Sourdough Bakery, Farm Store, Market Garden, Women Lead
Northwest Territories
** Availability for July, August and September **
Our Market Garden and Bakery is located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories within the city limited. A quick bike ride from many outdoor adventures and small-town city life.
Started and run by a young couple, one a baker and the other a horticulturalists, with the support of their friends and family.
**About Us**
Both of us come from different backgrounds but we’re both from Yellowknife. One of us has a horticulture background and has worked on a farm in Salt Spring Island, BC and on a homestead farm outside of Yellowknife along with having worked for an ecological non-profit here in Yellowknife.
The other one of us is a self-taught sourdough baker, having baked for the local farmers market since its inception in 2013. Along with baking, they are also a web developer and all-around tourism operator who has done everything from guiding, operating camps, constructing infrastructure and managing different aspects of running a small social enterprise.
**Our Property**
Our property is about 38,000 sq ft (approx ¾ acre), 5000sq ft of which is systematic garden plots, beds and rows were developed in 2021, with an additional 10,000 sq ft of potential growing space to be developed in the coming years. A variety of crops are grown from lettuces, radishes, leeks, zucchinis, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, herbs, root vegetables, cut flowers and cover crops. We follow no-till, bio-dynamic, and regenerative growing practices without the use of any chemicals.
Within the primary building on the property, a year-round artisan bakery and kitchen are run for the wholesale and on-site sales of naturally-leaved sourdough bread and baked goods. All products are baked using organic and wholegrain flours sourced directly from a mill.
Adjoining the bakery in the same building is a small microgreen and nursey operation maintained to allow for fresh greens to be available to our remote community throughout the winter months.
All our products (produce and baked goods) are also sold through the local Farmers Market and our weekly Farm Store, which is adjoining the bakery, steps from the gardens.
Above the bakery and farm store is a small apartment where we live with our two dogs.
In the summer, the property is sprawling with activity between plant life, insects, bees, dogs, and people coming from across the community to see and learn where their food comes from and how it is grown.
Coupled with the never-setting midnight sun, the Bush Order market garden and bakery gives you the feeling and sensation of paradise, all backing onto the undeveloped rugged terrain and straggly trees that make up this area of Canada. The perfect place for quick outdoor adventure.
**Knowledge With Hope To Share**
Market Gardening is still very new to us as well, as as much as we want to share what we have learned to this point we are very aware that we too are still learning. We hope this is part of what makes this a symbiosis relationship between ourselves and our guests.
That said, we love to share as much as we can about developing such an operation in a terrain and place such as Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, where agriculture is very foreign and the rocky Canadian shield is prevalent. We hope is impart our guests with the need for more food sustainability in Northern Canada. Our hope is to prove this method of market gardening works and is viable in the Northwest Territories, so we can encourage other NWT communities to adopt it and relieve some, if any, pressure being felt by the lack of access to fresh and nutritious foods.
**What We Need Help With**
Going into 2023 this will be our third year on this property and our second year looking for help. Now with the bakery running, we need assistance primarily in the gardens and with all aspects of the market garden, as well as some assistance in the bakery, farm store and farmers market booth for the right person(s).
Assistance in the market gardens could include a number of tasks right alongside one or both of the hosts. Tasks could include maintaining seedlings, seeding, transplanting, weeding, pruning, composting, harvesting, etc. There could also be smaller projects like running water lines, pumping water, building additional accommodations, etc.
If a person is interested there may also be assistance required in the bakery. This may include handling or baking some bread, but could also include bagging, labelling, delivering and assisting with the sanitary program.
Read more
Learning opportunities
Vegetable farming
Poultry farming
Beekeeping
Flower farming
Aromatic or medicinal plants, teas
Seed saving or production
Cheesemaking
Vegetable or fruit preservation
Beer, cider, wine, or juice making
Bakery
Methods or systems
Biodynamic agriculture
No-till farming
Permaculture
Regenerative agriculture
Host type
Production farm
0.8
Hectares
|
1.9
Acres
Marie
Member since 2022
Languages spoken:
English, French
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Response rate: 50%
Response time: typically within 9 days
Northwest Territories
Yellowknife Airport
Reviews
Christopher
Germany
•
July 2023
Thank you guys so much for letting me stay on your farm! Yellowknife is a very unique place and I enjoyed the three weeks there a lot.
On the farm I usually had to do weeding, harvesting and then sometimes I helped with bagging stuff from the bakery. I worked for 5 hours a day, though sometimes I was free to go earlier once everything was done, which is very nice. They also have two lovely employees on the farm so it never get's lonely at work.
I was given a bike during my stay as well which helped me get downtown. It takes about 20 minutes to get downtown and 25 to get to old town.
This was my first experience with wwoofing and it won't be the last, it was such a great experience! There's a lot to see and do in Yellowknife even if it is very remote up there compared to most countries I've been to. I met so many amazing people and everyone there was so friendly and welcoming, I will definitely come back to Yellowknife!
Greetings from germany!
Read more
Yuki
Japan
•
September 2022
Thank you for accepting me as the first wwoofer on the farm.
I stayed there for about two weeks.
They were friendly and kind and they not only picked me up at the airport but also drove me to the airport.
I usually started my job at 8:00 and over around 12:00.
My tasks were weeding, harvesting, and bread packing.
I sold their vegetables and bread at the farmer’s market on Tuesday for the first time.
I always ate delicious dinner with them.
We went to eat out every Friday and it was such a nice dinner.
I had to make lunch by myself with provided groceries.
Anyway, they gave me a bicycle so I went downtown by myself.
It takes about 30 mins from their house to downtown.
In addition, I could see northern light from the first day.
It was amazing and can’t believe that…
I had a camera so I could take beautiful pictures of northern light.
Thank you for everything, Kyle and Marie.
Read more
