MILLVILLE, N.S. – For almost three centuries, Boularderie Island in Cape Breton’s Bras d’Or Lake has been noted for its abundant harvests and extended growing season.
It is surrounded by salt water, which creates a microclimate that changes temperatures and rainfall patterns.
It is beautiful countryside surrounded by rugged mountains, a storied lake and deep fogs that show up more often than not.
At least 280 years ago, vegetables from the island in the eastern corner of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island were transported to the French garrison town of Louisbourg on Cape Breton’s south shore long after the growing season had finished on other farms in the fledgling French colony of Isle Royale.
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Legend has it that farmer Boularderie, who had been granted the island by the French king, took the produce by boat through St. Andrew’s Channel and Bras d’Or Lake into the Atlantic Ocean and along the coast of what is now Nova Scotia to the fortress. At its peak, Louisbourg housed more than 4,000 people before it was destroyed by British forces.
More than two centuries later, Dutch immigrant John Eyking discovered the benefits of that microclimate.
He emigrated from Holland in the 1950s, but lacked the money to accomplish his plan of making it to the West Coast where he could recreate his Dutch tulip operation.
Because Eyking was Roman Catholic, the church took charge of his settlement and sent him to a patch of relatively inhospitable land near Sydney.
He married a fellow immigrant from Holland and eventually discovered farmland for sale 50 kilometres west, on Boularderie Island. It wasn’t tulip country nor did Nova Scotia offer much of a market for fresh flowers, but Eyking discovered it had a climate that suited crop and vegetable production.
“Dad saw the land in the winter so he didn’t notice the rocks,” said son Mark, the Liberal member of Parliament for Sydney-Victoria. Mark was a partner in the farm until 2005, when he became a junior minister in Paul Martin’s government and decided his political duties were taking away from his contribution to the farm.
“Picking rocks was a big part of growing up here.”
John set to work building a farm and a family, creating over the following decades one of the largest farms in Atlantic Canada. It produces eggs, beef, feed and a variety of vegetables for the regional market.
“We have revenues around $5 million a year, one of the biggest in the region,” John said. “We have 12 barns because my motto at one time was to build a barn every year whether I needed it or not.”
At 76 years of age, he shares farm operations with four sons, aided by a number of grandchildren.
The business includes greenhouse operations, beef and egg production and grading, marketing and trucking.
Statistics Canada says there are only seven farms in Nova Scotia with revenues of $5 million or more.
With 100,000 layers, the Eyking farm produces and grades half a million eggs each week, 70 percent sold to the table market and 30 percent to food processors.
Another son, Paul, is using empty buildings on the farm to develop a worm farm that creates a compost product.
“This farm has evolved over the years,” said Mark.
“Dad built it up and we have added and expanded and changed. We tried a retail side of it but that didn’t really work out. We are reconsidering the beef side since there really isn’t a profit there right now. Worms may be the next thing.”
Mark’s 15-year-old son, Jonah, works long summer days on the farm and readily answers questions about the location’s advantages.
“We lose some weeks in the spring but we get a couple of extra weeks in the autumn,” he said. “It really helps during marketing season.”
Grandfather John proudly noted that Eyking Farms harvests two lettuce crops each year and supplies one-third of all the lettuce sold in Atlantic Canada.
“Two crops a year is unique in Cape Breton,” he said.
John was one of the founders of the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and was a board member for two decades, making the Eykings strong supporters of supply management.
But he also saw the need to diversify. So he built a mill to produce feed for the chickens, added greenhouses to start the farm’s vegetable crops from seed and expanded the land base to 1,000 acres of owned and rented farmland.
Despite its failed attempt at a broader retail presence years ago, Eyking Farms still operates a retail store on the island.
And it contracts with Atlantic Canada’s concentrated food retail sector to sell eggs and vegetables throughout the region.
But after 50 years in the business, John is chagrined about the change in industry power structures. He has seen the decline in producer power and the growth in retail and distributor influence.
“They tell us what to grow and tell us that they will just take this or that crop from us,” he complained.
“They are killing our ability to be diversified, to grow what makes sense for us.”
