, BC. Activities will be happening across the bridge in downtown Horsefly from 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Both days will be filled with “fishy” arts and crafts for children of all ages, including Gyotaku - traditional Japanese fish printing, and Dream Fish

E very September since 2006, high

school students in Williams Lake

have had the opportunity to pull on

their gumboots and wade into the

Quesnel River to haul slippery, fighting Chi-

nook salmon onto the bank. It’s a highlight of

a three-day science adventure made possible by

teachers, Scout Island >ature Centre staff,

Fisheries and Oceans Canada biologists, local

and undergraduate researchers, Gavin Lake,

and Quesnel River Research Centre staff. Stu-

dents directly experience and contribute to sci-

entific research for the understanding and en-

hancement of salmon populations.

The trip goes from Monday-Wednesday, September 22, 23, 24 (overnight at Gavin Lake). Goal: To involve students in activities that help them appreciate how a watershed works—the animals, the plants, the water, the geography, and how humans fit in. Details: Twenty students from School District #27 will work together with teachers and biologists doing the following: Chinook brood stock collection – You will be in the river helping to catch adult spawning Chi-nook salmon so that eggs and sperm can be har-vested. • Work on mini projects involving stream in-

vertebrates, salmon dissection, and stream chemistry and dynamics

• Doing natural history observations (birds, plants, possibly bears, and other mammals)

• Tree planting to restore riparian areas • Art in nature • Learning from and sharing with First Nations

and Natural Resources staff, DFO staff, and researchers at Quesnel River Research Cen-tre

• You will be expected to be outdoors work-

Roy Argue, founder of the Salmon Trip program,

with student, capturing Chinook salmon to

remove gametes. Photo: Guy Scharf

Salmon Trip 2014

Horsefly River Salmon Festival 2014 - September 27 and 28 in Horsefly, BC -

painting, provided by the Stream of Dreams Mural So-ciety. Local River Interpreters and DFO representatives will be there to answer questions regarding the Sockeye run and river ecology and any of your watershed related questions. The whole family is encouraged to come out to Horsefly, take a stroll along the river, and find out what you can do to help the Horsefly River Roundtable achieve and maintain healthy community watersheds. Local vendors will be selling food, coffee, and wares including delicious bannock. On Saturday Night, Arts on the Fly Festival Society will be hosting a family friendly evening of music and dance at the Horsefly Community Hall. Music starts at 7 pm. This year’s Salmon Festival is a collaborative event sponsored by the Horsefly River Roundtable, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Heritage Canada, Com-munity Futures of the Cariboo Chilcotinand, the Central Cariboo Arts and Culture Society. As in previous years, this is a family-focused all-ages event aimed at cele-brating and understanding more about the highly sig-nificant Horsefly Sockeye salmon run. F o r mo r e i n f o r ma t i o n c h e c k o u t h t t p: / /www. horse fl yr iver .ca / sa l monfes ti va l /salmon.html. For the event page on Facebook visit https://www.facebook.com/events/297065403805945/ Contact Marin Patenaude for more info – [email protected].

ing, and to share a cabin with 7-10 others. You will be asked to think about your Ecological Footprint and what changes you can make to shrink it to help steward the water and land. The first evening we will cover informa-tion you will need to understand the work we will do on and in the river with salmon and other species. Transportation, food, accommodation, and staff costs are being covered by Scout Island Nature Centre, Kiwanis, Gavin Lake, Quesnel River Research Centre, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), PAC, and your fees. The total cost for the field trip is $7500 or $375 per stu-dent. Fee is $50. This is due by Wednesday, September 17. Action Project: Each student is required to complete an action project. This will be ei-ther: tree planting/weed pull (September 17), Dairy Fields cleanup, Salmon Festival Host, or River Valley work. We will be discussing these Action Projects in September. For more info about this program and applications contact Sue Hemphill at Scout Is-land Nature Centre at 250-392-8532 or visit scoutislandnaturecentre.ca

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Choices: Selecting the Climate We Want

C hoices are one of the many

benefits provided by our mod-

ern, affluent, consumer cul-

ture. A television universe of

500 channels should provide something

for everyone's viewing preferences.

Toothpaste? More different kinds than

can be imagined. Breakfast cereal? The

varieties are overwhelming. Cars? A

model with specifications for every possi-

ble need. Don’t like the long cold sea-

sons? Just choose a warmer place for a

winter holiday.

Such choices are more than com-forting. Beyond lightening the burden of inconvenience, reducing the stress of adapting, and creating the illusion of secu-rity, our choices come with a satisfying sense of control and plentitude. And now, thanks to the wonders of technology, we can even choose our climate. Yes, just like adjusting a thermostat, turn to the desired temperature, wait pa-tiently for the greenhouse gases to take effect, and that's the climate we’ll get. Fur-thermore, the science is so accurate that it even offers a range. This is why the Octo-ber, 2013 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provided choices between 0.3°C and 4.8°C by 2100. It all depends on what we want. The IPCC does regret the rather slow response but that’s the best they can do given the complexity of climate dynamics and the geophysical inertia to be overcome. But they have done their best. And now, in collaboration with the thoughtful people at -ewScientist (Catherine Brahic, Oct. 5/13) and the ex-pertise of Dr. Richard Moss of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Rich-land, Washington, we are provided with four—not two or three but four—distinct and easily identified climate options for 2100.

By Ray Grigg Option One - The Quick Re-sponse: A heavy investment in re-newable energies and R&D, with s o m e g e o -engineering and considerable politi-cal resolve to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, has held at-mospheric carbon dioxide levels at 400 ppm—they are now falling due to new sequestration technologies. Billions of trees have been planted, forests revived, meat consumption reduced, and the world’s population stabilized at nine bil-lion. Arctic sea ice has stopped melting, Antarctica has stabilized and ocean acidifi-cation has slowed. Sea level rise has been limited to 0.26–0.55 metres. Temperature increases have been held to 0.3–1.7°C. Option Two - A Slight Delay: A slow response in transitioning to renewable energies and implementing climate treaties are having measurable effects. Increasing efficiencies and the widespread use of natural gas, together with nuclear power and other green technologies, have stabi-lized carbon dioxide levels at 550 ppm. Less pastureland, more compact cities, better mass transit, and a general endorse-ment of a low-carbon economy have slowed the rate of climate change. Sea level rise is between 0.32–0.63 metres. Global temperature rise is 1.1–2.6°C. Option Three – Too Little, Too Late: Fossil fuel use continued unabated until late in the 21st century, then dropped to 75 per cent of energy consumption in the last few decades—not much less than the 82 per cent in 2011. Lifestyle changes were largely unaltered until extreme weather events prompted panicking gov-

ernment is to develop Alberta’s tar sand and make BC’s West Coast an export ter-minus for its bitumen. Several pipelines are being planned: the Northern Gateway from the tar sands to Kitimat; the Kinder-Morgan Trans Mountain from Calgary to Burnaby; David Black’s proposed refinery at Kitimat would require at least two more pipelines, one for dilbit and another for natural gas; and, the proposed LNG plants for northern BC ports would require more gas pipelines. Meanwhile, the BC govern-ment continues to encourage the mining and export of provincial coal, while using its southern ports as conduits for the off-shore shipment of American coal. Such choices will determine the future choices we have—or do not have. We cannot be faulted for the unpre-dictable consequences of our choices—this is why we excuse children for their inno-cence of cause and effect. But fully func-tioning adults, those who know, or should have known, or could have known, are not excused from responsibility for their choices. Intentional denial and willful blindness are not defences in law, are dubi-ous excuses in morality, and are harshly judged in history. This is the sobering side of our modern, affluent, consumer culture. Be-cause its information density educates us in unprecedented ways, many of the choices we now make carry a weight that can no longer be excused by innocence or igno-rance. Sophisticated climate science is able to accurately describe the inescapable con-sequences of our choices. Of the four op-tions suggested, which one would you choose? Ray Grigg is a weekly environmental colum-

nist for the Campbell River Courier-Islander. He is the author of seven internationally

published books on Oriental philosophy,

specifically Zen and Taoism.

ernments to institute unambi-tious controls on inefficien-cies, greenhouse gas emis-sions, and even travel. At-mospheric carbon dioxide is at 650 ppm. The global popu-lation is 9.5 billion, oceans continue to acidify, sea level rise is 0.33–0.63 metres. The temperature increase is 1.4–3.1°C. Option Four – Ad-dicted to Carbon: Fossil fuels still energize a booming

economy that is structurally similar to 2014. The global population of 12.5 billion is proud of its consumer and high-tech identity. With carbon dioxide levels at 950 ppm, human health is suffering, food pro-duction is faltering, water shortages are acute, and biodiversity crashes are threat-ening essential “ecosystem services.” Ex-treme droughts and floods are creating widespread political instability. Tropical diseases and pests have become common in northern latitudes. Ocean acidification is severe with primary marine ecologies in jeopardy. The Arctic has not had summer ice for decades. Melting has accelerated in glaciers, Greenland, and Western Antarc-tica. Sea level rise of 0.45–0.82 metres is displacing cities, settlements, and agricul-ture in coastal regions. Because the tem-perature increase of 2.6–4.8°C is registered as an average, some places have become too seasonally hot for human habitation. These options for 2100 will be the consequences of our choices, the ones we make in the succession of moments that constitute the unfolding importance of the present—a particularly special present be-cause it is pivotal in the history of human-ity and our planet. We obviously have some crucial choices to make—or to not make. The choice of Canada’s federal gov-

By A. K. (Sandy) Amy

What’s in your well? (Part 4) How do I fix the problem with my well?

native solution, such as a new well or a drinking water disinfection device, should be considered. Disinfection devices could

include systems such as distillation, ultraviolet light, chlorination, ozonation, and ceramic candle filtration. Heavy metals, pesticides,

and -itrates: Reverse osmosis systems will remove heavy metals

and Nitrates, and are often used in conjunction with activated carbon filtra-tion. However, these

should not be used with microbiologically unsafe waters or water of unknown micro-biological quality. Distillation systems remove heavy metals and nitrates. Ozona-tion systems remove organic compounds, including pesticides. These last two sys-tems are often used in conjunction with activated carbon filtration. Hardness, colour, odour and taste: These aesthetic parameters of well water can come from many sources. Hardness is usually a result of excess mineralization, especially calcium. This is usually reme-died by installation of a water softener. Iron and manganese can also be removed with a softener, provided the water is not

Y ou’ve had your well water

tested, and have received a

report from your water testing

service provider or laboratory.

The report shows that one or more of the

parameters tested for does not meet the

Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines.

What do you do now?

There are as many answers as there are possible problems with well water. These could range from something as sim-ple as installing an inexpensive filter sys-tem, to having to drill a new well. In some cases, where a serious health hazard exists, the use of bottled water for drinking and cooking is the easiest and least costly solu-tion. There are also many different kinds of water treatment devices now on the market that effectively remove various contami-nants. Prices for them (including installa-tion) can run from a few hundred dollars to many thousands of dollars. Due to space limitations, only some of the more com-mon problems and their possible solutions will be discussed here.

too hard. However, people on sodium-restricted diets should consult their physi-cian before drinking artificially softened water. Iron, manganese, and hydrogen sul-phide (rotten egg smell) can also be re-moved by chlorination-filtration, green-sand-filtration, aeration-filtration, and dis-tillation systems. There are many local businesses that can help you with the selection and installation of the water treatment system that is right for you. Consideration must be taken as to the kind of contamination, the severity of the situation, the intended use of the water, and the amount of water be-ing consumed. In order to select the best treatment method, a full testing of the suite of chemicals, minerals, and bacteria should be conducted prior to the purchase of a device. A. K. (Sandy) Amy has over 40 years of labora-

tory experience in analytical chemistry and

trace analysis. As the proprietor of Safe Well

Water Consulting, he provides well water qual-ity, well performance testing, and water treat-

ment consulting services to private well owners

in the South Cariboo region.

