The 100-Mile Diet Society and the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm have united to explore how sustainable agriculture can help reduce climate change and nurture the environment.

The “Foodshed Project” is building a strong sense of place so we can deepen our local and planetary connections. The food we eat is intimately linked to our landscape, history and communities.

What is a Foodshed?

“Foodshed” was first used 100 years ago to describe the global flow of food. The term has recently been revived to discuss local food systems and efforts to create more sustainable ways of producing and consuming. It is based on the concept of a watershed, which contains all the streams that feed into a larger river system or drainage place. Incidentally, the Georgia Basin watershed is quite similar to Vancouver’s 100-Mile Diet radius.

The Foodshed website

It’s a whole new way of exploring our foodshed. The map graphic on the home page illustrates the 100-mile radius around Vancouver. Click on the map to zoom in for a closer view, or use your mouse to scroll around to see the various types of fruits, vegetables, animals and marine life of this region. Each icon contains more information about the food and where to find it.

The website is a great place to start your learning journey, and the Vancouver 100-Mile Diet Foodshed Map will complete it—each source contains unique information, meticulously researched.

Vancouver’s 100-Mile Diet Foodshed Map

The poster we created takes bioregional mapping into the realm of art. It lays out the geography of our corner of the 100-Mile Diet region, combined with a food history you’ve never heard before.

The full-colour map is 27 x 39 inches, printed on 80 lb paper made of 100% post-consumer fibres and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. We have used the most sustainably managed printer in this region, and the best available in recycled paper.

The story behind the map

It was the fall of 2006 and I was in the midst of a love affair with the incredible local food culture of Vancouver. Inspired by the 100-Mile Diet, I was planning a “100-Mile Thanksgiving” feast and wished desperately a map existed to help with my menu plan. Since I couldn’t find one, I decided to make the map I was looking for – it couldn’t be that hard, could it? The “foodshed project” was born.

I gained the support and partnership of James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith, the originators of the “100-Mile Diet.” Local food advocate and writer Jeff Nield came on board, as did my usual accomplice, Shirlene Cote.

Inspired by bioregional mappers like Briony Penn of Saltspring Island, B.C., we sought to create some thing that was more than just a simple geographic reflection of the area. It would dig deeper, unveiling some of the past and present food culture of this region.

I started researching the geography of our local food system. I dug and dug and dug – information began to pile up. I had no idea of the density and complexity of our local food system.

Of course life happens along the way – degrees were finished, books written, babies born, homes moved. A six-month project stretched to a year, then two. But ideas and excitement never seemed to wane.

A year or so into it, my partner Shaun must have been tired of hearing me talk about this phantom map because he decided I needed help. Shaun is a wonderful painter and a few months later, he took time off in between jobs and painted this incredibly detailed 4’ x 6’ map of the 100-Mile radius around Vancouver. Then he painted fish, fruit, vegetables and animals. By the end of it we had this huge map and a collection of over 100 food images.

Shirlene, Jeff, Alisa, James and I divvied up research and writing on a slew of topics covering the ecology and food culture of this region. Alisa and James edited it down to a wonderful narrative.

Transforming all these pieces into a map that communicated what we intended was a daunting challenge, so we enlisted the artistic direction of the Goggles for the home stretch. I loved what their vision created – we all did. I hope you will too.

~ Kelly

Who We Are…

The 100-Mile Diet Society

Following the successful online local-food series The 100-Mile Diet, the 100-Mile Diet Society formed in 2006. It is a registered nonprofit administered by volunteer effort. Since 2006 it has managed a 15,000-member website, 100milediet.org, and founded the international 100-Mile Thanksgiving campaign. The organization has inspired tens of thousand of local-eating experiments from the individual to the community level, and is credited as one of the leading inspirations for the local food movement today.

Shirlene Cote

Project coordination, writing, fundraising, community outreach. After traveling and living in various cities across North and South America, Shirlene moved to Vancouver, BC, in 2005 to complete a Masters in Education at SFU. She explored the concept of food as a tool for discussing contemporary socio-political and environmental issues. She found that with both youth and adults, food was a common ground. It can inspire critical thought and create change in people’s lives and their communities.
Shirlene has coordinated projects for non-profits such as the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group, the BC Sustainable Energy Association, Smart Growth BC and Evergreen.

Shaun Finnigan

Map and illustrations. Shaun Finnigan is an artist and landscape designer. He completed a Master’s in landscape architecture at the University of Manitoba in 2002 and moved to Santiago, Chile. There he worked with CUSO on citizen engagement and the creation and management of green space in Cerro Navia. Returning to Canada in 2005, Shaun joined the landscape architecture firm Durante Kreuk Ltd. In 2008 he moved to Winnipeg to work on planning projects and public consultation with McKay Finnigan and Associates. Shaun is also pursuing his passion for painting: he explores the interaction of technology and landscape on large canvasses.

Kelly Kuryk

Coordination, fundraising, research, writing, website, community outreach. Kelly Kuryk is an ecological educator with a passion for urban issues. After completing an undergraduate degree in environmental science at the University of Manitoba, she advocated for green building practices with the federal government, and served on the City of Winnipeg’s Civic Environment Committee. Kelly spent two years in Santiago, Chile, coordinating environmental education programs with a municipal health centre and the National Environmental Organization CODEFF. In 2007 she completed a Master’s in education at Simon Fraser University—and had a baby. Kelly is currently living in Winnipeg, scheming up a Prairie version of the foodshed map.

Jeff Nield

Writing. Jeff Nield has worked in Vancouver’s sustainable agriculture community for over 10 years. He currently is on contract with  FarmFolkCityFolk and The 100 Mile Diet Society. He has also worked with UBC Farm, Small Potatoes Urban Delivery, Glen Valley Organic Farm and Discovery Organics, the only locally owned organic produce distributor. For the past 5 years he has worked as a freelance journalist. His writing has appeared in The Vancouver Courier, The Tyee, Momentum Magazine, This Magazine as well as on air for CBC Radio One.

James MacKinnon

Writing and editing. James (J.B.) MacKinnon is a founder of the 100-Mile Diet Society and a co-author, with Alisa Smith, of the bestselling book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. Mackinnon’s other books include Dead Man in Paradise, which won the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction, and the collaborative “paper documentary” I Live Here. He has won six national magazine awards for journalism and is a senior contributing editor to Explore magazine. He is a past editor of Adbusters.

Alisa Smith

Writing and editing. Alisa Smith is a founder of the 100-Mile Diet Society and a co-author of the bestselling book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. Smith and MacKinnon also hosted The 100-Mile Challenge, a reality television program on local eating. Smith is a freelance writer who has been published in Outside, Canadian Geographic, Utne Reader, and many other publications in Canada and the U.S. She has a Master’s degree in history and has taught magazine writing at Langara College in Vancouver. She is a past editor at Vancouver Magazine.

Smith and MacKinnon were named to the Maclean’s Honour Roll of Canada’s top thinkers and discoverers.

Goggles

Creative direction. Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge are award-winning creative directors, most notably for Adbusters magazine. They are co-authors, along with Mia Kirshner and J.B Mackinnon, on the book I Live Here (Pantheon, 2008) and co-founders of the I Live Here Foundation.

Fresh Front

Website. Many thanks to Fresh Front who took all the information and ideas we gave them, and came up with a creative and interactive concept for our website.

Contact us

shirlene(at)100milediet.org or kelly(at)100milediet.org

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
- Aldo Leopold