| Apr 25, 2018


A good-sized crowd turned out to Clar-Mill Hall Sunday afternoon to hear about progress being made on the One Small Township project in North Frontenac.

The Contribute & Thrive and Talking Trees presentation featured several speakers including Duncan Spence who outlined the various projects underway along with the the concept of contributionism.

Jocelyn Devillers, who runs a holistic health centre in Ottawa outlined the plans for the health centre component of the project which she said would include healing herbs, yoga and telemedicine aspects.

“We hope to have doctors soon,” she said.

Steve Richardson spoke on the apiary project and eco-tourism.

“The apiary was the first investor project and was funded in 12 hours,” he said. “We plan to have 25 hives in year one and 200 hives by year five.”

He said the area is good for bees because the low levels of agriculture translate to low levels of pesticide, which has been linked to bees dying off in recent years.

He did acknowledge that bears might be a problem.

“We need the bears to understand that we’re not making something for them,” he said, adding that they’re looking at electric fencing to keep bears out.

In the question period following the presentations, one audience member was concerned about the affect this new bee operation would have on already established local producers.

“When we sell honey, we will sell it for the same price local producers sell it for,” said Spence. “Even though we can make it cheaper.

“We will also be inviting local producers to join us.”

Sam Favez owns R.E. Solar Systems in Barry’s Bay said he’ll be more involved once things get going but for now he’ll be putting in a ground-mount system at The House in Plevna.

“There won’t be much opportunity for participation per se on this one but feel free to come and pick my brain,” he said.

Krystophe Gauthier gave a presentation on plastic recycling with his company New Life Creations — Precious Plastics. He said he has four machines, a shredder, an extruder, an injector and a compressor that will allow waste plastics to be reformed and repurposed.

He also plans a permaculture operation to grow food and harvest seeds.

David Craig finished up the presentations with a talk on the earthship component of the project.

Although it wasn’t part of the formal presentations, Dave and Pat Storms who property manage Frontenac Shores fractional ownership on Lake Mississagagon, said they’re exploring the possibility of an aquaculture operation on land they own near the cottages operation.

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