Bacterial contamination: If your well has been shown to contain Coliform or E. Coli bac-teria (or many other possible bacterial cultures), often the simplest resolution is to chlorine treat or “shock” the well. This is a process where chlorine (usually in the form of household bleach) is added to the well and piping system, allowed sufficient time to kill resident bacteria, and then flushed out, allowing uncontaminated water to refill the well. After a 48-hour wait period once the procedure is complete, the water should be retested. Two consecutive “safe” tests, performed on samples obtained over a pe-riod of one to three weeks, will probably indicate that the treatment has been effec-tive. If the “shock” treatment solves the problem, repeat bacteriological testing in three to four months. If the above steps do not alleviate the problem, it is recom-mended that the source of the ongoing con-tamination be determined and corrected, possibly with professional help. If reme-diation is not possible, a permanent alter-

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W hen my children

were born I

learned to cook

with meat. I

came from several generations

of vegetarians, and wanted my

kids to have a choice, moral and

otherwise, about what they ate.

I’m not squeamish and I love to

cook, so I started pestering my

friends for their favourite carni-

vore recipes. “It’ll be great,”

they said. “It’ll be so easy,” they

said.

My newfound decision was put to the test when, as the result of a country barter, a giant dead salmon was delivered to my front porch. Eight months preg-nant with a toddler in tow, I stood over the fish, which was as tall as I am and two feet wide in the middle, and said, “I’ll bet you don’t eat the head.” This was 30 years ago, so no Internet, and we lived in the wilderness. You had to figure stuff out on your own. Determined to turn this massive dead creature into food for my family, I marched into the house to get a knife to cut off the head and the tail, and to carve it into steaks to put in the freezer. Already imagining how I’d cook my first salmon steak (I’ll bet it would be good rolled in seasoned flour with garlic, butter, dill, and lemon) I knelt over the fish and started sawing on its neck. With a steak knife. I had no idea what it would take to cut a fish’s head off. I hacked away to no avail; I tried a bread knife and then a carving knife. There was blood and scales everywhere and the fish looked like it had head-butted a barbed wire fence. Finally, sweaty and frustrated, I stomped out to the shed and came back with a machete. I balanced my enormous pregnant self over that fish and while my tod-dler watched with bemusement through the screen door, I brought the blade down with a primal yell. I was determined that my children not be raised believing that meat came from little Styrofoam packages from the grocery store. If they were going to eat meat, I wanted them to know where it came from. I took them to butcher chickens at a neighbour’s farm. They caught and gutted fish, helped butcher a deer, and they even ate bear stew once for Thanksgiving dinner. Boy, did I learn a lot. I learned that if you cook the hamburger ahead of time and then try to shape it into patties it looks like road kill and you have to improvise it into Sloppy Joes in a flying hurry before your com-pany arrives for dinner. I learned that there are chicken

A Thousand Jars of Salmon

breasts with bones and chicken breasts without bones, and if you accidently get boned ones for making chicken cordon bleu, you’ll end up sweating and cussing while trying to roll them up and all the toothpicks you use to hold them in clumsy cylindrical shapes will eventually pop out and start on fire in the bottom of the oven. I’ll bet you I canned a thousand jars of salmon when my kids were little. They used to eat home-canned salmon as a snack, in sandwiches, and often took it for school lunches and on camping trips. I also canned lots of fruit and veggies from the garden every year and they grew up eating green beans, beets, applesauce, cherries, pickles, and corn from jars all winter, as well as sauer-kraut cured in a big porcelain crock. All my kids can cook; they all like whole, natural foods and care about where it comes from. As teenagers they thought it was amusing and vaguely pathological that I spent so much time and effort preparing food I never ate, but as adults they’ve thanked me for making the choice to give them a choice. They still love anything I home-can and recently I traded my youngest son a jar of pickled beets from my garden for pairing my cordless keyboard to my phone. And, by the way, everybody said those salmon steaks were great. Even with the slightly raggedy edges.

LeRae Haynes is a freelance writer, songwriter, co-

producer of “Pursicles,” and the community co-

ordinator for Success by 6. She is also the instigator of a

lot of musical shenanigans in Williams Lake including

“Borderband” with kids and is a member of the “Perfect

Match” dance band.

By LeRae Haynes

Jars of canned wild salmon and beets. Photo: Lisa Bland

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TheGreenGazette

W e have come from all

across the Fraser Basin,

travelling from the out-

skirts of the city, meeting

for the very first time on the overnight

Greyhound bus. We have left our homes

in Port Coquitlam, >ew Westminster,

and Burnaby. Taken off from towns like

Gold Bridge and Horsefly. We have trav-

elled from Lillooet, Quesnel, Williams

Lake, Prince George, and beyond. And,

at the beginning of August, as others

have for the past ten summers, we arrive,

from all across BC, to take part in the

Rivershed Society of BC’s Sustainable

Living Leadership Program.

At first we are strangers—to each other, to the river’s headwaters. We col-lect at the start of the Mighty Fraser like salmon brushing fins in a back eddy. Many of us have never been this far north. For the next 25 days we will live beside the gaping presence of the Fraser River. We swat mosquitoes from each other’s temples and make blueberry sauce from the fruits that line our trails. In the can-yon, under sharp stars, we do away with our tents, fanning out in a slumber circle, heads pointing in toward the centre. We wake to birdsong, dappled shade dancing across our eyelids. We cook and eat under a ceiling of sky. For 25 days we tuck in close to the heart of the landscape and hear its beating. It always takes a few days to settle in, though nature has a way of reclaiming us quickly. Our thoughts slow as we un-couple from our electronic devices. We converse with each other, and within days have exhausted the topics of small talk. Our discussions dig wells for our minds to drink from. Away from artificial light, we become re-attuned to the rhythms of day-light and darkness. We gather our food from local organic growers as we travel downriver, our compost packed inside a plastic olive jar amongst our camping gear. We are self-contained. We travel the length of the Fraser’s 1,400-kilometer arc—paddling, rafting, walking, and driving the river’s un-dammed length. We work on project plans to implement in our home communities upon our return. We support each other and troubleshoot on the spot. While doing this, we see this province in a way few souls have. A river smoothes every surface it touches, and group comfort is found soon in the outdoors. We laugh, we yell, a few of us cry. We tell jokes and sing the songs of our childhood. When we forget the words we make them up. We paddle in perfect rhythm for at least a few moments each day. Some of us have not laughed like this in years. We remember what it feels like to live in a tribe. We remember how to listen—to each other, to the river. In our listening we are reminded of our own inner strength, how to hear, most importantly, ourselves. We remember how to lead and be led. Our hearts fill with the hope that can be forgotten so easily living in the routine of our media-

The Pull of a River By Jacquie Lanthier

Paddling the upper Fraser, between Dunster and McBride.

Photo: Jacquie Lanthier

Our journey begins at foot of Mount Robson, the headwater region

of the Fraser River. Photo: Doug Radies

laden lives. We care about the Earth and we want to do something about it. Our projects are something we can do, one small thing. Ripples can grow large from a tiny pebble tossed into a lake. We experience the meaning of “watershed” and “riparian zone,” learning the lexicon of the Earth from an encoun-ter with it. We paddle, float, and walk towards our lessons. Discussion flows from animal tracks to organic agriculture with the same ease as a river emptying out to sea. We watch a herd of bighorn sheep kick a plume of dust to the wind as they race to the river’s edge for a drink. Along the way we stop in places like Quesnel, Williams Lake, Lillooet, Coquitlam, and New Westminster. We meet people who are deeply connected to the Fraser. We learn about each other. They will become our supporters when we return home, helping us implement our projects. We learn how many good things people are doing. More hope flows in. Day after day, the river reminds us of the beauty of the natural world. We watch the moon move through its monthly rhythm. We touch hair lichen on the branches of an old growth fir in the Goat River Valley and wonder how much longer these trees will remain standing. We discuss, we analyze, we question. We look from up close and from far away. At ourselves, at the province, at everything still living and everything taken away. At everything we would lose if we do not learn how to care for our watercourses. We get out our journals and our cameras. We document. We draw. We paddle. We sit in silence. We listen to stories about the land. We work on our project plans. We teach and learn from each other. We learn from the Earth. Rivers have a way of calling us back to ourselves. The river cradles us, and in the carrying shows us who we are. After this trip, many of us will realize that rivers have been in our lives all along—invisibly watering the food we eat and churning the soil it grows in. Riv-ers have been feeding the animals and birds we see, seeding the forests with rain, clearing the air, aiding our com-merce. A channel to each of our lives. Human beings have always been close to water. After 25 days together we will disband, though you are never the same once you have travelled a river. When the trip ends and we step from the canoe onto the banks of Jericho Beach in Vancouver, some part of us will be put back in place, like a missing puzzle piece finally found. The artery of the river will run through our tissues. You cannot travel a river and remain unchanged. If everyone could connect with a river in this way, what kinds of decisions would we make about our rivers, about our future? How important would they become? A world where everyone has travelled a river is a world I would like to live in.

When we return home from our journey, we will share the lessons we have learned. We will implement our projects—starting community gardens, teaching students about watershed health, giving talks and slideshows. The projects are as varied as we are. But they share one thing in common: a message of hope. We carry hope, the message of the river, to all who will listen. For the past three years Jacquie Lanthier

has travelled the length of the Fraser

River with the Rivershed Society of BC’s

Sustainable Living Leadership Program.

The program runs once per year, taking

up to 10 adult participants by voyageur

canoe, by raft, by van, and on foot down

the Fraser River. In September, 2015 she

plans to swim its 1,400 kilometers with

three other women to mark the 20th anni-

versary of Fin Donnelley’s first swim of

the Mighty Fraser. Get involved! For

more information, visit rivershed.com.

Page 19: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 19

TheGreenGazette

A midst the recent challenges

within the BC school system

there is a profound and much

needed conversation happening

with regards to our provincial education

practices.

At least in the circles I run with, this long-needed job action has served as a potent drama that has brought latent issues and long-suffered imbalances out into the open (as dramas tend to do), cracking wide the host of challenges that our schools ex-perience, and then taking the issues beyond what had originally been presented. Al-though we have yet to see any change or progress, I am certain there are huge shifts happening already and moving towards us. Past limitations on class composi-tion or pay cheque, this conversation seems to seek the big questions of our teachers and, hopefully, our entire society, exploring the base philosophy of why and how our education system operates, and then asking whether these practices might be the best choice for our children. How often do we ask ourselves why is it that we send our children to school? What is the purpose of the education proc-ess? What exactly do we hope to achieve through this 13-year process, and is that goal something that ultimately serves the well-being and balance of our society and species? These are huge questions, yes, but ones that I feel we have not asked often enough in the last 100 or so, often resulting in ways of educating children and adults that do not serve the ultimate flourishing of human beings on this planet. For the most part our contemporary educational system focuses upon the prac-tice of ‘instilling’ education and knowl-edge into an individual who previously lacked that information. Coming from a kind of tabula rasa (blank slate) perspec-tive on the possibility and intelligence of an ‘uneducated’ individual, children go to school to learn things that they did not know before. Those of you who are teach-ers know that there is so much more to this, of course, and I don’t mean any disre-

