Stooking, retting, breaking, scutching and hackling—words that roll off Jennifer Green’s tongue, but have been heard by few in the Maritimes for decades. These words are part of a forgotten legacy of fibre farming—practices that were once carried out by hand and shared by communities. 

Flax is the source plant for the fibre used in the making of linen. Flax stands straight and tall, with vibrant violet blooms that close in the night and give way to bolls that hold the flax seeds used as food or pressed for oil. It is the stem that produces the strong and lustrous fibres that are used in the making of linen yarn for weaving into fabric. As a material, linen, and other localized fibres, have been displaced globally by industrial textiles, over 80% of which are derived from polyester and cotton. Material diversity has been lost. We see the same pattern in our food supply. But why does it matter? What is the significance of reviving local linen making? 

Back to the Source

“We’ve lost a tradition or culture of storytelling through our clothing…seeing our clothing as cultural artifacts, distinct from capitalism,” says Green, Associate Professor in the Textiles and Fashion Department at NSCAD University. Diversity is a part of the cultural story our clothing holds. Brand identity has replaced this. Fast fashion is highly exploitative of people and the planet. The invisibility of this burden, the inequity in who bears it, and the privilege to those who benefit, all fuel Green’s values regarding fashion and its place in society. 

Alongside the decline of culture and diversity in our clothing, there has also been a loss of craftsmanship, including the quality of materials. “When I began my linen weaving journey in the early 2000s, I saw that the imported linen and yarn I was buying was dwindling in quality over time. It was fraying and snapped easily,” recalls Green. Her ethos and her artistry craved a return to the source of the materials she was working with, which for linen, means tracing the material back to the flax plant, and back to a local tradition of home grown and processed linen. A reclaiming of quality and story. “In my textile education at NSCAD, there was this belief in the purity of materials—that the materials hold the answers,” shared Green. “It was a natural progression to go from linen weaving to studying the spinning, to growing…going back further and further to the source of the fibre in order to become a more skilled craftsperson and to understand the material in an intimate and embodied way.”  

For Green, getting to know the flax plant was inspirational. She gained a deep understanding of how the properties of the plant relate to those of the linen fibre. “How the plant grows, how it is harvested and processed,” she says, “even how the fibres transport moisture from the root to the tip and hold the plant upright… all contribute to making linen a dimensionally stable material. It has a lot of body to it.” Getting to know the plant connected the dots for Green and grew a deep love and appreciation for the story of linen, which became the heart of her sabbatical project. 

Closing the Loop 

It started as a dream of operating a linen farm. “I was actively looking for property. I even had a yurt picked out,” says Green. But things weren’t falling into place. “I was having a hard time finding land and it was just after Covid… the thought of being in a new, somewhat isolated community was a bit daunting.” Green was driving back home to Halifax from a visit to Cape Breton where a fellow lover of linen, Kristi Farrier, had offered Green land to grow flax on so that they could grow together. “I got thinking as I drove, what if that is the answer? Finding several farms to grow flax on is what the research project is about?” Once this idea was sparked, it immediately ‘felt right’ to Green. She dove into making it happen. In only three months, the Flaxmobile was in motion. 

You can’t miss the Flaxmobile. It is a souped-up cargo van with a whimsical flax blossom graphic along the side. Jennifer Green hit the road in April of 2022, seeing out a whole season of flax growing on 15 farms across the province. She was there for every stage of the process­—planting, tending, harvesting and processing. In exchange for her knowledge and support, farms shared the harvest 50/50 with her. “Most of the farms had never grown flax before so it was an opportunity to have someone teach them the process one-on-one,” says Green. 

The goal was to do everything by hand in the first year. TapRoot Farm in the Annapolis Valley has small scale flax processing equipment (a story unto itself) which could be accessed in the future, but the Flaxmobile prioritized starting on a micro-scale. It was important to Green that the project was cross-disciplinary. “If it was just about agriculture, less attention would be paid to the quality of the fibre as a material—the length, oil, and drape of the fibre,” says Green. The emphasis on hand processing made space for farmers to begin to understand the quality of the fibre in relation to the growing and processing. “If we intend to create a textile industry in Nova Scotia, we have so much catching up, or relearning to do. It's why farmers need to be a part of the process.” Through attention to connection, iteration, and shared practice, transfer of cultural knowledge can happen. 

