Consider Clearwater

Want a different summer experience?  A course that will change your life?  A new way to look at our food systems?  You should consider the Clearwater summer course, held annually in Clearwater, Manitoba.  This year’s course was a great success, so consider adding Clearwater to your summer in 2010!

Rural communities are experiencing extreme decline and change. Rural depopulation, technology-based deskilling, and changes in agriculture have led to high unemployment, closures of schools and grain elevators, family violence, and substance abuse among other problems. Nonetheless, some rural communities such as Clearwater, a 100-person community located in southwestern Manitoba, are showing great resilience and are in the process of reinventing themselves.

The program takes place in Clearwater, Manitoba, where students will visit farms and explore the relationship among farm operations, rural culture, and the environment. Conducted over a two-week period, the program combines lectures and farm visits, along with course projects. Specifically, students gain an awareness of pressures facing rural communities and environments, insight into evolving rural cultures, experience in a diversity of farming and gardening operations, and experience with riparian forests and prairie research.