First seeds planted at the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Teaching & Working Farm

DAWSON CITY – The soil has been turned and seeds planted for the first growing season at the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (TH) Teaching and Working Farm.

Five TH citizens have been hired as farmhands. Nancy-Jane Taylor, Jen Titus, Joshua Moses, Nick Rear, and Adam Farr are working with Dexter MacRae, TH Human Resources, Education and Training Director, in cleaning the site and preparing an initial 150-by-75-foot plot. Beginning this week, the team will plant the initial crop of potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, lettuce and edible flowers.

“Being able to plant in our first year, and distribute food to the community in a few months, puts us well ahead of where we expected to be,” said MacRae.
MacRae credits the “phenomenal support” the farm project has received from TH citizens and the Dawson City community, as well as the Yukon Agriculture Branch, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and Yukon College, in helping the project quickly reach this milestone.

Local businessperson John Mitchell has helped organize many activities requiring local contractors. This has resulted in the farm already having a 10-foot irrigation well, electricity, and wall-tent platforms, which will enable several of the farmhands to live onsite.

The Teaching and Working farm has been given a Hän name, Nän käk nizhì’ tr’ënohshe gha ëtr’ëhǫh’ąy, which translates to “On the land we learn to grow our food.”

The farm is a collaboration with Yukon College. Dawson Campus students have already benefited from the partnership. In early May, students in the Environmental Monitoring program mapped the site and took soil samples. The class also identified six potential heritage sites on the property, including root cellars and a barn, which have been marked for preservation by the TH Heritage Department. In addition, a Whitehorse campus student has been hired to write a literature review on crops grown and growing conditions in the Dawson area, to inform farm planning.

Monday, June 8, will see the arrival of the open-source NorTrackTor, created by Logan Sherk and Tom Bamford of Artic Automate with support from the Yukon Research Centre at Yukon College and the Yukon Agriculture Branch and launched in March at the annual agriculture conference in Whitehorse. The TH farmhands will operate the $15,000 machine this summer on behalf of the Yukon Research Centre and provide feedback on how it handles in a real-world, northern environment.

“It is very exciting to be working together on this. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in has envisioned a truly unique farm project which is already providing opportunities for innovative experimentation and ways to bring TH citizens and Yukon College students and researchers together for the benefit of the wider community,” said Dr. Chris Hawkins, Vice-President Research and Community Engagement.

The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Teaching and Working Farm is located 15 km outside Dawson City on the North Klondike Highway. The site was previously known as Strachan’s Farm and Fournier Dairy Farm.