BY Melisa Luymes

This is the third (perhaps not the final) installment of a series on land trusts and farmland access. In this month’s story, a farm near Tiverton is continuing a life the original owners started for it, even now that they are gone.
Eugene Bourgeois passed away in his home on September 16, 2020, just four months after Ann Bourgeois, his beloved wife of 49 years, lost her long battle with cancer. They had met at university and were inseparable since then. Ann was a teacher and Eugene was a philosophy student (Pythagorean mystical philosophy to be exact), when they moved from Waterloo to a small farm property near Lake Huron with their three children in 1974. Just across from Inverhuron Provincial Park, they built a home and barn, raised sheep and grew the wool business in Ontario in a substantial way. Their work as The Philosopher’s Wool Company made them a beloved hub for the local community and took them around the world. 
Eugene had written in his will that the land was to be used for the benefit of the community and he had made it clear to his friends that he didn’t want the land to be sold. It took some time to settle the estate and to get through a global pandemic. However, in the last two years, a group of Eugene and Ann’s friends have pulled Philosopher’s Wool Co. back together. Jim and Lynne Young, Tessa Gerling and Marti McFadzean have formed a board and operate the on-farm store as a social enterprise, volunteering their time and aiming to invest profits back into the community.
It is what the couple would have wanted. Eugene and Ann were incredibly generous to their community, taking only what they needed from their business and investing the rest into the people around them. In business as well, they paid local farmers top prices for top quality wool, creating a virtuous cycle that improved quality year after year. The Philosopher’s Wool Co. profit-sharing model became a case study for sustainable business at Harvard. 
As for the 37 acres of workable farmland, it is currently a hay field rented to a young Amish farmer. It was Scott Dunn’s July 2022 article in the Owen Sound Times that got the word out that the group was looking for more opportunities for the property. That caught the attention of the Ontario Farmland Trust (OFT). After several months of discussion and aligning on a vision for the property, it has just been announced that the farm has been donated to OFT for them to protect in perpetuity. 
OFT was Canada’s first provincial-wide agricultural land trust. It grew out of work done at the University of Guelph to turn the tide of farmland loss, currently calculated at 319 acres a day. The charity was incorporated in 2004 and was instrumental in changing the Conservation Land Act in 2005 to allow for Farmland Easement Agreements, which protects land for agricultural use, for good. Since then, it has done research, policy, and protected over 3000 acres on 26 farms, many of them just outside of the Greenbelt and at risk of encroachment development.
Farmland easements are contracts made between OFT and property owners and then registered on the title of the property. The process can take over a year and involves an environmental assessment, easement negotiations, and a property value assessment. If a property loses value due to its new restriction, as it often does, a tax credit is issued to the landowner. Once on title, the legal contract is difficult to amend; it would need to demonstrate increased protection of the land and would require the agreement of OFT, the landowner, as well as the Ministry of Natural Resources. OFT is currently triaging over 50 properties waiting for easements; they don’t currently have the financial capacity to keep up with the demand.
Eugene and Ann’s property, however, is not an easement. This donation to OFT now means the property is off the market permanently. Tessa thinks this would suit the couple just fine because they didn’t much care for the idea of ownership in the first place, especially Eugene. 
“He believed that things really came alive when they were shared,” says Tessa, with a huge smile remembering him. “Eugene felt that through a culture of sharing and open exchange of ideas, the experience of everyone involved would be amplified many times over and become meaningful and beneficial to all,” she adds. The couple hosted countless dinners at the house, sharing their space and time with generous hospitality.  
“This donation of land is a first for OFT,” says Martin Straathof, which has pivoted in the last few years to address not only protection of farmland but the issues surrounding farmland access. Martin was raised on a dairy farm in Eastern Ontario and pursued a master’s degree in Rural Planning and Development from the University of Guelph, focusing on protecting farmland through innovative and sustainable community developments and intentional community planning. He is now the Executive Director of OFT and brings a strong voice to the organization. 
He is concerned about the rising prices and financialization of farmland as well as farm succession. He cited RBC’s recent Farmers Wanted report, in which their research shows that 40 per cent  of farms in Canada will change hands over the next 10 years and 66 per cent of producers don’t have a succession plan in place. 
“What is the good of protecting farmland, if farming isn’t economically sustainable?” he asks.  OFT’s newest strategic plan was just released, and it takes a more holistic approach, addressing farmers’ ability to access land and farming know-how. OFT also advocates for investing in the rural infrastructure needed to farm successfully. 
OFT will be hosting community engagement sessions in the Tiverton/Inverhuron area to get a better understanding of how best to use Eugene and Ann’s land. It could be a community garden, it could support the local food bank, it could support new farmers for the first years building their business, perhaps it would even see livestock again. 
“I’d love to see sheep back in this barn,” says Tessa, as we walk around the property. It has several smaller outbuildings that could create a few different opportunities. 
