This Indigenous spirit garden goes beyond supporting families in need. It's also growing relationships

Volunteers with Anishnabeg Outreach were busy this week harvesting food and medicine grown over summer at the organization's spirit garden.

The garden began as partnership with downtown Kitchener's St. Mary's Catholic Church in the spring. It's located on Spitzig Road, beside Woodland Christian High School in Breslau.

An array of food like tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupes, peppers, squash and pumpkins were planted throughout the four hectare garden.

Near the back of the garden, where it meets the edge of the forest, traditional medicines like sweet grass, sage and tobacco were also grown.

"This is probably the most important part of the garden. This is the part that I view as sacred," Stephen Jackson, CEO of Anishnabeg Outreach, said as he gave a tour of the site.

Special crops grown at the garden were tobacco and squash share a deep connection with the region's history. Jackson said the seeds were propagated and once grown by Indigenous communities in the area hundreds of years ago.

"The tobacco strain that we have are actually from 1,000 year old tobacco. I was gifted by the [Ken Seiling Region of Waterloo Museum], who started the propagation," he said.

"They came in a pitched sealed jar dug up in an archeological site and they propagated a few seeds. That worked and now that's being spread through the region. It's amazing, tobacco from hundreds of years ago."

Seeds for squash, dubbed "the ancient squash," were also propagated by the museum. This particular squash was a food staple for Indigenous peoples, Jackson said.

"When we planted them, we didn't know if they were going to grow or not because of weather conditions and all the rest," he said.

To their surprise, dozens of ancient squash grew and now the group has seeds for next year's crop.

Growing relationships part of reconciliation

The garden is sometimes referred to as the reconciliation garden. For Jackson, reconciliation means growing relationships and partnerships with the broader community. 

"The garden wasn't about making money or food," he said.

"It was about bringing people together. It was about giving large organizations like RBC, Neighbourhood Group Of Companies, the Catholic churches and other churches an opportunity to do something differently. An opportunity to participate in reconciliation"

The four hectare garden sits on land owned by the Diocese of Hamilton. Toby Collins, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, said he and Bishop Douglas Crosby were eager to build a relationship with the local Indigenous community on the land.

"They have given us an opportunity. In the past, we're the ones that caused a lot of the problems and here they are reaching out to us saying, 'Can we heal together?'" Collins said.

"For me it's a metaphor for how we enter truth and reconciliation. There are a lot of weeds and if we all pitch in and remove as many weeds as we can and plant new things for the present and the future, I think we're going to be OK."

Giving back to the community

The food grown at the garden is going toward Anishnabeg Outreach's spirit bundles, which support more than 450 Indigenous families in the region. Ancient squash will be part of that bundle, Jackson said.

"I can't wait to imagine the smiles on everyone's face when they eat something that Indigenous people grew and ate hundreds of years ago to survive on and this is giving back to the families in need," he said.

The squash tastes pretty good, too, he adds. He describes the taste as similar to a spaghetti squash "without the stringiness." 

Some of the squash will also be used by the chefs from the Neighbourhood Group Of Companies for a charity dinner the group is hosting for Anishnabeg Outreach on Oct. 17.

The restaurant group's CEO Court Desautels said the relationship with Anishnabeg Outreach goes back several years and staff visit the spirit garden regularly.

"We always try and figure out what our place is through truth and reconciliation and the garden opportunity came about. There's a lot of conversations we need to have and there's no better way to have conversations than around the dinner table," he said.

Desautels said the dinner will showcase Indigenous ingredients from across the province and around the country. All the proceeds will go to Anishnabeg Outreach.

"I'm very hopeful that we achieve reconciliation. It's not something that will be done overnight. It might not be accomplished for 100 years, but there will be relations that will be built," he said.

"It really starts with something as simple as coming out to a garden."