Category: Conferences

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Suzanne Speaks at National Food Conference

Suzanne will be speaking at the Food Secure Canada National Assembly, which runs from Nov. 1 to 4 in Montreal. Called, Resetting the Table, the gathering is billed as Canada’s largest and most vibrant food gathering. At the event, hundreds of Canada’s brightest food thinkers and most innovative organizations will discuss how to get to better food policies.

Practical solutions to pressing food system failures — such as skyrocketing levels of diet-related disease, climate breakdown, and food poverty — will be shared and developed. The Assembly brings together farmers and foodies, chefs and Indigenous leaders, activists and businesses, seeding a wealth of new ideas and connections. More than 100 expert and activist speakers will be engaging with attendees.

Resetting the Table includes both a Northern and an Indigenous stream.  The Northern stream is based on the theme of Rebuilding Northern Food Systems with speakers from across Northern Canada, including Suzanne. She will be speaking about her experience spending a year of eating 100% local to Dawson City and profiling where her food came from — both the people and the land.

Special thanks to the Yukon Agriculture Association, the Yukon Agriculture Branch, and the  Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP)  for supporting Suzanne’s attendance to speak at the conference.

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Internship Program Helps Arctic Communities Run Greenhouses

The Inuvik Community Greenhouse hosted a week-long workshop with community greenhouse coordinators from several Northern communities.
An innovative project led by the Inuvik Community Greenhouse Society is helping small, isolated Arctic communities, where access to fresh produce is scare, set up their own greenhouses and start raising fresh food. In June, community greenhouse coordinators from Aklavik, Fort MacPherson, Paulatuk, Sach’s Harbour, Tsiigehtchic, Tuktoyaktukc and Uluhakaktok attended a week-long internship program in Inuvik. The program covered everything from soil preparation through weeding, trellising, pruning, and soil care to harvesting and worm composting. The interns worked in the greenhouse and in outdoor gardens around the community, even receiving instruction in raising chickens. At the end of the course, each coordinator delivered a 30-minute workshop to prepare them for giving workshops in their own communities. The coordinator from Aklavik focused on engaging young people in the greenhouse, since it has been shown that when youth participate in community greenhouses, vandalism decreases significantly. Emily Mann, coordinator of the Inuvik Community Greenhouse, said that being gathered in once place allowed community coordinators to learn from each other and to establish a network for troubleshooting and sharing knowledge—the coordinators have since set up a Facebook page. The interns are now busy in their own communities, reaching out, teaching workshops and bringing local people in to garden together. In Aklavik recently, local children made hanging flower baskets for the Elder’s home. Every Elder received one. As Mann said, flowers are important for pollination, but they help to build community too. To see Emily Mann’s presentation on the internship project, watch the Northern Food Network’s Webinar # 3
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Celebrating the Porcupine Caribou Herd

On April 21 and 22 Vuntut Gwich’in citizens, conservationists, scientists, members of the public and families got together to celebrate the Porcupine Caribou Herd with two days of presentations, films, panel discussions, kids’ activities, and caribou tastings at the Beringia Centre in Whitehorse. The event was hosted by Yukon Conservation Society (YCS), Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation (VGFN) and the Porcupine Caribou Management Board (PCMB), all of whom have a keen interest in the health of the herd. There was lots to celebrate. The herd is robust and growing in size. The relationship between northern indigenous peoples and the caribou that sustains them is respectful and strong. Harvest management strategies and hunter education programs are helping to ensure the herd continues to thrive. But there’s bad news, too. Of 15 barren ground caribou herds the Porcupine herd is one of only two that are known to be increasing. The others have decreased alarmingly in recent years. Barren ground caribou have been listed as threatened in Canada. And the Porcupine herd’s calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are once again under threat from oil and gas exploration. VGFN and their First Nations and Inuvialuit neighbours, conservationists, scientists and concerned citizens are working together to ensure protection of the herd, and Porcupine Caribou: Celebrate and learn about the herd was part of that effort. To watch the proceedings from the Porcupine Herd celebration event, visit yukonconservation.org.
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Traditional Plants Community Info Session in Dawson City

On April 18th, Dawson City based ethnobotanist Leigh Joseph hosted a community information session at the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre .  It was a great chance for Dawsonites to learn about the area’s traditional plant foods and medicines, as well as an opportunity to take part in the conversation.
Ethnobotanist Leigh Joseph
Ethnobotanist Leigh Joseph working with Devils club, an important medicine plant in Squamish.
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