Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The taste of promise for Mike Mitchell and partners Craig Scott and Dwayne Wohlgemuth is as sweet as birch syrup and elusive as a bloom of morels – the first offerings from their new business Arctic Harvest.

One of four brightly coloured row houses in Inuvik on the main street coming into Inuvik. The street used to be full of homes painted different colours and Inuvik residents called it "Easter Egg Alley." Owner and operator of Arctic Chalet Judi Falsnes wants to see the town revert back to brighter days to make it more appealing to tourists. - Samantha Stokell/NNSL photo

After hundreds of hours of tapping birch trees and hunting morels, the company larder holds 45 gallons of bottled Sapsucker syrup, and 110 pounds of dried mushrooms in vacuum packs – the beginnings of a part-time business they're working to build with more exotic flavours from the North.

"People are looking for local stuff but they don't seem to have much luck around here," said Mitchell, the company spokesman. "They would be pretty keen to buy a cloudberry jam from Aklavik."

Yellowknifers got a taste of this year's syrup run last weekend at the Old Town Ramble and Ride. "It was well-received, but there was little profit -- it was a purely promotional event," said Mitchell.

The product is aimed at visitors and the company has provided gift baskets for conventions and conferences. The syrup was given out at the Western Premiers' Conference, said Mitchell, a former school teacher with a passion for the outdoors.

"That's the market -- gift baskets filled with Northern products. We're working on a business plan that will include other wild harvest: mushrooms, teas, jams, that sort of stuff."

Tapping birch for syrup started in Hay River, where Mitchell taught school after moving from northern Ontario. What started as a hobby, with a backyard evaporator built from an old oil tank, but "little by little it became more sophisticated."

When Mitchell moved his family to Yellowknife three years ago he connected with the Department of Industry Tourism and Investment and got a grant to buy a commercial evaporator and a reverse-osmosis filtration system to concentrate the delicate birch sap that is prone to spoiling and burning.

The partners located a stand of birch off the Dettah Road, and got permission from the Yellowknives Dene to work and harvest on traditional land. This spring, they tapped 350 trees, producing 270 gallons of sap a day. The harvest included an educational component that brought in school children to taste and share the experience.

"April and May were intense," said Mitchell.

He said he would like to devote more time and effort to developing suppliers and marketing herbal teas, jerked meat, preserved berries, and non-traditional forest products from Northern communities.

"My ideal model has people in communities harvesting and instead of buying a commodity -- we buy their finished products, so more money stays in the community," he said.

Arctic Harvest is not alone. Non-traditional forest products are being developed and promoted in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba as a way to add to incomes in Northern communities. Non-Timber Forest Products is a specialty at the Centre for Livelihood and Ethics at Roads University in Victoria.

An extensive study of the potential for non-traditional forest products in Ontario's North Superior forest region concluded that there are broad opportunities but modest returns in the range of $10 to $15 an hour for primary harvesters and producers

"It's not a magic bullet but it's another revenue stream, and it ties in with ITI's emphasis on aboriginal tourism -- selling the experience and the products together," said Mitchell.

There is no framework for sustainable harvesting of non-timber forest products in the NWT. There are concerns in other jurisdictions for the impact on targeted plants, but for now anyone can harvest anywhere in the territory on land that is not subject to a land claim.

Mitchell has a plan to work with ITI and through workshops bring more people in the communities up to speed on quality control issues, labeling, bottling, and packaging their products for the gift basket market.

The partners are following the trail broken by Arctic Wild Harvest, and its owners Karen Hollett and her husband Jeff, who sourced the contents of their gift baskets from suppliers across the North and created one of the early success stories in internet marketing.

The name Arctic Harvest, as well, was a nod to their predecessor.

"We chose our name in the hope that customers would connect us with them," said Mitchell.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.