RURAL REDEFINED
by Doug Dockrill
A shared-use community kitchen is key infrastructure in building rural economic opportunity, supporting culinary based entrepreneurs in developing, operating, and growing a successful business.
My French grandmother spoiled me on my summer visits to Little Bras D'or. She made me apple-filled beignets whenever I wanted them. A beignet is French for doughnut, and this five year old could not get enough of them.
Deciding what I would sell at the Annapolis Royal Farmers' Market a few years ago was easy. I would make those doughnuts. One meeting with a provincial health inspector and I discovered I would need to work from a licensed commercial kitchen.
I asked whether a community or church hall kitchen would be OK. Nope. Those kitchens are limited by law to community or church fund-raising purposes only. Most are not equipped to meet commercial standards. I was in no position to upgrade my own kitchen to meet those standards. Like other small scale food entrepreneurs renting space in licensed restaurants seemed the only choice.
That's when I looked into shared use community kitchens.
Also called kitchen incubators, they are licensed facilities providing small scale food entrepreneurs the space to prepare and process value-added food. The State of Maine, for example, has five of them. Fishermen, farmers and food entrepreneurs who can't afford their own production facility create products, test new ones, and expand production. It lets small producers step into the marketplace focused on their products without the added pressure of paying for a brand new kitchen.
A central, purpose-built facility in Annapolis County is simply too expensive. A far more practical and affordable solution is for a community to build on resources it already has. Here is how the need was met in Bridgetown.
Ralph and Jennifer D”Aubin are regular vendors at the summer Bridgetown Farmers' Market. Their sausages, locally sourced and made in the Bridgetown Legion's kitchen, are a big hit. This winter the Market moved into the Legion specifically because of its licensed commercial kitchen. The D'Aubins sold sausages to market-goers, maintaining contact with their summer customers and turning their seasonal operation into a year-round one. The money the D'Aubin's made stays in the community, the Legion finds another revenue stream, the Health inspectors are happy, and Market manager Rachel Edwards maintained a strong customer attraction, helping to grow the Market over-all.
The lesson in this meshing of an existing suitable facility and a local need is how easily it has redefined the role of am already important community institution.
The Bridgetown Legion has never been primarily in the kitchen rental business, and likely will never be. But it was receptive when the question was asked. By offering a platform, some tools and a few rules it has helped meet three distinct demands. The local pork producer enjoys a ready demand for his commodity. The D'Aubin's create local products, which in turn serves to satisfy local demand for a hot sausage on a bun at a farmers' market.
When we are asked to “Buy Local,” this is the chain we hope to build, over and over again. It starts, as in this case, in redefining the value and utility of community assets in the light of the community's future, and not its past. A resilient rural community depends upon seizing new opportunities and adapting to change.
Are there other County fire hall, community hall, church hall and Legion kitchens open to change, in order to serve the new emerging needs of food entrepreneurs in their communities? Until we ask the question, we will never know.
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Doug Dockrill lives in Granville Ferry and created the Annapolis Community Kitchens Project in August, 2011. He will be speaking May 4 at COGS as part of the Road to Georgetown Forum. Most recently, Doug represented Foxhill Cheese House of Port Williams, at Farmers' Markets in Annapolis Royal, Bridgetown and Lunenburg.
LITTLE FOOT YURTS
RURAL REDEFINED
by Alex Cole
LITTLE FOOT YURTS
RURAL REDEFINED
by Alex Cole
What is a yurt?
The yurt is a collapsible circular framework of wooden poles
covered with felt or canvas and has been used for over two thousand years
throughout central Asia . Our yurts reflect the
woodland mix of the Nova Scotian Acadian forest.
My Story:
Before my life as a yurt builder, I spent well over a decade
as a chef with the latter part of my career catering outdoor events such as
weddings, world cup cricket matches and hospitality events in England .
Operating in this medium gave me a valuable insight into the art of dwelling
within temporary shelter.
In 2002, my wife, Selene and I moved to Wales where we lived under canvas
in temporary shelter on a sustainable arts community (www.coedhills.co.uk)
Here we were immersed in artistic creation bridging the gap to functionality.
We built, learned and dwelled within ancient shelter in a cultural epicentre of
ancient building techniques. I focused my learning on green woodwork, lime
work, thatching and cob construction.
What fun.
Energised by the application of these timeless techniques I
became involved with the natural building community in Nova Scotia and worked on several homes
built of straw and clay. We created Little Foot Yurts in 2005. I am a builder
of Nova Scotia coppice wood yurts, inspired by
the Kyrgyzstan
and Mongolian style yurts. Through Little Foot Yurts (www.lfy.ca), we make
yurts accessible through sales, rentals, and yurt building workshops.
We build traditional style yurts made with cotton canvas,
wool and steam bent hardwood gathered through the woodland management technique
of coppicing an ancient culture common to both England
and Kyrgyzstan .
Coppice, which is the rotational harvesting of the re-growth
of hardwood stumps, has been used in Europe
for thousands of years providing renewable short rotation wood products
(firewood, fencing, furniture).
This kind of forestry leaves the tree alive and often
strengthens the tree, doubling its life cycle. The soils stays un-eroded as the bundles of
hardwood sticks are removed by hand and foot. This kind of forestry has taken
the test of time to prove it sustainability.
In Nova Scotia
we are blessed with many useful varieties of trees, but I was looking to try
utilizing the re-growth of red maple; a tree that is largely only used for
firewood and has the annoying reputation of growing back with a vengeance if
cut down.
Fortunately for me this resource is available in abundance,
but to create a renewable coppice woodland was going to take time.
Little Foot Yurts came to Paradise , NS
A red maple coppice of about 6 acres interspersed with
birch, oak and poplar. The whole area had been cut over 40 years earlier and
the forest is now dominated with over stood coppice.
Now we foster a relationship that yields both firewood for Andrew
and yurt poles for us. Furthermore a future of a healthy managed woodland with
the chance of an efficient higher yielding coppice providing an ongoing cycle
of yurt poles for Little Foot Yurts future.
I challenge young Nova Scotians to answer the question; “What
other ancient techniques or livelihoods can be reinvented for today’s needs”?
For me the truth about rural living is that all life grows
here and if you have an idea of how a organic resource can be utilized in
todays environment then your resorce is all around you.
And you cant get more convenient than that.
In 2011, we travelled to Kyrgyzstan to stay in a village of
yurt masters where the streets are lined with willow coppice that is pollarded
into fencing and simultaneously harvested for yurts. Training with yurt masters
and living with the herders has given us new insight into the yurt related livelihoods
that are part of their rural economy. This experience has given us inspiration
to further culture blend the ideas and magic of Kyrgyzstan into the
Nova scotia’s Little
Foot Yurts.
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