3rd Annual Traditional Foods Conference and the Digital Harvesters 2010

Hello all

It has sure been a busy last few months. Feasting for Change has been on the move and working hard on the foods conference and much more. Here is a bit about the last few months.

In Victoria, BC on April 16 and 17, 2010, members from over 30 Coastal First Nations communities attended the 3rd Annual Conference on the Traditional Foods of Vancouver Island First Nations.

The conference follows two very successful conferences held in Nanaimo. The theme this year was “Celebrating Indigenous Foods in a Changing World: Coastal Conversations among Youth, Elders and Community Members.”

The purpose of the gathering was to bring people together to celebrate the traditional foods and people of Vancouver Island First Nations and to discuss the four pillars of nutrition, healing, safety and community.

Day 1 was be hosted at the First Peoples House at the University of Victoria and over 150 people attended the day that featured speakers, panellists, open discussions and amazing short film-screenings. (See link below for the Digital Harvest videos) The day went into the evening and included a Feast and evening of entertainment. Earl, Lewis, Jen and I presenting our work, digital story and the knowledge basket. It was great.

Day 2 was held out in the Tsawout First Nation at their new community building. Over 300 people came for a day of networking and hands-on activities, demonstrations and displays. There were over 20 booths of people working hard on Indigenous Food Issues. Feasting for Change and VICCIFN were both there at met so many great people. There were some great outdoor activities like removing the hike from a deer, eating sea urchins, traditional pit cook, cooking food in a bentwood box, smoking clams and baking scow bread on the fire.

The food on day 2 was delicious and a huge community event. We feasted on clams chowder, smoked fish soup, crabs, salmon, urchins, prawns, lingcod, delicious berries and baked bread. A huge thank to Snaw-naw-as's Vanessa and Jake Bob for their clams and soup! Rose Jimmy and her crew did an amazing job on the food. Also Arron Sam caught lots of the delicious food. Hych-ka Siem to all the many food helpers, Abe, Kate, Tommy, Joceyln and so many more!

Photos from the 2010 Traditional Foods of Vancouver Island First Nations can now seen at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkiemele/

DIGITAL HARVEST Project
The 2 days before the conference the Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities Indigenous Food Network (VICCIFN) worked on the Digital Harvest Project.
Please see this great story for some insight into this project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBYNaufoYOo&feature=related

Over the 2 days the Elders and youth created 23 stories.
See the amazing stories at this link. All the stories are on the right hand side of the screen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSaPhloqIUs

Then Feasting for Change was asked to come to Tofino for the International Congress of Ethnobiology 2010. It was an amazing event to meet people all over the world working hard on food issues and enviornment protection. On the Tuesday night was a community networking event and we were able to share our story and Knowledge basket with people all over the world. It was powerful.

Some of the youth in the Digital Harvest Project presented at the conference. The Nuu-chah-nulth youth Damon, Nikki, Mitch and Keenan presented their stories and the work they do on their youth council to over 80 people. The youth were give 2 standing ovians. They rocked.

Now it is time for a season of harvesting, teaching, learning and FEASTING! Hope to see you all!

Feasting for Change

Feasting for Change Event Snitcel March 13th 2009

Hello all Feasting Friends

It was a wonderful day, as the students from UVIC, people of Feasting for Change, the SeaChange staff came together to celebrate the beauty and sacredness of Snitcel. The sun was shining and people were getting busy digging the pit and building a fire. The group of UVIC students and community members were split up into four smaller groups the first one went to a nearby stream to collect more rocks; the second harvested salal branches, with the third picked sword ferns and then the forth collected oceanspray. The rocks, salal branches and sword ferns were for the pit while the oceanspray was used for a clam bake and make baked bread too.
When it was time to put the materials in the pit when the rocks were hot enough to cook with; every one of the volunteers worked amazingly fast. There were seven pairs that were lined up in the order that layers in the pit. The layers were salal, sword fern, then the root vegetables, and apples with clams; then the order was revised sword fern and salal on the top. While all of that was going on the clam bake was taking place down on the beach.

