First We Eat: An intimate food sovereignty journey in the remote North

Event in English - Événement en anglais

This free ticket includes a viewing of the 101-minute documentary, available for a week before the event (July 28th to August 4th), and a seat at the 75-minute online discussion of the film.

----------------

Watch Suzanne Crocker’s film, First We Eat, and join us in a discussion about food sovereignty in one of the most remote and northern regions of Canada. On the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Yukon, more specifically in Dawson City’s 66-day growing season, Suzanne embarked on the journey of eating locally-produced and harvested food for a whole year. Adding to this challenge were three skeptical teenagers, one reluctant husband, no salt, no caffeine, no sugar, and 40 below temperatures! Suzanne will discuss how knowing where your food comes from makes you intimately connected to the land, the soil, the growers, the wild, and forageable foods. She will share her observations of the regenerative practices used in her community in this remote, permafrost environment.

Small-scale birch syrup producer, Sylvia Frisch, provided Uncle Berwyn’s Yukon Birch Syrup as a sweetener for Suzanne’s family diet. In this talk, she will share her approach to northern food autonomy, including the challenges of sourcing local fertilizers. She will share her family’s personal trials with goats and chickens, how they use bi-products from their birch syrup in their compost, and how they integrate humanure.

Kim Melton provided Suzanne and her family with precious northern-grown apples during their year of eating locally. She and her partner live off-grid on the far side of a river with no road access. They canoe across the river in the summer and they can walk across the river ice during the winter. Kim will share her journey as part of Canada's northernmost orchard: shifting soils from boreal forest to fruit using minimal mechanization and local amendments, as well as her explorations of her relationship to soil.

Join us to learn about this “foodprint” journey, one of getting to know your local food system, discovering its profound value and surprising bounty, and wanting to protect it.