Cedarcopperwoman's blog

Harmony Garden is located in North Vancouver,specifically, in the village of Humulchs'n. This garden is a community effort that was initiated by a small group of Elders in the community, who had started a Community Kitchen in the basement of St Paul's Church in the village of Sla7an, which is also located in North Vancouver.

The food security in this community was almost non-existent, until this program began through the dedicated efforts of the Elders. They saw the need to provide a hot meal for community members, and find out how they were doing with their nutritional needs, and whether or not they were being met.

The initial idea was to start a soup kitchen, and with some progressive suggestions towards Community Kitchens, these Elders were convinced! It was more exciting to imagine how cooking together would be able to help them build community, learn about their cousins, aunties, uncles, and other relatives, and what they were doing on a weekly basis.

The typhoon that hit the Easy Coast of Taiwan this summer, left several miles of driftwood on the shorelines. Indigenous people here are gathering the wood to make furniture, as well as to re-build their homes that were destroyed during the typhoon. There are still many villages that are being re-built, and there are many homeless people, mainly in the mountains along the East Coast. It is incredible how resilient the people here are. This young man is making his living from working in an artists' collective, and he goes fishing daily to contribute to the collective and help keep everyone fed on local and sustainable food systems.

I am spending a month in Taiwan, living in an Indigenous Taiwanese community on the East Coast of Taiwan. There are several Indigenous tribes here, and I am currently still learning a great deal about them! The Ami People are the folks who are hosting myself and the other Canadian Artist traveling with me. We are staying at an old Sugar Cane factory, and the artists run the show here.

There are several artists who are working on their arts here, and they work in a collective manner, not only on their art works, but their food security as well. Lunch time brings everyone together and there is an array of foods that were gathered locally, and seasonally from this region.

When I think of these terms, I think about how these terms empower me.... throughout my life I have been seeking dialogue on these subjects, yet trying to get urban Native people interested in talking about this, not just doing this work, has not been easy. I don't think it is cuz they don't want to share, I think the general feeling is that nothing will get done if we don't just do the work involved in the gathering, the hunting, the processing...

When is there time to actually strategize on these topics, and make things happen?

I know that feeling, cuz when I get going on my food security for my personal living, there is really no time to talk, just do. I see what it takes for me personally to get this together for myself and my family, but I have a number of resources, including the fact that I live here in Vancouver, where my territories are... being Coast Salish, I have a number of directions I can go to gather what is natural to my DNA.

Chexw Ma Hal7h! Siyam and Siyay! T'Uy'Tanat kwi en snas! Cease Wyss Nia7mun! My family is the Nahanee Family, from the Skwxwu7mesh Nation, and the Williams Family from Sto:lo Nation, the Wyss family from the Swiss Nation, and the Nihinu Family of Hawaii. Welcome to my beautiful home that you all know as Vancouver, and is known as many village names throughout this area, continuously inhabited by the Coast Salish People: Skwxwu7mesh, Whu- Muthqueam & Tseil-Watuth Nations! I run the Urban Aboriginal Food Enhancement Program with Vancouver Native Health Society, through funding supported by AHIP- Aboriginal Health Initiatives Plan.