Community members in Poplar River First Nation have been actively exploring local food production options over the last five years. The community has a strong fishing industry and people are used to wild foods and fish. In 2012, the Health Centre focused their efforts on increasing gardening in the community and raising chickens. This work was supported by Leon Simard, First Nations Food Security Coordinator. Good food is hard to access in remote communities like Poplar River, and people want to learn more and do more about producing their own foods.

Since that time the Health Centre has steadily developed this work and now has a one acre garden site and a large community greenhouse that is 70 feet long and 20 feet wide. The grand opening of the Poplar River Greenhouse happened in summer of 2016. Everyone came out to see it including school children, RCMP, Chief and Council, Health Centre staff and lots of community members. It was the first year of operations for the greenhouse and people were learning what to do and how to grow things in a greenhouse. There was an interest in producing bedding plants for local beautification and vegetables for food. Greenhouse and garden staff are managed by the Health Centre. This year the school is going to get more involved.

In the fall of 2016 there was some vandalism to the greenhouse, but the young people responsible were identified and there have been conversations about not damaging things that are important to the community. “You could tell that this is an important place for us as a community because when it was vandalized everyone was upset. I think we have to keep trying and fixing it up,” said Sophia Rabliauskas, community member. “Our long term goal, after getting our community eating healthier and growing lots of our own foods, is to learn how to form a cooperative. We are interested in selling vegetables and sharing them around the area to other nearby communities (Berens River, Little Grand Rapids and Pauingassi). This can only happen once we get good at our gardening and greenhouse operations and get enough people interested,” said Mary Bruce, Health Centre Director. In the coming seasons we are going to work more closely with the school. The school based portion of the project will provide children and youth with the opportunity to develop skills in food production and gardening as well as food preparation and nutritional information.

Planned activities for 2017 include: repairing and using the greenhouse, installing new fencing around the greenhouse and garden/orchard area, providing employment for a garden/ greenhouse coordinator, hooking up the vents and electrical heating in the greenhouse, providing training in greenhouse operation maintenance to staff and community members and providing training to community members in harvesting, drying, canning and freezing. Through these activities people will be incorporating fresh locally grown foods into their household meals and community events. The price of fresh vegetables will be cheaper and the school will have a program to instill pride and ownership in the existing facilities. We believe that in the future by developing curriculum materials and resources, all children attending school will have access to information, training and opportunities to grow and learn to enjoy healthy food grown in the community.

To find out more about the Negginan Food Producers Co-op please read here. 

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

Food prices in Shamattawa are very high and the quality of food available is not very good, especially since the grocery store burnt down in the fall of 2016. People often cannot afford good food when it is available. There are also limited opportunities for young people to learn new skills and be involved in positive activities. The chicken project is a response to both of these needs.

Chicken coops were built with support from friends and family. We used a mixture of local and shipped materials to build the first coop and fence. When the chickens arrived they attracted a lot of interest and one person ran home and built a small coop, returning to pick up ten chickens the next day. 47 chickens out of 50 were raised and harvested. People were happy to see that it was possible to raise chicken in their community and continue to speak about it with pride. The coop became a place for young people to come visit and many of them helped out with feeding and watering. Along with youth, adults helped out when the main chicken raisers were away. Some community members are now looking to raise chickens for themselves, possibly take over the maintenance of the current coops and share the workload. Chickens were processed and shared with 12 families, plus the two families who raised them.

There were some initial challenges getting the coop built in time because of the weather, as well as ensuring the chicken feed was properly stored, as it had to come up the winter road. The fencing itself wasn’t complete until after the chicks arrived. Although the coop attracted lots of attention and excitement, some young people broke-in and hurt a half-dozen chickens in the first six weeks. Fortunately those chickens were able to be cooked and eaten, even if they didn’t reach the full size. For the main family raising chickens, it was a full-time commitment. While they were able to get some help from friends and family, it did make it more difficult for them to go out to camp. The summer is an important time to go out on the land to camp and tending the chickens will be a challenge if it prevents people from going. Shipping in feed and bedding was decided to make the initial year easier while the new chicken raisers got a feel for the work of raising chickens, but going forward it is important to the raisers and Food Matters Manitoba to find more local sources of bedding and feed. This would keep costs down as well as involve and benefit more people in the community.

Along with the new recreation programs and gardens, the chicken project is often talked about as something that is going well for Shamattawa. People struggle through many challenges, often so many that it can become overwhelming. Starting and continuing these types of initiatives is key to creating hope and finding a way forward. The chickens themselves are said to be the tastiest and chubbiest chickens that people in Shamattawa have seen. As they were shared with Elders and families with kids, the chickens clearly became a source of a good meal. This was at the very time the store had burned down, leaving many people without access to fresh foods like chicken. Raising local chickens could become part of the way that people feed themselves, especially with gardening, moose and goose hunting, trapping, fishing and picking berries.

