A Brilliant Community Farm Rises from Brambles

Behind the Sechelt hospital, beneath the transmission lines of a BC Hydro substation, a transformation is sprouting.

Tidy gravel paths intersect carefully tended rows of vegetables and berries. Shrubs and fruit trees line cedar fencing, and the hillside leading up to the hospital displays an abundance of native wildflowers in bloom.

If you walked through this site just a few years ago, the land would have told a very different story.

The seven-acre site that now hosts the Salish Sea Regenerative Farm Society was once filled with invasive plants, bramble and garbage, said Aaron Joe, a member of the shíshálh Nation and one of the society’s founders.