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Johnny Appleseed of the North
John Lenart is a native of the U.S. midwest who grew his first melons at age 5. He planted his inaugural apple tree in the Klondike thirty years ago, undeterred by cold, heavy, moss-covered silty soils. Determination and passion prevailed and John has become a sought-after expert in extreme northern horticulture. He has been featured in Yukon, North of Ordinary, Up Here, What's Up Yukon and CBC television, both in the series On the Road Again and more recently in a feature interview. John loves to share his passion for growing and treading lightly on the earth with everyone who comes through our place.
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"The KVN community shares an ethic of care for the natural world that supports us. The nursery lets us explore ways to diversify our local landscape, broaden our community's food production capabilities while retaining a sense of integration with our natural landscape."
Where in the Boreal are we?
We live and work at our nursery on the banks of the Klondike River in the central Yukon, surrounded by mature white spruce forest and lowland bogs. Dawson City is a twenty-minute drive after crossing the river, by canoe six months of the year and on foot for the remainder. We are off-grid and heat our home and greenhouses with wood that we collect in the winter. The long summer days are used to grow trees and produce our food for the year, helped by many interns and volunteers.
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Growing spaces conducive to vegetables and fruit trees have been conscientiously carved out of the forest over John's thirty years on the property. This has grown to include two heated greenhouses and numerous unheated shelters housing fruit trees, as well as outside vegetable gardens. A 3 acre field sporting neat rows of haskap and dwarf conifers is the most prominent feature from the air. Dotted throughout the property are trees and shrubs that you are unlikely to find anywhere else North of Sixty!