Duncan Ebata
Food and Story Facilitator | Community Builder
Current Projects
Front Street Community Oven
In 2019 we built a wood-fired community oven in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, as a space for collective healing, happiness, social connection, radical empathy, and accessible and joyful food literacy. Through the power cooking together, eating together, being together, and sharing stories in a public park, we transform ourselves, the community, and our world into the more beautiful world we know is possible. Since 2019 we’ve hosted thousands of people at more than 100 gatherings at the oven. Learn more
Future of Food Scenario Planning
How We Thrive, in partnership with WeavEast, is embarking on a Future of Food scenario exercise with a group of 20-30 people actively working towards sustainable, equitable food systems. This group will come together to craft compelling, plausible scenarios about the future of food in our region. We will identify key global and regional trends, share knowledge about what is and isn’t working, and apply a scenario method that generates “alternative futures.” Learn more
The Narrative Project
The stories we tell are the stories we believe. The Narrative Project brings 453 people together to strengthen the narratives and stories we want to live by in Atlantic Canada.
Learn more

Blog
The Cult of Being Busy
My goal used to be “I’m a busy entrepreneur”. These days, I hold the intention of being calm, poised, focused, and slowly having a bigger impact within my community.
UBI & Lockdown Spending
As soon as CERB kicked in, people began to save money, and invest it into things like their survival in the context of climate change, like purchasing garden supplies and seeds. We’re actually still seeing the effects of that, for example, with seeds being out of stock everywhere.
Restorative Practices to Help with Burnout
I’ve adopted some practices to help me cope, stay present, and support my nervous system – rather than participate in what some call “absencing”, where one disconnects and numbs.
Food, Sacredness, and Time
Who benefits from the narrative “We don’t have time to eat.”?
“We’ll just pick something up on our way to our next obligation.”
“We’ll heat something up when we get home.”
What has the microwave marketing of the 1950s onwards created as a food culture?
Relaxing into Relational Leadership
This new type of leadership is checking in with these things, and we’re co-regulating our emotions. We’re showing up as our authentic human selves, taking responsibility and holding ourselves accountable for the things we’re responsible for.
4 Key Ways to Deepen Connection in Every Conversation
If you want to have more connection and learn more in your conversations, try not to think of what you will say next when listening. Try listening to understand and notice how you are touched or moved by what somebody says.
About Me
Food and community are at the heart of what I do. I’m passionate about creating community models which work for both humans and our planet.
I’m driven by the urge to understand how we might renew our connections to the earth and to each other, and how we might re-author the narratives that describe and support such relationships.
I look to the power of food. In its growth, harvest, preparation, and consumption we can engage with the wisdoms of the hand, heart, and head, coming to deep understandings of the relationships we share. We bond over food, we share it, we learn, we get to know ourselves with it, we come to know each other and the land from which it grows.
Throughout history, food has provided the roots for peace and stability, sewn the seeds of change and progress, and nourished cooperation and innovation all across our planet. Food supports all. Cooking together helps us see the gifts in our differences. As we transform food, it transforms us.
In the first decade of my career, I was privileged to be a part of the growth of a new food system in Canada, one which places a high value on farmers and food producers. I was able to use my background in marketing to help develop food based social enterprises all across the country.
Fast forward to 2020; after helping to establish Wolfville’s Front Street Community Oven in 2019, I’ve shifted my attention to begin understanding the role narrative plays in shaping Atlantic Canadian communities. I’ve been working with the Narrative Project and coaching clients to re-author the collective and individual narratives that shape our view of the world and our actions. We’ve been exploring our preferred identities, mindsets, and the community narratives we want to live by; we are taking back the pen that writes the stories of our lives and communities.
In my downtime you can find me in the lovely town of Wolfville, Nova Scotia, beside my life-partner, Anne. I live an active lifestyle by walking, cycling, swimming, gardening, and playing basketball, and I love to be creative, play music, and spend time with friends and family; and of course, I love to cook and share great food, too.
For free resources and inspirations, or for more information about what I am up to, please journey over to my blog or sign up to be a part of my email community here.
And of course, don’t hesitate to drop me a line below! I’d love to start a conversation.
Cheers!
Duncan
Guiding values: generosity, inclusion, diversity, respect, and kindness. Nurturing lifelong learning and supportive, collaborative relationships is important to me.
Let’s Start a Conversation
Duncan Ebata
902-692-9421