Making Connections in Education

By Ciel Patenaude

spect for the work and what you offer, but just to point out a very simplified base phi-losophy from which we, as a society, are often operating. This perspective results in an educational process where the student is seen to be without information and knowl-edge before, and then they ‘become’ some-thing when the process is completed. This philosophy is not entirely wrong or bad, for of course we all learn by receiving information from outside of our-selves and then integrating it into our core knowledge. It’s just incomplete. It is a per-spective that does not speak to the pro-found potential that exists within each indi-vidual far before they ever enter the doors of an educational institution, nor does it address the possibility that they are not existing on this Earth to ‘become’ some-thing, but to encourage, understand, and express individual creative potential. Per-haps we have missed the entire purpose of being alive and human by educating our children—and viewing ourselves through-out life—in this way. There is an enormous difference between an education system that focuses on ‘creating’ a person—a sys-tem that basically has the goal of forming people who are fit for particular jobs—and one that seeks to empower the self-actualization of the individual so that they may fully and creatively express their in-nate talents and proclivities in the world. As Sir Ken Robinson expresses in the opening quote of this piece, we must change our education system in a funda-mental way so we move away from teach-ing in this manner. We are and have been

suppressing the creative and personal po-tential of our species by educating without seeking self-actualization and empower-ment as the ultimate goal. We have been creating human dysfunction and unhappi-ness by not seeking first to affirm, to each individual, that they have a perfection to their individual experience that must be sought out, understood, and articulated to the world. That there is a purpose for each of us being here—like the individual cells of a body each having their role—and that we do not ‘find’ that purpose, but uncover it. This is the real purpose of education, I know. Making Connections, a program that I facilitate through the School District, seeks to do exactly this. Intending to nour-ish the connection that each child has to their own internal intelligence—expressed through their creative activities, physical and emotional experience of life, and the dreams, awe, curiosity, and inquisitiveness that is their natural state—we spend time with children not intending to let them know what they don’t know, but to bring attention to the incredible wisdom that is and has always within them. It is small scale for now, but what if we had an entire school system that was based upon these ideas? What if we sought not to create people for jobs, or jobs for people, or more money for people, or more people to make money, but to ensure that each individual on the planet knew exactly who they were and what they were here to do? We would change everything. People without internally-derived

purpose and meaning naturally seek to find meaning and purpose outside of them-selves. This might look like overworking or too much dependence upon other peo-ple’s assessment of them, but it might also look like religious intolerance, environ-mental destruction, and war. Might seem like a stretch to make those connections, but I know that it is true: happy people who love themselves and know that they have meaning just because they exist are kind to others, considerate of their circum-stances, and conscious. It is time, without a doubt, that we design our educational practices with this in mind, and move towards created an enlightened society where each of us get to live our full potential every day. I know that I want this for my future children, for every child I work with, and for every per-son I encounter. Ciel Patenaude is an Integrative Health &

Shamanic Practitioner based in Williams

Lake, BC. A highly trained and naturally

gifted intuitive healer, Ciel holds a BSc in

Biology, an MA in Integrative Healing,

and is a certified Yoga Teacher & Well-

ness Coach.

***

“The fact is that given the challenges we

face, education doesn't need to be

reformed—it needs to be transformed.

The key to this transformation is not to

s tanda rdiz e e ducat io n, but to

personalize it, to build achievement on

discovering the individual talents of

each child, to put students in an

environment where they want to learn

and where they can naturally discover

their true passions.”

Photo: Michael Anderson

Page 20: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

Page 20 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

By Jessica Kirby, Senior Editor of TheGreenGazette

I t may come as a surprise—and a

source of great pride—that mod-

ern day Canadian craft brewing

has roots in British Columbia.

According to Ken Beattie, executive direc-

tor of the BC Craft Brewers Guild, it all

began in 1982 when John Mitchell, who

owned the Troller Pub in Horseshoe Bay,

hired brewer Frank Appleton to supply

beer to the pub.

“John had this idea after the prov-

What’s Brewing in BC? ince-wide beer strike in 1979 left him without a supply of beer for his regulars,” says Beattie. “The provincial government allowed him to brew beer for the pub as long as it was not part of the existing building. John and Frank made the beer across the street and moved it by handcart to the pub.” Craft brewers are defined and clas-sified in official terms by a taxation bench-mark based on volume, meaning they pro-duce less than 160,000 hl (or 320,000 kegs) of beer per year. In every other sense, they are defined by freshness, mean-ingful, local branding, and an exquisite variety of flavours that has blossomed in BC and across Canada. Flagship and sea-sonal brews of all varieties from deep stouts to springtime lagers, sometimes ex-tended with local fruits or spices, offer beer lovers novel, creative choice.

Beattie says the magic lies in the artistry and creativ-ity of brewmasters—they are at once artists and scientists. “They are really like chefs as they continue to ex-periment with different ingre-dients and styles to create new flavour combinations,” he says. “And because they create these beers in small batches they can produce more beers in a month than a large foreign-owned brewery would in a year or two.” Four Magic Ingredients

Craft brewers may experiment with flavours, but the actual brewing process remains sacred, and has been for 100 years says Henryk Orlik, brewmaster at Pacific Western Brewing Co. in Prince George. Orlik studied beer brewing in the world’s best place for learning the art—Germany. He started his ap-prenticeship at the Scherdel Brau in Hof an der Saale 40 years ago, and 10 years later finished the master craftsman

program in Munich. “Small brewers still use four main ingredients: barley, hops, yeast, and wa-ter,” he says. “The technique is essentially the same also; a few things may be auto-mated, but it is basically the same.” Orlik says some large scale brew-ers, however, are using as many as 50 in-gredients including corn syrup, rice, oil, and starch. “From a brewing perspective, using corn syrup and rice is more complicated,” he says, but big brewers often have no choice. “In the 40s and 50s many of them were short of barley and so they went to alternatives,” says Orlik. “Now they can’t change their recipes because people want that light flavour that stays the same.” Because barley is responsible for a big part of a brew’s flavour profile, and just about anything from weather to water can change a barley crop in subtle but im-portant ways, maintaining a consistent flavour can be a challenge for any brewer. “This is when it becomes science,” says Orlik. “Every year the crop is chang-ing, creating a different size of kernel, a different colour, but customers want the

same taste. So, when the barley changes you adjust the recipe.” Pacific Western Brewing has its tried and true Pacific, Canterbury, Tradi-tional, and Cariboo varieties and has gone in all directions with seasonal delicacies from a triple rye barley brew with oranges and coriander to make it smell and taste like Christmas cookies; lightly spiced pumpkin beer in the fall, and a light straw-berry lager that offers summertime refresh-ment tasting like strawberry shortcake. Green Brewing

Some of the best news about craft brewing is that besides the exceptional range of flavours, it is an environmentally conscious industry and has been for centu-ries. Beattie says all brewers recycle bottles and cans; all brewers take the spent grains from the brewing process and do-nate them to local farmers as feed for live-stock; and, all brewers recycle the water used in the brewing process and treat it so it can be used in future brews, reducing the impact on the environment. “The popularity of growlers is a

Barkerville Brewing's flagship brands are a tribute to the Cariboo gold rush and

aim to help put northern BC on the map. Photo courtesy of Barkerville Brewing

Page 21: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 21

TheGreenGazette

ucts locally because of the lower demand on quantity. “This industry does not use chemi-cals, preservatives, or pasteurization in the same way that large scale breweries do,” says Pelletier. “We go organic whenever possible.” Barkerville Brewing may be new, but it is turning heads with its most unusual brew, the 52 Foot Stout, made with local birch syrup from Moose Meadows Farms in Quesnel, and its most popular beer—the 18 Karat Ale. “We had the honour of winning a silver medal at the Canadian Brewing Awards in the North American Amber Ale category,” Pelletier says of the 18 Karat Ale. “This was our first brand we launched after opening our doors in February.” Find out more about these and other amaz-

ing BC breweries online at Pacific Western

Brewing Co. http://www.pwbrewing.net/,

B a r k e r v i l l e B r e w i n g h t t p : / /

barkervillebeer.com, or the BC Craft Brew-

ers Guild http://bccraftbeer.com/.

great example of the environmental benefits BC craft brewers bring to our local mar-kets,” he says. “Growlers are re-useable bottles purchased once by the customer, directly from the brewery, and filled at the brewery with the freshest beer directly from the tanks. In BC, the popularity of this prod-uct and the fact that every brewer accepts other breweries’ bottles to refill, make this a very eco-friendly program.” Pacific Western Brewing Co. launched its Refresh and Reforest program in 2009, which commits to planting 50,000 trees annually in the Cariboo region to assist with the effects of the mountain pine beetle infestation. Each case of Cariboo beer sold sends proceeds to the Forests for Tomorrow program with an end goal of planting one million trees by 2020. Bubbly Future

Craft brewing stacks up against the big brands relatively well with consistent growth and more of the same on the hori-zon. “Based on its taxation classification, in 2009, craft beer represented nine per cent of the market share,” says Beattie. “The most recent quarterly report from BCLDB for March, 2014 had the share at 22 per cent. This is positive growth and the opti-mist in me sees the situation in the follow-ing way: as well as we have done in the past five years, we still have 78 per cent of the market to attract new customers.” And they are well on their way. In July of last year the total number of brewer-ies operating in BC was roughly 55—one year later 70 breweries call BC home, and another 17 are underway and expected to open within the next 12 months. �ew Kid on the Block

Barkerville Brewing opened in Feb-ruary, 2014 by Victoria, BC native, Russ Ovans and brewmaster Troy Rudolph. The young brewery tells the story of the Cariboo gold rush with names like 18 Karat Amber Ale, 52 Foot Stout, Prospectors Peril Blonde Ale, Hound of Barkerville Brown Ale, Wan-dering Camel IPA, and Sternwheeler Scotch Ale, not to mention the company’s tag line—Stake your Claim. “I think our story of the Cariboo gold rush gives us a unique way of branding and putting North BC on the map,” says Justine Pelletier, general manager at Barkerville Brewing. “We are the only microbrewery in the north distributing throughout the prov-ince, and we are the only growler filling station in the northern interior.” Barkerville Brewery is committed to environmentally friendly practices, includ-ing reusing its grain bags for planters and garbage bags, and recycling or composting just about everything the facility uses. “We donate all our spent grain to local farmers, and our Trüb and protein waste is mixed into other organic waste to create a nitrogen rich fertilizer,” says Pelletier. “We source all of our product as locally as possible. We installed new low flow toilets in our storefront and are looking into more water saving technologies. “Our staff is keen to be green and always looking for new ways to cut down on waste.” She adds that craft brewers have the benefit of being able to source more prod-

Did you know: Beer is the world’s oldest written recipe. A tablet with the Hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of fermentation, dates back to 3500BC. The hymn was the recipe for making beer and therefore in an oral culture was past between the nomadic tribes. – Ken Beattie, executive director, BC Craft Brewers Guild Four thousand years ago in Babylon it was custom that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in law with all the mead or “honey beer” he could drink. This period was called the “honey month” or what we know today as the “honeymoon”. There are only really two types of beer, Ales and Lagers. Stout, Pilsner, He-feweizen, Bock, et cetera all fall under one of these two categories. There are about 100 different styles of barley, each with its own contribution to make towards a beer’s flavour and profile. There are also 80 to 100 types of hops and around 30 yeast varieties—it isn’t hard to see why brewing is very much an art and a science

Brewmaster Henryk Orlik says you should always sniff the beer before you

taste it, because the aroma will carry the full flavour profile.

Photo courtesy of Pacific Western Brewing Co.

Get the Most

from your Brew:

Ken Beattie, executive director of the BC Craft Brewers Guild offers these little known tips for making

the most of your craft beer experi-ence.

1. Always drink beer from a “beer clean” glass, as it releases the CO2 in the beer and opens up the fla-vours and aromatics like wine.

2. Most people drink beer too cold, and should never drink it in a fro-zen or chilled glass. Lagers should be enjoyed between 2 and 7 de-grees C and ales between 7 and 14 degrees C.

3. Beer and cheese pair great to-gether because they are both origi-nal Farmhouse products, both are fermented and aged, and both bal-ance sweetness and acidity with fruitiness and fermentation fla-

vours. Sip beer, taste cheese, sip more beer, repeat responsibly.

Try these sure fire examples:

• Wheat beer with a mild bloomy

rind – a Brie or Camembert • Pale Ale – medium to aged

cheddar • Strong Ale (above 8 % ABV) –

Blue cheese, Stilton, and aged cheeses

Justine Pelletier of Barkerville Brewing adds that a slightly warmer ale will bring out more of the true characteristics intended by the brewmaster and provide a brighter hop character and a more prominent malt body.

Always sniff the beer first, cautions brewmaster Henryk Orlik, and if you don’t like the smell, don’t drink it. “You should be able to get the whole flavour profile from the aroma, and when have it in your

mouth it’s too late.”

Because craft brewers create small batches, they can produce more beers

in a month than a large, foreign-owned brewery would in a year or two.

Photo courtesy of BC Craft Brewers Guild

Page 22: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

Page 22 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

I t would seem that readers

miss Amadeus. I know, I

know: I have said goodbye

to that article half a dozen

times and then started it up again,

but what can I say about popular

demand? Starting next issue, I will

be submitting a short Amadeus

article for each edition as well my

new farming article. In the mean-

time, here’s a little something

about Amadeus’ nephew-brother,

Baby Goat.

