No Groceries North of 60

How to Grow Figs. Live online class. June 23, 2025. Find out more.
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Eating Locally in Yukon

Suzanne Crocker joins us from Dawson City, Yukon to tell us about the year she spent knowing where all the food on her plate came from.

There was no salt, no sugar, and no caffeine. There were three hungry (and sceptical) teenagers, and a reluctant husband. There was no grocery-store food in the house for for the entire year.

Food Discoveries

Crocker talks about some of the techniques she learned during the year:

• Making birch syrup to use as a sweetener
• Foraging weeds and spruce tips
• Juicing potatoes to make a thickener
• Using rhubarb juice as a vinegar substitute

Gardening North of 60

With only a couple of months of frost-free days, the gardening season is short and intense. The intense light causes some cool-weather vegetables such as spinach to bolt.

Crocker talks about crops that do and don’t grow in Dawson — and about gardening with moose!

From Medicine to Film

Crocker was a rural family doctor before becoming a filmmaker. She captured the year of her family eating locally in her new film, First We Eat.

This isn’t the first time she’s turned the lens on her family. Her first feature documentary, All The Time In The World, shared her family’s experience leaving home to live in the remote Yukon wilderness for 9 months.

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