After the pit was closed, I (Lewis) told a legend story about how some of the birds got they songs while we all sat to enjoy some medicine tea that was collected by some of the students. The plants that were harvested were:

-trailing blackberry leaves (Rubus ursinus)
-licorice fern rhizome (Polypodium glycyrrhiza)
-Red Cedar tips (Thuja plicata)
-Yerba buena (Clinopodium douglasii)
-stinging nettle (Urtica dioica)
-lemon balm (Melissa officinalis)

We also enjoyed some smoked salmon soup make by Jen, Sue and Doug. It was delicious. The weather was changing a bit so it really warmed us all up.
We then got back to work and split into 2 groups – One group was to learn about the plants in Snitcel and the other was to help remove invasive species in the park. It was amazing to see how much work the groups got done. They were powerful and passionate in removing the invasive species while learning about all the medicines and indigenous plants in the territory.
As the groups came back together they could go down to the water and spend time watching Earl Claxton Jr prepare this Iron wood sticks to bake the clams and bake the oysters by the fire. Earl is such a wealth of knowledge and stories. Thank you.

It was now time to enjoy the bounty of the Pit. As the group got together they opened the pit and we feasted on the root veggies, clams, apples and it was delicious.
Thank you to everyone, Nikki from Seachange, Brenda Beckwith Uvic and her amazing class, the feasting for change working group especially Doug, Sue, Jen and Fiona

Lewis Williams, Tsawout First Nation
Seachange and Feasting for Change

Feasting in Namgis First Nation

Prayers were answered as the morning sun cleared the rainy clouds still leftover from the day before. The South Island Feasting for Change working group members Fiona Devereaux, Earl Claxton Jr., John BradleyWilliams, Anna Spahan and Jen McMullen had drove up to Alert Bay the weekend of October 24th, for the Alert Bay Feasting for ChangeTraditional Foods Feast hosted by Jean Smith, Traditional FoodsCoordinator in the beautiful Namgis longhouse.

Jean Smith, along with Jamie Hunt, Erin Rowsell, Sharon Gorden and many others organized fun activities during the day-long event for the Alert Bay community.The early morning kitchen bustle grew as vegetables, clams and salmon pieces were being chopped for the lunch that marked the beginning of the feasting day. Three full tables kept going back for seconds as we shared a tasty meal of clam and fish chowders.

Lunch gave way to afternoon activities that included an outdoor pitcook, a nature walk in the Gator Garden led by Earl and John Bradley. Many people came back excited by what they had learned from Earl and John Bradley. In the bighouse, the cooks had set up salmon bbq'ing around the longhouse fire. What a glorious picture! Beside the fire, people sat talking and watching the salmon roasting. In addition, there was a cedar weaving workshop where youth and others wove cedar bracelets, and medicinal teachings and teas/salves by Eva Dick, as well as Feasting for Change's table displaying books by local First Nation's authors on Indigenous foods and Feasting for Change's Knowledge Basket.

After the invigorating nature walk, Sharon started the Indigenous Foods Fear Factor! There were five rounds, the participants in each round had to eat everything on their plate withoutmaking faces to make it to the next round. There were raw fish eyes,herring eggs, salmon eggs, ..... The winner was ... and she won an mP3player. After the Fear Factor, Sharon organized the youth into two teams. The teams competed to see who could answer the most questions onIndigenous foods, including their traditional names and identification.The X team, consisting of XXXX shared their winnings. Next, everyone participated in the Indigenous foods bingo, organized by Fiona.

The non-stop and cheerful cooks obviously knew what they were doing when an incredible feast was brought out into the longhouse. The tables sagged with several different kinds of salmon: smoked, breaded, grilled- all really tasty. Other foods were yummy bannock that everyone raved about, salad, herring eggs, and the pitcook vegetables. The food was all harvested and preserved by the rayers were answered as the morningsun cleared the rainy clouds still leftover from the day before.

So wonderful to spend time with such amazing people.

We would like to acknowledge the Namgis First Nation for their interest and support in Feasting for Change, the BC Healthly Living Alliance, Canadian Cancer Society and Vancity for their support, encouragement and passion for this project and the connect to Food, Land and Culture.

Many Thanks, Gilakesla, Hych'ka, Choo

2 more pictures from Snaw-naw-as Feast

2 more pictures from Snaw-naw-as Feast