Audrey Logan
Background
Audrey Logan is a Nehiyaw (Cree)/Métis woman from Northern Alberta, then a global traveler, now living in urban Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a longtime community gardener and traditional foods educator, and you can find her in the garden in almost any weather, with her brightly coloured shawl and a pitchfork made of deer antlers. Food dehydration came into Audrey’s life at a time when she was suffering from extreme health issues. As a person living with permanent disabilities stemming from childhood abuse (Audrey is a 60’s Scoop survivor), as well as living on the meagre disability assistance provided by the provincial government, she had fewer resources than many do when it came to dealing with her health:
“I’m laying in bed at 300-some pounds thinking how am I going to make this better, when I can’t afford the food that’s going to make me better? Doctor said i can only have this and this, but i can’t afford this and this. But I think about my auntie and my kookum, and they didn’t have all the fancy materials, all the way up there in the bush, how did they do it? I’m sitting here in the middle of everywhere, food dripping from the trees. What’s my excuse?” [1]
Klinic Garden
Auntie formed and runs the Klinic Garden in Winnipeg in the West broad way neighborhood. The sign at the entrance of the gardens describes the site as “A Community U-Pick Permaculture Site,” and continues to explain how the garden is a community collaboration effort and a “teaching and demonstration permaculture site.” The sign also declares with Cree Syllabics: “Welcome, there is food, feed yourself.”
The Lesson of the Squirrel
In the time of the great learning when the plants and animals were teaching the humans how to live with nature, each had a gift to give them: the great Bear taught about medicines and even the Squirrel had a lesson to teach them. This is that lesson.
Since during the snow time, fresh foods were not to be found, even when the humans traveled to warm places, but when the ice came they needed to store foods that were easy to carry and would not go bad. The squirrel showed the way to dry the foods by making it into smaller pieces and drying the pieces in the sun up on branches. The humans saw how the items dried and would not go bad, up in the branches where the wind blew and the sun cleaned the goods well.
These items can still be found along branches today as squirrel still dries their goods to store for winter in their nests. Following these teachings the peoples were able to preserve their foods for trade and turned into many foods and flours for winter use. Water ceremony was done when rehydrating the foods, as water returned life to the dried goods so many could be fed.
These goods can still be found in caches across Turtle Island in bogs and in-ground graineries as well buried well into the earth as pemmican. These tools for storage and food preservation can be revitalized for future food security using old knowledge with new tools. - Audrey Logan[2]