Founded in 2011, the Peguis Community Garden Project is now in its sixth year and has successfully maintained seven acres of land producing a variety of healthy foods for community members. The Community Garden Project was started with a committee of five people headed by Council member Darlene Bird, Carl McCorrister, and Elder Ernie Stranger. There were a variety of other people who helped and made our project possible. The project is pleased to have Northern Healthy Foods Initiative and the Collaborative provide funding over the years. Four Arrows Health Authority has worked with us and continue to provide their expertise to our project. The Peguis Development Corporation has been the administration of our project with Mr. Patrick McKay of PDC being the Administrator. We have two or three Elders gatherings during the summer and rely on their input regarding our project and success. To date, our project has worked well and has continued to be respected and followed throughout the province by other communities who share the vision of food security.

Our people from St. Peter’s were good farmers and would bring food into Winnipeg to make a living. Treaty Days at the old reservation would have 5,000 people coming to attend, buying food and products. We have a history of raising food for exchange with others and for market. Our work together has the following objectives:

We want to promote healthy eating, growing our own food, and to work cooperatively with all. We wish to bring together the human resources available and network with other organizations that share the vision of food security for the future. We aim to promote awareness of land use and our ability to produce our own healthy foods, assisting community members in gardening and share resources and knowledge. This will assist all in developing community pride, wellness, resources, and promote community building. We plan to establish a farmers’ market and promote self-sufficiency in growing, promoting and selling our fresh produce to all. We strive to improve our lands with more agricultural endeavors for the future.

To date, we have measured our success based mainly on the result of our work and the feedback of our Elders. The garden produce we have grown has been exceptional and shared with all. We had two Elders Days at the garden site. We also have had many open days when we invited visitors along with youth and elders to come and visit the garden site. We also maintain a picture album that shows the stages of our garden work and demonstrates the success we had throughout the growing season.

Our produce has been given to our Elders who take part in the project. One Elder, Fast Eddy, comes about every third day to get a few potatoes, an onion, and a few peas and a cucumber for his dinner. We also provide produce to the Peguis Food Bank. We get people coming to see us on the garden site and wanting fresh produce. We try to do this. However, the project is a stepping stone in community building and regaining our heritage of independence as per our history. We don’t want to promote dependency; we must use our project as a teaching tool and show our people that they can grow much of their own food. In our community, many of our people raised, grew, and produced much of their own food up to the 1960s. At that time it was estimated that over 80% of food needs were met this way. Today, most of our food comes from the store.

Our project has become known throughout Manitoba by various organizations, having received awards such as the Golden Carrot in October 2014 for our successful work and garden. One area we are continuing to develop is growing traditional tobacco. We have successfully grown it here for traditional use and will continue to improve and expand our crop. We must overcome these colonial mindsets and look to the future together. There are many things we could accomplish if we worked together and shared our resources. The Peguis Community Garden is just a small step in rebuilding our heritage and culture; it is also a form of reconciliation that is so important in the decolonization process. It could also have an economic impact on our community with support for use of land, making resources available, working together, and taking pride in having food security for all.

To find out more about the Peguis Agriculture Project please read here. 

To find out more about other community partners please read here.

We have 5 big gardens, a summer kitchen, bee hives, a turtle mound herb garden, pumpkin patch, and will soon build our clay oven. People bring their kids and grandkids and it is good to see families getting together in the gardens. We set days aside (Tuesday night and Thursday night) for each garden so that people would go and work in the gardens. Part of that is because socializing is just as important as anything else. People go there and visit as they work.

In 2013 we began our journey by planting 55 fruit trees. Unfortunately, that year our potential orchard was flooded. But we didn’t give up. We started again; “...if at first you don’t succeed, etc...”.

We started over again and we planted. In 2014, 38 families signed up to take part in a community vegetable and berry garden. For the main garden, we chose a high ridge of land beside an old creek bed, in the center of the settlement so that everyone would have access by walking to the site.  Because there was no topsoil, we had to scrape the top layer, remove all the rocks, haul in topsoil and level the area; an expensive and labour intensive job. The OCN Recreation and Beautification Team helped a lot with this work. The soil came from across the river from a farmer and took most of our budget. The soil came from the land that is our traditional territory.

Planting and seeding: Kistiganiwak. In two separate gardens we planted 87 fruit trees: apples, crabapples, plums, chokecherries, raspberries and cherries. Then we focused on the vegetable garden. Each worker took a tree home to plant in their own yard. We had to re-learn all those necessary things that go into making a garden (and a family) grow. I had forgotten that garden work requires continuous attention, endless patience all those things that go into a healthy happy family. To build community and get kids involved with adults, we held a birdhouse making competition. It was a huge success and helped us wait as the seedlings took root and began to sprout.

Growing: Nitawigin. The excitement of seeing new plants –and learning the difference between weeds and vegetables and weeding and weeding, and weeding...

Harvesting: Moonay Kaniwak. The food from the garden is shared with everyone who helps out. Some of it goes to feasts and community events. The kitchen will help us learn to cook and use the all of the foods grown.

What we learned: It’s good for the Elders to get moving again, instead of thinking they have to stop living at 50. We need to prepare and plant the garden together but after that we need an individual weeding schedule so everyone does it regularly. Everyone has to help out or else it is too much work for a few people. Having students can help, but it is a lot of work to manage them. Peggy and Stan need successors so that the major load is shared, we have been working to get more people involved in the leadership of the garden. People really like beets! We need less seeds and we need to take more care in planting; space the seeds further apart and thin the plants sooner.

