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The Organic Islands Festival 2005

Festival 2005 Exhibitors

Nature’s Path, Vancouver
Common Ground, Vancouver
Small Potatoes Urban Delivery, Vancouver Island
LifeStyle Markets, Victoria
Planet Organic Market, Victoria
Summerhill Pyramid Winery, Kelowna
Barking Dog Vineyard, Victoria
Sooke Harbour House, Sooke
Green Cuisine, Victoria
Soya Nova, Salt Spring Island
Natural Pastures Cheese Company, Courtenay
Coast Select Smokehouse, Sointula
O’Mega Hemp Bar, Sidney
Conscious Kitchen Cooks, Victoria
Level Ground Trading Company, Saanichton
Maya Coffee, Saanich
Water for Life, Victoria
Greenbeans, Gabriola
Hemp and Company, Victoria
Share Organics, Victoria
Apple Luscious Organic Orchards, Salt Spring Island
Kenta Farm, Pender Island
Saanich Organics, Saanich
Eagle Paws Organics, Sooke
COG-VI (Canadian Organic Growers - Vancouver Island, formerly SIOPA, South Vancouver Island
SOIL: Stewards of Irreplaceable Land, Sooke
Camosun College: Organic Farming as a Business (Course Information)
BC AgriTourism Alliance
Islands Organic Producers Association (IOPA), Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands
Paradise Citysapes, Victoria
The Garden Path Nursery, Saanich
Greater Victoria Compost Education Centre, Victoria
Gaia College, Cowichan Station
Earth Elixir, Quality Compost Teas, Victoria
Urban Greenery, Port Alberni
Stewardship Natural Landscape Design, Victoria
Society of Organic Urban Landcare Professionals (SOUL)
New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island
Jennifer Apedaile, Acupuncturist/DTCM
Hands of Life, Tracey Kehler, Certified Esalen Massage Practitioner
Health Within, Sidney
Essential Oil Techniques, Vancouver
Friendly Organics, Sidney
The Pinch Group, Victoria
Ecosource Paper Inc.
Eco-Art, Margo Farr
Sekoya Dawn - Transformative Artist, Salt Spring Island
Music for Young Children, Sidney

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Festival 2005 Sponsors

Organic Islands Promotions was pleased to have sponsorship from the following organizations for Festival 2005:


100.3 The Q!	Common Ground Magazine


Nature’s Path Foods	LifeStyle Markets


SPUD (Small Potatoes Urban Delivery)	Granola Groovy


Victoria Garden Mall	Optimedia Solutions

For information about sponsorship of Fe4stival 2006, please contact Deb Morse, Executive Director: (250) 656-8130 or director@organicislands.ca.

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2005 Festival Workshops

What does "organic" really mean?

Are organic pesticides safer? Do organic fertilizers cost more to use? Confused about conflicting claims and interpretations? This workshop explained what organic means in the context of food production and gardening.

Advantages of Organic Aromatherapy and Essential Oils

In this workshop participants learned about about:

The difference between non-organic, organic, wildcrafted, and certified organic essential oils
What is currently available to the public and market trends
Why it is preferable to use natural essential oils rather synthetic ones
Benefits to the environment and economic sustainability, as well as benefits to users and aromatherapists

The workshop was taught by Marlene Smith, R.A. (Registered Aromatherapist)

How to green up your portfolio

Participants learned how to grow your portfolio with investments that are environmentally sound, socially conscious and financially sensible. This workshop was presented by Frank Arnold, an investment advisor with The Pinch Group, Victoria’s experts on socially responsible investing for more than twenty years.

12 Top Organic Garden Products

Sheena Adams, owner of Urban Greenery Nursery, creator of Sheenas Best and organic garden writer for Garden Wise Magazine gave an overview of the twelve top organic products people can use organically in their garden to feed and encourage healthy plants and big blooms and colourful fruit; what to do to control pests, such as aphids, ants and slugs, and to do to control unsightly rusts and mildew. This 20 minute overview was followed with a question and answer session.

Green Roofing

Concerns for the environment have created a need for a restorative emphasis in the development of our urban fabric. Green Roofing blends ancient practices with modern technologies to replace lost green space on rooftops, enbaling you to pick strawberries out of your upper story window. It was not as complicated as people thought!

Revitalizing your garden with compost tea

Earth Elixir put on an introduction to the art and science of compost tea. This workshop combined an age-old concept with the latest research and technology. Participants learned moere about how to use aeration and water to extract beneficial microorganisms from nutrient-rich compost. Soil microorganisms are nature’s support team for the garden!

