For years, Virginia Brietzke and her husband Peter lived a double life: two weeks on, working in the oil and gas industry in B.C., Alberta and other areas of Canada, and two weeks off, pouring their income into something entirely different.
“Both my husband and I are engineers,” says Virginia. “That was our seed money to purchase the [farm] land, set up our corporation and build our house and our barn.”
The “farm” is, quite simply, the Truffle Farm, set on 40 acres of land in Parksville on Vancouver Island. It’s home to thousands of Garry oak and hazelnut trees inoculated with truffle spores, and also to a family of Lagotto Romagnolo dogs—or, as they’re introduced to the folks who visit the farm, “truffle dogs” (because of their ability to sniff out truffles).
Since retiring from engineering earlier this year, Virginia spends her days curating long-table dinners, foraging for truffles, breeding and training dogs and planning weddings on what is believed to be Canada’s first truffle farm (which, by the way, even has a rentable guest lodging: the Truffle Hut).
“I’m 54. Now that we’re established and things are paid for, one of us can retire and come up with all these amazing events and do this great stuff for our community and for our retirement,” she says.
While most people might have planned long, sunny vacations or world cruises for their retirement, Virginia’s slow exit from engineering into truffle farming came naturally.
For starters, Virginia’s parents had owned the property for years. Originally farmers from Alberta, the couple moved to Vancouver Island and acquired the 40 acres in 1999. During a family trip to Italy during truffle season, they dined on and fell in love with the tartufo nero (black Perigord truffle). The ever-industrious farmers also noticed that the Italian climate was similar to their new home on Vancouver Island.
“They thought, ‘Well, Vancouver Island isn’t a lot different from where we are here in Italy for the temperature, and the only thing is the pH of the soils,’” Virginia explains. “They thought, ‘Why don’t we try?’”
A couple of decades later, Virginia and Peter—still based in Alberta and working in oil—jumped on the opportunity to join the family farm after saving up a little cash. Virginia’s parents subdivided the original 40 acres, and the Brietzkes purchased half the property.
“We were fortunate to have the oldest plantations on the acres we purchased, and we built our house, [an] activity barn and an Airbnb,” Virginia says.
That move—from Alberta back to Vancouver Island—echoed her parents’, making the experimental truffle farm a second-generation family business.
Following in the footsteps of her parents, too, is the work of breeding and caring for those truffle dogs, but Virginia is clear that they’re not just bred as workhorses (or workdogs, if you will).
Sure, they’ve got a “master hunter”—the eight-year-old King Caesar, known for his apex truffle-scenting abilities—but other pups have been trained to use their sniffing powers for detection of drugs and diabetes, and about 30 percent of the dogs can be employed for wellness therapies.
“They either go to a clinic, where they’re coming every day with the owner to help with therapy, [or to] special needs and for mental therapy and trauma. [Lagotto Romagnolo] dogs are really good for trauma, because they’re very intuitive,” she says. The remaining pups are adopted out as family pets.
When not breeding, raising and hunting with the dogs, Virginia is coming up with ideas for events to keep the community engaged at the farm—pasta cooking classes with truffles, floral arrangement workshops and those long-table dinners among them. The weddings the couple hosts at the farm can be a full-service package: truffle-influenced dinner, photography, barn and bridal suite are all included, which Virginia happily curates.
Ten years ago, you might have found Virginia in steel toe boots and breaking earth to find its valuable resources, but her day-to-day now belongs to truffles, dogs and a growing (and delicious) community hub.
