Fleece and Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands

By Francine McCabe

A fascinating look at the world of small-scale textile farms along the Salish Sea and their pivotal role in sustainable, artisanal textile production and the slow fashion movement.

Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands are a part of a unique geographical region that can grow and process its own raw textile materials with transparency. This book explores the region’s vibrant fleece and fibre community and introduces the public to this growing land-based textile economy. Richly illustrated with captivating photography, Fleece and Fibre presents the many fibre types produced along the Salish Sea—including sheep wool, llama, alpaca, mohair, cashmere, linen, flax, and hemp—and explains where and how they are currently being grown, processed, and used.

At a time when the global textile industry is one of the most unsustainable and exploitative industries on the planet, the public is looking for local alternatives to fast fashion. Part sourcebook, part stunning coffee table book, and part call to action, Fleece and Fibre creates new connections between farmers, raw materials, makers, designers, dyers, and wearers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heritage House
• Release date: Nov 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781772034547

Francine McCabe

Francine McCabe is a mixed-blood Anishinaabe writer, fibre artist, and organic master gardener from Batchewana First Nation, living on the unceded traditional territory of the Stz'uminus First Nation with her partner and two sons. She holds a degree in Creative Writing from Vancouver Island University. She is a board member of the Vancouver Island Fibreshed network and is passionate about Vancouver Island grown fibres and nurturing the connections and transparency needed to grow a regional textile economy. She is the past recipient of the Mary Garland Coleman Prize in Lyrical Poetry and was awarded the 2014 Pat Bevan Scholarship for Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in Portal Magazine and CV Collective.

Book preview

Introduction: In Search of a Fibreshed

Clean Shetland fibre, ready to card or spin as is from Guthrie Farm.

the wool blanket draped over the couch, the cashmere sweater warming your shoulders, the cotton bedding you’ll climb into tonight—they all started from the ground somewhere. Do you ever wonder where the fibre grew and how it was processed to become the useful item it is today? Fleece & Fibre: Textile Producers of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands was born out of my curiosity to find the islands’ fibre. I wanted to know what we had here, who was growing it, how, and why. And as a spinner and weaver, I wanted to use only local fibre in my weavings. So I set out on a search for island fibre and fell in love with our flourishing fibre economy.

My journey began in early fall, on one of those days on the island when the fog is so thick the land disappears under a smothering cloud. My family and I were out on a weekend adventure, driving up the Old Island Highway to explore a new area. Once we were out of the fog, I counted several farms with sheep, goats, and acres being readied for the coming season. It seemed obvious to me that the island would be producing its own fibre. After all, I had been to fibre festivals before Covid and saw lots of fibre there. But I knew by the number of farms I could see on the drive that there had to be more. For a while, I’d been thinking about making something with only island-grown fibre. Now, as I was dreaming up a new weaving, the beginning of my fibre search was sparked.

Later that week, I visited a few of my favourite yarn shops and discovered that they had little to no local fibre. When I asked the shop staff why, they all told me the same thing. By the time the farmer has the fibre processed and packaged into yarn, the cost is already high. Once the shop adds enough markup to make a profit, the price is beyond what most consumers will pay.

Hinterland Watershed yarn.

Mixed flock of sheep waiting to be sheared at Parry Bay Farm.

This left me wondering: Why was local fibre so costly to produce?

I discovered that Vancouver Island once had several small family-run fibre processing mills, but I couldn’t track down any existing mills. Today, farmers looking to process their fibre have no other option than to ship their fibre off the island, sometimes even across the country, for affordable processing. With the huge variety of fleece and fibre on the island, both animal- and plant-based, I was shocked to find no operating mills.

The problem was certainly not a lack of fibre. The more I searched for local fibre, the more amazed I was by the variety of breed-specific producers. I began by compiling a list of farms from organizations like the BC Sheep Federation, Wool.ca, and the Vancouver Island Llama and Alpaca Club. Each resource led to another, and soon I had a long list of farms that were breeding fibre animals.

