Aroland greenhouse sets example for North

Aroland’s Mark Bell has been successful with growing peppers and other plants in two greenhouses he built out of recycled wood and other materials.
“I have about 100 tomatoes starting to turn red,” said the Aroland economic development officer. “I have chili peppers, I have jalapenos, I have broccoli, I have carrots, peas. You name it, I grow it. And it all grows really well.”
Bell said the greenhouse project was easy to do in his community because they have road access and are able to get soils and other gardening supplies without much trouble, compared to other remote fly-in First Nation communities.
“But we shared a lot of our techniques for finding soils in the bush and how to make healthy soils with what you have around you,” Bell said about his participation in Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s 3rd Annual Food Symposium, held Aug. 26-28 in Thunder Bay.
Bell said NAN needs to do more food projects in the future to be prepared for self governance.
“Governance is probably one of the most important issues facing our people with the re-emergence of forestry occurring as well as the Ring of Fire,” Bell said. “We’re going to have a lot of impacts that we are going to have to deal with and this will be one way of dealing with some of those issues by making sure that our food systems and way of life don’t change.”
Meanwhile, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug’s plans to build a one-acre sized greenhouse have been put on hold.
“It really hasn’t taken off but gardening is happening,” said KI Councillor Joseph McKay. “We’ve been planting potatoes and carrots.”
KI is also working on the development of a 100 by 500 foot garden on the north side of the community.
“They’re using heavy equipment right now to pull out the stumps,” McKay said.
McKay said community members are also motivated to start their own gardens.
“I went to check out one of the gardens yesterday — the potatoes are growing really fast,” McKay said. “We’ll be harvesting them pretty soon.”
McKay said his wife had been working on a garden as well, but the carrots didn’t grow very well this year because of the heat.
“(The peas) are doing good,” McKay said. “They always do good up here when we grow them.”
KI had been looking into the possibility of building a greenhouse in 2009 that would use waste heat from a new power-generating plant that was to be built in 2010-2011.
KI Chief Donny Morris said the plans also called for securing of cost-effective freight charges, development of a distribution network and commitments from grocery retailers to carry KI’s produce on their shelves.