From the Netherlands to Nova Scotia.
The Van Dyk family have found a home in the quiet village of Caledonia, Nova Scotia and harvest berries from all over the province. But it hasn’t always been this way.
A place to call home.
Our family comes from a corner of the world where farming know-how is everywhere, but the land to work just isn’t. So, in the years after World War II, Cornelius and Henrica Van Dyk left the Netherlands in search of a place that would welcome their whole family—and their agricultural expertise—with arms wide open. And thanks to the good faith of a local priest willing to sponsor a young Dutch couple, that place was Nova Scotia.
Dream big, think small.
As it turns out, Caledonia was known to nurture more than just a few farm families. Every August, the locals would pick an abundance of wild blueberries with excitement. Handful after handful, pie after pie—our family was captivated by the special significance and sense of community each berry inspired. It was only a matter of time before these berries became just as important to our family. Over 60 years later, we’re still a family-run farm with a simple mission: to grow the finest wild blueberries in the world – right here in Nova Scotia – and to share them with the world.
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Our farming philosophy.
LEAVE THE BERRIES BE.
We’re proud nurturers of nature. That means letting the berries do the hard work—we just help out where we can. All year long, we’re in the fields—inspecting dormant shoots, looking for emerging fruit or vegetative buds and keeping an eye on the soil.
HONEYBEE HELP.
But we’re never alone out there. Each year when the wild blooms begin to emerge, we enlist the help of thousands of honeybees to join the local insects to pollinate every blossom in our wild blueberry patches. In return for helping us nurture each little bloom, each year the bees get to sample the product before anyone else.
LET NATURE REST.
The biggest thing we do to nurture our berries? Every second year we let them rest. A vacation from growing fruit means time for the wild blueberry plant to invest in itself. It’s an important part of the process that makes our plants stronger and our berries healthier. It’s also one of our secrets to getting a once sparse patch of wild blueberries to fill an entire field. That, and plenty of patience.
