The Wrangell Cooperative Association’s Tl’átk - Earth Branch is looking for a place to build a greenhouse after tribal citizens objected to putting one near the community garden, due to the area’s proximity to Indigenous gravesites.
The borough assembly was slated to consider Tl’átk – Earth Branch’s request for a parcel of land next to the garden at its Sept. 26 meeting. The parcel is near Indigenous gravesites and Tl’átk was considering maintenance and signs on the gravesites as part of its plan for the greenhouse.
However, after some tribal members opposed building a greenhouse next to the graves, department coordinator Alex Angerman and technician Kim Wickman withdrew their request for the parcel of borough land.
“The city is doing a great job with that spot as it is,” said tribal citizen Kenneth Hoyt at the Sept. 26 assembly meeting. “It’s wonderful without fences, without signs.”
When he served on the tribal council years ago, “this question came up of developing a greenhouse at the ball field,” he said. “It was just flatly refused without a lot of discussion back then.”
WCA was responsive to its members’ concerns. “We learned that we can’t put (the greenhouse) close to grave sites based on tribal values,” said Angerman. She held a workshop Oct. 19 to update the community on the project, gather information about people’s visions for the facility and identify a new location.
Finding land is the department’s top priority, since funding for the project is time sensitive.
Tl’átk – Earth Branch received a grant through the Tlingit & Haida Central Council for the greenhouse, but these funds have to be spent before October 2024. To stay on track with this timeline, the department needs to identify a new parcel of land by December 2023.
The department is considering placing the greenhouse near the WCA office on Zimovia Highway or purchasing one of several privately owned lots around town.
Whatever land they acquire needs to be developed already, added Wickman. Much of Wrangell Island is composed of wetlands, which require a lengthy permitting process to develop, and the project’s tight timeline won’t allow for those kinds of delays.
Even buying developed land can take time. The parcel that Tl’átk – Earth Branch was previously considering would have required the approval of four borough committees, plus the assembly, to purchase.
Once the department identifies a location, it will influence the scope of the project.
“We are looking into various types of greenhouses,” said Angerman. “Our original option was to do a four-season greenhouse. It would be connected to electricity and water so we could run it all year round. … It just depends on where we put it. We could also look into something more simple.”
Workshop attendees also discussed their goals for the greenhouse once it’s operational.
Wickman and Angerman plan to offer internships through Tlingit & Haida’s Youth Employment Services (YES) program, allowing tribal youth to learn gardening skills and gain professional experience that will prepare them for the workforce.
“The hope is that it can be a real teaching area, a resource for people to learn that they can do it,” said Wickman.
Not just interns, but high school students and community members could all benefit from the educational resources she hopes to offer. “We can all grow things, sometimes we just need a little bit of help,” she added. For example, “what do you do when you get aphids all inside your greenhouse? We can teach everybody along the way.”
Attendee Marcia Miller wanted to know how greenhouse staff would select foods to grow and how produce would be distributed throughout the community. “Are we going to grow stuff that the ancestors used to eat,” she asked. “Is it a priority that we plant certain things in it?”
Miller would like to see staples like potatoes and carrots grown in the greenhouse; attendee Allan Bennitz would like to see seasonal offerings, like a pumpkin patch. “We could get the little kids interested,” he said.
While Tl’átk – Earth Branch hopes to be sensitive to the community’s desires for the facility, the tribal council will have the final say over what the greenhouse produces and how food is distributed, Wickman explained.
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