I’ve been at the Wise Traditions 2012 Conference in Santa Clara, California for the past 4 days and have one day to go before I fly home to sunny and hopefully much warmer Florida.
While here, I’ve listened to many life changing presentations from a variety of experts many of which I will be blogging about in the coming weeks.
Possibly the very best part about a conference like this, however, is the one on one conversations you have with like minded people from all over the world that just bowl you over.
Here’s the conversation that takes the cake for me at this year’s Wise Traditions:
Yesterday, as I was walking by the room where the Children’s Program takes place, a man holding his young son called out to me.
I turned around and walked over and he introduced himself as Howard. Howard said that he really enjoyed the YouTube videos posted on my blog and thanked me for taking the time to film them for the benefit of others just learning the Traditional Diet “ropes” so to speak.
I told Howard that I appreciated his kind words and asked where he was from.
Howard said that he was from Juneau, Alaska and worked in the tourism industry. I said, “Wow, isn’t that a coincidence”- my family was just in Juneau this past summer on holiday.
I then told Howard how beautiful Juneau was and how much we enjoyed our time there – hiking to the Mendenhall Glacier and having a snowball fight at the top of Mount Juneau.
Howard then told me that he actually works at the top of Mount Juneau where the tram stops for those who ride it to the peak to enjoy the view.
Dumbfounded, I told Howard that is exactly where my family went – we took the tram up to the tourist center and hiked along the Mount Juneau trails until we came to a huge snow field where we could have our do or die family snowball fight.
Howard told me that we probably walked right past him as he works in the tourism center taking photographs.
A little later that day, I suddenly remembered that one of my children had actually been photographed by a man at the tram tourism center. Talking to my middle son on the phone a few hours later, he reminded me that yes indeed, his photo was taken by a man and his image projected onto a computer screen so his picture looked like it had been taken with a polar bear!
Later that day, I ran into Howard again and confirmed that yes, he was in fact the photographer taking those fun pictures of the children as they walked through the tourism center.
So, here I was at the Wise Traditions Conference in California, running into a raw milk drinker from Juneau, Alaska that I had already actually met and spoken to just a few months before!
How weird is that?
Raw milk drinkers are everywhere my friends, even at the top of a mountain in a sparsely populated state where raw milk is probably more expensive and tougher to obtain than almost anywhere else in North America!
Earth to USDA and FDA: Might as well deal with reality. Raw milk drinkers have reached critical mass. Continuing to try and snuff out raw milk with your fascist tactics is futile. Use your ever dwindling resources on the real criminals, not our farmers and consumers simply choosing to consume what is arguably the very first nutrient dense food to be consumed by civilized humans preceding even agriculture!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
I grew up on a dairy farm; but now do not have access to raw milk. 🙁 Sure miss that delicious raw milk. Looking back, I can now see that I started having health issues not long after I left for college. Oh for a glass of raw milk,
Hello here from Portugal, upon recently reading the Weston A. Price research I fell into a depression due to my face being too narrow. (I asked my mother and she told me I wasn’t breastfed, instead was given formula…) I’m 18. I sent a letter telling about it to the WAPF but unfortunately I got no reply. I’ve been pretty low carb and no sugar, although still eat processed foods like pasteurized cheese and butter because that’s what my parents buy… I eat a lot fish though. I recently got a palate expander in order to wide my palate and hopefully my face too. Unfortunately I’m 18 already and I guess my face stopped growing, is there anything I can do to improve it?
I read your post as I sit hear drinking my raw milk in Jackson, WI. As I’m sure you know, WI is a tough state within which to obtain raw milk. In order to obtain it here, I had to become an employee of a the farm that provides it. I have to work 1 hour a month during the growing season working in the their vegetable fields. I don’t need the work, but I do need the raw milk for me and family!
great article – love the last paragraph. Gonna quote you soon on FB
😉
thank you
Such a nice story Sarah! And I must say that through my job, I hear of raw milk drinkers at least once a week – in Australia 🙂 Keeps my morales up for the industry
Such a nice story Sarah! And I must say that through my job, I hear of raw milk drinkers at least once a week – in Australia 🙂 Keeps my morales up for the industry I must say
Enjoying raw goat’s milk in PA!
Oops I thought it was the Roberts tramway and Mt. Juneau. That’s what being a tourist is all about I guess. I guess I heard that wrong from the lady who was giving us the history of it on the way up the mountain.
Weird, I came to your site for the first time today… and I live in Juneau. It’s actually Mount Roberts, not Mount Juneau.
I’m not sure where he’s getting raw milk from probably not locally… nothing but the highest level of Ultra Pasteurized at the stores here.
I read this and I too wondered why this guy gets his raw milk from. As far as I know, we don’t have any cows here in Juneau anymore, do we? 🙂
I don’t think so, unless Swampy Acres has any. I think the state law requires buying animal shares if you want raw milk as well, they can’t just sell directly to people/stores. There’s a book on the history of the dairy industry in Juneau out there, I’ve thought of picking up a copy sometime. Could be an interesting read…
I wish someone would bring back something like that here. I know there was talk of miniature cows once that I saw in the Juneau Empire. Would be neat to pick up some fresh beef or raw milk… and maybe someone would start making fresh artisanal cheeses.
I live in Alaska, also. I am not going to say which town, in order to protect my farmer, but my farmer actually flies milk from his farm to Juneau…to people who own cow and/or goat shares from his farm. He told me that you cannot even own livestock of any kind in Juneau. Not sure whether this is just within city limits or includes the surrounding area. I would think just within city limits….
Secret hand shake from North Carolina where raw milk is illegal to sell! 🙂
Teresa, where/HOW do you get your raw milk? I live in Wilmington…up to this point I figured my best bet was to cross the SC border!