Baby Goat’s real name is Caliban, from The Tempest, but he’ll probably be called Baby Goat forever. He was an accident. A few years ago I kept two black, baby goats from our friendliest doe. The babies, Olivia and Othello, were sweet little goats and it all seemed like a great idea until fall rolled around and it was time to let Peter, the Billy, out of his summer pen so he could perform his manly duties. The problem was that Olivia was one of Peter’s offspring and not old enough to be bred. My solution was to keep Olivia, her mother, and her brother together in the fenced area around the house and under my bed-room window. They thought this was a great idea, since the food was great and they had lovely places beneath the eaves to get out of the weather. However, once a month with incredible regularity, Peter would be there, crashing his horns against the fence beneath my window trying to get into the pen. Twice Olivia and Othello escaped, but both times I was nearby to marvel at their ability to walk up fences then return them to the pen and increase its height. After they climbed up the gate I put a ladder over it, they stopped escaping and I forgot all about it. Spring came and the baby goats arrived, and with them, Amadeus. Life took on its usual routine—usual except for the addition of a physically-and-possibly-mentally challenged goat that never left my side. Then during the heat spell in mid-July I walked outside one alarmingly hot day and was confronted by the sound of a crying baby goat. I was holding Ama-deus so at least I knew he was alright, but I hurried to see if one of the others had somehow injured itself. I looked at all the babies stretched out calmly in the shade, counted them, and wondered for there seemed to be no problem. Then I heard it again: “maa-AAA-aaaa!” … the unmistakable sound of a newborn goat. And sure enough, there was Olivia behind a pine tree licking a tiny, wobbly, all-black baby. In July. In 30 degree C weather. Oh dear! I thought. I did not need another Amadeus. But Baby Goat was tough. The day after he was born when all the other goats headed out to the meadow to browse with their three-month-old babies, Olivia went with them; she seemed to have completely forgotten that she had even had a baby. The tiny black goat was no bigger than a shadow in the grass and just

Baby Goat (Caliban) at four months, healthy and happy and

almost normal. Photo: Terri Smith

Confessions of a Farmer: The Story of Baby Goat

By Terri Smith

In the story titled, “Let me Tell You a Story,” which appeared on page 23 in the June / July issue of TheGreenGazette, the quotation, “to touch the heart so that head may understand,” was incorrectly attrib-uted to Waldorf education founder, Rudolph Steiner. The author of that quote is actually Ruth Sawyer, in her book, “The Way of the Story Teller.” TheGreenGazette apologizes for the error.

correction notice

as silent. He was missing for 12 hours. We spent at least a few of those hours searching for him but to no avail. That night I just about tripped over him when I went out to feed the chickens. I reunited him with his mother who, by this time, was experiencing some lac-tation-associated discomfort and was quite relieved to be given a solution to the problem. The next day he disappeared again. This time it was harvest day, and while I gulped my lunch and then went out with two helpers to search for the baby goat, we didn’t find him. I was sure he was gone. But we found him the next morning, snuggled under a log. He was fine. Mother and baby were re-united and again she lost him before lunch. I had had enough. I already had enough on my hands with Ama-deus. Frustrated, I went out onto the balcony after din-ner and looked at the young mama goat calmly grazing beside her own mother and yelled at her, “Why don’t you look for your baby, you horrible mother!?” She turned her head and looked at me, and then kicked at her uncomfortable underside. I had an idea: “maaa-AAA-aaaa!” I cried. Olivia (and three other mothers—I’m just that good) jerked up her head and called back. It was as if I’d jogged a memory for her, oh yeah, where did I leave that little thing that makes me feel better? And up on the hillside I heard a small cry answer. And after that, life took on another new routine. Each morning Caliban would nurse, lie down in the shade, and his mother would leave for the day. After dinner when the herd returned I would stand on the balcony and make a noise like a baby goat. Olivia would answer me and he in turn would answer her. He survived, and eventually turned into a regular, healthy, goat. Well, almost. But that's a story for another day. Terri Smith is an organic vegetable farmer in the Cari-

boo with Road’s End Vegetable Company. She has a

Bachelor’s degree in Literature and a diploma in Art.

Page 23: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 23

TheGreenGazette

G oing through some old maga-

zines last week, I picked up a

2002 copy of Harper’s maga-

zine, with an article by Tom

Bissall about the demise of the Aral Sea

in Kazakhstan. The Aral Sea was once the

world’s fourth largest lake, half the size

of England, and supported a thriving

fishing industry. The Soviets pursued an

earlier Tsarist policy to irrigate Central

Asia and grow cotton and wheat (both

thirsty crops) in the desert, using water

diverted from the Amy Darya and Syr

Darya Rivers, which drained into the Aral

Sea.

As more water was diverted into the desert and away from the lake, predictably, lake levels began to drop until the lake was just 10 per cent of its original size and had in fact become four smaller lakes—the largest two became known as the North and South Aral Seas. Port towns and cities were now many miles from the water, and you have proba-bly seen the images of rusting ships sitting in the desert as far as 100 km from the re-maining sea. Where the water receded, the soil was heavily contaminated with pesti-cides and toxins that the remaining trickles of river had accumulated from the agricul-ture and carried to the sea. Salinity levels in the water and soil soared as irrigation washed safely buried ancient salts from land to the sea and the fish died. Human populations are part of the eco-system too, and as the ecosystems died, so did humans; infant mortality soared, ane-mia and tuberculosis rates went up, and cancer rates massively rose as people breathed in the toxins stirred up by fre-quent dust storms from the dry soil. The climate changed in the area without the mitigating influence of the water, so sum-mers became very hot (often 120 degrees C) and winters became colder, reducing the chances of survival for any remaining crops. The author was looking for hope in the situation as he was using the Aral Sea as a metaphor for the issues we face with cli-mate change, but his article ended on a note of frustration and despair as he saw no chance for the sea, and by implication, one assumes no hope for future generations on the planet. With recent news stories, such as the Antarctic shelf breaking off sooner than predicted and the inevitably resultant rise in sea level, I wonder when or if politicians will really get the connection between col-lapse of ecosystems and collapse of human populations. Scientists have been trying to point it out to them for years, gently at first and now urgently. With the controversy over directly related issues such as the re-cent Enbridge decision, I decided to revisit the Aral Sea story and see what has hap-pened there in the 12 years since that arti-cle was researched and written. With some dread, I started Googling, expecting the worst. But as screens came and went, I didn’t find the worst. In fact, there were stories of hope and co-operation; governments, scientists, non- profits, and banks began working together

Changing Course to solve a crisis. And once everyone worked together, they came up with a sim-ple and (relatively) cheap plan. The economic impact of the loss of the sea is estimated at around $1.6 billion. For $85 million they built a dam, so that all the remaining water coming into the sea from the Syr Darya River into the North Aral sea stayed there. Within months, sea levels rose four metres. The lake salinity went down and the fish returned. With reduced salinity, native plants re-established along shorelines, holding down the soil. There is even now a fishing industry again, so em-ployment and food have returned to the area. There is talk of returning tourist towns. This is not an “everything’s fine now” story. The sea will never return to its former state of being one large sea and the South Aral is still expected to disappear as the Amu Darya River that once fed it no longer reaches it. However, if current trends and policies continue, the Aral Sea looks set to survive in some form, not to disappear completely as was predicted by most 10 years ago. Tom Bissell’s article talked about the denial of the local populations, the wring-ing of hands that nothing could be done to save the sea and improve water manage-ment, all while leaky faucets ran all day and people still washed their cars in an area of severe drought. Yet somehow, enough people felt they could change the situation—and so they did. Twelve years later, there is still a form of the Aral Sea around when it was pre-dicted that by now there would be none. It is a damaged, massively diminished sea, but the fact that it still exists is key. Can that happen with the overall cli-mate change story currently unfolding? Some factors are falling into place, for example, there are global leaders out there sounding the alarm; the World Bank just issued a report stating that tackling climate change will grow the world economy; in-surance companies can provide data on the direct expense and increasing frequency of unusual weather events; people are begin-ning to question the traditional parameters of ‘success’; social scientists repeatedly show happiness is not linked to stuff but to interpersonal relationships and a sense of community; and, parts of Europe are able to produce up to 50 per cent of their elec-tricity from renewable sources. Humans usually work better together in crisis situations, so with both scientists and economists stressing urgency and more people directly affected by changing weather patterns, maybe enough people are starting to recognize the issues and will support the politicians who understand that the economy and the environment are the same thing. With awareness, scientific knowledge, co-operation and a common will, rapid change is possible from what can appear to be an inevitable path. For more information on Water Wise or

Waste Wise and any of our school and

community programs, contact the Cariboo

Chilcotin Conservation Society at sus-

[email protected] or visit the website at

www.cconserv.org.

By Jenny Howell, CCCS By Susan Tritt

Chickens

Just a quick word to my readers to let you know life at Funky Fowl Farm has been far busier than I thought it was going to be this summer and we are making plans for better time management next year so that I will have time for the things I love, like writing my column in TheGreenGazette. I will be b a c k o n s c he d ul e w i th c o l umns s t a r t i ng i n t he ne x t edition. Until then I hope you enjoy a little picture of a new breed we have for 2015.

The La Fleche is a French dual purpose breed that we brought in

to work on the Le Merleraults. Photo: Susan Tritt

Speak up for Nature in BC’s Schools

By Jenny �oble

The big story of BC’s teacher strike has consumed a lot of media attention, but it masks another issue that may have much greater implications for the future well-being of our province and world. The Ministry of Education wants to overhaul primary social studies and science curriculum in a way that would marginalize environmental awareness. Learning about plants, animals, habitats, communities, and ecosystems would be greatly reduced in favour of a human-centred focus on cells, molecules, and the human body, especially in grades 4-9. The proposed new science curriculum would cover fewer concepts—which they’re calling “big ideas”—with less direction about content. This is supposed to allow stu-dents more time to delve deeply into topics and give teachers more flexibility. But as an article in The Tyee points out, “If you don’t identify in one of those ‘big ideas’ environ-mental science as a key theme, it won’t be taught. There won’t be materials provided for it. They won’t even teach it to teachers at university. They’ll just say ‘It’s not in the curriculum, why would we teach that?’” The proposed social studies curriculum also reduces emphasis on individual respon-sibility for environmental stewardship. Instead, students will be taught about the rela-tionship between communities and their environments. Investigate this link for more information: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/01/10/New-BC-Curriculum. According to long-time biology teacher Christie Mayall, in these years, “students are most open to and fascinated by [nature] exploration. This restriction will limit stu-dents’ fundamental and long-term interest in biology.” Opportunities to experience nature first hand would be greatly reduced, if not totally eliminated. Mayall further points out that these changes would put BC out of step with other jurisdictions in Canada and the world. BC graduates would be at a distinct disadvantage in terms of their knowledge base and awareness of the natural world. The Ministry of Education is soliciting feedback on these draft changes. It is impor-tant that they hear from as many concerned British Columbians as possible. You can study the proposal in more detail at http://www.mheducation.ca/bc-science/2014/01/31/curriculum-update-2014/ and offer feedback at https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/node/2314 More background is available at http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/05/10/Enviro-Ed-Not-Taught/. To sign a Sierra Club petition asking the ministry to retain nature education in our schools: http://www.sierraclub.bc.ca/education/petition-requests-nature-education-be-returned-to-bc-curriculum.

Page 24: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

Page 24 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

What is Cariboo Growers?

Cariboo Growers is the year-round local Farmers’ Co-operative in downtown Williams Lake. It is a not-for-profit market store that is owned by member farmers and ranchers from around the Cariboo and has a board of directors, a manager, and friendly staff. They work as a big team to bring you the greatest variety available by multiple farmers under one year-round roof.

What does not-for-profit mean?

