A local business has said they may be forced to close next year after being informed they may not be allowed to participate in the Fireweed Community Market.
Sunshine and Wild Co. is a sustainable clothing company based in Whitehorse that has been participating in the market for the past three years. Now co-owners Annika Phillips and Emillie Denis say that despite their years-long involvement in the market, this may be the last year they are allowed to participate.
According to Phillips and Denis, Sunshine and Wild Co. was informed by the market’s board that their company does not comply with Fireweed’s vendor rules and may not be allowed to continue participating after this year pending further review.
According to the board, the issue apparently stems from the design process behind the artwork on many of Sunshine and Wild’s products.
The board says the artwork is not the original work of Sunshine and Wild Co. due to the fact that Phillips and Denis partner with local artist Charlotte Heffelfinger to render their rough designs and colour pallets into a print ready digital art file.
According to a letter sent by the Fireweed Market Board to Sunshine and Wild in April of this year, this technically disqualifies Sunshine and wild from selling at Fireweed as the market rules “do not permit vendors whose primary value-add is commissioned.”
Attinerjit Sidhu is the president of the Fireweed Community Market Society’s board. In an interview with the News, Sidhu said the board questions Philips and Denis’ assertion that the bulk of the creative work is theirs and pointed to the market’s regulations requiring the vendor registering to add “substantial value” to the final product.
“So the vendor registering has to be the one who’s adding the value,” Sidhu said.
“If you’re going to an artist and giving them a concept of what you want but the artist is actually doing it, at the end of the day who is the artist?”
While Phillips and Denis say they are grateful to work with a close friend and talented professional like Heffelfinger, they argue that the bulk of the creative work is still done by them.
The two women say they often spend many hours brainstorming ideas for new designs, iterating on the work in rough drafts, selecting a colour palette, and creating final sketches before passing it to Heffelfinger for digital rendering.
“We’re so lucky to work with Charlotte. She’s a good friend of ours and she’s a remarkable artist, but even Charlotte has said this isn’t [her] idea,” Phillips said.
Phillips said that Sunshine and Wild has always been open and transparent about their design and production process since they first started selling at the market and questioned why after more than three years, the board has now decided the company’s products don’t fit the guidelines.
“Nothing’s changed. We have functioned the exact same way since day one. Same team, same creative process, same design process. Now we’ve been told we may not be able to continue being at the market,” Phillips said.
When asked about this apparent about-face by the Fireweed board, Sidhu said that previous board members misunderstood the nature of Heffelfinger’s relationship with Sunshine and Wild.
“I was not on the board three years ago so I don’t have the full context, but I do know the initial understanding was that they were a team. We learned this year that the artist is just commissioned and not part of the business,” Sidhu said.
Phillips and Denis said the difference between paying Heffelfinger as an employee or commissioned freelancer versus bringing her on as a part owner of the business feels semantic and does not change the how much value the women bring to the creative process, or the final result.
Without the market, which accounts for roughly 80 per cent of Sunshine and Wild’s sales, Phillips said the company will likely be forced to shut down.
“If we cut where 80 per cent of our revenue comes in, we can’t pay our employees, we can’t pay our bills, we just can’t function like that,” Phillips said.
As of right now, Sidhu said no decision has been made either way and that the board is still deliberating Sunshine and Wild’s future in the market.
“We take these decisions very seriously, there hasn’t been a final call on this for many months because we want to make sure we consider all aspects [and] not miss anything,” Sidhu said.
In the meantime, Phillips said Sunshine and Wild’s future has been left in limbo with little to no communication from the Fireweed board.
“It’s just making our future so uncertain, you know. Like either we’re gonna lose 80 per cent of our revenue or we’re not. But to kind of dangle it has been really tough.”
Going forward, Phillips said that Sunshine and Wild is looking for other opportunities to diversify revenue through opportunities such as wholesaling to other retailers or moving into a brick and motor location themselves.
The pivot could prove difficult without being able to rely on consistent revenues from the market.
“Fireweed has been great for us for the last three years that we’ve been there. It’s how we started our company,” Phillips said.
“We wouldn’t exist without it, and that’s why we’re like fighting so hard to hopefully continue there because we want our company to thrive.”
Contact reporter Noah Korver at noah-korver@yukon-news.com
By Noah Korver, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Sep 09, 2026 at 16:31
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