Country Foods in Community Programming: Supporting Schools, Daycares and Cooking Circles in Tuktoyaktuk and Paulatuk, NWT

About the Project

Funded by the CanNor Northern Food Innovation Challenge Grant, this project worked with community partners to conduct a scan of existing food programs and relevant community infrastructure, and then working together to co-create and develop program goals and implementation plans for incorporating more country food into programs. Documentation of lessons learned and mechanisms from the pilot projects will contribute to the development of communication materials and resources that will be shared between the communities, and more broadly in the region. This project engages members of all ages in the communities (e.g., preschoolers at daycares, school-aged children, parents, and Elders). Schools and youth have led the creation of cookbooks that celebrate country food).

Research Team: Kelly Skinner, Sonia Wesche, Sonja Ostertag, Tiff-Annie Kenny 

Project Leads

Kelly Skinner, PhD, MPH, MSc

Associate Professor, School of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo

Sonia Wesche, PhD, MSc

Associate Professor, Geography, Environment and Geomatics, Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa

SONJA OSTERTAG, PHD, MSC

Research Assistant Professor, School of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo

Tiff-Annie Kenny, PhD, MSc

Assistant Professor, Département de médecine sociale et préventive, Laval University 

Updates

Ramirez Prieto, M.Sallans, A.Ostertag, S.Wesche, S.Kenny, T.-A., & Skinner, K. (2024). Food programs in Indigenous communities within northern Canada: A scoping reviewCanadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes68276292https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12872