As you turn off Dunning Road, a sign tacked to a post says playfully “Buffalo Boulevard” just across from two young bison munching hay. The long driveway then runs past open fields about as far as you can see before it veers left to the Bearbrook Game Meats retail store.
A family operation now decades old and in its third generation near the village of Navan, Bearbrook raises some very big livestock on their property – bison, elk and deer – but the route to today’s farm was a much longer and more winding one than the current driveway, according to owner Heidi Clement.
“My grandparents were farming in Germany in 1928. They came to Canada in 1962 and bought a 200-acre dairy farm in Leonard. My parents, Walter and Inge Henn, bought their own farm in 1969 on Frank Kenny Road and raised hogs and geese. They then bought the dairy farm on Russell Road in 1973 and expanded its range to exotic livestock and turned it into a tourism business.”
The Henns bought the property on Dunning Road in 1979 and started Bearbrook Game Meats in 2009.
Over the course of his career, Walter Henn launched a number of entrepreneurial pursuits in addition to farming: selling refurbished refrigeration equipment around the world including to the Soviet bloc, working real estate markets (including developing an on-farm hotel), helping establish the Ottawa farmers’ market, and launching a petting zoo and the agritourism venture.
Henn’s Ark
At the farm’s peak, there were roughly 600 animals living on the Bearbrook property – today they own 100 acres and rent 50 – which then included wild boar, deer, emu, ostrich, goats, sheep, chickens and geese; they’ve also had pheasants, llamas, donkeys and even zebus, the humped cattle species. Currently, you might see white or blue peacocks gracing the farm just for their beauty.
Call it the “ark effect:” exotic animal always seemed to capture Henn’s imagination, says Clement of her father, who died in 2016 and when she took over.
“We had a neighbor down the road who brought in some bison, which Dad thought was cool. And then the neighbour brought in some deer and Dad thought that was cool too. And then he bought some emus. And then he got some ostriches. And then he got some wild boar. And we had sheep. And we had goats.”
Back in the day, they had their own butcher shop and abattoir, too. (As a sidebar which shows the changes in local agriculture, the number of local abattoirs licensed in Ontario has decreased from 229 in 1999 to 115 in 2020: this means that as consumer demand for locally-produced food has increased significantly, processing capacity – and therefore family-farm growth – has sadly slumped.)
Today, Bearbrook has pared down the number of animals they raise and care for: in addition to the majestic elk and bison that roam the pastureland and wooded lots, Bearbrook raises red deer, free-range chickens and free-range turkeys. You can also visit the farm to see their beautiful English fallow deer, too (but they’re not for sale).
A host of exotic and everyday ingredients
Large chest freezers queued end to end in the retail store are labelled variously “exotic birds,” “assorted livers and hearts,” “frozen breads and bread doughs” and a host of prepared condiments, snacks and frozen foods including cabbage rolls, fish, rabbit, mixed-game chili, and at least a dozen different sausages.
There’s both tourtière and cipaille, and Clement says that the products they sell are “99 per cent” local and Canadian.
“We have water buffalo and water buffalo cheese from a farm in Stirling,” says Clement. “But we also have kangaroo and get caribou from Finland.”
For any of Bearbrook’s foods, you can purchase them directly at the on-farm retail store that’s open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., by phone order, and through their online ordering system. There’s free delivery over a certain dollar amount and within 100 kilometres.
As for farmers’ markets, in season, they also sell at the Orleans, Lansdowne, Navan, Carp, Kanata and Westboro markets, in addition to a number of Christmas markets.
Bearbrook employs about 22 people (10 full-time with some part-time seasonal employees in addition to family); when I visited, matriarch Inge Henn, age 82, was working at a desk in an office.
Clement says that her son Josh and daughter-in-law Shanice are considering taking over the business eventually to keep the generational nature of the farm rolling.
Sales are important but so is an educated customer
Increasing numbers of customers are interested in the health aspects of a game meat like bison: it’s low in saturated fat and high in protein.
As for animal welfare, the large Bearbrook livestock – the elk, deer and bison – live outside year-round in a spacious environment similar to that of their wild kin. The animals are healthy, relaxed and less prone to disease, says Clement.
While logistics and sales at Bearbrook – a business which takes a cut in pay when the six summer farmers’ markets they attend close until April – are Clement’s primary focus, she’s also serious about getting the message out about the benefits of supporting local farms in general.
Describing so-called exotic meats as “a growing market with customers,” Clement says it was a more difficult sell earlier in their history when people were not as open-minded to try new things as they are now.
“People were beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and that was it. Some fish. Now with the internet and cooking shows and chefs and social media, people are realizing that they’re missing out. The market has expanded.”
She wants customers to know that “farming is never easy” and faces obstacles like rising feed and transportation costs, ongoing infrastructure maintenance like fencing and gravel for roadways, veterinary and abattoir bills, and, of course, the weather – storms that do significant property damage, or drought years that force a grass-fed operation like Bearbrook to buy expensive hay.
Prices for everything keep going up, Clements acknowledges, but she adds those facts certainly don’t prevent Bearbrook from being an important agricultural experience for customers.
“The farm is open to the public, so anyone can come here during our daily hours of operation and take a tour, bring the kids to learn. We want more people to understand what we do and know about the food they put on their table. We put out the best products that we possibly can.”
Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of “Farm to Table” and co-author of “Cooking with Shakespeare.” Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.
