Photo credit: Chris Adair

Meet Dakini Tidal Wilds…

Amanda Swinimer, Dakini Tidal Wilds harvests seaweed in the Juan de Fuca Strait off the west coast of Vancouver Island, near Sooke, B.C.

What’s your favourite seaweed fact?

Seaweeds are among the fastest-growing organisms in the world and among the most ancient.

What’s the best thing about your job?

The best thing about my job is being in the ocean. The second-best thing is sharing my passion for seaweeds with people.

What do you listen to at work?

Seaweed harvesting music is the sound of my breathing through my snorkel, however, when I’m hanging the seaweed, which takes hours, I like to listen to reggae.

What’s the most important thing about sustainable harvesting for you?

The absolute number one rule for sustainably harvesting seaweed is to never rip it up but to cut it in a place where it will continue to regenerate. Because seaweed is so fast-growing, I can harvest from the same individual seaweed multiple times in a season. Bull Kelp, for example, can grow more than a foot a day in the sunny days of summer.

What should everyone know about seaweed?

Seaweed is packed with biologically active compounds not found anywhere else in nature that have astounding benefits to human health. Two of the most important of these health-promoting compounds—sodium alginate and fucoidan—are found in the brown seaweeds (which includes kelps).

Dakini Tidal Wilds ...Wild-Crafted Seaweed from the Pacific NW