A harbinger of spring across the globe and most prevalent in the northern hemisphere ȾEXȾEX | Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica), has been celebrated on SḴŦAḴ | Mayne Island with a series of events over the last few years. We have centred our event around the food element of this beloved herb, largely given that spring is the time of year one typically harvests for food and medicine, while adding elements of other traditional uses including dying (Myrna Crossley). Our Nettle Potlucks were sumptuous feasts indeed. Last year we began exploring the use of nettle for fibre with the screening of A Nettle Dress. 

This spring, we are excited to have Vancouver-based eco-artist Sharon Kallis offering a Wild Fibre talk, walk, and workshop on SḴŦAḴ | Mayne Island.

By using raw materials from nature for creative practices, we will explore cultural connections between plants and people while learning new skills. Participants can expect a tactile experience foraging for, learning about, and crafting with a variety of beneficial plants that grow in our bioregion. This will be an occasion to gather and celebrate SḴŦAḴ |  Mayne Island’s abundant stinging nettles in particular, and their gifts of medicine, food, and fibre. 

And what’s a celebration without a little music thrown into the mix? 

We hope you will enjoy the program. If you are interested in participating don’t hesitate to register, space is limited.

Friday  March 27th   

3pm to 5pm
Nettle Harvest
Free Event

We will meet at the Conservancy Office at 3pm and head out to one of the properties on SḴŦAḴ | Mayne Island (TBD) known for healthy stands, to gather nettles for the weekend events. Learn all the tips and tricks to happy foraging of nettles! Bring your own gloves, clippers/scissors and dress for the weather.

7pm to 8:30pm, Ag Hall
Wild Fibre Talk & Demonstration
By donation at the door

Many of us look forward to the season for nettle harvesting each spring, but did you know a nettle fibre harvest is a different timeline, and that plants pinched back in the spring provide inferior fibre? 

Sharon will give a talk that shares the seasonal timeline that best supports both food and fibre plants like nettles and fireweed and share stories that weave together our human relations to the three plant fibre sisters: flax, hemp, and nettle. The evening will include a tactile show and tell of clothing, netting, and basketry made from local plant fibres. Participants can try their hands at stripping fibres from nettle stalks. Fibres processed during the talk will be used in Sunday’s workshop. Nettle tea will be brewing, bring a cup!

Saturday March 28th

11am-3pm
Wild Fibre and Medicine Walk, Soup and Nettle Shots!
$10/participant. Pre-registration required

Mike Nadeau, Sierra Steele and  Sharon Kallis, will lead a walk to forage for spring nettles for medicine and food while identifying other bountiful, local plants that can be harvested for a multitude of purposes including dyes, fibre crafts, and basketry. Location TBD.

After our Walk about we gather for nettle soup and nettle shots!

Lets build our energy up in anticipation of the night ahead at AG Hall. 

Max 20 Participants

7pm-11pm, Ag Hall
Nettle Fest Wing Dig Fundraiser Gig
$10-$25 at the door

Featuring Magic Triangle, Legion of the Flying Monkeys and special guests 

Produced by Chrysta Wallin

Licenced event – Limited supply of  Nettle Forager from Mayne Island Brewery

Sunday March 29th 

12:30pm to 4pm at the Community Centre
Wild Fibre Workshop
$25/participant. Pre-registration required.

Continuing the show-and-tell of projects made from local plants, Sharon will demonstrate the steps from stripped fibre to spun threads. 

Participants will learn the simple process of making 2 ply cordage from which nets, twined baskets, and more can be made. While hands are busy, Sharon will discuss the properties of both native and cultivated plants that can be used in creative work. They include nettle, flax, hemp, fireweed, dogbane, milkweed, willow, daylily, dandelion, rushes, reeds, and sedges.  Even invasives like Scotch broom, English ivy, and Himalayan blackberry can be raw materials for art and craft. Bring a snack, and cup for nettle tea!

Max 20 Participants

About Sharon Kallis 

“How can I be a maker, without first being a consumer?” Sharon Kallis began asking herself this question over twenty years ago in response to a creeping feeling of dis-ease about the materials she was using in her practice as an environmental artist. She began investigating unconventional fibre sources and approaches to art and handwork in her studio, tracing lines of knowledge about how to harvest and prepare fibres, and adapting techniques to use them. Since Sharon is a community activist and connector at her core, her passion and skills quickly expanded into a community-wide pursuit. Through the EartHand Gleaners Society she founded, Sharon has made it her mission to empower new groups to be makers in connection with the land and continue to grow the community of artists working with invasive and native plant fibres and dyes. Artists and dancers, gardeners and herbalists, weavers, knitters, spinners, scientists, ecologists and educators, from First Nations as well as settler communities, have all come together to share and contribute.  This spring, Mayne Islanders will be part of that wild fibre journey. 

Watch a short film featuring Sharon Kallis and nettle for textiles here, listen to an interview on the We are Carbon  podcast here.  Find out more about EartHand Gleaners here 

Pictures by S. Kallis