This model was chosen by the members. It means the Co-op is not like most stores that want to make money. Instead, members want the producers of the food to make money, and the com-munity to benefit, not the store. Under this model, after expenses and infrastruc-ture costs are met, any surplus is distrib-uted to other not-for-profit community organizations, not members. But Cariboo Grower’s is still quite young. The initial start-up loan is not quite paid off and store improve-ments are still required. The present cus-tomer base is very supportive and very much appreciated but we still need to increase sales. Please bring friends to the Co-op so we can reach our goals. When you shop at the Co-op, almost every dol-lar spent stays in the community.

What are prices like?

Our prices reflect the organic quality. Organic foods cost more to pro-duce. This is especially true when you are a small local farmer who tills and weeds by hand, on an average of less than five acres. Each morning at dawn, until dusk or later, these nature-loving farmers nurture and care for plants and animals that will grow into healthy food, with only you in mind. Their food is guaranteed fresh, healthy, and never jet lagged. Alternatively, food that is mass produced for profit is often done so on hundreds or even thousands of acres, with heavy machinery, and travels up to thousands of kilometers to reach your table. Food that is grown conventionally (with harmful chemicals and pesticides) is even cheaper to produce and buy... but at what cost?

Cariboo Growers Co-op Q&A

Organic? Is everything organic?

The store only sells healthy, happy food. By happy food, we mean fruit and vegetables that are non-GMO and grown with love and care in an or-ganic fashion without the use of harmful chemical or pesticides; and, meats that have been raised locally in the Cariboo—and not given additional growth hor-mones or treated with antibiotics—and lived as nature intended, in the field and pastures eating grass and foraging. We label everything with either the “sustainable” or “certified organic” status. We also have non-GMO stickers on anything we are 100% sure is GMO-free. At the Co-op we encourage ques-tions and have pictures and stories to share, so you can put a face to (or even talk with) the Farmer that grows your food. What local foods do you have avail-

able?

• Meats (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, salmon, lamb, duck)

• Seasonal vegetables and root crops in the winter (onions, garlic, squash, potatoes, apples, shallots, etc.)

• Seasonal BC fruits including peaches, cherries, apricots, plums, pears, ap-ples, and sweet frozen fruits and local apples over the winter.

• Other food such as honey, juice, bread (some of the most affordable in town), flour (including gluten-free), cheese and yogurt (100% grass fed), jams, nuts and nut butter, tea, canned wild salmon, yummy baked snacks, and much more. We send out a weekly email if you are interested.

• Wholesale Buyers Club - visit the Co-op for details

When are you open, where are you, and

how can I learn more?

For your convenience we accept debit and credit cards and are open all year long on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 11 am to 6 pm and on Sat-urdays from 10 am to 3 pm. We are lo-cated at the corner of 3rd & Oliver Streets in downtown Williams Lake. Visit www.cariboogrowers.ca, call 778-412-COOP (2667), or email [email protected] for more in-formation. See you at the Co-op!

E ver wonder what happens to your wood waste? It all depends on

where you drop it off. If it’s not

segregated out of your household

waste, it will be transported to your regional landfill and landfilled. If you dispose of it in

your local transfer station bin, it, too, will be

transported to your regional landfill. If you

dispose of it at a landfill in the demolition and construction zone, it will be landfilled. If

you drop it off in a wood waste marshalling

area it will either be ground up for fuel at a

co-gen plant, or it will be incinerated on site.

Does it matter if wood waste is land-filled or incinerated? Landfilling wood waste contributes more to climate change than incin-eration, takes up valuable space in our land-fills, and if it is disposed of at a transfer station first, costs to transport it. Landfilled wood waste creates methane gas as it decomposes in the oxygen-deprived landfill environment. Methane gas is green-house gas 21 times stronger than carbon diox-ide when related to climate change. Wood waste disposed of in landfills takes up valuable landfill space. The lifespan of a landfill is measured in volume by how many years of waste will fit into the existing landfill footprint. If we are able to reduce the amount of waste going into each of our land-fills, it gives us more years of use. Wood waste disposed of in transfer station bins must be hauled to the regional landfill, which is paid for by the tonne. Wood waste in transfer station bins also causes op-erational difficulties as it doesn’t compact well and prevents maximum use of the transfer bins. One of the strategies under the Cariboo Regional District’s (CRD) new Solid Waste

Fresh BC fruits at the Co-op (until late September, early October).

Photo: Jessica Knodel

By Jessica Knodel

Wood Waste Part of the Cariboo Regional District’s Solid Waste Info Series: Becoming Waste Wise

Management Plan is to divert clean wood waste from landfills. This will require site users to seg-regate clean wood from other waste. Clean wood is suitable for grinding and incineration and includes trees, branches, shrubs, leaves, dimensional lumber, pallets, and pieces of wood. Small metals such as fasteners (nails and screws) and hinges are allowable, as grinders have magnets to collects these. Con-taminants such as dirt, rocks, concrete, brick, porcelain, steel, and other metals cause costly damage to grinding equipment and are strictly prohibited from clean wood waste. Painted or heavily stained wood, treated wood, plywood, particle board or oriented strand board (OSB), and railway ties all need to be landfilled. These materials are not consid-ered clean wood because the chemicals present in the finish, preservative, or glue are harmful if incinerated. Many of these materials are costly to purchase new, and unused portions or pieces that are still in good condition are accepted for re-use at any of the CRD’s share sheds. Waste Wise education is delivered to students in the CRD, but the CRD would like to make waste education available to everyone, as we all have the ability to change our waste han-dling habits for the better. For more info on Waste Wise call (250) 398-7929 or find details on Waste Wise activities and events at cccon-serv.org. Please join us this year to become waste wise and make a difference. For direct access to our monthly topics “Like” us on Facebook at facebook.com/caribooregion, view us online at cariboord.bc.ca, or look for our articles in your local paper.

Page 25: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 25

TheGreenGazette

> aturopathic medicine has a

wide range of tools that can be

used in conjunction with con-

ventional medicine to effec-

tively treat cancer. Many people have this

underlying assumption that naturopathic

treatments are not “evidence based” be-

cause otherwise their oncologist would

have recommended them. The truth is that

many of these therapies are extremely well

documented by scientific studies and the

mainstream scientific community does not

dispute their effectiveness. The bottom line

is that cancer patients do better when they

have an integrative health care team and

naturopathic doctors are an integral part of

this team.

When dealing with a complex condi-tion such as cancer it is very important to thoroughly review the entire health history of the patient, not just the diagnosis of can-cer. It is essential that as physicians we actu-ally take the time to listen to what the pa-tient is saying. This allows us to develop a custom treatment plan for that individual which addresses the unique circumstances of that patient. Naturopathic doctors are ex-perts at taking the time to listen to the pa-tient and developing a treatment plan for each unique patient. Chemotherapy and radiation are ef-fective therapies and often it is a race be-tween the death of the cancer cells and the death of healthy cells. Making sure the healthy cells are supplied with adequate nutrients allows patients to endure these harsh therapies with fewer side effects. Very often patients who are adequately supported with the appropriate nutrition and supple-ments will be able to tolerate additional rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. Ulti-mately, if healthy cells are more likely to survive, this helps stack the odds against cancer cells. Patients are often reluctant to take any supplements during chemotherapy and radiation because of potential interactions. This is a legitimate concern because there are many negative interactions if the wrong supplement is used. Any naturopathic doctor who regularly works with cancer is well aware of these interactions. When the appro-priate supplements are used there are pro-found benefits to cancer patients. These sup-plements are well supported by scientific evidence and they have been consistently demonstrated safe when used in the right context. This is why the blanket statement of “avoid all supplements” is simply incorrect. It is absolutely essential that you have pro-fessional guidance from an experienced na-turopathic doctor when you are picking sup-plements. The mainstream medical community is slowly becoming more open to collaborat-

Naturopathic Medicine and Cancer

By Adam McLeod, ND, BSc

ing with naturopathic doctors because the evidence for the benefits of an integrative approach to cancer care can no longer be ignored. For years naturopathic doctors have been using high dose IV vitamin C as a can-cer therapy and traditional medical doctors considered it to be a nonsense therapy. Re-cently they have changed their attitude and oncologists are jumping on to the vitamin C bandwagon. There is no doubt that when used appropriately this can be an effective integrative cancer therapy. Patients who undergo this therapy tend to experience less significant side ef-fects from the chemotherapy. IV vitamin C can vastly improve quality of life by increas-ing appetite, raising platelet counts, easing fatigue, and reducing pain. When patients are supported by the appropriate nutrients and supplements, the side effects from che-motherapy are less intense. Studies consis-tently show that at these high doses, vitamin C is toxic to cancer cells while protecting healthy cells from the adverse effects of chemotherapy. The evidence indicates that IV vitamin C is effective when used in con-junction with chemotherapy rather than as a stand-alone therapy. This is just one exam-ple of many different effective natural can-cer therapies available. There is much more to integrative oncology than simply IV vita-min C. There is no question that there is of-ten a strong emotional component to cancer and this must be addressed for optimal heal-ing to take place. Patients will often be able to directly connect the formation of their cancer with a stressful event in their life. This is not an imaginary connection; there are biological reasons why emotional stress can trigger the formation of cancer. Stress can cause cancer. It is important to point out that this is not a hypothetical concept. This is a statement that is well supported by sci-entific evidence. The link between cancer and stress is well established and is not de-bated by the scientific community. Many people are not aware how significant this connection is as medical doctors often disre-gard this connection despite the body of evidence. Naturopathic doctors not only address the physical components of health; they will also take the time to address the emotional and spiritual components that simply cannot be ignored in patients with cancer. If you know someone with cancer, make sure you let them know about the po-tential benefits of seeing a naturopathic doc-tor who focuses on cancer. There are so many amazing tools that naturopathic medi-cine has to offer and the public needs to be aware that these therapies exist and that they are effective.

Dr. Adam McLeod is a naturopathic doctor

(-D), BSc. (Hon) molecular biology, First

-ations healer, motivational speaker, and

international best-selling author. He cur-

rently practices at his clinic in Vancouver,

British Columbia where he focuses on inte-

grative oncology.

http://www.yaletownnaturopathic.com

P rotecting and conserving sus-

tainable salmon stocks and

supporting First >ations in

becoming re-engaged with

their traditional economy is the mission

and the primary goal of the Upper Fra-

ser Fisheries Conservation Alliance

(UFFCA). In partnership with the

Tsilhqot’in >ational Government, Xeni

Gwet’in, and the >orthern Shuswap

Tribal Council (>STC), the alliance is

establishing an Upper Fraser commer-

cial fishing enterprise base on the Sug-

arcane reserve near Williams Lake.

“At this point we’re working on governance and structure, offering sup-port through equipment, research, and experience,” explains executive director Gord Sterritt, who worked in fisheries with NSTC prior to coming on board with the Alliance just over a year ago. The Alliance was launched in 2005 under the Federal Department of Fisheries, Aboriginal Aquatic Re-source and Oceans Management pro-gram. “When I came on with NSTC in 2005 the potential for commer-cial fisheries was recognized in the Quesnel system. We started gearing up to do some beach seining, and employing other harvest methods to see what we could get from that area,” he explains. “At NSTC we started using entirely selective fishing methods. You can return fish that aren’t targeted for harvest, sorting through them while they’re still alive and put them back. We’ve been gearing up since then to implement a com-mercial fishery on Quesnel Lake.” Conservation is the num-ber one priority of the UFFCA—protecting salmon stocks and supporting First Nations groups in the Upper Fraser in obtaining fish for food, social, and ceremonial requirements each year. “We thought this was a natural fit for UFFCA, and we will support the initiative with equipment and the re-search of different fishing methods for this area. It’s an important concept to practice primary principals of conserva-tion and support First Nations access and rights to the resource,” Sterritt adds. “There has been a shift in allow-able commercial catch, and approxi-mately 12 per cent of licences have been purchased back from the commercial fishing sector and are now mainly ap-plied to inland fisheries in this area, as well as in the Thompson.” He says that while he was work-ing with the NSTC, the NSTC, the Tsilhqot’in, and the Xeni Gwet’in gov-ernments saw opportunities to get sup-port and equipment for a commercial fishing enterprise. “If we find out there’s a weaker run of one species of salmon, and a stronger run of another we can share the capacity and experience to make an op-portunity successful. This will support

Upper Fraser Salmon Sustainability

the communities and provide them with opportunities for employment and en-gagement,” he explains. Rack cards have been developed for the public so that when someone buys fish in the area they can read about the source and the methods used. The commercial fisheries enterprise will provide seasonal employment and sup-ply locally-caught salmon to local mar-kets. “We feel that this kind of pro-gram lets us protect weaker stock within the watershed and shape fisheries to ensure those weaker stocks return to their natal streams to spawn,” he says. “Our mantra is quality and sustainabil-ity.”

