Against the odds, a farm in Prince George has survived. Now the owners want it to belong to the community

Twenty years ago, Lynn and Ed Gilliard made a promise; to keep a patch of green space — with chickens, sheep, pastures, and a large community garden — safe from development. 

The couple, now in their 70s, are asking for help from the City of Prince George to fulfil that promise, and protect the farm for generations to come. 

The couple is working with a team of organizers calling themselves the Queensway Five. The group is asking the city to purchase a five-acre parcel of their land and turn it into a community hub where people can reconnect to their food production.

"For children that were raised in the city, it's important they know that there's magic in even just one little tiny seed," said Lynn, sitting at the big farmhouse kitchen table in her home, which was built by Russian immigrants almost 100 years ago. 

The Gilliard's farm is tucked between the Hudson's Bay Slough, a rich wetland, and the Lombardy Trailer Park in the Veterans Land Act (VLA). It's a community knitted together by a sense of camaraderie, a collection of stucco and wood-panelled buildings mostly built in the 1950s to house vets returning home from the Second World War. The farm often has children visiting from nearby schools in the inner city.  

Now, household incomes in the VLA are among the lowest in Prince George. Many Indigenous people, young families, and elders struggling on fixed incomes live there. For those outside the neighbourhood, it is synonymous with crime and visible poverty.

"Every time I come here, it's like going through a portal into another world," said Karl Domes, who rents a plot in the Gilliard's community garden to grow peppers, peas and sunflowers. "It's a pretty powerful place" 

Domes is part of the Queensway Five, and says he's hoping the city of Prince George will see the potential in the land to help create food security. 

"The future is uncertain, climate change is here … We've already had examples where our supply of food has been cut off," said Domes.

"It's only going to increase in the future."

Over the past three years, reliable access to food in northern B.C. has been threatened by floods further south, fires, highway closures, and pandemic supply chain disruptions. 

But even before the unprecedented events of the past few years, northern B.C. was considered vulnerable.

According to research conducted at the University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George could run out of food in two days if there were major disruptions to the supply chain. 

And, in Prince George's poorest neighbourhood, access to fresh produce is threatened by rising food costs and a growing food desert. There is only one grocery store nearby, and it's set to close this year.