St. Norbert Arts Centre
A shining example of sustainability
Melissa Hiebert Staff
Though mostly quiet and vacant in the wintertime, the St. Norbert Arts Centre practises sustainability all year round, and I had the good fortune to witness the beautiful example that it is. The St. Norbert Arts Centre (SNAC) is tucked away in a small area of wilderness just off of Pembina Highway, near the ruins of an old monastery. Describing itself as “a learning centre for sustainable culture,” SNAC is a non-profit organization that operates based on a collective system of decision-making. The centre was originally artist-based, but now has more of an environmental focus.
The monastery situated near the centre was built in the late 1800s as a home for Trappist monks. The monks were also dedicated to being self-sustainable, as mirrored in the function of the site today; they not only produced food for themselves, but also for the surrounding community. The monks had a wide variety of skills, ranging from gardening to carpentry, as well as artistic ability. The monks moved out of the site in 1975, as Winnipeg was expanding and the monks, who liked to live in relative solitude, felt the city was getting too close to their settlement.
The St. Norbert’s Art Centre was established in 1991 in a renovated version of the original guesthouse that the monks built in 1912. In addition to a presentation room on the main floor that is used for performances and lectures, there are also rooms for residencies. A workshop in the basement is used for woodworking and community craft classes.
Billy Dubery, one of the few who live in residence in order to maintain the site and facilitate programs, showed me around the site. He showed me where the gardens, from which they get much of their food, would be blooming in the summer. They also have a herb garden for making herbal medicines and salves. A solar food dehydrator made from recycled printer tins is used to dry vegetables and meat.
“One of the concepts that we like to work with here as much as possible is food security,” said Dubery.
Next, Dubery showed me the composting area. Made up of many large compost bins, it’s used as a composting demonstration for the rest of the community. They are currently working on a project in which they will collect organic waste from participating households in the area and compost it at the centre.
“I like to think of the compost as the root of our food supply,” said Dubery. “The compost turns into excellent soil, we put it in our gardens and we plant our food in it.” He added that as much as one third of all household garbage can be composted, and that 20 per cent of methane gases comes from organic waste that has decomposed without oxygen.
Around the back of the guesthouse is a small building constructed out of straw bales, as well as a barn that houses chickens and goats. The animals are used for their milk, eggs and, occasionally, meat, and they play an important part in creating a sustainable culture. Dubery explained that last summer they kept pigs in a pen behind the barn, and the pigs ate all of the weeds and roots that were growing in the patch. The end result: a perfect garden space.
“We try to produce a system with no waste,” said Dubery. “We throw our scraps to the chickens, they eat it, they turn that protein into eggs, which come back to us.” The rest of the centre works on a similar model. Scraps are fed to the pigs and then the waste from the pigs is composted. Dubery explained that they do as much as they can in order to keep their resources in a closed circuit.
The centre also hosts a variety of workshops. One offered this summer is on how to build a solar greenhouse. Participants will work on building a greenhouse, which in turn will be used to produce more food for the site. Also, the greenhouse will contain large tanks of fish. The dirty fish water will be used to assist the hydroponic growth of plants, and the waste from that will eventually be used for toilet water in the house. This water in turn will be purified and eventually put back into the fish tanks.
The centre also holds other courses, ranging from permaculture to herbology. Starting March 14, monks from Tibet will be staying for a week and teaching about Buddhism, as well as conducting cultural performances and art workshops.
I thanked Dubery for showing me around this environmental marvel and left the centre feeling hopeful. The centre is an inspiring example of how members of the community can work together to create sustainable alternatives to the wasteful norms of our society. SNAC and its inhabitants are working to create a healthier, more sustainable world, one orange peel at a time.
