Slow Vines event at Unsworth Vineyards September 30th 2018

You'll be sipping pretty Sunday, September 30th at 11:30am at the award-winning Unsworth Winery

Join Slow Food Vancouver Island & Gulf Islands at 11:30 am for our annual Slow Vines event. Tucked away in the beautiful Cowichan valley, Unsworth Vineyards has arranged for a special tour with the expert behind the winery, owner Tim Turyk.

Tim will take us behind the scenes at the vineyard for a a peek at the harvesting of what will be nearly 50 tonnes from the 12 acre paradise.

After filling our heads with all about how they make their award-winning wines, we will fill our bellies with a a soul-satisfying 3 course lunch in their charming restaurant orchestrated just for us by Chef Maartyn Hoogeveen. Bargain hunters: there will also be a tempting silent auction.

It's a small restaurant, so only 30 tickets will be sold. 

Order your tickets now by clicking here

Edward Milne Community Garden Update

Memorial Mural to Pia Carroll, Slow Food member and Garden Champion

This year, the garden at Edward Milne Community School continues to flourish. Over 250 students, from Nature K to grade 12, helped grow produce for the school Culinary Arts and Foods programs, which in turn produce and serve 100's of meals per week. Produce is harvested year round from the 15 outdoor raised beds, greenhouse, and seasonally from the mini orchard and berry plots. They have a focus on unique heritage crop varieties and this season have dedicated two plots to Milpa or Three Sisters growing, featuring 10 Indigenous corn varieties, beans, and squash.  

They also connect with local farmers and other producers, including ALM farm, Full Circle Seeds, Cast Iron Farm, Silver Cloud Farm, Dakini Tidal Wilds Seaweeds, Alderbrook Grange and others. Students learn through contributing to the community and have volunteered well over 100 collective hours through projects at the Sun River Community Gardens and other sites. Class curriculum includes knowledge of local traditional First Nations foods, how to harvest and prepare ethnobotanical plants and wild seafoods, and how to cook over fires. Lessons also vary seasonally with apple pressing during the Summer, and visit the local salmon runs in the Fall, tap Big Leaf Maples in Winter, and harvest tea plants and seaweeds in Spring. 

This year, their Trades access program has built an outdoor learning space and they hope to add to their garden space in 2018/19 through consultation with the UVic Permaculture Program and local First Nations Knowledge Holders. Also in 2018/19, the school will be offering a Sustainability and Local Food Systems elective course to compliment our Environmental Studies and Marine Biology programs, as well as to help increase school garden use and production. 

Slow Food Vancouver Island & Gulf Islands is proud to be among the long list of supporters who have helped the garden grow, including the Whole Kids Foundation, Farm to Cafeteria Canada, the Food Rescue Project, Sooke Soil, Agriculture in the Classroom, and many others.  

Campaign to Save our BC Fisheries

In partnership with fishers, harvesters, EcoTrust and the TBuck Suzuki Foundation and other supporters across Canada, Slow Food Vancouver Island & Gulf Islands and the Slow Fish campaign support this campaign.  

The Canadian Government is managing our fisheries using policies that result in the privatization of access to fish resources. Catch shares, in one form or another, are now used as the principle means of managing commercial fisheries on the Pacific Coast, and individual transferable quotas (ITQs) are used in 60% of BC fisheries. The cost to purchase quota for Pacific commercial fish species has skyrocketed over the last 30 years due to concentrated ownership by a wealthy few. This has led to economic prosperity for a select few at the cost of many fishermen and coastal communities.
Further, citizens and local small businesses -- fishmongers, chefs, restaurateurs, etc -- can not access a good supply of local fish for their dinner tables and their customers. Currently 85% of Canadian seafood is exported while up to 93% of the seafood available to Canadians is imported. Canadian food security is in great danger when we are selling off access to one of our most important protein sources.
The Pacific commercial fisheries today continue to land a significant catch and a high dollar value. It is estimated that Pacific commercial fisheries land 129,670 tonnes of fish each year [source], worth a gross landed value of $356 million [source]. However, the number of boats and fish harvesters have decreased dramatically over the last thirty years, resulting in significant job loss and economic hardship for coastal communities. -- http://www.saveourbcfisheries.info

Number of personal commercial fishing licences reflecting the number of fishing jobs in British Columbia, 1985-2015.

This is our best chance yet at saving BC seafood from multi-national corporate ownership
and bringing attention to the plight of our fishing communities! 
Please sign today & share widely.

• The petition will be delivered by hand to Justin Trudeau's office in Montreal. This will be a bilingual campaign, translations are happening now.

• We will also have letters available for you to send to your MP.

• For more information please visit this link.

Let's help put Canadian seafood on Canadian tables! Take action now >