SPECIAL WEBINAR!
Date: June 21, 2022
Time: 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm (ET)
National Indigenous Peoples Day and the Summer season of #FoodisOurMedicine.
We will hear from Traditional Knowledge Keepers Margaret Edgars and Jenny Cross, who will honour salmon's role in the food and culture through both story and film.
Margaret and Jenny will be joined by dietitian Shelly Crack (Northern Health) to share their journey of bringing traditional foods to patients and families in Haida Gwaii region of British Columbia.
Register here
As part of this celebration, we would like to acknowledge and thank the Knowledge Keepers and contributors who made the Food is Our Medicine online course possible.
We invite you to share with us a moment or insight from your Learning Journey that we could share with others in the webinar as a thank you to the Knowledge Keepers and contributors to Food is Our Medicine.
Send a thank you - click here
About the speakers
MARGARET EDGARS
My grandmother was Emily (Swanson) Abrahams and my grandfather was David Swanson (Eli Abrahams was the step grandfather I knew). David was lost at sea when I was a child. My parents were Elizabeth and Victor Thompson. I was raised traditionally on the land, taught to pick berries, go out, and get fish. We grew up going to the north island of Haida Gwaii for the whole summer to live off the land. We grew up canning fish, picking berries and living outside. We would go out to Yakoun River to catch sockeye and live up there with Emily Thompson, visit or live up there on the river. I have 5 children Terry, Irvin, Bonnie, Blossom and Oscar. I have 11 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. I am considered an elder in Gaw (Old Massett) and have sit on a number of health and land based committees for decades.
JENNY CROSS
Jenny Cross is a qualified ECE at Skidegate Daycare Center on Haida Gwaii. The center has an Aboriginal Headstart Parent and Tot Program where Jenny passes on knowledge of traditional cultural teachings. These include Haida language, song and dance, harvesting and processing of seafood, medicinal plants, wild berries. Jenny and the Headstart program collaborates with island organizations, knowledge keepers and elders. Jenny is passionate about passing on the knowledge of the ancestors to the next generations. She is also a traditional Haida singer who teaches song and dance to the children in the community.
SHELLY CRACK
Shelly Crack has been a registered dietitian with Northern Health for 15 years. She focused the first half of her career on providing community dietitian services to a variety of first nation communities in Northern British Columbia. Living and working on Haida Gwaii, an island off the coast of BC with an abundance of local and traditional food, has taught Shelly the importance of people’s connection to their land and food. Shelly believes that serving traditional food from the land and sea in hospitals supports all forms of wellbeing including physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Jenny Cross and Margaret Edgars have been mentors to Shelly over the years and she is grateful for their teachings.
