Chef Jamie Kennedy & Andrew Akiwenzie at the Brickworks Market

Fresh and smoked fish from the Akiwenzie fam­ily is a highly sought after item at local farmer’s mar­kets. Chefs and home cooks alike clamor for the stuff and it always sells out before the end of the day.

Andrew and Natasha Akiwenzie live on Georgian Bay with their two sons.

The fam­ily has been through hell in the past year and a half, almost los­ing their liveli­hood and the fish­ing busi­ness they’ve put so much work into.

A health inspec­tor shut down their small pro­cess­ing facil­ity giv­ing them no way to sell their fish to bring in an income to make the proper upgrades. Because they are located on a reser­va­tion no bank would give them a loan. They had no money for the needed ren­o­va­tions and no way to get money to make the renovations.

Despite their seeminly hope­less sit­u­a­tion they have been able to get a lot of the work com­pleted. Thanks in part to the gen­eros­ity of Toronto’s food and wine com­mu­nity pulling together for a fundraiser at Palais Royale last fall, equip­ment donated by Chef Jamie Kennedy and the sweat of many friends, fam­ily mem­bers and even a few strangers.

One stranger to the fam­ily learned of their sit­u­a­tion and decided to help. Fenwick Bonnell, of acclaimed design firm, Powell & Bonnell, is a man who knows how to get things done. After hear­ing of the Akiwenzie’s need for ceramic tile for their floor, at an esti­mated cost of $2500.00, he made a few phone calls and ended up speak­ing with Sylvia Benchimol at Stone Tile International. Sylvia was able to donate the stone needed and the Akiwenzie’s finally got their floor fin­ished. Said Sylvia, “Life is not just about work­ing and mak­ing money, is it? Every lit­tle action helps in heal­ing the world.”

Volunteers, like Charles Hazell from Taylor Hazell Architects Ltd. and Richard Murray, of First Choice Masonry from London were instru­men­tal in the project. Charles had the draw­ings of the plant done up and also gave much needed advice, while Richard sup­plied and helped lay the brick for the smok­ers. He also helped pour the pad for the smoke shed.

hard at work on the smokehouse

“That was a hot, dirty and exhaust­ing job to do by hand.” Natasha recalls. “Our cus­tomers and friends helped us a great deal.  They sent money to us when we had noth­ing, and still a long way to go before we could even con­sider fish­ing again.”

The work is ongo­ing, but there is finally an end in sight. “We still need to fin­ish the smok­ers. The smoke shed that is sep­a­rate from the house has to have hydro and water put in it. We need to put down cement or aphalt in front of the plant and smoke house to cut down on the dust or dirt and have any water slope away from the build­ing.” recounts Natasha.

She esti­mates that they will have spent $18000.00 when all is said and done. That’s a lot of money when you con­sider that a piece of smoked fish, which must be caught, cleaned, fileted, brined & smoked dur­ing a two day process, then dri­ven to Toronto to sell for only $5-$7.

In a time when you can buy a fast food meal for much less than that, we’d do well to remem­ber where our real food comes from and the efforts required to get it into our kitchens.

Olympic ath­letes won’t tell you this, but com­mon sense will — real food wins gold medals not Mcnuggets.

the donated tiles in the beau­ti­ful new facility