The Yellowknives Dene First Nation held its community market in Dettah on Saturday afternoon in what was more than a display of garden vegetables but also soups, recipes and arts and crafts.
The market is an annual event that usually takes place at the end of each August, but it ran a month late this year due to the wildfires and subsequent evacuation.
“We’ve been learning together for many years how to garden and how to host markets. It’s just a beautiful collaboration,” said Lone Sorensen, the owner of Northern Roots Consulting and Northern Market Garden, who is also a longtime community market collaborator.
The occasion brings together various community organizations such as Ecology North and the Yellowknife Community Garden Collective.
“We’re all working together to make this happen,” Sorensen said.
With 12 vendors, there were fewer this year than last year’s 20 or so. Sorensen attributed the drop to the wildfire evacuation.
Despite this year’s delay and vendor reduction, Sorensen remains optimistic about the event’s future because it’s a celebration of harvest time, when there is generally an abundance of fresh produce from local gardens. The market is a testament to community resilience in the face of adversity, she suggested.
She said a network of volunteers watered locals gardens while most of the city was evacuated, but some crops, especially tomatoes, suffered from the heat and lack of water. However, most of the plants survived and produced well, she noted.
Yellowknife gardeners, in some respects, were also fortunate that cooler weather arrived late this year, allowing them to harvest some of the later crops before the snow came.
During Saturday’s event, Ecology North discussed various topics with attendees, including waste reduction and climate action. They aim to break down these complex issues into smaller steps that individuals can take to make a difference, said Trey Foreman, intern at Ecology North.
“We have a trivia wheel that we run. We have these colouring books. We’re trying to get through to youth. We gear a lot of our activities towards them,” he explained.
