Darren Barefoot is having a hard time finding shoes. It’s not because he has an obscure size, but because the Vancouver-based Web-marketing consultant is on a year-long mission to be the ultimate Canuck – for 2011, his goal is to consume nothing but Canadian products, food, media and culture.
“The project has been significantly an experience of denial, or going without,” Mr. Barefoot says of his “One Year, One Canadian’ venture in an interview at his west-side condo. “There are huge categories of stuff you simply cannot get. Shoes are a good example. I’ve yet to find hiking shoes or running shoes made in Canada. Even men’s dress shoes – I’ve only found two styles from Roots.”
Mr. Barefoot, who’s documenting his experiment in all things Canadian on his blog (oneyearonecanadian.ca), has devised a classification system to help define exactly what “made in Canada” means. Gold goes to items that are entirely sourced, manufactured and designed in Canada – which are rare, he notes. Silver is for stuff that’s manufactured and designed in Canada but that contains ingredients or materials from abroad, while bronze denotes items that are merely designed in Canada.
Mr. Barefoot’s favourite footwear, Fluevog, for instance, gets a bronze rating. Although designed by Vancouver icon John Fluevog in his Gastown studio, the shoes are made in Portugal, Peru, Vietnam and other parts of the world.
Meanwhile, his boxer briefs of choice, Stanfield’s, get silver. They are made in Truro, N.S., but sourced elsewhere.
“The only place I can buy clothes are boutiques on Main Street,” he says of the hip east-side neighbourhood that’s home to many independent designers and businesses. “If I went only gold standard, I would be wearing mukluks and snowsuits.”
Here’s how the project works: Every month, Mr. Barefoot adds a category in which he restricts himself to Canadiana. He started out in January with household goods; the next month was clothes. It’s cumulative, so by the end of the year, everything from the food he eats to the websites he visits to the music he listens to will all be purely Canadian.
Or at least that’s the theory. Mr. Barefoot admits the rules are flexible, and he regularly seeks input from those who read his blog and from his friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
A few factors motivated Mr. Barefoot to put his nationalist notion into practice. For one, he calls himself a bit of a patriot. “I wanted to shine a light on Canadian media and products and services,” he says.
For another, the timing seemed right, given the popular interest in going local. His project isn’t so much another 100-mile diet but rather the 3,000-mile lifestyle.
Then there’s the fact that he likes a challenge – and there’s been a few of those since the project began.
“I miss a lot of the cultural things, especially movies,” Mr. Barefoot says. “I used to go almost once a week, and the reality is there are very few Canadian movies in theatres. I’ve only seen a handful of movies this year.
“I didn’t watch much TV before … and I watched a lot of HBO shows; they’re so good. With Canadian television, a lot of it is pretty dreadful.”
That said, he has taken a liking to Being Erica and Dan for Mayor. Other cultural aspects have been easier: He’s reading John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce. He has a membership at the Vancouver Art Gallery (where this year he’ll look only at Canadian work), while the Cowboy Junkies and Vancouver’s Dan Mangan are among his favourite musicians.
