Saving a Rural Village
A story of survival

By Angela Lovell

 CLEARWATER, MAN. –There are only sixty-five residents in the Village of Clearwater, Manitoba, two and a half hours southwest of Winnipeg, just off Highway 3.  Why they are here is a story to be told.

 It has to do with facing changes in rural life, bridging the gap between rural and urban attitudes and some heads up creativity by a group of dedicated people. 

 In 2001, Clearwater lost its grain elevator, elementary school and store all in the same year, and with them three very good reasons to bring people and their dollars into the community. Many rural communities would not have recovered from such a hit to their economic and taxation base, but Clearwater people do not give up easily.
The elevator was gone for good, but a group of five locals, led by area farmer Keith Gardiner, decided to band together to save first the store and later, the school.

Linda Gundrum had grown up above the tiny Clearwater Store, which her parents bought in 1954. After her father’s death in 1967, she had helped her mother to run the store, eventually taking over in 1983. After more than thirty years in the grocery business, Linda decided she was ready to retire, and put the store up for sale in 2001. A year and a half later there were no takers, and yet she didn’t want to just close it and leave the community without yet another essential service. So she approached a group of five local people, Keith and Jo-Lene Gardiner, Celia and Robert Guilford, all area farmers, and Jackie Johnson, who runs a travel agency from her home, about the possibility of the community purchasing and running the store as a co-operative.

 A few phone calls later and the group had managed to raise enough capital from the sale of $100 shares to community members to buy the store. Calling itself Clearwater Groceries, the group hired a manager and operated the store until a private buyer was found in 2004.

 In 2005, when the owner of Clearwater Junction, the only eating place in town also had to retire due to ill health, the group formalised and incorporated as the Clearwater Development Corporation. This time the sixty or so people that invested were able to claim a 30% tax credit under the newly announced Manitoba Community Enterprise Development Tax Credit program.

This additional incentive, along with a community ground swell of support for the business, meant the $22,000 needed to purchase the restaurant was quickly raised and exceeded by enough to allow for a few operating costs. The CDC continues to oversee the management of the restaurant, which it has hired two employees to run.

The Clearwater Elementary school became another rallying point for the community in 2003, although this time it was a slightly different group, The Harvest Moon Society, that came to the rescue. It bought the school from Prairie Spirit School Division in 2003.

 The roots of the Harvest Moon Society (HMS) can be traced back more than ten years, when a group of local community members led by Clearwater organic farmers, Robert & Celia Guilford, started talking about how they could sustain their rural way of life and food production.

Celia and Robert had been practicing organic and sustainable agriculture for over twenty years. They had often been the site of farm tours organised by the University of Manitoba to give its students first-hand experience of alternative agriculture and associated environmental issues. It was through their university connections that the Harvest Moon Society evolved as a vehicle to foster relationships between urban and rural people, which it saw as essential to meeting the sustainability needs of both.

 The fledgling Harvest Moon Society was incorporated in May 2003 with a mandate to “organize educational, recreational and community projects that seek to revitalize rural communities and livelihoods.”

The opportunity to purchase the old school and recreate it as a centre of operations for the HMS was hard to resist.

 Says Celia, “We just thought we wanted to do something. We all love Clearwater and we all wanted to the school building active.”

 The school has been transformed into much more than just a headquarters for the Harvest Moon Society. It has developed into a learning centre, which teaches sustainable farming practices and creates opportunities to learn about rural life and environmental issues. It works with educational institutions across the province and has developed programs and courses that have so far brought over 700 students to visit the community.

 HMS’s motto of “Healthy Land and Healthy Communities” developed into a practical strategy, as it developed educational and community initiatives that brought urbanites to visit Clearwater.  Its focus is to educate urban people about the way that food is produced and the importance of keeping farmers on the land in a world that now eats more food than it is able to produce.

The cornerstone of that effort is the Harvest Moon Festival, now in its sixth year, which is held every September as a major fundraiser and awareness event for both the HMS and the community. Last year it brought about thousand people, mainly from Winnipeg, to visit over a two day festival about rural life and food production. And besides putting Clearwater on the map and the importance of food production it has brought more tangible benefits for the community.  A new stained glass window for the church, was purchased the proceeds of a breakfast it hosts at the Festival.

But, in this intensely agricultural region, it was inevitable that HMS would come to be more than just an educational tool. It is evolving into a vehicle of change, set against the desire to create more value for farm producers who have suffered through an era of BSE and low commodity prices.

 Many of the HMS founders are Clearwater area farmers, producing quality, healthy food such as grass-fed beef, organic grains and pasture-fed poultry, that they felt had so much more potential if they could be marketed direct to consumers.
The concept of a local food system for the area began to take shape and in 2006, the Harvest Moon Local Food Initiative (HMLFI) was launched. The intent is to develop a marketing network to sell locally produced foods direct to a customer base in rural and urban Manitoba. The goal is to have a pool of 1,000 customers in Winnipeg and along #3 highway to Brandon, who will provide a solid economic base for the producers to supply.

Jason Andrich is the Winnipeg based coordinator for the HMLFI, and he sees a growing movement of city dwellers who are keen to purchase local food.
 “What I hear from people in Winnipeg is that they want to buy directly from farmers,” says Andrich. “They like what HMS is doing, they like the politics of it and they like how it’s participatory. And they don’t mind paying more when they know it is going directly into the hands of the farmer.”

 The HMLFI, however, remains mindful of its raison d’être, and continues to advocate the importance of buying local foods and directly supporting the people who grow it. It’s a marketing system that they hope can be used as a model by other communities wanting to initiate their own co-operative, direct marketing efforts.

In the early days of the Harvest Moon Society, the community of Clearwater may have been a little skeptical of its lofty ideals, but over the years its residents have rolled up their sleeves, pitched in to help and become welcoming, enthusiastic supporters of its efforts and its philosophies.

 Ian Mauro is an environmental scientist has conducted research at Clearwater and been involved with HMS since the beginning.

 “The community has created a context for us to create a festival, to create a food distribution network and they work synergistically with each other. They have co-evolved together in a way that is a win-win.”