Growing up just outside downtown Montreal, my British Garden Club mother acquainted me with my own garden patch as a young child. Craving country-living, at age 19, I moved to the Eastern Townships. The sort of homestead lifestyle that I desired was just not realized in the small factory towns. Six years later, as a mother of three, I moved to the opposite side of Montreal to Hudson, and enrolled as a student at Concordia University to pursue a BA in Human Environment, through the Geography, Planning and Environment Department.

During my third year at university I became involved with Sustainable Concordia, a student-led campus sustainability organization. Through my new network of environmentalist friends and evolving interests, I became one of the first round of interns for the Food Systems Project - this was life changing for me. I had been an environmentalist for at least 10 years at this point, but the realization that food is central to sustainability - the great connector (in terms of humanness) and the most real way that we all connect with/are completely dependent on the environment every single day - converted me into a lifelong lover of food studies and motivated me to alter my own food system. During this time, I was introduced to permaculture.

PERMACULTURE BLOWS MY MIND. The more I learn, the more I love. In the summer of 2011, I obtained my Permaculture Design Certificate in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

My experience with permaculture and food studies has influenced both my life and my research directions. For my Master's studies (2011 - 2013) I am researching and engaging in hyperlocal food production's role in sustainable community building. For this I plan to convert my family's garden in Hudson into a permaculture with the help of a simultaneously built community.