SOMETIMES CHANGE ISN’T ABOUT CHOICE, BUT SURVIVAL

It was a change or die decision.

The business started by Kier Knudsen’s grandfather in 1919 was facing a pivotal moment.

It was 1992 and Ottawa had just declared a moratorium on northern cod.

The Dark Tickle company, in the small town of St. Lunaire-griquet on the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, had been built on the buying and selling of cod fish.

“We were traditionally fish buyers/merchants,” says Knudsen. “We had a general store selling hardware, groceries, dry goods, fuel, clothing, everything essentially.” The moratorium changed everything.

They sold off most of the business — the fishing supplies, hardware and their trucks.

“It was a struggle for us; we just held on by the skin of our teeth.

“We hit the point where we had to change or die.”

It was tourism, and a small idea, that made the difference for Dark Tickle.

In the late 1980s, as more visitors began to wander up the Great Northern Peninsula to visit the Norse settlement at L’anse aux Meadows, the company had added a craft section at the back of the shop — selling locally-made items.

Then tourists started asking where they might be able to buy bakeapple and partridgeberry jams.

Knudsen’s parents went in search of commercial producers to provide the jams, and found nothing.

They decided to make their own; sourcing wild berries — picked by local people on the barrens and bogs around Newfoundland and Labrador.

Today jams and sauces are the centre of the Dark Tickle business; the product widely available on store shelves and online.

At their rural store visitors can also watch the jam making in progress and enjoy treats in the recently-added café. They’ve also added a boat tour operation.

While they’re considered a rural success story, Knudsen says doing business in a rural community has some particular challenges.

Shipping costs for the required supplies — particularly bottles and sugar — are expensive when you’re over 300 kilometres away from the nearest urban centre.

Add those shipping costs to the final product, he says, and you’re at a bit of a disadvantage, especially if you’re competing on-line with producers of similar products.

On the flip side, however, the cost of business rent and taxes is lower in a rural community.

Knudsen also notes the decision to build a business in rural is not solely about the money. “It’s about quality of life.”

He and his wife lived in downtown Toronto and in the United States before making their way back to their rural hometown.

As for government’s role in rural business development, Knudsen says communities might have depended a little too much on government for the answers.

But he does think governments can help rural businesses and communities simply by making decisions for the longterm and the benefit of all, rather than just to get them through the next term of office.

“It seems successive government after successive government have just made poor decisions, stupid decisions that create debt loads for all of us.”

When it comes to government policy, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) keeps a close watch on how decision-making impacts businesses.

Jordi Morgan is vice-president of the Atlantic Canada chapter of the CFIB.

He says rural communities will always hold an important place in the larger economic picture because resource-based industries, like fishing, agriculture and forestry, are essential and are rural.

“I don't think a province like Nova Scotia is going to survive on video technology development,” he said. “Things like agriculture will always be needed.”

Yet there are challenges to doing business and living in a rural setting, like the labour force.

“Access to labour is generally in the top three principal concerns of our members,” he says, “and certainly in rural areas it’s a much deeper concern.”

The answer will lie, partly, in immigration, he says. “It’s not a magic bullet but it will help in growing our provincial populations.”

He said local communities need to be able to bring people in from other countries and understand how to retain them and make them part of the community.

Morgan added the education system in Atlantic Canada must also focus more on helping students see the potential in entrepreneurship and career opportunities, opportunities that don’t necessarily depend on a university degree.

“We need trades people as much as we need university students,” he said, “but the education system is generally set up around a liberal arts degree, sending students off to university.”

He says the education system has to adjust and be mindful of what our labour needs are, so students can understand all their options.

“I think the more awareness they (students) have about the opportunities available to them — whether it’s the trades or entrepreneurship — and if they like living in rural areas, then it can become a viable option for them.”

While some governments in Atlantic Canada — notably Nova Scotia — have made progress in reducing red tape and lowering the tax burden for small businesses, Morgan says more needs to be done.

Governments also need to continue to help build better Internet in rural areas.

Without a decent Internet service in today’s world, he said, a community or a business is at a disadvantage.

“As we see more opportunity opening up from the point of view of people being able to do businesses from wherever they want to be, then there’s an ability for people to live in a small community and conduct business right around the world.

“And a lot of people think that would be a great lifestyle choice.”