By Dominic Abassi

Festival celebrates Nanaimo’s wild foods, environment

Apr 23, 2017 | 8:44 AM

NANAIMO — A month of events celebrating our amazing natural environment culminates with the 7th annual Earth, Water and Wild Foods Festival in Nanaimo.

The free community event goes from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Bowen Park on Sunday, April 23.

“Part of it is just becoming more aware about local food systems and sustainability and appreciating what we do have, especially here on the west coast. Appreciating and respecting the earth’s natural environment around us and our water,” the City’s recreation coordinator Deb Beck said.

“Making people aware of some of these issues that we have and that the world is dealing with and how can we embrace and celebrate what we’ve got here and how can we protect that.”

The event features a wide variety of activities including community booths, demonstrations, speakers, guided plant and stream walks and live music. One of the highlights is chefs offering up food samples using local, wild foods.

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“One of my favourites is miner’s lettuce. A lot of people think this is just a weed that comes up but it is a great source of food. Or our nettles, you can have nettle soup, ice cream or tea and they’re everywhere,” Beck said. “It’s amazing the kind of wild foods we have available and this is an opportunity to see what the chefs can do and how you can go home and do the same.”

Beck said the City teamed up with several local groups and other mid-island municipalities this year to create a whole month of activities spanning from Water Day in March to Earth Day in April.

“We’ve done river rafting, we’ve done a bus tour out to the watershed, we did a documentary film night at VIU on water issues.”

As part of Sunday’s festival, the City will also be holding their first invasive plant drop zone. People are encouraged to drop off their invasive plants in the lower parking lot near Wall St. for free disposal.

More information can be found here.

dominic.abassi@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @domabassi