Brian Lendrum
Brian Lendrum used to work as an administrator for the Yukon Government before he started farming. He found a piece of rocky land by Lake Laberge in the 1980s and created a 100-acre hectare grazing area for his goats. His achievement is remarkable because Brian is legally blind and actively works the farm with the part-time help of his working wife and one or two helpers. He started out with two and by 2010 had a herd of 17 nannies and two billies. He slaughters about twenty every year and sells the meat. A government fund supported Lendrum in building a modern milking shed and he made and sold goat cheese. The Lendrums raise and slaughters sixty turkeys for Thanksgiving, and harvest two large market gardens in aged composts piles on top of hard packed clay. It was necessary to make soil because the farm was on an old glacial lake bottom. Lendrum followed a successful practice of small intensive farming and thinks a small farm can feed 100 people for the summer so more farms like that are needed for Yukon agriculture to be sustainable.1)