As for the house, it is a gorgeous red brick, built in the style of local farm houses but with playful, geometric twists, timber-framed additions and wrap-around porches. When Eugene and Ann first moved to the property, they transported an original log cabin from a neighbouring farm and lived in it like pioneers themselves while Eugene built the rest of the house around it. The logs are still exposed in a cozy living room. Ann taught in Ripley, Eugene worked on local farms with the Amish community especially and the couple saved every penny to build up the property. 
Ann had first taken up knitting on a teaching exchange to Scotland which is where she learned the Fair Isle method, which she went on to modify, simplify and teach as the Two-Handed Fair Isle Method. When Eugene brought his raw wool to a Toronto market one day and sold it for $0.30/lb but then bought some yarn (on sale!) for Ann for $22/lb, he realized the opportunity in processing. 
He raised Dorset sheep, kept clean and shorn only once a year for longer fibres and higher lanolin content. The couple took the wool down to Texas every winter for cleaning and then to the Maritimes to be naturally dyed. They taught knitting courses near and far and created new patterns along the way; these are included in their own knitting book, Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified, featuring gorgeous sweaters modeled by friends and family. In the prime of the business, Philosopher’s Wool Co. sold 73 colours of yarn, including some that they called “BBQ colours”, because they were dyed in vats of KoolAid on their barbeque.
Today, the business has 39 colours of yarn for sale (and can teach anyone how to make 16 BBQ colours), also selling buttons and knitting starter kits, along with sweaters, shawls, hats and many other products made by local knitters. They are pulling together the business contacts, writings and thoughts of their dear friends to carry on their legacy. Many things were lost over the last years. When Ann was diagnosed around 2006, Eugene soon sold the sheep and the business was put on the backburner as he cared for her in their home, especially in the last year of their lives. 
“Maybe some knowledge was lost,” says Tessa, “but the biggest loss is their spirits that made this place so special and that is why we are determined to carry it on.” She was a neighbour to Eugene and Ann in her childhood and looked up to them as grandparents. She remembers fondly how Eugene’s wild curly hair made him look like his sheep, how he went barefoot and would stand in a tree pose while talking with someone, with the sole of his foot pressed above his other knee. Tessa is now working on a new pattern, the Monarch, to bring to the knitting community, to raise both capital and environmental awareness. 
Jim Young has his own larger-than-life stories as well. He had a cottage nearby in the mid-1980s and had come up the lane when Eugene was building the showroom (now the store) to let him know that the roof wasn’t straight. Eugene came down to have a look and agreed. Dr. Jim Young is an engineer and an air quality and weather specialist; he worked very closely with Eugene on environmental issues related to Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) over the years.
When Eugene and Ann bought the property, they were not concerned about their proximity to a nuclear facility because they were supportive of clean technology. But in the 1980s, when the site operated a heavy water plant, Eugene’s sheep were getting sick, blind, born with defects and dying. When working outside, there were occasions when he would be overcome with debilitating pain in his head and nausea. Jim was able to model the thermal internal boundary layer from Lake Huron on the days that Eugene had the experience. He demonstrated that hydrogen sulfide from the plant would have descended in rapid bursts across the area. Eugene brought the issue to the attention of Bruce Power, but it was dismissed. He became a tireless advocate for the safety of the Inverhuron community, but to this day, Jim says the company has not admitted to any fault from the heavy water plant.
The Bruce Power site would go on to be perhaps the world’s largest nuclear facility and when the bid for hosting a Deep Geological Repository (DGR) there became known in 2013, he joined a community of activists that fused together against the bid. Marti MacFadzean had been a long-time seasonal resident and moved to Inverhuron permanently in 2009; she was a leader in the DGR opposition and says Eugene played a crucial role. He lived to see the bid be overturned by a vote from the Saugeen Ojibway Nation in May 2020.
Eugene remained critical of the community safety procedures of OPG to the end. Eugene was even the subject of a short documentary about his struggle, Toxic Neighbour, directed by Colin Scheyen and released in 2021, a year after his death. It is for sale at the Philosopher’s Store.
Eugene’s activism also lives on in the Philosopher’s Wool Environmental Preserve (PWEP), a non-profit protecting the local environment. It had been relatively quiet until provoked in 2023 by a proposed subdivision housing development directly across from the property, on the Little Sauble River. They organized the community, successfully petitioned Bruce County for a judicial review of the project and have crowd-funded legal fees. The hearing is expected to take place in the fall.
It was written on their hearts and around their home: “Peace on Earth, Good Wool to All.” While Eugene and Ann’s property is a testament to their creativity, talent and generosity, perhaps their true legacy lives on in the community they left behind – the people they inspired and those who continue with their work. 
It doesn’t feel like an end; in fact, it feels like Eugene and Ann are just getting started. 
The Philosopher’s Store is on the farm and open every Saturday 10-5 or by appointment, see philosopherswool.ca. If you’d like to support their environmental work, find them at pwepreserve.ca, and to connect with OFT, find them at ontariofarmlandtrust.ca. ◊