SEP 24, 2024: DUNCAN, BC – Field Day at Quw’utsun Food System Revitalization Project

Come experience Indigenous food system revitalization and estuary restoration at the Quw’utsun estuary in Duncan, BC! 

Join Jared Qwustenuxun Williams, Tom Reid from the Nature Trust of BC, Jennifer Grenz from UBC Indigenous Ecology Lab, and Kristen Miskelly from Satinflower Nurseries for a field day at the Quw’utsun Estuary Food System Revitalization and Estuary Restoration Project! We will start with a plant walk, learn about the project, and enjoy a meal together. If the timing and weather align, we may get to collect some native plant seeds. Everyone is welcome to attend.

DATE: September 24, 2024. 10am-2pm

LOCATION: Quw’utsun territory. Cowichan Bay Road, Duncan, BC. Please meet at this Google Maps Pin. Parking will be in the restoration area through the main farm gates off of Cowichan Bay Road.

REGISTER: This event is full, and we cannot accommodate drop-ins due to limited parking. You may add your name to the waitlist in Eventbrite in case a spot opens up: 

CARPOOLING: Carpooling or walking/biking to the site is encouraged due to limited parking. Please post in the Facebook event discussion to coordinate rides.

ROUGH SCHEDULE:
10am: Arrive, introduction circle
10:30am: Plant walk and project discussion with Jared, Tom, Jennifer, Kristen
12:30pm: Catered lunch from Hungry Bubba’s

BRING: Weather and farm-appropriate clothing and footwear, and a water bottle. Bring a chair or blanket to sit on for lunch.

MEALS: Lunch will be provided from Hungry Bubbas.

SHARE: Planning on joining us? Invite your friends and share this event!

ACCESSIBILITY: We will be parking at the project location and walking the revitalization/restoration area. Walking will be via a maintained farm access road as well as through the existing fields (note: most of the fields are level but there are some undulating areas). If you have any accessibility needs, please get in touch with us at community@youngagrarians.org.

ABOUT JARED QWUSTENUXUN WILLIAMS

Jared “Qwustenuxun” Williams is a passionate traditional foods chef who works with elders and knowledge holders to keep traditional food practices alive. Jared spent much of his youth with his late grandmother, immersed in Salish culture. Raised in a world filled with smoke and fish Jared became familiar with many of the cooking methods and techniques used by his ancestors.

In 2001 Jared graduated from culinary arts and spent the next few years working in restaurants across Vancouver Island. After almost 10 years gaining western culinary experience in niche restaurants like Rebar Modern Food, Spinnakers Brew Pub, and Cherry Point Bistro, Jared decided moved back home to Quw’utsun (Cowichan) to blend his culinary experience with what he could remember of his traditional foods. Having spent his youth working with his family learning many traditional harvesting and preparation techniques it was no surprise when Jared became the kitchen manager at the Elder’s Building with Cowichan Tribes. After nearly a decade and a half of cooking for his communities elders Qwustenuxun now works as an indigenous foods educator, writer, and consultant. 

Most recently,  Qwustenuxun won a Canadian Online Publishing Award for best multicultural story. He was nominated for the 2022 BC Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Award. And helped FNHA complete their first smoked salmon project, proving that Salish smoked salmon is a safe and effective technique for food preservation. Qwustenuxun has also been a featured guest on APTN’s hit series Moosemeat and Marmalade, cooked indigenous foods on Flavours of the Westcoast television show, and has been featured on CBC radio many times for his efforts in first nation’s food sovereignty.

Qwustenuxun also maintains a very popular and active social media presence. From sharing language videos on TikTok and funny Indigenous memes on Instagram, to a full blown lasting impacts of colonization blog on Facebook. 

