Calgary couple's solar-powered apothecary stolen in B.C.
Danielle Nerman | CBC News | Posted: December 14, 2016 5:35 PM | Last Updated: December 15, 2016
Trailer filled with foraged plants goes missing from Tsawwassen ferry terminal
LATEST UPDATE: Mobile apothecary business gets birthday blessing after stolen trailer recovered in B.C.
Raphaelle Gagnon says her mobile apothecary was stolen over the weekend from the long-term parking lot of the Tsawwassen ferry terminal in Delta, B.C., while she was selling her wares at a craft market in Victoria.
Gagnon says there was about $50,000 worth of property inside — a raft, two bicycles, two motorbikes, cacao butter, essential oils and "hundreds of wild plants" foraged over the last year from across Canada.
"We go out and we pick wild plants for their cosmetic properties, and we create all of our goods in our off-grid solar powered lab, which was a converted trailer that we worked very hard to build," Gagnon told the Calgary Eyeopener.
"All of my notes, all of my books, my recipes — everything was in the trailer and just like that, it's just vanished into thin air."
The owner of Boreal Folk Apothecary said the thieves were well-prepared because all of the chains and locks were cut off the trailer using power tools.
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Gagnon said she and her partner had to leave their mobile business behind because the trailer was too big to park at the craft market that they were selling their wares at over the weekend in downtown Victoria.
"It is a secured parking lot. I called beforehand asking if it was OK to leave a trailer that was unhitched to a vehicle and they said no problem."
Delta police are reviewing surveillance footage from the parking lot of the Tsawwassen ferry terminal.
While Gagnon does have insurance, she's hopeful her mobile business will turn up.
"It's quite useless to anybody else but ourselves," she said.
"We are hoping the [valuables] such as the motorbikes, the printers — the things that can be sold quickly — are taken, and then our trailer is perhaps just ditched somewhere."
With files from the Calgary Eyeopener