Adam Clarke: Rooted on Galiano Island

On Galiano Island, British Columbia, Adam Clarke has built a model for small-scale cannabis done right, merging cultivation and hospitality in a way that feels distinctly West Coast. As owner of Galiano Grow House and West Coast Weedery, Clarke brings together hemp, cannabis, and tourism in one community-driven ecosystem. Haley Nagasaki interviews Adam about the journey.

Haley Nagasaki: How long have you been on Galiano Island, and what licenses do you currently hold under your operations?

Adam Clarke: We’ve been on this farm for six years and on the island for nine, and it’s three and a half acres. Galiano Grow House holds an industrial hemp license, and West Coast Weedery holds a microcultivation and microprocessing license.

HN: What’s happening lately with West Coast Weedery?

AC: We are just getting approved for direct delivery in the middle of that, and then that allows us to sell product directly to retailers in BC. We have a crop going on right now, JLSY and an AZAI from Life Cycle Botanics. We have some leftovers from the last crop, and we’ve been buying some weed, so we’re about to start making pre-rolls and see what sells! 

HN: Tell me about your outdoor crop this year – how did the season go?

AC: The outdoor grow was amazing. This year, we ran only BIOCANNA on everything outdoors, and it went very well. I haven’t actually sent it in for lab testing yet because I’ve just been waiting for it to cure. The harvest started in August and finished two weeks ago.

Feeding BIOCANNA made it super easy. Easy to just add straight into your big tank, and it feeds through irrigation. I didn’t have any plants fall over this year. Getting better root growth – really deep, strong plants – that’s different this year than we’ve ever had.  

Hemp is like the land of fun. You get to do all sorts of stuff under old regulations that are less stringent. Until you move it into the microprocessing license, it’s still classified as a farm crop. It all gets accounted for, but I don’t have to document it as much.

HN: How do Galiano Grow House and West Coast Weedery fit together?

AC: Galiano Grow House operates the farm, and West Coast Weedery operates the cannabis element of the farm. So, West Coast Weedery is the licensed producer and cultivator. We’re applying for our PRS license (producer retail store), which allows us to operate a retail store on the property, and all of that will be handled by West Coast Weedery. Galiano Grow House has the B&B and the farm, the food, the hemp – all of that.

HN: What’s your vision for the retail or farmgate store and cannabis B&B?

AC: Well, the cannabis B&B is already there and running. Yes, we allow cannabis consumption. No, we do not provide cannabis. Could I gift someone cannabis? Yes, I could if I wanted to, and that’s kind of my own personal decision about what I do, rather than what the companies do.

My focus for having the retail store is so that we can actually curate better products in the Weedery and bring them to market in small batch. I want to be able to bring product in from all over the place and only put out the best stuff with limited edition drops.

HN: What kind of products are you looking to work with right now?

AC: Right now, we’re just aiming for flower, basically. I have some people looking at working with us on oils and vape carts, but we won’t actually make them ourselves. It’ll be like a co-branded product.

HN: Any other highlights from this year’s growing season?

AC: We had 150 outdoor plants – big, giant plants. We’ll find out the yield when we weigh it!  But that all went over well, and because it’s one-quarter auto-flower, some finished in August, some in October. We had almost no rain this year. So we had no mold, but huge plants – it was a pretty ideal growing season. 

HN: Where do you source your genetics, and what’s your take on industrial hemp in Canada right now?

AC: Industrial hemp all has to come from pedigree seed, so that stuff comes from Verve, I believe it’s called; they’re in Saskatchewan. I don’t get much choice in the matter, unlike cannabis, where you can do whatever you want. Industrial hemp is very specific.

In Canada, we don’t really have people growing for fiber. We have people growing for food. Hemp fabric – hemp anything – is remarkably expensive overseas. Getting soft hemp material takes quite a lot of processing, whereas harder, heavier woven canvas is much easier to work with. Hemp needs someone to process it. You need someone who wants to use the product, so the farmers will farm whatever they can sell. If they can’t sell it, they won’t farm it.

HN: We’re seven years into legalization. How’s it been for you?

AC: We’re always good, we’re small, we don’t have too much to move. But everything’s going great in the industry – it’s all coming back together now. So, there are opportunities to sell and buy, and people are finally making money. It’s finally making sense.