Website: Qwustenuxun Consulting
Patreon: patreon.com/qwustenuxun/posts
Facebook: facebook.com/jared.q.williams
Instagram: @qwustenuxun
TikTok: @qwustenuxun 

ABOUT JENNIFER GRENZ

Jennifer Grenz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia. She has a BSc in Agroecology and a PhD in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems (both from UBC). Jennifer’s research focuses on applying an Indigenous worldview (she is Nlaka’pamux of mixed ancestry) to invasion biology and ecology and challenges us to think differently about our role in ecosystems management as we face a rapidly changing climate. She is passionate about bridging the practitioner-researcher divide as she worked for nearly two decades providing consulting services and on-the-ground management of invasive species for all levels of government prior to her academic appointment. Her lab, The Indigenous Ecology Lab, is currently working on understanding the impacts of invasive plants on soil microbial ecology and the role of these impacts on post eradication restoration activities, applying an Indigenous food systems lens to restoration ecology and major climate event recovery, and understanding the needs of culturally important plants to inform restoration.

Website: https://www.indigenousecology.com/

ABOUT Kristen Miskelly

Kristen co-founded Satinflower Nurseries: Native Plants, Seeds & Consulting, a native plant nursery and consulting business in Victoria, British Columbia. The nursery inspires and empowers people to connect with nature through native plants. Kristen is a biologist passionate about native plants, ecology, ecosystem restoration, and native plant propagation. Her undergraduate work focused on grass taxonomy, and she completed her master’s in paleoecology at the University of Victoria, where she studied the preglacial flora of southern Vancouver Island. Over the past couple of decades, her work has focused on the Prairie-Oak ecosystems of Southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Kristen is a steering committee member of the Cascadia Prairie Oak Partnership and a sessional lecturer at the University of Victoria in Biology and the School of Environmental Studies. Kristen continues to provide ecological consultation to various agencies and groups and teaches courses and workshops on native plants, propagation, and local ecology regularly.

Website: https://satinflower.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/satinflowernurseries
Instagram: @satinflowernurseries

ABOUT THE COWICHAN ESTUARY RESTORATION PROJECT

The Cowichan Estuary Restoration Project will revitalize the health of the Cowichan Estuary to conserve biodiversity and protect local communities, now and in the future. Positioned on the traditional territory of the Quw’utsun people (Cowichan Tribes), the Cowichan Estuary Project is the largest estuary restoration project to ever occur on Vancouver Island. The project will restore 70 hectares of marsh habitat and re-establish natural estuarine processes by removing human-made barriers to marsh development and reconnecting freshwater channels to tidally influenced areas. 

The Cowichan Estuary contains habitats that are critically important for wild Pacific salmon, migratory and breeding birds as well as species at risk. The estuary provides important habitat for up to 230 bird species and thousands of waterfowl can be found in the estuary each winter. This project also places significant emphasis on incorporating Indigenous food systems so that these lands continue to be farmed, providing culturally significant foods and medicine plants to Cowichan Tribes while contributing to the overall food security of the region. 

Website: https://www.estuaryresilience.ca/cowichan-estuary-restoration-project/ 
Storymap: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/3fe2a2c09cd84baeb9c60cb6cd9feee8 

ABOUT NATURE TRUST

The Nature Trust of British Columbia took on the daunting task of protecting the natural riches of the province by building a treasury of wild natural areas to conserve iconic and important species at risk.

The Nature Trust of BC is now a leading non-profit land conservation organization. Since 1971 we have acquired more than 500 conservation areas in British Columbia.

Treasured places like the Salmon River with its abundance of fish, birds and elk on Vancouver Island, Boundary Bay on the flight path of hundreds of thousands of migrating birds in the Lower Mainland, the White Lake Basin which is home to many species at risk in the Okanagan, and the magnificent 10,000 acre Hoodoos conservation complex in the Kootenays are protected for future generations. These are some of the 180,000 acres (73,000 hectares) The Nature Trust of BC and our partners have acquired.

B.C. is endowed with the highest number of species of any province or territory in Canada. Yet, 43% of these species are on the watch lists because of low or dwindling populations. Saving their habitat is the first step in protecting our wildlife, fish and plants.

Website: https://www.naturetrust.bc.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NatureTrustofBC/
Instagram:@naturetrustbc

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• This event is free and open to everyone! Supervised children are welcome
• Please leave furry friends at home
• Please stay home if you have cold or flu symptoms
• Please wash your shoes before visiting the garden, especially if you work on or have visited a farm recently
• Please do not bring alcohol to this event
• Please share this event with anyone who may be interested!