Riley Friesen has recently undertaken a massive orchard project that will supply Churchill Wild ecolodges with fresh produce.
Riley began cultivating an interest in gardening and horticulture several years ago when his parents bought a small plot of land and planted a few fruit trees. Since then he’s also built them a small greenhouse and each year he helps with the harvest and production of hand-pressed apple juice.
In 2018, when Mike Reimer had the idea to build a greenhouse at North Knife Lake Lodge, he was able to draw on Riley’s carpentry and horticultural knowledge, and also tasked him with the job. After extensive research, Riley came up with a design for a passive-solar greenhouse that could withstand the colder temperatures seen in northern Manitoba.
Three of the four walls (north, east, west) are insulated, while the south-facing window has glazing. Traditional greenhouses are glazed on all sides, which allows them to heat up during the day, and cool down at night, but in the north, cooling down could mean freezing temperatures. A passive-solar greenhouse allows it to warm up during the day, but not to get too cool inside because of the insulated walls. Additionally, barrels of water dubbed “thermal masks” were placed against the north-facing wall to store heat throughout the day and release it slowly at night to combat the cool-down effect.