Reading Time: 5 minutes As a food-loving travel writer, my work-world turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. True confession: More than once, I imagined a magic carpet that would whisk me off, far off, on an exotic culinary adventure. But wait! There is a wow foodie destination within Canada’s stay-safe borders and, as travel restrictions begin to ease, […] Read more
No passport required
Guide Canada: While the West sets new export records, Canada itself is becoming increasing global, and there’s no better proof than what Canadians are eating. So give yourself an education and a lot of fun by following travel writer Anna Hobbs’ tour of Toronto’s incredible culinary scene
Growing that bright red berry
Guide Canada: Along the south shore of the St. Lawrence, an incredible fusion of the Old World and the New came together in 1981, and it’s still making waves today
Reading Time: 8 minutes When he was eight years old, Marc Bieler knew that when he grew up, he would be a farmer. What he didn’t know was that his road to fame and fortune would be paved with little red berries. Today, Bieler Cranberries Inc. is the largest single-site cranberry farm in Canada producing up to 40 million […] Read more
Happiness, Iceland-style
There’s real romance to the history of Icelandic horses and sheep, and maybe real opportunity for these Canadian farmers
Reading Time: 7 minutes Over a thousand years ago, in the year 874, when the Vikings first landed on Iceland, they came with their sheep and horses, and the animals proved essential for the survival of those early Icelanders as they settled the rugged North Atlantic island. The horses served as transport and labour; the sheep provided meat, milk […] Read more
Toronto’s golden Greenbelt
Now that the world’s largest greenbelt has outlasted the political controversies, could you farm there?
Reading Time: 8 minutes When Ontario’s Greenbelt turned 15 this past February, all four of Ontario’s political parties gathered at Queen’s Park to celebrate. According to Michael Young, communications advisor for the Greenbelt Foundation, the event was “a positive and convivial occasion, with a sense that we were all coming together with the shared belief that the Greenbelt must […] Read more
The path to a world-winning cheese title
“If anyone in this family could do it,” her father said of the business idea, “it would be you.”
Reading Time: 6 minutes Its name is Lankaaster and, in 2013, it brought international attention to Canadian cheese by capturing top honours at the Global Cheese Awards. This Gouda-style cheese, inspired by traditional boerderij kaas (farm cheese) from the Netherlands, was created by Margaret Peters-Morris, the president of Glengarry Fine Cheese Company. “The first thing you taste,” she says, […] Read more
Michele Manelli — game changer in the world of wine
Here’s what happens when a young Italian abandons a flourishing financial career to “go farming”
Reading Time: 7 minutes I first met Michele Manelli two decades ago at Salcheto, the five-hectare vineyard he had recently bought. Nestled into a Tuscan hillside, at the end of a dirt road, it was billed as one of the finest parcels of land in the Montepulciano area, 250 kilometres northeast of Rome’s airport. The Salcheto story and his […] Read more
Discovering haskap
Is this the next superfood that will spawn a generation of new farm enterprises across the country?
Reading Time: 8 minutes At age 47, Don Northcott was casting about for new business opportunities. Some 20 years earlier, the Prince Edward Island native with a BSc in taxonomy had founded Phytocultures, a company specializing in plant tissue-culture technology for seed-potato production. His cutting-edge work earned him a worldwide reputation as a respected leader in potato-plant propagation. After […] Read more
Royal Agricultural Winter Fair celebrates tradition, and evolves with the times
How does the 97-year-old fair keep attracting 300,000 a year? By sticking to core strategy, and keeping it new
Reading Time: 8 minutes It’s the world’s largest combined indoor agricultural and equestrian show — an incredible celebration of harvest time, animal husbandry and equine prowess. And on November 1, when “Country Comes to the City” opens for its 97th year, one of the questions in the air will be how this fair has managed to not only survive […] Read more
‘There’s no place like first place’ says billionaire cattleman
Just how differently do you have to think to succeed like Bob Funk?
Reading Time: 9 minutes What does success mean to you? If you posed that question to billionaire cattleman Bob Funk — who grew up on a small, impoverished family farm and went on to earn fame and fortune — you might be surprised by his response. “Money is not my motivator and never will be,” Funk says. “Entrepreneurship is […] Read more
La Route des Saveurs (The Flavour Trail)
In both languages, it spells an unbelievable farm success
Reading Time: 8 minutes Some 350 million years ago, a massive meteorite plummeted out of the heavens, slammed into Earth and gouged out a giant bowl-shaped crater that today is the remarkably beautiful, fertile region of Charlevoix, Que. Wedged between the picturesque north shore of the mighty St. Lawrence and the stunning Laurentian Mountains, this UNESCO-designated biosphere is just […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
