More with less - Mario and Melodie (Suchy) Tancon
The Strathcona Circle is made up of six core values: More with less, Environmental Stewardship, Challenge by Choice, Living on the Edge, Generosity of Spirit and Happy Warrior. Today, we celebrate two individuals who live on more with less …
Words by Lynsey Burke
Family is at the centre of their world and bringing people together for a home cooked meal is a gift they actively give to their community.
It’s lunchtime at the Tancon house and I ask what’s on the menu.
“Today we’re having fresh turkey soup, spaghetti squash and a Greek salad,” says Mario Tancon, a passionate self-taught culinary connoisseur who lives on Denman Island.
Much of the produce that he and his wife Melodie Suchy-Tancon consume is planted, grown and harvested with their own green thumbs.
At their home on Denman Island, this pair of retired teachers (Mario a shop teacher and Melodie a vivacious elementary school teacher), live on half of an acre across from the ocean with an unimpeded view. They own a kayak company and grow, ferment, bake and preserve (and make trades for) much of what they eat.
A proud display of wild foraged mushrooms is a regular endeavour at the Tancon household
Their mornings are spent walking their pair of large dogs and foraging for sea asparagus to add to their daily smoothies. Their passion for what they consume is supported by a commitment to wellness and resourcefulness. By doing more with less, by using what you have and by wasting nothing, if at all possible, is an adage to live by.
The history that is firmly rooted
Melodie can recall catching his first fish in the Elk River with Jamie Boulding on his grandpa’s fishing boat, who had a cabin where the pavilion now stands (four generations ago).
Having grown up in West Vancouver, Melodie found herself visiting SPL from a young age. Like so many friendships and relationships that have blossomed here, their connection(s) to the Lodge is multi-generational.
A family hike at the SPL lookout
Nearly 50 years ago Melodie’s step father Ray Preece would bring her from the city to SPL. Melodie was eight at the time and Ray … who she nicknamed Woozle (from Winnie the Pooh) spent many days in the outdoors together (skiing the Cypress Bowl, storm watching in Tofino, visiting the lodge and sailing).
At the Lodge, one of the rental Cabins is named ‘Preece’ as a nod to the whole Suchy/Tancon/Preece family, and in honour of Ray’s contribution to the development of the outdoor leadership and educational training programs. He mentored and developed so many outdoor leaders through the COLT and practicum programs at SPL.
From their younger days and into their young adulthood working at the Lodge in 1986 (Mario as a maintenance super and Melodie as an outdoor leader), they have remained like family. Today, Mario still consults with the Lodge, swaps recipes with Christine and was the mastermind and labour behind the construction of the well-loved beach sauna.
“Mario would have been an architect in his other life,” explains Melodie of this self-taught skillset.”He’s good with math and design and is passionate about creating things.”
A retirement filled with satisfaction
Doing more with less is more than a philosophy for the pair, but a way of life
The couple has three children, Marco, Nick and Chelsea (who are considered Lodge babies,. Two grandchildren have joined the fray in recent years as well, of which, can be found raiding the berry bushes at grandma and grandpa’s property during the summer months.
However, retirement hasn’t been a put your feet up and take a nap sort of endeavour. Quite the opposite in fact.
With some encouragement from their children, the couple has discovered the joys of ‘WOOF’ing,’ an international working co-op for people all over the world to come and work the land in exchange for a place to stay.
My doctor asks me about my diet, jokes Mario, I tell them “Well, we make a lot of compost.”
Their weekly garbage is about a ziplock bag full. And while they aren’t purists, they choose health and whole foods first before anything packaged.
The Tancons share their love of nature and gardening with their two grandchildren
Resourcefulness is a lifestyle choice
This way of life is just that, one that they pour themselves into daily with nutrition and living on a whole food diet has become second nature.
The couple grows or forages 60 to 70 per cent of their own produce. Melodie and the WOOFers do 90 per cent of the gardening while Mario treats cooking like a passion, rather than a chore.
Along with their impressive yield of annual vegetables and fruit grown, Mario and Melodie also sprout their own beans and greens. Their freezer is stocked, they’re jarring pesto and sauerkraut, making kefir and apple cider vinegar, they harvest from the sea, they’re drying chanterelle mushrooms from forest foraging, they’re making their own fruit based liqueurs and wine and well, we could say they’re relatively self sustaining.
