LUTSEL K'E/SNOWDRIFT
The Lutsel K'e community garden project is maturing as it enters its seventh year.

Stephanie Poole, one of the founders of the Lutsel K'e community garden, says the project is about more than producing fresh vegetables every year – it is about creating a self-sustainable community. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo

For Stephanie Poole, who championed the garden and remains one of its most dedicated volunteers, the project is about more than growing a few fresh vegetables to share among community members.

"What it's really about is making Lutsel K'e self-sustainable," she said as she walked around the site - located in the heart of the community - earlier this month.

"We're a sovereign nation. It sounds nice to say, but it's a use it or lose it in my mind."

At the beginning of the project, there was some resistance from community members who viewed gardening as colonial. But after fresh produce was harvested and shared with elders, one by one the critics got on board with the idea of growing food at home instead of relying on shipments to the grocery store.

Poole said she and the other volunteers try to choose produce that fits with traditional foods and what people normally eat. For example, she has been experimenting with growing corn, which grows to maturity in one of the two greenhouses situated next to the outdoor garden plot.

In the future, Poole dreams of producing corn flour to be used for making bannock and other breads.

"It takes time to explore who we are and what do we want to be," she said of how the garden has grown and matured along with the volunteers who run it. "We're always moving forward and we can't go back to the past."

Along with practising their rights to self-determination, Poole sees the garden as a way the community can create a future for themselves on their own terms.

"It's sort of like re-colonization," she said. "Colonization was forced on us and there have been decades of work now towards decolonization. Now, we need to re-colonize ourselves."

In the first year of the garden, 2008, there were no greenhouses, no shed and no fence.

"We just scraped off the overburden and got to work," said Poole.

Aside from herself, the founding volunteers included elder Alizette Lockhart and Tracey Williams.

While some nay-sayers said nothing could grow to maturity from seed, and despite a late planting date of June 21, there was a harvest that year - although the vegetables were fairly small.

"It was all new to us and exciting," said Poole. "They (the vegetables) were all kind of tiny, but they did grow that year."

More importantly, the activity at the plot brought people out, and many community members started putting time and effort into the garden.

There have been some interesting years in the garden, including the "crazy tomato year" when the plants took over much of the main greenhouse, and the "Chia-pet pea pot" when frozen seeds tossed into an old, ice-filled pot resulted in copious amounts of vines that grew into a hedge-like structure.

Now, seeds are started early inside the school which has large south-facing windows.

However, Poole said they are starting late this year because of the long winter and cold spring.

Having the seedlings in the school gives the kids a sense of ownership over the garden and many youth stop throughout the summer, said Poole.

As a result, there has been very little vandalism.

In the future, Poole would like to see the garden expand to a second plot uptown, so that residents in that neighbourhood can have a plot closer to home.

She is also planning to start experimenting with chickens to see how many eggs can be produced.

From the beginning, the territorial Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment has been very supportive of the garden, but to be truly independent, Poole envisions a day when they will not have to rely on government.

To that end, they are asking people to vote for the Lutsel K'e community garden online on the Field Law Community Fund Program website in the hopes that they will be chosen to receive $15,000 in funding.

"We want this to be a self-sustaining project," said Poole.

"We're just trying to make as much food as we can in a small space."

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