When I arrive at Healing Farm, I have an overwhelming sense that I've come home. This 18-acre organic farm on Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula is everything I love about this part of the world, where I grew up. There are fruit trees and blackberry vines and even 85 maples, that ultimate symbol of Canada, tapped each year for syrup. But what really gets me is the smell of the western red cedar, hemlock, and Sitka spruce.

I moved from Vancouver to Amsterdam six months ago, and walking into the forest that takes up half the farm's land, standing under the 400-year old trees, I find myself almost paralyzed with nostalgia. Amsterdam has trees, of course, but not these towering sentries — and very few evergreens…

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