Rob Morgan, a long-time participant in the VNHS garden project, near the new smokehouse at the UBC Farm
At any point from July through December you might be lucky enough to arrive at the UBC farm on a day when the salmon smoke is on. Catching a brief waft of mixed cedar, alder, sockeye salmon, and woodfire is a sublime experience that alerts you to more than just great traditional west coast food in the making. It’s the newest addition to the developing Aboriginal Food Hub, and another sign of the innovative partnerships fostered at UBC Farm.
In February 2009, a unique collaboration between second Civil Engineering students at UBC and Aboriginal Elders from East Vancouver gave life to Vancouver’s first Urban Aboriginal Smokehouse. Every year, the UBC Farm hosts several groups of students from Susan Nesbit’s CIVL 201/202 courses in design/build Community Service-Learning projects. Smokehouse design and construction formed the backbone of one group of CIVL students’ work throughout the 2008/2009 school year and was done at all steps of the way in consultation with the elders and other participants who access the Vancouver Native Health Society (VNHS) Garden Project at the UBC Farm.
Members of the VNHS Garden Project preparing salmon for traditional smoking
For many of the elders of the project, this was their first chance to work side by side with university students and presented an opportunity to teach students about the traditional knowledge behind the preservation of salmon, and the links between the health of salmon stocks and the coastal rainforest and forests of interior B.C. For example, coastal aboriginal people have told us in their own ways for centuries (and recently, scientists have confirmed in their own ways) that the health of salmon stocks has a direct relationship to the health of the coastal and interior forest ecosystems. Eagles and bears claw out spawning fish from rivers and travel in all directions, leaving their nitrogen-rich droppings to nourish the forest flora as far as 200 km away from salmon-bearing rivers and streams, painting a picture of deep ecosystem integration that knits together oceans, forests, animals, humans, and plants in mutually healthy relationships. This message of integrated health is at the core of both the VNHS Garden Project teachings and the UBC Farm’s mission.
For some of the men in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the construction of this modest building marked the fulfillment of a 30-year dream to have a traditional smokehouse within city limits. The traditional role of many First Nations men up and down the west coast was to tend the fire and otherwise take care of the salmon smoking, a process that can last for up to 4 days. The smokehouse has allowed urban Aboriginal men from various Nations to share their cultural knowledge and reconnect with their traditional roles in ways that also contribute to a more wholistic vision of health which factors in the importance of self-confidence and spirituality.
Cedar shake smokehouse, created through a partnership between UBC students and Aboriginal elders from East Vancouver
For many of the Civil Engineering students, this was the first time they had swung a hammer or operated a power tool, let alone done so alongside a group of elders who fed them, and taught them about the relationship between the well-being of their people the salmon, and local ecosystems. The lessons learned for students reached far beyond traditional civil engineering calculations and protocol, and pointed towards a broader conception of sustainability in which one’s hands-on work has real effects in a real world and can truly effect positive change.
For more information about the VNHS Garden Project, contact project coordinator Jeannie Parnell at garden.vnhs@shawbiz.ca
