Dream job on Salt Spring: Canada’s only commercial olive farm up for auction

74-acre farm to sell in 2 parcels via a one-hour online escalating tender auction

Dream job on Salt Spring: Canada’s only commercial olive farm up for auction Published 5:00 pm Friday, July 17, 2026 Sheri Braun is selling a dream she built with her late husband. George put his heart and soul into The Olive Farm on Salt Spring Island. He was all about taking risks, facing challenges and accomplishing big things.

Born in Paraguay, George came to Canada as a toddler. Sheri met him as a teen, and they married a few years later at 18 and 20. “We had our whole life together, lots of change, lots of adventure,” she recalled.

George died in September 2025, leaving his widow to face the November harvest solo. “This project was always the two of us, the joy was always the family joy. There will be no joy there for me to do this by myself,” Braun said.

The Alberta couple dreamed of starting an olive farm and found the only commercially viable location in Canada was on Salt Spring Island, where Sheri actually spent time as a child. Her mom was born and raised there and her grandfather was the manager of the General Store in Ganges. Within 15 years, they created a 750-tree grove and a small-batch processing facility producing olive oil that sells for $625 per litre and is used by chefs across Canada.

George once facetiously oversimplified what they were going to do – you plant and watch them grow. They both knew it would be much more than planting and watching, but there were some perhaps unexpected challenges, such as heat domes and atmospheric rivers. Those heavy rains came in the middle of pressing one year – flooding roads and hindering access.

Another year, just as the trees were getting successful, the mercury hit 46 C during blossom time. “So of course they just shrivelled up and fell off.” A massive cold snap one January plummeted the farm into three days of -12 to -16 C, which devastated the crop.

“It’s been an experience, it’s been a challenge, but there’s been tons of positive things,” Braun said. Aside from the commercial success it now sees, The Olive Farm seemed to draw positive people as well – many writing in well wishes, positive reviews and applauding them from around the world. Positive people came on board as clientele as well.

The first oil pressing in 2016, the couple sent bottles to sommeliers for professional opinions and testing, with incredibly positive results. “Then we ended up selling it to a few chefs that ran with it. They were so enthusiastic, they did a lot of our marketing for us,” Braun said.

“People wanted it, which was really cool.” With a few ups and downs in between, in 2022 things truly fell into place. That year yielded the greatest crop; the fruit was ripe, and oil was more abundant.

This year, there was no pressing. “At that point in time, my emotional state was such that I couldn’t stand the thought of being in the mill and making oil without him,” she said. “Grieving is something you can’t predict, and you can’t micromanage it.

It’s something I have to trust myself if something seems wrong.” Among those decisions is the choice to sell The Olive Farm through an online auction on Aug. 12. The property will be sold in two parcels via a one-hour online escalating tender by CLHbid.com, a law firm specializing in the sale of farms and ranches.

“They (CLHbid) get it, they seem to have embraced the magic of the property and the magic of the dream and are trying to show that to any prospective buyers as well,” Braun said. “I feel whatever will be, will be, and they will have done their best possible job for me.” The property will be sold in two parcels, each with a starting bid of $2.19 million.

Parcel 1 is about 36 acres and features the primary 750-tree olive grove, a creek, hay production, irrigation infrastructure, a greenhouse, a small home, and a modern shop fully equipped with olive grinding and milling machinery. The second parcel of about 38 acres includes a two-bedroom Tuscan villa-style home that overlooks the Fulford Valley. So far, the sale has interest from buyers in Canada, Colorado, California and Texas.

Braun hopes to sell the farm to someone who will keep it going. While she and the family will be sad to see it sold, the next adventuresome owner has a place to build from. “There’s so much that could still happen on that farm.

We had a lot of ideas that we could still do on that farm,” she said. Their focus was getting the actual farm to succeed, and with infrastructure pretty much fulfilled, and the olive oil in high-end kitchens across the country, it’s hit that benchmark. “Now it’s at a place where somebody could branch off and do other things as well,” Braun said.

“Someone who wants to carry the vision forward and then make it their own.” About the