Our rural entrepreneur series features everyday entrepreneurs making big waves in small communities. We’re honoured to kick off the series with Eric Hocken and dedicate this article to Eric’s late father and Jillian’s Uncle, Dan Hocken.
Tell us a bit about yourself, your business, and the place you call home
My name is Eric Hocken, and I am the Founder, CEO, and Master Grower at Good Grass Indigenous Medicines. My home is Kwadacha Nation, the third most remote indigenous reserve in Canada and the second most remote in the province of British Columbia.
Our company name comes from the Tsek’ene elders’ word for cannabis, Tl’owe Winzoo, or good grass. We specialize in cannabis and CBD products, cannabis cultivation, consulting, and wilderness therapy. We’ve branched off with a secondary company called Daboriginal Extractions, which specializes in all aspects of cannabinoid extraction. We are 100% Indigenous-owned and operated, with a mission to assist other Indigenous Sovereign Nations to develop their own organic cultivation programs, bringing both economic and wellness benefits to even the most remote communities.
How did it all begin?
I lived my whole life with my late father and ended up going out and learning the same trades tickets as him: sheet metal, insulating, plumbing. We decided to do heating and insulating trades together in Alberta. I started by getting my Red Seal insulating ticket. I worked in Alberta oilfields for several years building oilfield leases and such. That experience really brought me to a level where people recognized my project-building skills.
Dad and I lived and worked with each other for 15 years before the oil industry in Alberta crashed eight years ago, and we moved to Kwadacha. It was a really hard move. We took whatever we could for work. At first, I started a fishing adventure company. Having multiple trades tickets, Dad would always get called out to lend his skills to large cannabis growing operations, but it was a hush-hush thing. He was diagnosed with cancer around the same time it seemed cannabis would be legalized. We knew there would be an opportunity for me to scale the skills Dad had to become a force in the industry. Dad taught me everything I know while doing his best to fight cancer. I had to press Chief and Council to go forth with the venture, which was a very hard dynamic on the reserve.
How has your vision changed from your start-up until now?
During start-up, I was at every band meeting for about two years. I put a business plan forth to the nation to participate in the licensed government market, and there were a lot of hoops to go through. The band sent me to the Indigenous Cannabis & Hemp Conference in Kelowna, and I met a fellow there by the name of Cory Brewer of the Okanagan Nation and Timix Wellness. Cory supported me by getting some of my first products on his sale on his shelves. He also put me in touch with a bunch of people advocating for rights under United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). I realized that I was spending way too much time trying to jump into something that I wasn’t even supposed to be part of. I learned how nations were using UNDRIP to establish their own cannabis control laws, so I decided I would not only help write our laws but take to them above and beyond the Cannabis Act in any possible way I could, including following most of my stringent practices for cultivation using organic methods.
I’m really happy we changed course and decided to go the sovereign route because a lot of companies that are doing the government licensing route now are sitting with investors, millions of dollars in equity, and nowhere to really put their products. Being stuck in that sort of situation is not what nations deserve. We deserve to be at the top of our own markets not caught up in a colonial market.
What principles guide your business?
Good Grass Indigenous Medicines works within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and its principles of sovereignty. There are a lot of separate ways into the cannabis industry, but indigenous people are recognizing that we don’t want the cannabis industry to become like the forestry industry, with everything corporately run – not in a good and equal way for indigenous people. So we’ve been banding together as nations to keep things 100% sovereign. I’ve built strong nation-to-nation with Tyler Bob of Mary Jane’s Pure Cure and Cory Brewer of Timix Wellness. Now there are even larger indigenous companies like Legacy 420 helping all the smaller start-ups. They’re a company that will help with testing for safety and quality standards, as well as nation-to-nation wholesale. The indigenous cannabis market is growing, and there’s a strong push to establish indigenous-run testing facilities in each province.
How has living remotely shaped your business?
I’ve had to be extremely diverse. I have friends in the industry in the Okanagan area, and their lands are set right along the highway, which is not a luxury I have. The people of Kwadacha were displaced to a remote reserve due to the construction of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. I have to really network with a lot of other nations and run multiple separate brands to get my products out there and make them shine. I’ve also had to branch into consulting. I’ve opened a store here and done really well for my people creating jobs, but I have to do everything I can to make it work because we are out in the middle of nowhere and run into a lot of transport and logistics problems. It seems like I get knocked back a little bit pretty regularly.
What has surprised you most about running your own business?
Not a whole lot to be honest. Running businesses is what the Hockens do, and I’m following in my late father’s footsteps. He taught me how to grow cannabis, and we’d probably be a lot farther along if he were still with us, but he is, in a way, here beside me today. I follow in his name and make sure that I keep going in whatever way I can. That’s my way of making business. It’s what I do.
Where do you dream of your business going in the future?
I just want it to be a comfortable place for my children if they want to become cannabis growers or extractors, or even get into plant science. I want to make sure I have a foundational place for them. I want to create jobs. Right now, we have our greenhouses that employ two part-time people and the store employs two full-time people, as well as some associates for our consulting work. So many in the nation are dependent on social assistance. Next summer’s expansion should create a lot of seasonal jobs, but as the years go on, I want to build an indoor facility so there’s year-round work.
If you could dispel any myth about your business, what would it be?
I want to dispel the myth that indigenous people can’t control their own markets. Indigenous nations can be sovereign; we can have our own gold markets, timber markets, or any market the rest of the world had. Cannabis is the perfect way to prove market sovereignty because it’s newly developing in Canada.
How has your business shaped you as a person?
Moving home in general has shaped my indigenous pride. I was never raised on the reserve and didn’t live there most of my life. Getting into this industry, I saw how the federal government has structured other industries to be unwelcome to indigenous peoples. I’m seeing so many people within this generation shaking the generational trauma of colonization, rising above, and reaching out to other nations, and making connections. It’s a whole other level of indigenous pride and what we deserve in our nations.
How has your business shaped the place you call home?
We are a heavily colonized nation. A lot of people didn’t believe that any one person up here could actually take on heavy industry and make it something my people could believe in. Now, I’m diversifying into more industries and making headway. Having my elders just be proud of me is very important. It’s changed how a lot of people think one person can take on the industry, and now we look into the next generation of things. We’re opening up to the possibilities of psychedelic therapy in the treatment of alcohol addiction in line with a lot of other nations in the south. I hope it does well with my people.