The SCIO Biofeedback Health Device

The SCIO Biofeedback health device measures the body’s reactance to over 9000 frequencies, gathering over 64 million bits of information. The device can then stimulate and feed the body back those frequencies requiring balancing using a number of therapies such as electro-acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathy, homeopathics, herbology etc.

Certified therapists offered 20 minute demonstration sessions for $20.00.

Making a Difference through Direct, Fair Trade

Fair Trade helps build sustainable communities! Participantss found out what Fair Trade is and how it works for the benefit of producers. Level Ground Trading has modeled an all Fair Trade business model since their inception on Vancouver island in 1997. They learned how a local company is striving to be a model for ethics driven business in their own back yard and how powerful their consumer choices are in the marketplace. The workshop was challenging and an inspiration to all shoppers and business owners.

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Artist Profiles

Jaime RT

Jaime RT hails from the Kootenay’s where she began her performing career at 12-years-old with family band The Huscroft Family Fiddlers. She took her love of music and created a career after university with teaching, establishing the Salt Spring Fiddle Workshop that draws fiddle lovers from all over the globe to the founding of Fiddleworks, a teaching series of music books and CDs.

Performing with numerous players over the years such as Kettle of Fish, Song of the Isles and The Billy Goats Gruff, Jaime has honed her dynamic live performance and has established herself as one of the top fiddlers in the country. Summers find Jaime teaching and performing at fiddle camps across Canada and the US, sharing the stage with fiddlers such as Oliver Schroer, Pierre Schryer, Jerry Holland, Gordon Stobbe, Ian Fraser, and Catriona MacDonald. Sharing her talents in Canada’s arctic and northern communities with Andrea Hanson and Strings Across the Sky, an organization committed to restoring the historic fiddle legacy among youth, is another one of Jaime’s passions.

At home on Salt Spring Island Jaime can be found performing at community events and teaching fiddle, violin, piano, theory and composition in her unique straw bale music studio.

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Rosie Emery

Rosie Emery, environmental educator/singer and songwriter, grew up in the legendary Sherwood Forest! In 1980, after moving to Canada from Morocco, she quickly became involved in protecting the environment. In 1989, concerned with global environmental deterioration, she was inspired to begin writing children’s music about nature. Using her songs to teach how all of life is interconnected, she has performed in numerous North American schools, camps and concert halls.

In 1997, Rosie created the Rainbow Road Show, an hour long, full music production that she proceeded to take on the road across Canada accompanied by Marc Cote, a respected, multi-instrumentalist musician from Montreal, and Dawson College student Andrea Ralph. The show toured non stop for five and a half months, performing two shows a day! The Rainbow Road continues to be featured at schools, theatres and nature centres in Canada and the U.S. More...

Jaiya

Jaiya will lift your spirits, pierce your heart and cast you upon ancient shores!

Jaiya’s sound is a rich blend of Celtic, Early Music, Jazz and Worldbeat influences. Soaring vocal harmonies, lyric harp and haunting penny whistle combine with the earthy tones of accordion and drums to bring us music that speaks of the land and its seasons.

Based in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, band members are deeply influenced and inspired by their natural maritime environment. Through their music Jaiya speaks passionately about connection, and stresses the importance of living fully by remaining connected to the patterns of the elemental world and thereby to one another.

Since recording their first CD Firedance: Songs for Winter Solstice, Jaiya has received much positive response from listeners who enjoy the combination of earthy and spiritual elements in the music. Jaiya’s CD has received wide national airplay on CBC Radio. The trio recently played live on Jergen Gothe’s DiscDrive during CBC’s winter solstice festival in Yellowknife.

Jaiya has just released Beltane: Songs for the Green Time, their second album of original music. In this album the trio expresses their shared love of haunting melody, rich harmony, vivid poetry and rhythm. More...

Ted Tanner

Acoustic folk and blues singer/songwriter Ted Tanner has 14 colourful years of musical performance behind him. Continuing in the proud troubadour tradition of Woody Guthrie and others, Ted has honed his craft through years of busking and playing cafés and clubs throughout Canada, the United States, Japan and Australia. The hardest working musician in Victoria, and the mainstay of Victoria, BC’s Bastion Square Festival of the Arts can be found in a number of local venues, festivals and markets throughout the year.

Ted’s musical influences are very diverse, however, he invariably finds himself drawn to the honesty and raw emotive power of stripped-down acoustic performance. His style, and enormous repertoire (Ted regularly performs for 6 hour stretches without repeating a single song!), draw upon artists such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Cat Stevens, and Leonard Cohen, to name a few. His choice of music speaks of the variety and depth of human experience and is clearly inspired by his passion for a variety of social issues, and this is also reflected in the fact that 10% of all gratuities have been donated to the BC Sierra Club for the last four years. More...

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