APRIL 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
43 Sunshine Coast farm goes full boar with heritage breeds
Animals work the land, yield value- added products
by LINDA WEGNER POWELL RIVER – When the
Carrolls moved to Powell River in June 2009, owning and operating a farm was not even a niggle in their brains. With plans to purchase land they would share with Ezra’s mother, they’d explored a lot of possibilities before deciding this was where they wanted to settle. “We’d looked up and down the Sunshine Coast and we fell in love with Powell River and its back country,” Gosia Carroll told Country Life in BC. That was the plan, to settle
down and raise their family in the quiet seclusion of the Upper Sunshine Coast. Instead, after acquiring a 30 acre piece of raw land and an uninhabitable house with an abundance of wildlife enjoying the run of the place, they decided to farm. Not part of the original deal, that decision ended up winning them a the Powell River Chamber of Commerce agricultural award this year. “We created the farm very
slowly, pushing back the bush with the help of goats and pigs and a very small tractor,” Gosia explains. Like the traits of the successful graphic artist that Gosia was, some of the same skills required to conceive of, design and execute a logo or a design plan were applied to the land. As for Ezra, with more than a decade invested in his home-based business as a landscaper, designer and maintainer and installer of gardens, the attractiveness and feasibility of growing their own food began to take shape. In yet another unplanned turn of events, the couple both ended up working for the same client, a Vancouver- based owner of a gourmet food store. “It was really a fun time, getting to take home all kinds of interesting food from all over the world. I redesigned the logo and we got to eat. This experience really opened our eyes to fine food.” Now more determined
than ever to grow their own food, they started raising heritage chickens. Goats were added to the roster. After all, they needed milk and cheese to supplement eggs and chicken meat. Heritage pigs then became a must because what are eggs without bacon and ham? Oh, yes, there are the heritage turkeys, significant because their birds are among just 250 breeding pairs in the world. They also
Ezra and Gosia Carroll of Myrtle Point Heritage Farm in Powell River, surrounded by some of their heritage pigs. MYRTLE POINT PHOTO
have plans to expand their goat herd to produce artisan cheeses.
The goats do double duty, helping to clear the land and providing enough milk to use in the manufacture of soaps, cream and healing balms. But farming to meet only their needs is in the distant past now. Today, Ezra and Gosia both work full time on the farm in order to meet the growing demand for their free-range, smoked and cured meats and sausages and to implement their plans for future offerings. Their farm meat, butchered at a local shop, can only be sold in Powell River but their decision to have some prepared at a butcher shop on Vancouver
Island has expanded their legal marketing area. In-house and in-community
are principles by which Myrtle Point Heritage Farm operates. Initially, their pigs enjoyed the mash created by spent grain gathered from a local business, Townsite Brewing; when demand for that outgrew supply, they and other farmers began collecting fresh produce- waste from one of Powell River’s major grocery stores. They note losing animals
and birds to other wildlife, the cost of establishing a farm and, above all, of raising their two children while both farming full-time tops the list of challenges they have faced developing the farm. It’s a
challenge they wouldn’t trade, though. “Our greatest source of
satisfaction is eating entire meals made and grown on the farm and being able to share these with our children. Also, getting positive feedback from our customers who say that they enjoy our
product as much as we do is very gratifying. Winning the ag award is an honour. It encourages us to continue in the direction that we are going. To be recognized for our contributions is humbling, even though we're still plowing our way through the woods – without destroying it!”
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