Darren Barefoot is Living One Year, Canadian

Darren Barefoot, owner of Capulet Communications and one of the first-ever Vancouver bloggers, is currently on a mission to live all of 2011 “Canadian”. What this means is that for the next twelve months he will consume Canadian food, Canadian media, and wear Canadian-made clothing while blogging about the entire process.

Photo credit: DBarefoot on Flickr

When I asked Darren why he’s has made this challenge for himself he said that he’s mostly just seeing if it can be done. “I’m curious to discover how much of a Canadian life one can live, or how restricted my life will end up being by the end of the year. I’m also interested in thinking more about what I consume, so this seemed like a good way to make the research fun. Finally, I’m a bit of a patriot, so if there are
opportunities to uncover great Canadian products, services or ideas, that would be delightful.”

He will be dividing the year into 12 sections, one for each month, where he will layer on another level of restrictions. Starting off with ‘household goods’ the year will wrap up with ‘internet’ in December. “The categories are cumulative, so it’s pretty easy right now (though I have started carrying hand sanitizer everywhere, because I can’t use soap out in the world),” said Darren.

“The suffering will increase, and there’s a reason I put “Internet’ in December. That will be a challenge. So, too, will food, but only because I’m not a foodie at all, so it’ll be quite the effort to start to care that much about what goes in my mouth.”

Living in Vancouver it’s very possible to ‘live local’ or at least adhere to a 100 Mile Diet of sorts. I wondering if Darren were living and blogging from somewhere else (as he’s done in the past), if the game plan would be any different. “It’s definitely easier to be in Vancouver. Not only are there local farmer’s markets and organic grocery stores, but also local clothing and furniture designers I can connect with. If I was in a smaller town or away from the green ethos of the west coast, I’d have fewer options beyond big box stores and franchies. Mind you, I anticipate getting a lot of products shipped to me from other parts of the country, so the Vancouver advantage may not necessarily be enormous.”

You can follow Darren’s One Year, One Canadian blog or Twitter account for progress reports. He will also be running monthly contests starting with a $50 MEC gift card giveaway for January.