Jill Laskey-Parry relocated from Ontario to Darlings Island and to open a new store market. (photo by Tamara Steele)
A Saint John business owner is happy she made the move from Ontario to open her business in the City Market.
Jill Laskey-Parry operates the Blue Pelican which offers homemade soap, bath bombs and body butter.
She relocated to Darlings Island last November to move in with her parents where she quarantined before preparing to open her business.
The cyberattack on the City of Saint John last year delayed her plans to open before Christmas as the digital documentation for signing a lease didn’t exist.
“It really was a challenge for city staff and it was challenging for me to sit and wait because I deliberately came out here early while my husband was still preparing our home to be sold. That separation was hard on us mentally,” Laskey-Parry said.
Jill Laskey-Parry moved from Ontario to New Brunswick to open her new shop The Blue Pelican in Saint John’s famed City Market. Despite a cyberattack that delayed her plans, the store opened in late January. pic.twitter.com/DH0NkY29XB
— Tamara Steele (@tamarasteele1) February 18, 2021
After settling in New Brunswick, Laskey-Parry asked her new neighbours on Darlings Island for local items to decorate the shop with and tried to find a source for local honey.
“There are a couple of beekeepers in the area so I used that in the soap. I’ve made a honey soap infused with Darlings Island honey,” Laskey-Parry said.
Laskey-Parry said the customers in the City Market who are coming by are pretty impressed to see someone open a business in the pandemic.
“They love that I added a lot of New Brunswick to a lot of my main product line. I have seaweed and spearmint soap that’s got dulse from Slocum and Ferris, kelp extract and sea clay,” Laskey-Parry said.
Setting up the store went well and Laskey-Parry said the other vendors have been so welcoming she already feels like “part of the crew”.
Laskey-Perry added a particularly Saint John item, a ceramic Loyalist man with a parrot on his shoulder.
The Blue Pelican opened in the Saint John City Market in late January.
Follow
