Farmers market near few farms

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Keric Funk of the Harbourfront BIZ volunteering at the market drop-off area. (PHOTOS BY TOM THOMSON / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

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Buck Matiowski feels the heat with some hot sauce at the farmers market. His work with the homeless helps the community.

KENORA -- Kenora started its first farmers market with just six vendors in McLeod Park (beneath the Husky the Muskie statue) along Highway 17, which runs through the city.

The experiment snarled traffic so badly, Kenora Police Service officers had to manually direct traffic.

Seven years later, Kenora's farmers market, now on its Harbourfront, has 94 vendors and is almost in the same stratosphere as St. Norbert's version. (St. Norbert has 120 vendors on Saturdays and about 40 on Wednesdays.)

With one exception. There are no farms around here. You'd have a hard time finding a farm within a 100 kilometres of Kenora. The Canadian Shield is not fertile ground for cultivated crops or grazing livestock.

"People say, how can you have a farmers market without any farmers around?" said Buck Matiowski, services co-ordinator for Kenora's Harbourfront. Kenora's farmers market was more a case of if you tell them they can't do it, they'll do it, he said.

Matiowski has been profiled in the Free Press pages before, not only because of his status as former amateur boxer and lifetime organizer of amateur sports in Manitoba. Matiowski was most recently profiled for starting a program where street people clean Kenora's streets, and he still runs it. About a dozen homeless people do casual labour around the city, including setting up the giant tent over the farmers market.

On a tour of the farmers market, Matiowski ran into a former member of Buck's Brigade, as it's known. She is off the street and was volunteering at the Community Arts Hub booth. She was shy about being interviewed but Buck beamed. "Some people say you're a street person all your life. No. There is rehabilitation," he said.

Matiowski started a second program where youth with minor crimes work off their penalties by helping at the market. He calls them "market jockeys."

"The court assigns them to me and they work off their hours helping vendors load and unload and set up," said Matiowski. The program has racked up 75,000 hours of accumulated court service. And Matiowski has had no problem handling the youths. He may be in his 70s but people still don't want to tangle with Buck.

There may be no farms around Kenora but it's not accurate to say there are no farmer vendors at its farmers market. Some of the farmers at booths included Kon and Julie Paseschnikoff from Oak Bluff (Paseschnikoff Gardens) selling produce and jams, and Bruggemann Organic Farms of Ridgeville. About a dozen vendors are from the Rainy River area of Ontario, including elk farmer Deb Cornell from Devlin, near Fort Frances.

Frankie DeMarchi of Transcona was there hocking jewelry his daughter made. It's a great farmers market for vendors because of all the tourist traffic, he said. "Buck's the one who gets this thing up and going. He deserves the credit," said DeMarchi.

"He wants a reduction on his booth (fee)," Matiowski shot back.

Some vendors do very well. Bill and Tammy Reid, who run the Bulk Zone in Dryden, Ont., sold all their baked goods by 11 a.m. (Kenora's farmers market runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays only.) A group from Steinbach were sold out by 11:30 a.m. ------ 180 baskets of strawberries.

The farmers market draws cottagers into town, including many who arrive by boat, as well as cottagers from south Whiteshell lakes like Falcon and West Hawk. "We don't make a lot of money but the Harbourfront Committee says we have a major impact on the city," Matiowski said.

People visit downtown, eat at restaurants and pop into retail shops when they visit the farmers market. "It's certainly a boost to the business community. (Retailers) look forward to Wednesdays as one of the biggest days on their cash registers," said Keric Funk, chairman of the Harbourtown BIZ.

A new program allows people to leave their purchases (a number system in place) with an attendant (often Funk) and pick up their goods by car in a "pickup lane." The farmers market also boasts an "art loft," where local artists display their works, unique for a farmers market.

"This is tourism country. I call this agri-tourism," said Matiowski.

An average of about 1,500 people visit the farmers market each Wednesday. Booths cost $30.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 18, 2011 A4