To find out more about Opaskwayak Culture and Healthy Living Initiatives please read here. 

To find out more about other community partners please read here.

Started in 2015, The Meechim Project is an integrated social enterprise food security project based in Garden Hill First Nation. The project consists of a farm, food market, agriculture-based training, and educational programming focused on teaching children about growing food and healthy eating referred to as “School-to-Farm”. It was designed with the intention of changing the local food system to create a healthy long-lasting impact for the community. The Meechim Project aims to resolve the lack of healthy affordable food options as well as increase employment and training opportunities for the local community.

The first year was tough to grow vegetables because of the quality of the soil. In 2016, we improved our crop growing and poultry operations. We grew over a dozen varieties of fruits and vegetables and increased the amount grown. We planted 139 rows of crops and hand-sowed 6 plots throughout the farm, improving on our acreage usage. Adding fish to the soil for fertilizer had a wonderful effect. Our plants were healthy and our yields were impressive. We will add fish again next year!

In 2016, we also constructed a hen barn. 400 broiler chicks were flown up and 90% survived to processing. Birds were prepped, packaged into sealed plastic, and quickly frozen. These chickens were then sold to the community. As well, we had 12 layer hens producing 18 eggs per week. The eggs are given to workers at the end of the week.

In 2016, 8 full-time workers and 1 full-time supervisor from the local community staffed the farm. They worked from June 6th until October 28th for a total of 7,920 man-hours. Our manager, Robert Guilford, is a farmer from southern Manitoba. Robert spent 10-11 days at a time living and working at the farm guiding and instructing from May to September. Robert’s role is to build the skills of the local people to the point where they can take over the farm fully.

In the past year we increased the community presence on the farm. With our hen barn containing two outdoor coops, local families were consistently coming to visit during early afternoon and evenings to see the operation. Children were curious about the chickens watching them from outside the fencing. When we were done processing the chickens, the farm’s workers, supervisor, manager, their friends and families held a feast at the farm to celebrate a successful season. Local people are increasingly becoming more aware of the farm and what it has to offer to the community.

Since this was only our second year of farm operations in Garden Hill, it was not without challenges. Flights to travel and support people in Garden Hill are expensive and inconsistent and there isn’t a good place to stay. We intend to build a residence so that people can come and participate in our northern farm school in 2017. Communication would be improved if we had a phone at the farm. We are trying to make good relationships with the Garden Hill Chief and Council, but they are busy people. Finally, an all-season employee to monitor and secure the farm would really be helpful because the farm is vulnerable to vandalism or theft when left unattended for long periods.

While it can be challenging, we are still committed to ensuring this project continues forward. Over the next year or two, we are planning again to improve on our operation in Garden Hill. We will expand the growing area, build living quarters for support people and farm school students, keep improving our soil, create a seed storage area, start the farm school, and strengthen our farm to school program. There is lots to do!

We surveyed community members about the farm and their responses were motivating. 100% of people tell their friends and family about the farm and felt that it was either ‘very important’ or ‘extremely important’ to the community. Also, 100% of people we talked to had eaten something (egg, meat or veg) raised at the farm. Our motivations to support and grow this project come from the community. One member said simply “Keep it going... strong.”

To find out more about Meechim Farm please read here. 

To find out more about other community partners please read here.

Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (MCCN) has a history of helping hunters go out to feed their families with their shell giveaway. In 2016, the Pukatawagan Development Corporation began development of a community freezer program to store local wild foods for the community’s residents.

The building blocks for the program, the sea-can, freezers and lumber, are now in Pukatawagan while the development of the community food centre is ongoing. We are currently trying to find a site for the centre where it can be connected to the needed electrical. While we are working on the conversion of the sea-can, hunters and fishermen continue to share meat the way they always have, by taking it to the Elders themselves. In 2015 we were able to build 5 new smoke houses in the community to make it easier to preserve wild meat and fish.

We are continuing to help hunters and fishermen go out. The MCCN annual shell giveaway happened again in 2016. The hunters really like the program because it makes it easier for them to go out and feed their family good food. One big thing that happened in 2016 was that we got insurance for the high- railers. They are used to take hunters out along the old train tracks towards Lynn Lake. The hunters didn’t have much luck hunting around river and lakes close to the reserve this year but they had better luck up the tracks.

The local fishermen association is supportive of the program and wanted to provide fish but there wasn’t much fish to share this year. The fall fishing season got cut short because of the early snowfall and fishermen were struggling to fill their quotas. The winter fishing season was also shortened by the warm weather. The Elders of the community are behind the program, happy to supply fishing equipment for the program and continuing to pass on knowledge that helps future generations. The Elders help with preparing fish, moose and other wild game. We also hope to bring back the technique of preparing moose hides as it has been some time since that has happened. If we do not pass this knowledge along, we fear it will be lost with the Elders.

When the building is converted and the program is up and running, the local radio station and Facebook page will be used to share information with the community members of Pukatawagan. We are also trying to connect with the school to take students out on hunting and fishing trips, to get young people out on the land more as part of a new Summer Traditional Learning Program.

To find out more about the Community Freezer Project please read here. 

To find out more about other community partners please read here.