Beeswax candles and honey products a sweet success at Curve Lake pow wow

By Rick Garrick

CURVE LAKE FIRST NATION—Aundeck Omni Kaning’s Jaden McGregor recently promoted his Wasseyaa Design beeswax candles at the Curve Lake Annual Pow Wow on Sept. 15-16 after participating in the Ryerson Summer Company Program over the summer.

“I’m pretty happy with the sales we made,” says McGregor, a 16-year-old high school student and owner of Wasseyaa Design. “There was a lot of foot traffic and a lot of people coming in. Today we had the majority of our candles [for sale]. Since we don’t have much honey [left] this season, we only have a few of our honeys, such as three of our infused flavours: birch, cedar and sage.”

McGregor enjoyed participating in the Curve Lake Annual Pow Wow, which was held at Lance Wood Park.

“Our booth was facing the water, so we had a nice view of the lake,” McGregor says. “It was quite hot though, but we were lucky to be underneath shade. Overall, it was pretty nice.”

McGregor signed up for the Ryerson Summer Company Program this past June to begin the development of his Wasseyaa Design website, which is located online. Participating students in the Ryerson Summer Company Program were eligible for up to $3,000 in seed funding, more than 12 hours of business training, hands-on coaching, and mentoring to help with the launch of their business idea over the course of the summer.

“My grandfather is a beekeeper, so I’ve been around bees for a long time,” McGregor says. “My idea is basically to bring beekeeping to an online space so people can access our products and information about beekeeping.”

McGregor says his involvement in the Ryerson Summer Company Program enabled him to invest in a website template, website domain and supplies for the business.

“It was a very fun and interesting experience,” McGregor says. “I felt like I did learn a lot about business and what I can do to build up my business as well as what I can take away from the program and what I can put towards the rest of my life.”

McGregor began learning about the beekeeping business from his grandfather about eight years ago.

“We have probably 20 hives in total,” McGregor says, noting that the hives are located in the Toronto and Peterborough areas. “All of the locations give out a different taste, some are more florally, some are more forestry, some are sweeter, some are not. I like the Toronto Portlands, which is closest to my home.”

Jackie Esquimaux-Hamlin, McGregor’s grandmother, says he had a good experience at the Ryerson Summer Company Program.

“The people he met that were guiding and directing him were just superb,” Esquimaux-Hamlin says. “He does have a website up, he has a business now and he is working towards doing more with that. We used to go out and do all the public relations and sales, but now we are helping him to start to do that, to manage it and do the salesmanship.”

McGregor’s beeswax candles were designed by his grandfather and his honey is unpasteurized. He sells the honey in two sizes: 45mL and 190mL jars.

“Since we don’t heat our honey, it usually comes in a more solid state,” McGregor says. “When you heat honey, you destroy the enzymes and nutrients in it, so we try to keep it as natural as possible by not pasteurizing it.”