Yet with all this fibre being produced, I still didn’t know where it was all going or how I could get my hands on it. And I really wanted to get my hands on it! So, I did the only other thing I could think of: I started knocking on doors and contacting people by phone or email.

Early on, I came across a compelling concept that would inspire, inform, and ground my search for a local fibre economy.

Discovering the Fibreshed Concept

The fibreshed concept was pioneered by Rebecca Burgess, M.Ed., executive director of the California-based non-profit organization Fibershed. (You’ll notice two different spellings: fibre in Canada and fiber in the US.) She defines fibreshed as a vision that enhances social, economic, and political opportunities for communities to define and create their fiber and dye systems and redesign the global textile process. It is place-based textile sovereignty, which aims to include rather than exclude all the people, plants, animals, and cultural practices that compose and define a specific geography. (Learn more from Burgess’s book, Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy.)

Burgess’s concept made so much sense to me. I realized I was far from the first person to be asking these questions about local fibre and the growth of a regional textile economy. Her concept has quickly spread, and networks have begun popping up all over the world. Rich in fibre resources, Vancouver Island and the surrounding Gulf Islands incorporated in 2018 into the fibreshed movement.

As I started to connect with my local fibreshed, I learned about its efforts to educate the public and grow the connection between farmers and fibre consumers. They held events like Getting Value or Getting Fleeced, with a panel of local experts in agriculture to educate farmers on maximizing the value of their fleece. They have an active producer page and promote their producers through a regular newsletter and social media.

Gaps in the System

I spent over a year sourcing island fibre and visiting farmers and their fibre animals. Along the way, I kept hearing similar stories of processing woes and the growing cost of feeding and caring for animals. This made me wonder: Why aren’t we, as a province, investing more in fibre infrastructure? Why are there multiple agricultural grants for farmers looking to produce food, but so little financial help for starting fibre-related farms? We need sustainable start-up options for fibre mills. Closing this gap is one of the goals of the fibreshed movement. Farmers need an easy way to turn their fibre over so they can justify and afford the time spent on the product, and the makers that are looking for local fibre need to know what is locally available and how they can buy it. All the parts are here; they just need connection.

A pile of wool that was advertised as free. The farmer was going to bury the rest that wasn’t taken.

Farmers themselves, however, are working hard to close gaps. Each farmer in this book made it clear that using all the materials from their farm in a renewable way is important to them and their farm practices. I saw fields of flax used as a dual-purpose cover crop. I met farmers with fibre mill plans in the works. One farmer told me about a new wool pelletizer she just purchased. Others are using their waste wool to build road stability.

Freshly shorn fibre at Parry Bay Farm.

Babydoll Southdown ewe grazing at Yellow Point Farms’ seasonal petting farm.

What these farmers are doing to care for their animals, crops, and the land is invaluable and deserves to be shown off. And the products they are bringing to our local market are worth supporting and nurturing. Everyone I met along the way has been so enthusiastic about fibre and the possibilities. They give me hope.

Why Our Material Choices Matter

The way we shop and care for our clothing can support a local fibre system and contribute to the regeneration of our soil. Built on greed and profit, our current textile and garment industries are outdated. We need a new system that considers the wellness of animals, people, and the environment at every level of production. Never before has clothing been so accessible and affordable. High-end knockoffs and ready-to-wear, up-to-the-minute fashion trends are flowing out so fast that consumers can’t keep up. How did we get here?

Twentieth-century globalization led to a drastic change in the garment industry through the gradual introduction of mass production and fast fashion. Production was moved overseas, where cheap labour markets were exploited. When online shopping exploded in the 2000s, fashion trends accelerated, and clothing was pumped out faster and in larger numbers than ever before.

But this convenience came with a price. According to the Government of Canada, textiles account for approximately 6% of plastic use and waste in Canada for products such as clothing, carpets, footwear, fabrics and upholstery. Thanks to the garment industry’s shedding of microfibres, it has become one of the largest polluters of our world’s water supply at every step of the way, from production to laundering and disposal.

According to the United Nations Environmental Programme (

UNEP

) and the Ellen MacArthur