Between two islands

New Wave Fibre is local to the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia. The ‘Gulf Islands’ are located on the southwestern corner of Canada. They are comprised of approximately 20 islands, ranging in size from 9 square kilometres (Valdes) to 300 (Texada). Most islands have ferry service but some do not. The islands are beautiful with second and third growth forests, rare plant species and protected coastal waters, owing to the mass of the much larger Vancouver Island to the west.

We comprise two farms and three sites on Pender and Thetis Islands. Our farms started with Jodi who came to Canada from New Zealand in the 90s. She worked training horses and dogs in Northern BC and now runs an organic blueberry farm on Pender Island. She runs her own flock of of sheep on the same land and has used their fleece to make handspun handknit barn socks and other treasures for many years.

In 2019, Emily bought three gorgeous ewe lambs from Jodi when she and her partner moved up to a family property on Thetis Island and New Wave Fibre was formed. The timeline for a fibre business is long. The land must be patriated (fences and barns built); sheep grown and bred; fleeces sheared and processed. Even the turn around time at the yarn mill we use is 6-9 months. Then the yarn must be dyed and labeled, photographed, packaged and shipped. At the time of this writing, we’ve just shipped our first parcel of yarn but the journey is already many years in the making.

Now, you may wonder how we operate between two islands. We communicate almost every day via text or phone. And when we need to move fleece, yarn or other equipment back and forth from one farm to the other, we have two ferry rides and a two hour drive between us. It’s about a five hour journey. If we had a boat, we could do it in 20 minutes. So a boat is on the list.