In the coming year, both coops have people to take on the primary responsibility for raising chickens. Food Matters Manitoba will continue to provide support where needed, but most of the training will be passed between community members. Some people also talked about building their own coops and have gathered supplies. The Health Director will look at supporting chicken raising activities with newly hired youth workers. Again, supplies will be shipped over the winter road, but chicken raisers will work with Food Matters Manitoba and the youth workers to find good sources of food and bedding, through such ways as: seeding open spaces, collecting bedding materials and finding food scraps or trimmings. Local sources could supplement and eventually replace supplies that need to be brought over the winter road. Keeping the chicken coops running, opens the possibility of raising ducks and even egg laying hens. In order to set-up community chicken raising for the long-term, there has been talk about setting up a cooperative membership that could share the work, costs and of course the meat and eggs.

To find out more about the Shamattawa Chicken Project please read here. 

To find out more about other community partners please read here.
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There is no grocery store in Sherridon and the trip to Flin Flon takes more than an hour when roads are good. Since 2014, the community has established a number of food focused projects to address this challenge. In 2014 a community fishing program was started, and a community chicken coop was built. In 2015 Kitchwapaw Clan Mothers’ garden and a filleting shack were established and in 2016 the community built a smokehouse and acquired additional meat processing equipment. Food Matters Manitoba has been a helpful partner in this work. They have provided financial management of the grants, sourcing and arranging equipment and transportation.

The equipment and infrastructure is located on private property so that it can be monitored and kept secure. Even with these considerations, there have been challenges. In 2015, just as we were getting ready to harvest 200 mature chickens, all but one of the chickens were bird-napped in the middle of the night. This was very discouraging but didn’t stop us from raising birds again the following year.

Building the chicken coop, filleting shack and smokehouse took help and some creative thinking. Neighbours and families worked together. Larry said of the smoke shack “Pearl’s brother came and helped and the building was up in four days, including pouring the concrete pad. We piped the wood stove so that it could be used to heat the filleting shack when it is not being used in the smokehouse. This is better than purchasing two stoves and it wasn’t hard to move the small stove.” The food processing infrastructure is a gathering place. People who moved away 10 years ago for lack of work have come back to use the processing equipment and to visit. Stories are shared while fish and meats are being processed. Many of the people who were using it this year were people who grew up on that food and they had missed living on that kind of food. People were already complaining within a month that we should have gotten more fish and smoked more because their families were just gobbling it up. Fish patties made with ground fish were a particular hit with the kids.

Between fish, moose and caribou meat, approximately 1,600 pounds was smoked in the first season. The amount of food that is gathered and preserved is big. It reduces the amount of time and money people would otherwise have to spend leaving the community to go spend in the grocery store. The smokehouse keeps more of our resources locally.

Many people are remembering their skills and even learning some new ones. There are not too many kids helping with the processing yet, though in the fall of 2016 when the Collaborative funder group visited Sherridon, two local nine-year-olds, River and Steven, showed the visitors how to process chickens and fillet fish. We had 5 or 6 of the smaller kids (6 to 10 year olds) who were in with us helping make the sausage. They got to fill the grinder and make the sausage. One little girl was able to identify that it was moose meat just from the smell of the raw meat. Maybe this year we would work with the Youth Centre and the Kids Come First committee to do some workshops for the kids to learn this stuff.

One of the challenges with these projects is maintaining consistent help and planning efforts. There is initial excitement when the chicks arrive, but while the chickens are growing the support from others tends to slow down. Come harvest time people are there to help. In 2017, the smokehouse people are planning to go out and cut wood together so there isn’t a shortage. There is a back-up propane system for the smokehouse but it leaves a different taste in the meat.

The community has struggled with how to advertise and share the food processing resources. Long standing divides between some families make community harmony an ongoing challenge. In 2016, the rules, expectations and procedures for requesting time in the smoke shack were posted at the community council office.

For the future, there are plans to add a few more sets of racks to the smokehouse and hangers to hang sausage in there as well. That can be done with local materials. We also hope to get boarded community support and involve the Kids Come First committee in the projects by doing more workshops with the kids and teaching them how to use the tools. The chicken coop will continue to have about 200 birds per year, with people giving a small donation for the birds so that there is enough money to get chicks and feed for the following year.

To find out more about Sharing More Food From the Land please read here. 

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