Gardening and cooking is a passion rather than a chore, and has been a skill that has been passed down by generations
With such preparation and abundance, there is much gifting, trading and bartering that happens. “My sister and her husband fish a lot,” says Melodie. “We traded them a puppy [for fish],” she says of the humorous but true event.
There are blueberry deliveries or swaps at the Hornby ferry that happen, neighbours who have fruit trees will receive an apple pie for green seedless grapes.
They even trade the trades. The puppy-swap fish was exchanged with a neighbouring farmer for a half a side of Black Angus beef.
Learning how to do more with less from a family of 11
Mario and Melodie and their two large dogs, who get to join in on most every adventure
“My mom was really into nutrition, before you could just look everything up on the internet,” says Mario, who was the seventh of nine children. She would stretch meals out like crazy, he explains of their post-war frugalness. “But she would always invite people to join,” adds Melodie.
He recalls his father doing the hunting to feed the nine children, and can remember his dad straightening old nails to be reused. The same is true for Mario, who was the son who was around the most to help. “He makes a lot with very little,” says Melodie, recalling their wedding day when he was prepping the appetizers for 120 guests with salmon that he and his best man caught.
“I think one of the things for me is that I learned a lot when I worked at the Lodge, both about nutrition and how to make a lot of things out of nothing,” he says, recollecting a time in the early days that he arrived back at the Lodge with an overflowing trailer of cedar scrap wood for $50.
Travelling and staying active have remained a priority, especially in retirement
Comparing ourselves, to ourselves
Having been retired for two years, Melodie and Mario go somewhere every six months. “Our bodies don’t like to hike with a backpack anymore,” says Melodie, referencing a bad ski accident she had in 2013. In her recovery from the accident, she has become a big advocate for other people medically.
“Because I’m young and feisty still, I believe that attitude is everything in your recovery,” she explains.
“We compare ourselves to ourselves,” says Melodie. “We see where we’re at, what we could do differently to get a bit better at whatever it is.”
The couple is getting ready to embark on a five-week holiday on a biking trip to New Zealand. And while home-cooked wholesome meals will be a distant memory during those daily adventures of cycling, they say there is salami, cheese, a bottle of wine and chocolate-a-plenty.
“It’s okay because we’re riding everyday,” explains Melodie of their easily adaptive travel style. “When you go travelling, you have to not make a big deal about what you’re eating and not eating. You could stay home and eat just right, or go somewhere and enjoy it.”
Melodie visits SPL with their two dogs and for a dog reunion of litter mates
A philanthropic spirit with a people-first mindset
For those who have known the couple for a long time (and for those who were raised under their roof) the perception is that there is no question that these two are a united front.
“They’re both undaunted by whatever life throws their way,” says SPL Executive Director Christine Clarke who shares a number of commonalities with Mario, who’s also the 7th born out of 9 children in their families, each of which logged many hours cooking with their mothers.
Marco, their youngest child, just wrapped up a season as a Lodge Outdoor Education Instructor, and is on his way out [to get a ferry to Denman, before travelling to meet his parents in New Zealand]. He was asked how he feels his parents exemplify ‘more with less.’
Mario and Melodie sit outside in the sunshine in front of the sauna that Mario built
Aside from being anti-consumerism, he says his parents’ priority is on people and community and bringing people together. “My mom’s philosophy is ‘do as much as you can, whenever you can.’”
The persevering mindset of Mario and Melodie, in spite of hardships, is that they find a way to get the most out of life. “Melodie is an ideas person, she’s always leveraging something and is undaunted by a task,” says Christine, recalling a time when Melodie stopped at a mid island grocery store to charge her electric car. While entering the grocery store she talked with some people who were unhoused, asking “Are you hungry?”
Melodie orchestrated the meal preparation with the grocery staff, paid for the groceries and served it to the individuals outside the store — an event that is a true testament of her uninhibited and undaunted way of being. Realizing there was far too much food, the people assured her they would share and feast with friends and none would go to waste.
Two adventure seeking souls enjoy the high ropes course at SPL
There isn’t a lack of great new ideas or enthusiasm over on Denman Island, nor is the kitchen or greenhouse output slowing down. It’s simply a balancing act and partnership of conjuring up the next great plan!
“I come up with these crazy ideas and Mario is the wind beneath my wings,” says Melodie of the synchronicity.
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