Sterritt says the recent environmental disaster at Mnt. Polley mine is a re-minder that the conservation and protec-tion of our salmon is of utmost impor-tance.

"This is where we really have to pro-mote precautionary management with fisheries and with natural resource ex-ploitation," he says. "Any place, any time there is an accident waiting to hap-pen."“

A purse seine demonstration was held on Quesnel Lake in 2010 - a training exercise

where all fish were caught and released.

Photo: Gord Sterritt

A fish wheel similar to this one, patented by the Gitxsan Watershed Authorities, will be tested on

the Chilcotin River this season.

Photo: Charlie Muldon

By LeRae Haynes

Page 26: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

Page 26 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

W e recently finished build-

ing a house. Before we

started, it seemed like the

ideas and options were

endless. In order of importance, we felt

that a solid, well-built house was the most

important. Following that we wanted it to

be comfortable, highly efficient, unique,

and well finished. The original designs

were pretty lofty, but then reality set in

and the budget dictated what we actually

need in a house (what, no indoor pool

and skate park?!?).

We ended up spending over a year on design, looking at many different lay-outs that fit our needs, trying to ensure that we weren’t building more than was abso-lutely necessary. All while we were keep-ing it simple for our first (and possibly only) build. We ended up with a simply designed home with an open concept main floor, three bedrooms upstairs, and a base-ment in law suite. The next goal was high efficiency. When you start shopping for energy effi-ciency, the options are endless. This is awesome because it means people are tak-ing notice and starting to care about green options. However, it can become quite daunting and there always seems to be some misinformation (just to make it fun). After much head scratching, it was made somewhat simpler when my brother told me to just look at the numbers. Being a marine engineer, I tend to like numbers. There are many green options out there, and we get bombarded by beautifully de-signed homes in magazines, but often they are complex to build and unaffordable. After crunching the numbers, it was pretty obvious that the most important green choice that would produce the best results was a well-insulated, tight house. To achieve this, we used several materials. We used rigid Styrofoam insulation under the basement slab and in the basement walls. In the house we went with double stud walls filled with mostly recycled fi-breglass, and in the roof we used 100 per cent recycled cellulose insulation. A tight house can become uncom-fortable, but the old “a house needs to breathe” technique needs to be put to rest. Our house breathes through a heat recov-

Simple Green Home Design By Wilf Geier

ery ventilator (HRV). This device is a sim-ple heat exchanger that replaces stale in-side air with fresh outside air, but without a big temperature drop. It also helps with humidity, and keeps the house comfort-able, all while using as much power as a light bulb. For heat, we decided on an air to air heat pump with air handler. This involves ducting, but I liked the idea of air circula-tion. We also installed a wood-burning RSF Opel 3 fireplace on the main floor. It is installed in a central location and the heat distribution is excellent. Not only does it keep the house warm, but we love sitting in front of the fire in the (loooong) winter evenings in Terrace, BC. The design is our own, and though it is not extremely unique, it is simple and practical. This made the building of it much more manageable and kept our costs low. I sometimes see house designs with 16 or more corners in the foundation and shudder at all the added cost and build time (each un-needed corner means extra cuts on every piece, inside and out). Com-plicated usually equates to labour intensive and stress (both of which I’m allergic to). If you are thinking of building a house, I think it is important to go through a planning process. I believe that these steps are very important in modern home building.

1. Don’t build more than you need: Not only does it cost more for material and labour, but every cubic foot needs to be heated, and the bigger the surface area the more heat loss and energy used for the lifetime of the house. 2. Keep it simple: Surprisingly, a small house can be more labour intensive than a big house if it is a complex design. Each corner adds cost, and each roof pitch causes stress (it would for me, anyway). Also a complex home is harder to seal and often creates more material waste. 3. Insulate, Insulate, Insulate: If you have completed the first two steps, insulat-ing is not really that expensive and diffi-cult. Especially when you see that by insu-lating you can buy a smaller heat pump or a smaller wood stove, it takes less energy to heat, and it stays cooler in the summer. Insulation is the gift that keeps on giving, day after day, year after year. 4. Comfort: Make sure that the house is comfortable. There are many methods of doing this—look at the num-bers to get what is best for you. If you don’t like getting firewood, then putting in a stove would be a waste of money. I could have put in geothermal rather than a heat pump and fireplace, but I really wanted the fireplace and, coupled with the heat pump, my cost is less per year than geothermal would have been. Though firewood can

cost money, I usually get mine for free (though it sometimes incurs a trip to the chiropractor). HRV is a fairly cheap sys-tem to install and can make the difference between a stuffy house and one that feels fresh. 5. Use all of your space: One way to reduce your footprint is to build a base-ment. A basement used to be a cold dark, musty space that you stored things in. That no longer needs to be the case. I wanted a four-bedroom house so that we could have a spare bedroom. By insulating the slab and building with Quad Lock, the rigid Sytrofoam, we achieved a very comfort-able suite (as well as some much needed storage space). 6. Materials: Try to use locally manufactured, recycled, and available ma-terials. Often they are cheaper, more read-ily available, and involve less trucking. Wood, recycled fibreglass, and cellulose insulation make up a good part of this house, and are all locally available and renewable. In the end, we were able to prove that anyone can build green, without revo-lutionizing the tried and tested methods of current building practices, and with very little added labour or cost. Our house is very comfortable, suits our needs, and costs very little to maintain. As I stated above, there are many methods of green home design, and certain material prices are changing constantly. I believe that our choices were the best for us, and we are very lucky that we were able to achieve all of the items on our list and do it within the budget that we had. For those about to build, enjoy the process. Take breaks when you need them and don’t stress the small stuff. Also, don’t worry when you feel like you are losing your mind; you might be, but it’ll come back after the finishing work is completed. For those who are renovating, it’s a similar process; use the numbers to see if you are getting the most out of your dollar. This will save you heartache (or at least bank-ache) in the long run. Wilf Geier works as a marine engineer and

in search and rescue for the Cana-

dian Coast Guard. He’s been living in and

loving the northwest for many years.

Our green home in the sunshine, overlooking the Skeena Valley in Terrace, BC. Photo: Wilf

Page 27: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

August/September 2014 www.thegreengazette.ca Page 27

TheGreenGazette

T here are many reasons to take part in

the free bounty of wild mushrooms we

have in the Cariboo. First and foremost

is that wild mushrooms are to the

farmed mushroom as the tree picked peach is to

supermarket picked variety, that is, unbelievably

more flavourful. Other reasons for picking fall

mushrooms include the diversity of kinds and fla-

vours available, the excellent nutritional and health

properties of wild mushrooms, and the very reason-

able price (free). There is nothing that justifies a

walk in the woods in the crisp fall air like a basket

of delicious and free mushrooms to accentuate your

fall feasting.

One of the major obstacles facing the novice mushroom picker is overcoming the fear that your first harvest might be your last. The fungiphobic British Isles have instilled an unreasonable fear of mushrooms in many Canadians. While there are a few mushrooms in this area that can make you sick or worse, there are as many berries that will do the same. While most of us have a vague sense that poi-sonous berries do exist, we still feel quite comfort-able eating our well recognized favourites such as Saskatoons or huckleberries. With that in mind, I have described five fall mushrooms below that are easy to recognize and very difficult to confuse with anything dangerous. Familiarize yourself with these mushrooms in a good book or online and you could have a great fall mush-rooming season this year. Leisure Services in Wil-liams Lake will be organizing a fall foray and at that time you can get an experienced picker to confirm your identifications so that you are safely on the path to long years of enjoying another one of the bounties of rural life. 1. Shaggy mane (Coprinus comatus) - Deli-cious, plentiful, unmistakeable. This mushroom grows on buried wood or other organic matter along logging roads, in old landings, in lawns, or on fields. As with all mushrooms, cut the dirty base off when picking to avoid getting grit in the close-packed gills, which are impossible to clean after the fact. Discard specimens that have started to turn pink, a precursor to turning black. Cook with salt in a medium pan to allow the water to come out. As the water starts to boil down, add cream and perhaps a few diced on-ions, and cook until the cream thickens. It does not get any better than this. 2. Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) - Arrives with the first fall rains when day length is around 12 hours, and fruits again in the spring during the same photoperiod. Photoperiod triggers fruiting in this mushroom. This flavour-charged cousin of the supermarket delicacy can be found growing in abun-dance on dead aspen in this area. When you find a producing tree it may yield for years, hence creating your first secret mushroom patch. This is a perfect illustration of the important role that dead trees play in the life of a forest (remember that many forest creatures eat mushrooms so leave some for them). Discard the tough stems, which won't be dirty be-

By Bill Chapman

Photos from top to bottom:

Photo 1: Hydnum repandum, commonly known as the hedgehog mushroom, is an edible mushroom with no poisonous lookalikes. Source: en.wikipedia.org Photo 2: Suillus brevipes is commonly known as the stubby-stalk or the short-stemmed slippery Jack. Source: en.wikipedia.org Photo 3: Coprinus comatus, or Shaggy mane mushroom. Photo: Anneli Salo Photo 4: Honey mushroom growing beneath the “honey mushroom flag” (a dead tree). Photo: Bill Chapman Photo 5: Oyster mushrooms nicely displayed in nature's supermarket. Photo: Julia Pope

Five Sure-fire Fall Mushrooms for the Beginning Fungivore

cause they are growing on dead wood. Rip the mush-rooms into half-inch-wide strips. Put in a hot pan with several tablespoons of peanut oil. Add salt and a little garlic. The heat should bring the moisture out of the mushroom to form a lovely, viscous broth, rich in umami taste and similar to a good chicken broth. Serve as a soup with mushrooms floating in the clear broth. 3. Honey Mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae and others) - Delicious, but so abundant around here that there is a tendency to overdo it. The honey mush-room comes out last of all, and is often found peak-ing through the first snowfalls of the year. It grows in clusters around the base of dead trees, which are the flag you look for to signal this mushroom’s pres-ence. They can be found within minutes of Williams Lake in many locations, but not west of the Fraser. Discard the tough stems and use as a substitute for shian gu, the black mushroom ubiquitous in Chinese cooking. Dries well for later use. 4. Hedgehog (Dentinum repandum) - We don’t have chanterelles close to Williams Lake, but this little beauty tastes and looks similar—but better. It is found in mature pine stands, which the mountain pine beetle made scarce in the last few years. Look for it in the most mature (live) pine stands you can find. It starts in the summer and continues until mid-autumn. The pale to dark orange top and white spines instead of gills make this tasty morsel impos-sible to mistake. On those days when you don’t get your moose, pick a basket of these and come home to a warm welcome. The best way to cook all mush-rooms is to sauté in butter with salt to taste. Nice, clean and simple; let the mushroom do the talking. Serve these with a grass-fattened beef steak or with your favourite shape of noodle. 5. Short Slippery Jack (Suillus brevipes) - I had to include one in the list that is a bit of an ac-quired taste. Like all Suillus, the short slippery Jack must be eaten in the button stage when it is firm and worm-free. Fortunately, this is easy to do because these babies are abundant under young pine stands, which can be found pretty much anywhere around Williams Lake right now thanks to the mountain pine beetle. These can be sautéed, but Polish people love to pickle this butter mushroom (as Europeans call it). Pickle in vinegar, pickling salt, and boiling water. Add varying degrees of onion, peppercorns, bay leaves, or garlic, as you wish. Eat these on their own or with herring salad for Christmas. If you familiarize yourself with the mush-rooms above, for as much as it is possible to guaran-tee anything in this life, you will have a successful fall mushroom season this year and will go into the winter well fed and happy. Good mushrooming. Bill and his family have lived in Williams Lake since

1992. They are frequently the only mushrooms pick-

ers to be seen on the vast landscapes of the Cariboo-

Chilcotin. Bill learned to pick mushrooms at his

mother’s knee and Bill and Louisa’s kids all started

picking mushrooms while still in diapers.

