Growing cloth from the ground up.
We are rebuilding a regional flax-to-linen culture through growing, processing, shared tools, community learning and hands-on textile practice.
A fibre with deep roots here.
Flax connects land, labour, history and cloth. In the West Kootenays, its story includes Doukhobor textile traditions, Sinixt history and presence, and a new generation of growers and makers asking what a regional linen system might become.
Flax, land and memory
Flax has deep roots in this region, but its history is not singular.
Doukhobor communities who settled in the West Kootenays carried knowledge of growing, processing, spinning and weaving flax into linen. Their textile traditions form an important part of the region's material history.
These practices also took place within Sinixt təmxʷúlaʔxʷ. Colonial borders, settlement, reserve policy and displacement profoundly altered Sinixt relationships with their lands. In 1956, the Canadian government declared the Arrow Lakes Band extinct for purposes of the Indian Act, despite the continued existence of Sinixt people.
Our work with flax therefore asks us to learn not only how a plant becomes cloth, but how land, culture, colonialism, labour and knowledge are woven through the materials we use.
Material literacy requires historical literacy.
From experiment to regional practice
In 2024, the West Kootenay Fibreshed began exploring the viability of flax in our bioregion through a community plot in Meadow Creek. Volunteers weeded, harvested, dried and retted the crop by hand.
What began as an experiment has grown into a wider effort to rebuild skills, tools and relationships around regional linen.
Fibre is also a question of land.
Fibre landscapes are shaped by history
Flax can produce textile fibre on relatively small cultivated plots, making it well suited to the narrow valleys and limited agricultural land of the West Kootenays.
But the landscape available for fibre production today has been profoundly reshaped. In 1956, the Arrow Lakes Band was declared extinct for purposes of the Indian Act despite the continued existence of Sinixt people.
The Columbia River Treaty later brought large-scale dam construction and reservoir flooding for flood control and hydroelectric power. Valley-bottom lands, traditional First Nations sites, agricultural areas and communities were inundated.
Grazing-based fibres such as wool may suit some landscapes shaped by ranching, while flax offers another path for producing fibre on smaller cultivated plots. Asking what can grow here today also means asking how the land came to look the way it does.
More than cloth
Flax sits at the intersection of food and fibre. Seed separated during processing can connect textile production with the wider foodshed, while the stalk becomes a source of bast fibre for linen.
A living knowledge system
Growing linen creates opportunities to rebuild regional knowledge around soil, growing, retting, fibre processing, spinning, weaving and making.
The flax process
Grow
Sow densely, tend the crop and pull plants at fibre harvest.
Ret
Use moisture and microbes to loosen fibre from the woody stem.
Break
Crush the dried stalk to separate the inner woody material.
Scutch + Hackle
Clean, align and refine the fibres into spinnable flax.
Spin + Weave
Transform fibre into thread and ultimately into linen cloth.
Shared tools for shared learning.
Rebuilding a regional system together.
From backyard gardens to larger plots, growers contribute to a decentralized fibre system rooted in place and shared learning.
Throughout the season, participants gather to compare observations, challenges and successes. The flax grown through the network then moves into fall and winter processing and learning opportunities.
This is not only about growing a crop. It is about rebuilding the confidence, relationships and material knowledge needed for a regional linen culture to take root.
Learn flax from seed to cloth.
Join a workshop, participate in the Grower Network, or borrow flax processing tools and continue learning in your own community.
Explore Upcoming Workshops