Artistic alchemy brewing in Vermilion

“It just began as a bunch of things that started brewing,” says McAuley, “and now it’s become a place and other communities are looking at us, asking how come?”

Down on Main Street, the Red Brick is buzzing with lunch patrons in a space that could easily fill in as a set on Portlandia, the popular TV show that parodies life in hipster-centric Portland, Ore.

Early afternoon finds Kim and Eric browsing wares at Art in the Park, an annual arts festival held each September. Steaming cinnamon buns come out of an open-air, brick oven in the centre of the park, mixing with the pleasant smell of early fall.

There is a quiet artfulness in many aspects of daily living here in Vermilion, it seems.

Perhaps Todd Ree sums it up best. “A plumber, an electrician and a builder were sitting at a bar, and in walks a reproductive physiologist,” he begins.

It sounds like the beginning of a joke but it’s actually his way of explaining how Copper Cork Distillery came into being. Ree is the reproductive physiologist; his partners comprise the other three. The distillery opened in fall 2019, with creative, tasty concoctions that could only be the brainchild of such a unique pairing.

Maybe it’s the alchemy of land-based craftsmen, artisans and academics that is spinning a new kind of prairie gold here in Vermilion.

“You make something with your hands, you do it on your own, and when people try it, the reaction they have… that is what drives me,” says Patrick Dupuis, founder of Old School Cheesery, only the sixth cheesemaker in the province of Alberta. The high demand for his products, in grocery stores and restaurants across the province, speaks for itself.

Back at the Pottery Guild, with clay-covered hands but a smile on her face, Chomyk’s reaction is obvious and immediate. When you channel the head, the heart, and the hands into a tangible product, there is something deeply satisfying about it. Whatever the cause of Vermilion’s transformation into a burgeoning art community, you can’t argue with the results.