Bless Our Little Pigdom

Rain batters the windows as we gather in a kitchen that hisses and sputters with greasy pork scents. The knife is poised to cut through the garlic-, lemon- and herb-rubbed crackling on our first fresh ham. I can't believe we got the job done. This meal is a culmination of several months in the pigpen -- slopping, watering and feeding up six animals to market size.

Barry, on whose land our pig-farming experiment took place, says he feels like a proper redneck now, having shot his own hog. His partner Ruth would do it again too; in fact, she and Barry have cooked up a plan to raise a dozen pigs next season. They went and got slaughterhouse status, for God's sake.

It's not that we're all leaping on some 100-mile-diet bandwagon; it's just that we live on an island. Across a wicked body of water off the British Columbia coastline called Hecate Strait. Groceries come once a week, if the ferry comes at all -- think seven-metre swells and 80-kilometre-per-hour winds. And woe to those who haven't shopped on Monday or Tuesday, because, as we found out, even the pigs aren't into the leftover turnips.

People think of the remote Haida Gwaii archipelago and imagine a wild, spiritual place. It can be that too, but some folks live in old gravel pits and find themselves with 500 feet of almost-free chainlink fence. They wonder what to do with it. Their stomachs rumble. Sure, there's the gardening thing, but T-bone steaks sell for $13. Cows take up a lot of room, however, and so their minds turn to pig-farming. They'll need help getting that fence up. Come to think of it, a few other people they know might want fresh pork too. That's how plans are hatched on hungry, windy, rainy winter nights.

Pre-pig

"Make sure you cut the testicles off before you slaughter them," says one experienced friend, "or the meat won't have the flavour you're expecting."

What I'm expecting is smoky bacon, mustard-crusted tenderloin, sticky ribs, apple-stuffed shoulder roast, salty ham and a spicy sausage or two. I'm also dreaming of high-end products like salt-cured prosciutto and dry-aged salami from our hand-raised pigs. But the reality is, we have to build a pen first.

Eight of us -- four couples -- are getting six piglets. One for each couple, one for the barbeque we're going to have mid-summer, and one for the guy who fired up his backhoe to dig the fence trench in Ruth and Barry's backyard. We're a diverse bunch --bureaucrats, carpenters, a truck driver, a trapper, a fish-plant manager and a reporter. We all bring something to the table: butchering skills, a family farming background, spit-roasting expertise and screwing talent. (Come on, get your mind out of the wallow -- screwing boards for the scavenged-lumber shack where the pigs will live.)

The creatures hail from the Kispiox Valley near Hazelton and will travel by ferry across the strait. We'll grow them out to 150 pounds, which should take about six months. We've ordered pig feed, but we're intent on gathering local supplies too. You know, last week's fruits and vegetables from the grocers. The leftover chow mein from the Chinese buffet. Besides shoveling pig shit, this is one way that I, the low-on-farm-skills reporter, can contribute.

Then I read in a fancy food magazine about urban pig-farmers in Oakland dumpster diving behind chic restaurants every night. They get garbage bags full of still-steaming Spanish rice. Whole pizzas barely burnt. Bunches of leftover lettuce. Their shirts become splattered with tomatoes and peach juice runs down their arms. Their two pigs eat seven 15-gallon buckets of food a night and the keepers are the pigs' bitches. Where are we going to find enough to feed six swine in Queen Charlotte, a town of 1,000?

"Don't feed them bananas or they get plugged up."

"Coconut is good, especially if you pit-cook them like in Hawaii. They'll taste tropical."

Every time we mention pigs, we get a piece of husbandry advice pulled from long-ago lives. Remembrances from grandpa's Ontario farm or the retired postmistress's back-to-the-land days. Often the advice comes as a warning. Pigs may be smart, but they're headstrong and merciless in their quest for food.

"Don't go in the pig pen when menstruating or they'll come after you."

"Did you hear about the woman with only one hand? The other was bitten off in childhood when she was feeding the family hogs."

The pig farmer in Oakland, I read, tosses down a new bed of sawdust and gets out before Big Girl moseys over. "I think she wanted to drag me down and eat me," she recalled in the article. Even Barry, the tough-as-nails trucker in the group, is wary of the forthcoming fangs.

I never asked why dangling testicles would impact the meat's flavour. But four adults cornering a creature in the yard while a vet reaches in to make the snip? Yeesh. Ours better come testicle-free.

Pig-athon

The pigs arrive in April, sans sacs. They are a mix of Yorkshire, Lacombe and who-knows-what. Farmer Brown said that they were born on Feb. 15, 2010 and weigh more than 50 pounds each.

"Don't name them," another friend who raised pigs warned. "It's hard enough to kill them as it is." He's still sad about Chester, who wiggled his pink head in the spray of the hose.

Dave, who's getting a pig in exchange for the use of his backhoe, jokes that he'll take the prettiest one. We choose the little golden-brown fellow with black hair for him and call him Dave. The others, bigger and pink, get names too. I know -- we were warned. Pork Chop, Bacon Girl, Harriet, Big Guy One Eye (he had an infection in his left eye, it sealed shut and we never saw it again). And is No Name a name? Because that's what we called the last one.