Page 28: TheGreenGazetteAugSept2014

Page 28 www.thegreengazette.ca August/September 2014

TheGreenGazette

H ealth and beauty treatments

go hand in hand with pro-

tecting the environment at

Adorn and Beauty >atu-

rally. The salon offers pedicures, mani-

cures, facials, waxing, reflexology, a

range of massage treatments, eyelash and

eyebrow tinting, gel nails and polish, and

more. What sets the salon apart, accord-

ing to owner Jo-Anne Lang, is its com-

mitment to high-quality green Canadian

products with no preservatives, toxins, or

harmful additives.

Lang has been in the health and beauty industry for 14 years, and says that what people expect has really changed. “People know more and care more about the products they use and where they come from,” she says. “This is so positive and encouraging. “I starting using organic skin care myself years ago—I’m allergic to every-thing—and that has always motivated me to find the very best for my customers,” she says. “I don’t know if allergies have in-creased, or if our awareness of them has increased. People may have had allergies for a long time without knowing it.” Adorn offers product refills to re-duce waste and uses all-natural cleaners and cloths for cleaning instead of paper towels. The salon also features local art-ists, displaying paintings, photography, and local jewellery, and creating a beauti-ful, peaceful, welcoming atmosphere for clients. “I’m so thankful for the incredible local artists who bring their beautiful work to hang on our walls,” she says. “We have many talented artists here; I love being able to support them.” Another important thing at Adorn is supporting the local community. “We do-

Adorn and Beauty Naturally—Loving the planet and being your most beautiful ‘you’

nate every chance we get, providing gift certificates at silent auctions to raise money at school events, local galas, and non-profit events,” says Lang. “If it’s lo-cal, we’re in.” Adorn customers are women, men, children, seniors, and families. Lang says customer service is why she started this business: to make her clients feel like they’re number one. “That’s why we’re here. I want them to feel that while they’re here they learned a little bit about being healthy and feeling happy. In this business it’s important to be personable and connect with people,” she says. “I am very proud of my staff. They inspire loyalty and appreciation from cus-tomers. When I hire I look for ‘friendly’ and for someone willing to learn how to use natural, organic, green products.” Sometimes it can be hard for people to get in the door of a salon, says Lang. “Sometimes people are of a genera-tion where it’s hard to look after them-selves—they see it as an indulgence. We offer a warm welcome, a warm comforting soak for your feet or your hands: it feels like coming home. “Our facility is accessible for every-one and our services are affordable,” she says. “We explain all our products and procedures and offer information and sup-port about all our treatments, as well as helpful ideas and suggestions. “You don’t have to sacrifice feeling beautiful to protect the environment. I think every woman is naturally beautiful, and it doesn’t take chemicals to look and feel your best. “I don’t believe in putting the earth in peril for our own beauty: we should teach our children that you don’t have to ruin the earth to be beautiful.”

Featured Green Business

Tracy Dale, Mikaela Gainer, Jo-Ann Lang, Danielle Barrette, and Tanya Seland

from Adorn and Beauty �aturally in Williams Lake are committed to providing

friendly, professional customer service and high quality products that are kind to

the environment and help you look and feel your best. Photo: LeRae Haynes

By LeRae Haynes

Compliments of Bee Happy Honey,

Dunaway Ranch, Soda Creek, BC

This recipe is very healthy, versa-tile, and is open to change! People of all ages seem to enjoy it, and it’s a great way to encourage kids to eat raw vegetables. I often marinate the hard vegetables (peppers, carrots, red onion, etc.) for a few hours before mixing everything with let-tuce and adding a few soft vegetables (tomatoes, cukes, etc.) and/or fruit (e.g. pears, apples) to the salad. Raw sunflower seeds also make a nice last minute addition to this base recipe. Ingredients

1 cup good olive oil 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar 1/2 fresh lemon juice (or other citrus fruit) 1/2 tsp. balsamic vinegar (the trick is to use sparingly) 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard 2 Tbsp. good, local honey 2 (or more) cloves of local, organic garlic, crushed 1 tsp. fresh cracked pepper Dash of salt Fresh finely chopped seasonal herbs to taste (basil, cilantro, parsley... whatever)

Thoughts on RiversThoughts on RiversThoughts on RiversThoughts on Rivers

A s I tossed around

ideas for a river

poem, I thought

about the rivers in

the sky, narrow bands or cor-

ridors of concentrated water

vapour in the atmosphere.

These powerful weather sys-

tems called atmospheric rivers

have been getting wider and

longer as Earth’s climate

warms, and are causing more

frequent and catastrophic

floods on our planet.

I also thought about the ancient rivers on Mars. The Mars rovers that have been sending back evidence since 2012 have convinced NASA scientists that millions of years ago there existed oceans, lakes, and rivers—rivers that would have almost certainly been drinkable. They are no more, of course. Now the atmosphere of Mars is most noticeable for its gigantic dust storms—the biggest in our whole solar system—and they sometimes envelop the whole planet. When I was born, seventy years ago, much of the Earth’s water was still sweet and pure. Now, some of it is so polluted it cannot even be used for industrial purposes. Listen to Me Said the River

I will listen said the fish, the frog, the whale and even the canary I am listening, and I think I understand said the seeker I seek to understand said the scientist I am too busy to understand said the CEOs of Syncrude, Monsanto, Cargill, and the head of the World Bank The river laughed and roared I have not a mean spirit it sang I will flood you with love I will love you with floods I will magnify your ignorance and idiocy Then I will go away And the river stopped speaking

-Betty Geier

picgifs.com

Sometimes the honey needs time to dissolve – Mix this recipe up in a jar and give it a good shake. If you don’t use it all at once, store in the fridge and set on the counter at room temperature for a few min-utes before use, as it does congeal. Shake well before drizzling. Tasty variation: add 1 tsp. of ses-ame oil, a Tbsp. of freshly grated ginger root, and a dash of soya sauce instead of the balsamic vinegar. Toasted sesame seeds can be added just before serving. Enjoy!

Di’s Honey Garlic Salad Vinaigrette & Vegetable Marinade

Photo: epSos.de Wikimedia Commons

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August / September Calendar of Events

August 11–15 - Nature Fun at Scout Island Nature Center, Williams Lake. Outdoor exploration, nature-based games, arts & crafts. All about: Reptiles and Amphibi-

ans. Mon–Fri 9:30–11:30 a.m. or 1–3 p.m. Ages 3–13. $10 per session. Ages 8–13 Special All Day Tuesdays. Art in Nature 9:30 a.m.–3 p.m. Includes learning to sketch with a local artist. Call (250) 398-8532 or contact [email protected] for more info. Aug 12 - Wise Tradition Chapter meeting at Kinikinik in Redstone Village at 5 p.m. Call (250) 394-6000 for more info. August 18–21 - Nature Fun at Scout Island Nature Center, Williams Lake. Outdoor exploration, nature-based games, arts & crafts. All about: Mammals Inside and

Out. Mon–Fri 9:30–11:30 a.m. or 1-3 p.m. Ages 3–13. $10 per session. Ages 8–13 Special All Day Tuesdays. Art in Nature 9:30 a.m.–3 p.m. Includes learning to sketch with a local artist. Call (250) 398-8532 or contact [email protected] for more info. August 19 - Night Life at Scout Island Nature Centre, Williams Lake. Listen for bats, visit beavers at work, watch underwa-ter invertebrates with flashlights (they’re very active!). 7:30-9:30 p.m. Free. Call (250) 398-8532 for more info.

August 23 - Flea/Farmer’s Market in Horsefly. 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call (250) 620-3575 for more info. August 23 & 24 - 15th Annual Garlic Festi-val, Lac La Hache – For a ‘Stinkin good time!’ Master garlic chef cook-off, live music and performances, shopping, demon-strations, and all sorts of garlic treats. Sat-urday 9 a.m.–5 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Info at www.garlicfestival.ca. August 24 - Open House/Information Ses-sion and Registration for the Chickadee Early Childhood and Learning Centre Pro-grams beginning September, 2014. 1p.m.–4p.m. at Miocene Hall. Call (250) 296-3265 for more info. August 27 - Women’s Spirituality Circle outing with Thea Fast and her horses in Beaver Valley. Meet at Cariboo Mental Health Association at 5 p.m. to carpool to Beaver Valley. 6–9 p.m. For more info visit humanbeherd.com. September 6 - Churn Creek Protected Area Field Trip with Williams Lake Field Natu-ralists. Moderate, full-day hike (12 km) onto spectacular grasslands of Churn Flats and canyon views of Churn Creek. Meet at A&W parking lot at 6:45 a.m. Call ahead to Ordell Steen at (250) 398-5017 for more info. September 6 - Tour de Cariboo sponsored by Williams Lake Big Brothers and Big Sisters. 87 km bicycle ride from Williams

Lake to Gavin Lake. Pledges online. For info or to register as single or team, visit www.bbswlake.com or call (250) 398-8391. September 9 - Wise Tradition Chapter meeting at Kinikinik in Redstone Village at 5 p.m. Call (250) 394-6000 for more info.

September 10 - Women’s Spirituality Circle at Canadian Mental Health Associa-tion meeting room, Williams Lake. 12 p.m. Potluck and sharing circle. All women welcome. For more info contact [email protected] or (250) 398-8220. September 14 - Shifting Gears Mountain Biking Event. Race starts at 10 a.m. sharp at Snakes and Ladders trail head. Shuttles available. Family friendly, intermediate level, non-competitive course. Prizes and BBQ to follow. For more info call (250) 392-5730 or find us on Facebook (Boys and Girls Club of Williams Lake).

September 24 - Women’s Spirituality Circle evening meeting at Canadian Men-tal Health Association meeting room, Wil-liams Lake. 5:30 p.m. Potluck and sharing circle. 7 p.m., song sharing from different faiths and cultures. Participate by singing or listening. All welcome. For more info call (250) 398-8220 or [email protected]. September 26–28 - Compassionate Con-versations discussion during BC Culture Days with the Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi and Fr. Derrick Cameron. Exploring inter-sections between Buddhist and Catholic thought and practice. Contact Sharon Tay-lor, Immigrant and Multicultural Services Society for more info at [email protected] or (778) 412-2999. Visit www.facebook.com/CompassionateConversationsContact for more details. September 27 & 28 - Horsefly River Salmon Festival. Celebrate BC Rivers Day in Horsefly. Interpretive talks, Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans info booths, and arts & crafts. Saturday entertainment at Com-muni ty Hal l a t 7 p .m. See www.horseflyriver.ca/salmonfes tival/index.html for more info. September 30 - Annual Walk for Har-mony through Williams Lake, joining the Orange Shirt Day event in Boitanio Park at 10 a.m. See www.facebook.com/orangeshirtdayeverychildmatters for more info.