We can imagine the making of garments as art or craft but the steps along the way can be too. There is artistry in the know-how and the sensing that goes into every step from seed to garment.  We have lost this along the way in favour of doing things faster, easier, or more profitably. At an industry level this is part of the supply chain wherein raw materials are produced or processed in disconnection from the end use of the materials. One of the big motivations for the movement to localize is to close the loop on this supply chain in our local regions. When things are manufactured in our backyards or by people in our communities, we are more likely to appreciate the story of the material and to avoid waste. The Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design has been digging deeper into sustainable craft, and how a region like Cape Breton can close the loop on the craft supply chain. Interestingly, if you look at home-based crafts, the birthplace of most of our cultural practices, local and sustainable supply of raw materials is built into the practice. Homesteaders close the loop on as many of their essential and material needs as possible, and live with an ethic of sustainability, turning would-be waste products into items of beauty and function. Scrap fabric becomes quilts, sheared wool becomes clothing, and animal fat becomes tallow for soap.  

Reviving a Tradition

There is contrast in Green’s nomadic approach to something land-based, but she is not the first to take fibre arts to the road. Weaver, occupational therapist, writer, and educator, Mary Black worked across Nova Scotia in the 1940s-50s, supporting rural craftspeople to develop and market their works. Black travelled around the province with a loom on a trailer, to teach people how to weave again. With a widespread rural population that holds a lot of the remaining traditional knowledge, this mobile service makes sense in order to meet people where they are at. It also echoes the history of itinerant harvesters on the prairies; mobile reinforcements to contribute seasonally to communal labour adds a festive rhythm to the harvest and much needed hands and hearts. 

When Green first began her deep dive into flax she would go to the Nova Scotia archives every day. She would diligently and thoroughly go through the censuses from the 17-1800s. “I would make charts, and write down anything related to flax and linen and where it was being produced across Nova Scotia.” This understanding gave her a strong appreciation for the history – how prolific flax growing was in the past. “In a modern context I couldn’t have anticipated how this would translate to the deep appreciation for land and community that came along with it.” 

Joining in the harvest of the flax crop here in Cape Breton, I can almost imagine how it may have felt when this was the shared work of community. There is a special kind of conversation that surfaces while we work. We talk of everything and nothing: birds at dawn, grey seals on the shore, sweetgrass harvest, gardening, comparing growing years, sunsets, admiring the variability in the flax plants, and so on. We are present with our senses and feeling the hard work and hot sun in our bodies. The volunteers that came out were all drawn by their own passion for fibre. One harvester, Stephen, was retired from a career in archaeology, with a specialization in fibre. 

Community Connection 

There is something about doing this on a small scale. There is a relationality to it.  It is families, friends and neighbours doing the work, growing on their land, producing unique harvests and unique fibres—a terroir of sorts. It's personal. Plot sizes vary, based on the workload each farm can bear. A typical 4x8 ft plot produces enough fibre to make a small household textile. The labour is definitely the limiting factor, but volume hasn’t been the goal. “I believe in the idea of aggregating what has been grown and making something out of the collective sum of all of the small farms,” says Green, who intends to make work shirts with her share of the fibre—a representation of the shared labour of love. A lasting connection between the places and people that have contributed. 

For Green, what started as an interest in sharing her passion for linen gave back in unforeseen ways that fueled a different part of her. “I got to witness and participate in a deeper connection to place,” shares Green. “I experienced hospitality like never before, and loved seeing the way these farming families were living - the way their children had such a strong sense of themselves. Like there’s an essence of something solid that comes from living like this.” With the challenging social and environmental future ahead for young generations, this was reassuring for Green. 

The return to hand-grown and hand-processed linen has felt like a ‘coming back to ourselves’ for Green. What started as a post-Covid journey with an anticipation of isolation in rural Nova Scotian communities, has become a journey of connection making. The cultural story of linen as clothing, has unravelled a deep sense of place and history that Green has played a role in weaving together, with the help of so many hands. One farm at a time, Green has been reviving cultural knowledge. One day it may add up to a sustainable fibre industry in Nova Scotia, but she has a sense for where it starts—building of a community knowledge base and a care for it. 

Jody Nelson stewards a piece of land on Hunter's Mountain, Unama'ki, where she invests her heart in her farm, her two boys and her community. 

This story appeared in Issue #8 of edible Maritimes, Fall 2023