Shop the Wild is a unique family-oriented festival

April 26th, 2007
Shop the Wild offers something for everyone.  How about seaweed soap, maple bark beer or chanterelle mushrooms? Come and try honeywine, maple candy and wild blackberry ice cream.  Or learn how to put on a wild wedding using evergreens and forest florals, or make beautiful baskets from cedar bark and roots, or how to identify delicacies growing in your backyard.

“It is a thrill to see the plans for this festival, Shop the Wild. No group or institution is better placed to host such an event as

Royal

Roads

University and the Centre for Non-Timber Resources. It will inform and educate all those who attend about the wonderful and diverse products of our forests and also the imperative to care for and sustain the habitats that support them for future generations.”

Nancy J. Turner, Professor,

University of

Victoria

Vendors Market – From birch syrup to wood lathing, native plants and mushrooms to wild chocolate and fine art. The forests and wild areas of BC and the world offer an amazing variety of sustainble products.

Main Stage – Celebrated singer and songwriter, Ann Mortifee, will light up the main stage on Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm.  Daniel Lapp, the local

Victoria fiddler, is also in the lineup and will perform at 4:00pm..

Wild Chef Challenge – The head chef, Edward Tuson, from Sooke Harbour House Restaurant and and Bill Jones, chef,
cookbook author and wild foods expert from Deerholme Farms will participate in a challenge to apply their unique expertise and creativity in using wild ingredients in their cooking. This event will be hosted by CBC regular, Don Genova.

 

Official tasters

Spa Tent – Free Spirit Botanicals will host a spa tent where you can buy essential oils and other body care products.  Practitioners will be on hand to give relaxing, personalized treatments - hand massages, foot massages and aromatherapy.

Wild Wedding Floral Competition – Four of

Victoria’s most creative florists will conjure fantasy wedding arches and urns in a competition to be the back-drop for a real wedding, taking place at the end of the day.  The competition and ceremony will take place among the gardens and colonnades of the

Italian

Gardens next to

Hatley

Castle. Decorating will take place from 10:00am-1:00pm with judging between 1:15pm-2:00pm. Points will be given for use of wild species and artistic design.

 

The participating florists are Flowers on Top, Sooke Harbour House, Victoria Flower Arrangers Guild and Daisy Chain Florists.

First Nations Pavilion – We are pleased to be partnering with the Victoria Native Friendship Centre on a special showcase of aboriginal performance, storytelling, craft and children’s activities.  The Urban Aboriginal Unity Drum Group will perform at a traditional opening ceremony during the morning.

Lectures – The Drawing Room in

Hatley

Castle (set of the upcoming X-Men 3 movie) will be the venue for a series of fascinating lectures such native plant gardening, basket weaving and mushroom identification.

Readers Corner – Books readings by authors (beginning at 12noon)

  • Goodie Niosi, Magnificently Unrepentant

  • Maria Coffey and Dag Goering, Visions of the Wild

  • John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce

  • Kari Jones, Hiking Adventures with Children

  • Dr. Laurie Ricou, A Natural and Cultural History of Salal.

Birch Syrup, Bigleaf Maple Syrup, Honey Tastings and Wild Ice Cream Tastings – Poducers will be on hand to give tastings of the new rave in west coast cuisine- birch syrup.  As well there will be station to sample the wide range of BC honeys, the rare big leaf maple syrup and Shady Creek is on hand for you to try their new wild flavours ice cream.

Wild Salmon Barbecue – The culinary expertise of Habitat will bring a themed concession throughout the day.  Try wild salmon burgers or a portobello mushroom burger.

Spirits of the Wild – The sunny terrace of

Hatley

Castle will host a unique licensed area showcasing wild beverages like Tugwell Creek mead, Cherrypoint blackberry port, and cider from Merridale Cidery.

Forest and Garden Tours – If you’ve never been to the grounds of

Hatley

Castle, you’re in for a treat.  Grounds staff will be on hand to give tours of the site’s classic gardens and the 565 acres of

Old

Growth

Forest.

Volunteers – We are eager to involve volunteers from the community and partners organizations.  If you know folks who would enjoy a day of fun, sun and helping out on-site, they can contact us at ntfp@royalroads.ca.  Available positions include roadies for the main stage, support for the First Nations Pavilion, Wild Chef, Wild Wedding, traffic directors and many more.

Vendors, Exhibitors, Lecturers, Demos and Performers

Alaska Supernatural Teas

Ann Mortifee
Backwoods Forest Management
Birch Place Farms
Canadac Services
Canterbury, Frog Friendly Coffee
Clayoquot Sound Wildfoods
Centre for Non-Timber Resources
Common Ground Magazine
Community Futures Development Association
Cowichan Beekeepers Association

Cowichan Tribes
Dagoba Forest Grown Chocolates

Daisy Chain Florists

Daniel Lapp

David Arora, Mushroom Expert

Deerholme Farms
Dogwood Initiative
Don Ollsin’s Herbal Healing Programs

Dragonfly Dreaming
Earth’s Herbal Products
EAT Magazine
English Gaitt Crafts Enterprises

First Nations Forestry Program

Flowers On Top

Free Spirit Botanicals

Golden Maples Farm

Government Publications Services

Graham Evans, Wood Turning
Gwa’ni Forest Creations

Heather Kehr

Holly Caine Essential Oils and Hydrosols
Horticulture Centre of the Pacific
Hidden Forest Farm

Kwakwaka’wakw Dancers

Lionel Demandre, Basket Weaving
Laird Creek Essentials
Laurie Mushrooms and More
Lifestyle Market

Lonewolf Native Pland & Herb Farm

Maria Coffeey, Story Telling
Midnight Oil Woodturning

Mushroom Pickers
Moose Meadows Farms

Mount Waddington Innovation Centre Society

Nancy Dawson Native Jewellery
Native Plant Society of BC

Nature’s Garden Seed Company

Nikolay Shishkin, Basket Weaving
North American Native Crafts
Northern Forest Diversification Centre

Paul Allison, Craftsman Gardener, RRU
Shady Creek Ice Cream
Sierra Club

Society for Organic Urban Land Care
Sooke Harbour House
Stella Johnny
South Vancouver Island Mycological Society
The Willow Web
The Land Conservancy of BC
Trust for Sustainable Forestry

Urban Aboriginal Unity Drum Group
Valhalla Farm Herbs N’ Things

Victoria Flower Arrangers Guild

Victoria Native Friendship Centre

Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Wildart Photography

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments »