Addressing First Nations food security

Tasty food was on the menu at the 3rd Annual Nishnawbe Aski Nation Food Symposium.
“The vegetables that we cooked this morning are very simple, but very tasty,” said Fort Albany’s Madelaine Scott during an Aug. 29 community kitchen workshop at the Regional Food Distribution Association (RFDA) in Thunder Bay. “It looks easy and fast to make, especially with the granola — you could use it for hunting trips.”
Scott was also impressed with the RFDA’s community kitchen after helping preparing the vegetables during the 9-11:30 a.m. session.
“This idea of a community kitchen is interesting and it is something that I would like to try in our community,” Scott said. “So it’s something we’re thinking about talking about as a group that are here in our home community. We’re admiring the kitchen here — if only.”
The community kitchen workshop and four tours, including two farm tours, a tour of the Roots to Harvest Youth Garden and True North Community Co-operative and a tour of the Thunder Bay Country Market, were held on the second day of the Aug. 28-30 Food Symposium.
About 80 people attended the symposium, held at the Best Western Nor’wester Hotel and Conference Centre in Thunder Bay. The first and third days featured presentations of four community-based Get Growing initiatives, Aroland’s food charter and healthy blog, roundtable discussions, the inaugural Food Champion Awards and a keynote address by Dawn Morrison on indigenous food sovereignty.
“Building food sovereignty is an important element of protecting our way of life and addressing many of the health and economic issues affecting our communities,” said NAN Grand Chief Harvey Yesno. “The foundation of our food system will always be our traditional foods, harvested from our forests and fresh waters as well as the food knowledge and skills associated with harvesting, preparing, and storing these foods. Building new structures to import healthy foods into our communities are an important way to supplement our traditional lifestyles.”
Fort Albany’s David Sutherland said some community members have started growing food in their own gardens.
“Right now it’s more of an experience,” Sutherland said. “People have never really done the actual growing. It’s going to take some time.”
Sandy Lake’s Gary Manoakeesic is looking forward to bringing more knowledge about growing food, food preparation and food sovereignty back to his community.
“This is to help me provide our community with the knowledge and to help teach our young and old how to eat better and to stay healthy and think positive,” Manoakeesic said.
Fort Albany’s Gigi Veeraraghavan said a small working group has been organized to look at food security across NAN territory.
“We’re working on a NAN-wide food sovereignty strategy so that these ideas and these programs that some of us have been starting up in our communities can be spread out to all the communities in NAN to work on the political level,” Veeraraghavan said.