Shop to Sheep to Skein to School: Anna Hunter's Canadian Wool Odyssey
Voices in Wool with Clara Parkes
English - February 15, 2022 22:00 - 50 minutes - 34.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 80 ratingsSociety & Culture Education wool textiles yarn sheep Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
In this episode, Clara talks with Canadian wool advocate, fiber farmer, and mill owner Anna Hunter of Long Way Homestead.
Until a few years ago, Anna was happily ensconced in East Vancouver running a yarn store. But in 2015, the country beckoned. She and her husband Luke moved to Eastern Manitoba to start a family and a farm.
When she discovered there was no local mill to process her freshly shorn Shetland fleeces, she decided to build a mill herself.
Now Anna is sharing everything she learned with the next generation of wool people through her Field School. And very soon, she'll be bringing domestically sourced and manufactured wool pellets to Manitoba.
As you'll hear, Anna's goal is far larger than just her own sheep and skeins and pellets. She wants to revolutionize and revitalize the Canadian wool industry as we know it.
In the interview, we talked about Anna's life trajectory from urban yarn store owner to rural farmer, the challenges and costs (both financial and human) of starting a wool processing mill, the current limitations of the Canadian wool industry, the possibilities for the future, and her ultimate vision for a thriving regenerative textile infrastructure in Canada.
Links
Read, explore, and shop at Long Way HomesteadSupport Anna's Canadian wool research and advocacy work on PatreonVisit Anna's other project, Canadianwool.org