***

NOURISHING OUR CHILDREN By Jasmin Schellenberg

Recently we had two Swiss beekeep-ers visiting our ranch. They were amazed at our bee hives’ health. “How do you do that?” they were inquiring. “We manage for good health versus against disease,” was my answer. This also is possible in our everyday lives. Stay away from GMOs and MSGs, manage for a strong immune system, and you will not likely need vaccination. Educate yourself before exposing your child to shots (check the ingredients: ethylmercury-thiomerosal, for example, has terrible side effects.) Since the 1930s, ethylmercurythio-salicylate, also known as thimerosal, has been used as a preservative in vaccines and injec-tion compounds worldwide due to its antifun-gal and antibacterial properties. Comprised of 50 percent mercury, thimerosal is an organic mercury compound that breaks down in the body into ethyl mercury and thiosalicylate and is thought by many parents and scientists to be primarily responsible for the epidemic of autism and other neurological disorders in children over the last 20 years. Steffanie Seneff said at a recent Wise Traditions conference, today 1 in 50 children is autistic and if we don’t change something very quickly, by 2025 it will be 1 in 2. That’s only in 11 years from now. Many of our children get 26 doses of nine different vaccines by the first birthday and a total of 70 doses of 16 different vac-cines by age 18. Please check the ingredients and then some websites on these issues in-cluding westonaprice.org, Dr Andrew Wake-field, greatergoodmovie.org, and there are many more. But what can you do if you already have gluten intolerance, a leaky gut, or an autistic child? There are several ways to help im-prove these conditions. First of all, a nutrient dense diet is a must. Check out http://www.gaspsdiet.com. That includes diets to improve celiac, lacto intolerance, ADHD, etc. Many naturopathic doctors also have great results with fermented cod liver oil high in vitamin A and D and K2 (the one from Green Pastures is the best). All fermented foods are high in probiotics and enzymes and will help in getting your gut flora back on track. Last but not least, the good old bone broth is easy to make, gentle on your digestive tract, and gives you all the nutrients, vitamins, and pro-teins needed to get you better fast. “Thy food is thy medicine.” “Good broth will resurrect the dead,” says a South American proverb. A cure-all in traditional households and the magic ingredient in classic gourmet cuisine, stock or broth made from bones of beef, chicken, and fish builds strong bones, assuages sore throats, nurtures the sick, puts vigor in the step, and sparkle in love life, say grandmothers, midwives, and healers. For chefs, stock is the magic elixir for making soul-warming soups and matchless sauces. Rich homemade broths help cure colds. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sul-phur, and trace minerals. It contains the bro-ken down material from cartilage and ten-dons—stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supple-ments for arthritis and joint pain. Gelatin was universally acclaimed as a most nutritious foodstuff, particularly by

the French. Although gelatin is not a com-plete protein, containing only the amino acids arginine and glycine in large amounts, it acts as a protein sparer, helping the poor stretch a few morsels of meat into a com-plete meal. During the siege of Paris, when vegetables and meat were scarce, a doctor named Guerard put his patients on gelatin broth with some added fat and they survived in good health. Gelatin was found to be useful in the treatment of a long list of diseases including healing a leaky gut, peptic ulcers, tuberculo-sis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice, and cancer. The amino acid glycine found in bone broth can be very calming. Babies had fewer digestive prob-lems when gelatin was added to their milk. The American researcher Francis Pottenger pointed out that as gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid, which means that it attracts and holds liquids, it facilitates digestion by at-tracting digestive juices to food in the gut. Even the epicures recognized that broth-based soup did more than please the taste buds. “Soup is a healthy, light, nourishing food,” said Brillant-Savarin. “Good for all of humanity, it pleases the stomach, stimu-lates the appetite, and prepares the diges-tion.”

Beef Stock—Ingredients

• 4 pounds beef marrow and knuckle bones

• 3 pounds meaty rib or neck bones • 4 or more quarts cold filtered water • 1/2 cup vinegar • 3 onions, coarsely chopped • 3 carrots, coarsely chopped • 3 celery stalks, coarsely chopped

several sprigs of fresh thyme, tied to-gether

• 1 teaspoon dried green peppercorns, crushed 1 bunch parsley

Directions Place the knuckle and marrow bones in a very large pot with vinegar and cover with water. Let stand for one hour. Mean-while, place the meaty bones in a roasting pan and brown at 350 degrees C in the oven. When well-browned, add to the pot along with the vegetables. Pour the fat out of the roasting pan, add cold water to the pan, set over a high flame, and bring to a boil, stir-ring with a wooden spoon to loosen up co-agulated juices. Add this liquid to the pot. Add additional water, if necessary, to cover the bones, but the liquid should come no higher than within one inch of the rim of the pot, as the volume expands slightly during cooking. Bring to a boil. A large amount of scum will come to the top. Remove this with a spoon and reduce heat. Add the thyme and crushed peppercorns. Simmer stock for at least 12 and as long as 72 hours. Just before finishing, add the parsley and simmer another 10 minutes. Remove bones with tongs or a slotted spoon. Strain the stock into a large bowl. Let cool in the refrigerator and remove the congealed fat that rises to the top. Transfer to smaller containers and to the freezer for long-term storage. Brought to you by Jasmin Schellenberg

Come to our Wise Tradition Chapter meet-

ings held every second Tuesday of the

month, 5 p.m. at Kinikinik in Redstone Vil-lage and learn more about nutrient dense

food.Inspired by and resourced from http://

www.westonaprice.org

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The Green CollectiveThe Green CollectiveThe Green CollectiveThe Green Collective “Thinks, Creates, or Sells Eco-Friendly Products.”

Your Green Shopping Directory

Bean Counter Bistro & Coffee Bar, 250 305-

2326

180B 3rd Ave. North, Williams Lake Organic Coffee, Fair Trade, Local Foods

Body Health 4 All, 250-297-0089

�ola Carter [email protected] www.bodyhealth4all.com Better health by balanc-ing body PH. Independent Distributor of LiPH

Products

Canadian Tire, 250 392-3303

1050 South Lakeside Dr., Williams Lake Recycling Initiatives, Renewable Energy Solu-

tions, Organic Cleaning Products: Blue Planet,

Green Works, Method, -ature Clean, Seventh Generation

Cariboo Growers Coop, 778 412-2667

3rd & Oliver St., Williams Lake. 100% -atural & Organic Foods, -on-Profit Farmer’s Coop

Cleanway Supply, 1-800-663-5181 275 South MacKenzie Ave., Williams Lake Organic Cleaning Products

Dandelion Living, 778-412-9100

271 Oliver St., Williams Lake Local & Original, Reclaimed & Repurposed, -atural & Organic Products

Day Spa Champagne, 250 305-1249 124A North Second Ave., Williams Lake Quiet, relaxing, personalized atmosphere. A Zen

experience. Four Types Massage, Reflexology,

Manicures/Pedicures & More.

Debbie Irvine B.Sc. (Agr.) RH�

Registered Holistic Nutritionist 250-392-9418 or [email protected] SPRI>GHOUSE GARDE>S - Organically grown market garden veggies; Grass fed/finished beef - no hormones, no GMOs. Enquiries wel-come. earthRight Solar, 1 877 925-2929

3rd & Borland, Williams Lake Renewable Energy Solutions, Eco-Friendly Prod-ucts, Composting Toilets

Flying Coyote Ranch, 250 296-4755 Ingrid Kallman and Troy Forcier Grass-fed Angus beef No shots, no hormones, organic fertilizer By the quarter or side, hamburger .

The Gecko Tree, 250 398-8983 54 N. MacKenzie Ave. Williams Lake Serving healthy, local foods

Halls Organics, 250 398-2899 107 Falcon Rd. (North Lakeside), Williams Lake Indoor and Outdoor Organic Gardening Prod-

ucts, Alternative Traditional Products, Teas an-Herbs, Hemp Body Products

The Hobbit House, 250 392-7599 71 First Ave. South, Williams Lake

Juice Bar, -atural Products, Essential Oils, Teas,

Crystals, Gemstones, and more.

Potato House Sustainable Community Society 250 855-8443 or [email protected] In an age of apathy and a sense that change is all

talk and no action, The Potato House Project is a friendly bastion of doing, sharing, learning and

playing. Call us with your ideas and to find out

ways to get involved.

Rona Home Centre, 250 392-7767

298 Proctor Street, Williams Lake "ECO" cleaning & gardening products, LED bulbs

& energy-efficient building products. Responsible

disposal available for recycling of paint, stain, CFLs, batteries, saw blades & more.

San Jose Cattle Company, 250 296-4592

Clint and Karen Thompson Sustainable Agriculture, Raised -aturally/Local

Beef, -o antibiotics, hormones, chemical fertilizers

or herbicides.

Scout Island �ature Centre & Williams Lake

Field �aturalists, 250 398-8532 www.scoutislandnaturecentre.ca www.williamslakefieldnaturalists.ca 1305A Borland Rd, Williams Lake -ature on the city’s doorstep. Bird sanctuary,

arboretum, trails, -ature House, natural history

programs for children and adults.

Smashin’ Smoothies, 778-412-2112

102-41, 7th Ave North, Williams Lake Juice, Smoothies & Expresso Bar Fresh, Organic, Whole Food.

Sta-Well Health Foods, 250 392-7022 79D 3rd Ave. North, Williams Lake Organic Foods, Water Distillers, -atural Medi-

cines, Emergency Freeze Dried Foods.

Williams Lake Food Policy Council 250-302-

5010 GROWI-G THE SEEDS OF CHA-GE!

www.facebook.com/WLFPC food-

[email protected]. Building a strong

local food economy and promoting a healthy and

sustainable community

Williams Lake Water Factory, 250 398-5201

Pure Bottled Water. Home & Office Delivery. 955 S. Mackenzie Ave, Williams Lake, BC.

Come see us on Toonie Tuesday!

Zed-Tech Electric, 250-267-4868 For all your residential and commercial needs.

Joe Zombori [email protected] Zirnhelt Ranch, 250 243-2243

www.zirnheltranch.ca or [email protected] Producers of Grassfed/Finished Beef. Pasture Raised Pork.

Green Locations

100 Mile House Donex

Canadian 2 for 1 Pizza Chartreuse Moose

Higher Ground Nat. Foods

KFC Nuthatch Books

One Another Coffee House

Safeway Save-On-Foods

A&W

108 Mile House 108 Mile Esso

108 Mile Mall 108 Mile Supermarket Hills Health & Guest

Ranch

150 Mile House 150 Mile Mall

Husky Station Marshall’s 150 Mile Store

Alexis Creek Alexis Creek General Store

Anahim Lake Anahim Lake Trading Mclean Trading

Bella Coola

Coast Mountain Lodge

Kopas Store Moore’s Organic Market Valley Inn & Restaurant

Big Lake

Big Lake General Store

Clinton Clinton Coffee House

Dog Creek Mount View Handy Mart Red Dog Pub/Liquor Store

Hanceville

Lee’s Corner Store

Horsefly

Clarke’s General Store

Post Office Horsefly Hardware

Horsefly Service Station

LacLaHache Race Trac Gas &

Convenience Red Crow Cafe

Likely

Lakeside Service Valley General Store

McLeese Lake Deep Creek Service Station The Oasis Motel Cafe

�impo Lake

Nimpo Lake General Store

Prince George

Ava Maria Gifts and

Health Foods Books and Co.

University of Northern BC

College of New Caledonia

Quesnel

The Green Tree Bliss Cafe Booster Juice

Carryall Books Good For You Market

Holistic Health Care Clinic Karin’s European Deli

Granville’s Coffee Shop Quiznos Safeway

Redstone Kinikinik

Wildwood

RaceTrac Gas & Store

Williams Lake

A & W

All-ways Travel Amanda Enterprises

Barking Spider Mountain

Bikes Bean Counter Bistro Beaver Valley Feeds

The Book Bin CanWest Propane

Cariboo Growers Coop Cariboo Ski

Concrete Fitness Conservation Society CJ’s Restaurant

CRD Library Creative Scissor Dairy Queen

Dandelion Living Day Spa Champagne

earthRight

Elaine’s Natural Foods 4 Sure Bistro

Factory Direct Furniture

Flavours & More Good Guys Gardening Greyhound Bus Stop

Haines Office World Handi-Mart Joey’s Grill

KFC Halls Organics

The Hobbit House Husky Restaurant

Karamia’s Donairs Kornak & Hamm Pharmacy

The Laughing Loon The Legion

Margetts Meats McDonalds

Mohawk New World Coffee Oliver’s Bar & Grill

Porky’s Deli Quality Tax Solutions

Red Shred’s Bike & Board

Shed Rona Home Centre

Safeway

Save-on-Foods SBL Liquor Store

Scout Island Nature Center Senior Citizens Activity-

Center

Shopper’s Drug Mart Spa Bella Staples

Station House Gallery Sta-Well Health Foods

Subway

Sutton Cariboo Realty The Gecko Tree The Open Book

Tim Hortons Tourism Info Center Trattoria Pasta Shoppe

TRU Tsilhqot'in National Gov̀ t

Walmart

WL Veterinary Hospital Williams Lake Water

Factory

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