Ruth admires their fat little behinds. She's the one we feel will succumb to sentimentality. After all, they're in her yard and, well, she seems to love them so. But no, she assures us, the cleft between their chubby butt cheeks is like a sign saying, "Cut Here."

Barry, we discover, goes in to the pen each evening and drinks a glass of wine with our swine. Monsieur Boardeaux. Really, he's there to lock the pigs in at night. Too many bear stories.

Like the one about two pigs who disappeared up island at Lawn Hill. The farmer looked behind the pen and found a horror show. Greasy slabs of pig flesh hung from the trees, she said. Guts sprayed everywhere. All she could fathom was the bear jumping a pig and ensuing frenzy, too gross to imagine. Nearby she found the second pig, frozen to the spot. As she approached, it ran squealing into the trees. Had it witnessed the massacre?

The bear didn't live much longer. Her 12-year-old took the rifle and shot it before it could come back for more. That's why we get the backhoe in for the 8-foot fence; we don't want any pigs escaping, or worse, any bears getting in.

A river otter shows up in Ruth and Barry's garden. They've never seen one there before, but they also haven't been dumping hundreds of pounds of fish there either. Freezer-burned salmon? Bring it on. We've cleaned out our freezer and Barry's got the word out to his fishermen friends. The pigs love it. As the boss of this operation, he's given us a six-week window. After that, he won't hear of it: "I'm not doing all this and have my pigs taste like salmon." Later while pushing my way into the pen with a bucket of feed, I wonder if there's fishmeal mixed in with the grain.

The blue bin

The pigs fight over the melons, bashing each other in the face with hard, half-spherical pieces; they stampede to the trough when it's filled with chocolate milk and squeal at the sight of grapes; but they don't want the turnips, even after they're boiled until soft with the onions.

We're feeding them from a big blue bin, a fish tote we left at the local grocery store. The staff is happy because they have no extra garbage bin this year. The pigs are happy too. Forty pineapples in one day. Twelve five-pound crates of blueberries. Peaches, strawberries, green beans. Ruth keeps the stickers in a journal she's using to document this adventure. Our locally raised pigs are eating their way around the world. Cherry tomatoes from Arizona, apples from New Zealand, raspberries from Mexico.

We rip open bags of Fiesta salad from California, shaking cut lettuce, salsa and grated cheese into the bucket. Barry holds cartons of whipping cream to Dave's snout and the pig sucks until the sides cave in. Products I've never seen before, or want to see again -- lactose-free milk; tropical-flavoured yogurt drinks; garlic spray. We can't believe the waste. Some days there is so little here, and on others, an unwieldy excess of tropical fruit. Someone needs to get a handle on supply-and-demand.

"Don't feed them for too long," advises Joe, a friend in Smithers who's been through the drill; they stop converting feed into flesh and all input becomes fat. "You want a little fat on your hog," he adds, but not like his. He rendered the thick white slabs into lard, in his kitchen. He hasn't been able to eat pork since: "The smell just got to me."

It's two months in and our creatures have tripled in size. The pigs like to nibble at rubber, and gumboots provide little protection from their trotters anyway. Their muddy snouts leave prints on my jeans; one day they chew at the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Muscling into their cage becomes nerve-wracking, especially with the grain. As soon as they hear the twang of the iron bucket, they stampede for the gate. Barry learns to fill the bucket the night before, tiptoeing out in the morning, opening the pen and dumping it in as the first pig awakes.

On Saturdays, Tom and I come to shovel poo. The stink of the farm hits us from the road and our large brown mutt, Frida, starts leaping in the back seat as we slow down for the turn. Barrelling out the car door, she races for the pen. Her yipping stops as she gorges on the tall grass by the fence. She's obsessed with the pigs and takes it out on the lawn. A mouthful, then barking. A spin around the perimeter, more grass and more barking.

Frida tries to stick her muzzle through chainlink to nab a pink nose or a tail. The pigs don't seem to care. They're said to be as smart as dogs, but watching this scene makes me wonder whether they haven't beaten our pet on the intelligence scale by a point or two.

Tom wants to teach Frida to calm herself and opens the gate. She charges in and heads straight for the pigsty. At the door her gangly legs splay as she puts on the brakes. Three pigs, just up from their naps, amble about. They hesitate, and the dog, once bigger than them, is half in and half out of the door, deciding. Yipping. Snapping. Tom roars and she submits, slinking back to him. I try to picture the scene if she'd gone in. A belly opened, but whose?

Midsummer passes. The long days are hot and the pigs seek shade. Gary comes with his nephew and sprays them, creating a welcome muddy wallow. They're really big now. We've done a drive-around and found that ours are heftier than most others on the islands. It's late July and time to celebrate. Barry gives marching orders. Paper plates. Coleslaw. Mustard. Buns. He rents a rotisserie from the college. A friend will bring crab. Now we need salmon. Salmon? I ask. I thought we were roasting a pig? A feast isn't a feast without fish, he says.

Ah, but first we have to kill one.

Tomorrow: Do we have the guts?