Our History
To know the history of Stowel Lake Farm, one must know the life of Lisa Lloyd, the founder and visionary. When she was a child, her mother encouraged her affection for the land and for the natural world. It was this fertile up bringing that led Lisa to live on the land and farm.
In the mid-seventies, Lisa and her then-husband Stuart purchased the ‘Old Reynolds Farm’, a 115-acre plot of land that was already logged and cleared. Lisa and Stuart parted ways and Lisa remained on the land to raise their three children, Hamish, Rachel, and Jennifer. As a young family, they lived in the original Reynold’s farmhouse.
In those early years there was much learning as Lisa raised sheep and tended to the land. New ewes sometimes had foot rot and needed sanitized walking paths, hay needed to be baled, farm equipment would often break down, and sheep would escape and wander the island, needing to be tracked down and returned to pasture.
As Hamish, Rachel, and Jennifer grew up they became interested in riding, so Lisa transformed the old barn into a horse boarding facility. Lisa needed to be on the farm constantly to take care of the horses, so she decided to partner with another local farmer and bought a milk cow named Star, who needed to be milked twice daily. Lisa sold fresh milk, which was nearly 6 gallons a day, to other island locals.
In the late eighties Lisa started berry farming - strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. 12,000 strawberries were put in on a three-quarter-acre plot and then more each year. Lisa fast became known on Salt Spring as the ‘Strawberry Lady’ and family and friends spent each June in the strawberry patch picking and sorting. It was hard work, but it was magical.
There were many barn dances and potlucks and as Lisa’s children left home, the idea of living and working with others clarified. She needed folks to work in the berry patch and people started to live on the land in various temporary structures. With the passing of her father Lisa collected an inheritance and she invested it in the farm’s infrastructure; it was a risky leap into the great unknown.
One thread through all the years was people coming onto the farm for yoga classes and meditation at the old farmhouse, which is where the Gatehouse is now. Yoga on the farm goes back into the early ‘80s, and around that time Lisa also got into Buddhism and sat with a group of local women. The group would meditate on the verandah of the old house and the idea of longer retreats began to brew.
Lisa’s strong urge to invite others to the land, stemmed from a desire for community. Lisa knew this required members who are respectful to each other and the land, and who are focused on the common good. When Lisa’s youngest, Jen, returned to the farm in the early 2000s with her best friend, Liz, Stowel Lake Farm really started to blossom. A small community began living in harmony with the land. This community has grown and changed over the years and has maintained the magic felt in the early years.
