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at the Canada Agriculture Museum

From the emergence of farmers’ markets to restaurants offering regional cuisine, there’s been a burgeoning trend in Ottawa toward all things local.

“We are seeing more and more visitors interested in where, specifically, their food comes from,” says Marie-Sophie Desaulniers, the manager of visitor experience at the Canada Agriculture Museum. “More people are looking to buy and consume local food because they are getting increasingly preoccupied about the impact and cost of transportation.”

The Canada Agriculture Museum hopes this year’s Ice Cream Festival, being held on Sunday, August 7th will be a boon to this growing local movement.

“Part of the mandate of the museum is to help people better connect with the source of their food,” says Anne Lemieux Mitchell, a farm guide and the event’s organizer. “A lot of children come to the museum and when we ask them where their food comes from, they say ‘the grocery store’ and they can’t really get past that.”

Mitchell says guests to the museum are often amazed at the amount of work that goes into getting food from the farm to the table. The Canada Agriculture Museum is a working farm, and visitors can see seven different breeds of milk-producing cattle housed in the dairy barn. A popular demonstration is to learn about the journey from cow to cone and how much milk and cream is produced by this herd.

“The kids will learn about the different mammals that make milk on Canadian farms,” says Mitchell. “And there will be an educator from the Dairy Farmers of Ontario to explain what the one hundred per cent Canadian milk label means.”

As part of the local twist, beekeepers will be on hand promoting local honey and other products at the museum’s exhibition Taking Care of Beesness. They will help visitors make the distinct connection between bees and ice cream.

“About one third of the food we eat and drink depends on the pollination of plants,” explains Mitchell. “If you think about ice cream, one plant that the cows eat to produce their milk – alfalfa – has to be pollinated. And a lot of the flavours – cherries, strawberries and chocolate – rely on pollination as well.”

It has taken more than five months to organize the festival, which is expected to draw more than 2,000 visitors. Rain or shine, 15 staff will be on-hand operating a variety of activities, including children’s yoga, an educational session on mammals, and milking demonstrations at the end of the day. The favourites, of course, are expected to be old-fashioned ice cream, gelato and frozen yogurt-making.

To make the festival a true community event, fundraising dollars from the museum’s annual Baskets with Panache! event will sponsor travel costs, admission and a free lunch on the Saturday for up to 30 child and family organizations in Ottawa and the Outaouais. Organizers have also invited local groups to participate in the day, including Ottawa Fire Services to erect their ever-popular safety house. Last year, 2744 people attended the event, and organizers are expecting just as many people this time around.

New this year, visitors can see renewable energy in action at the Canada Agriculture Museum’s Energy Park: Nature at Work. This new outdoor exhibition explores energy use on Canadian farms, and takes a look at how the technology for harvesting energy from renewable sources is changing both the consumption and production of energy on the farm.

“The museum is really about connecting people back to the concept of where food comes from, how it is produced and how much work goes into producing it,” says Desaulniers. “We’re using a fun activity, a fun theme, and a fun food – ice cream – to show people that, even with our modern, mechanized processes, there is still a fair amount of work that goes into getting good food to our tables.”

For more information, contact:
Kelly Ray
613-998-5342

Recipes: Gelato and Frozen Yogurt (pdf 70 Kb)

General information

The Canada Agriculture Museum is located on the Central Experimental Farm, Prince of Wales Drive, between the traffic circle and Baseline Road.

Free parking.

For more information, please visit our Visitor Information page or call 613-991-3044.

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