A powerful space: Indigenous Medicine Garden grows more than food
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An Indigenous medicine garden is much more than a space where traditional plants grow. The garden is also a classroom, the foundation of a curriculum, a reciprocal relationship, a revitalization of culture, an act of decolonization and a wealth of untapped potential.
The Indigenous Medicine Garden, the latest addition to the Farm at RRU, was designed by Kenneth Elliott, Cowichan Elder and ethno-botanist, and cultivated by Solara Goldwynn, farm & food systems lead for the Farm at RRU, as well as Elders and consultants from the Lands of the Lekwungen-speaking Peoples, the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.
The space is a haven for Indigenous plants and medicines, and those who wish to learn from them. The Farm at RRU also hosts a Giving Garden and Market Garden and expands each year with support from donors and volunteers. Goldwynn has big dreams for the space, and for the Indigenous Medicine Garden in particular.
As farm & food systems lead for the Farm at RRU, Solara Goldwynn looks after the gardens and coordinates volunteer groups, tours and events in the Farm.
She wants to create a place where people can interact with plants, see what Indigenous plants look like and learn about what their uses are. “And to go outside of the walled garden, to the campus and see them there… And [for community members] to learn about the cultural practices and medicinal values of these plants.
“I have a lot of hope that there will be people in this space learning and being able to feel connection to the land here,” she says.
Learning with the Land
Russell Johnston, director of Indigenous Education, and Jasmine Dionne, instructional designer at Royal Roads University, have a similar vision — but one that involves a diploma. Their team is designing a new Indigenous Studies diploma program with Land-based learning at its foundation. When the program is ready, the Indigenous Medicine Garden will serve as a living classroom.
Land-based learning will be foundational for the future Indigenous Studies diploma program at RRU, and much of that learning will take place in the Indigenous Medicine Garden.
“The goal is to create an engaging Land-based program where students can see themselves reflected in the coursework, the curriculum, the faculty,” says Johnston. “[We’re] excited about this opportunity to build something that can serve the people we have a responsibility to — the original caretakers of these Lands.”
Some of the program’s learning outcomes, shares Dionne, are: “investigating Indigenous approaches to ethics and governance; analyzing historical and contemporary assertions of Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination and sustainability; question and build on concepts of responsibility, community development, governance and sustainability; understand the significance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and explain the relationship between Land and indigeneity within Indigenous communities.”
Land as decolonization
Aside from its academic potential, Johnston and Dionne hope the garden can help the university community grow and meet its commitments to Indigenous Peoples.
To explain the connection between land-based learning and decolonization, Dionne refers to the words of Eve Tuck, professor of Indigenous Studies at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development: “Land-based pedagogies are essential interventions against biopolitics, because it puts Indigenous peoples on the Land, it feeds them, it teaches them, and it displaces what settler project was there prior.”
“I think it allows [community members] the opportunity to ask more questions about colonialism and displacement and what their relationship to Land should be going forward,” says Dionne. “It’s one of the best ways for the institution to grow and it can do that by supporting students’ access to the garden.”
RRU community members came together for the initial planting of the Indigenous Medicine Garden, and the space relies on volunteer involvement from students, staff and faculty.
The garden gives Indigenous students the opportunity to access what is theirs, adds Johnston. “Those teachings, those medicines, those things belong to them. We’re providing a space for them to regain access to the teachings and everything those relationships can provide.”
Listening to the Land
The Indigenous Education team expects the relationships between students and Land will be reciprocal, with native plants and medicines finally given a place to thrive.
“It’s like giving a stage back to the Land and saying: ‘here’s an opportunity for you to share with us what you think is appropriate,’” says Johnston. “Not only do the students get to learn, but we’re also providing an opportunity for the traditional plants and medicines to have their voice and relationships re-established, because those have also been severed through colonization and through the shift of these spaces.
The Indigenous Medicine Garden is filled with plants native to the area, like the Pacific Crab Apple.
“And especially here [on the Royal Roads campus], the lagoon has been a classroom since time immemorial. We’re just resurfacing, re-establishing what this Land has always done,” he says.
Referencing a paper from Bang et al., Dionne shares that most people perceive the world as “I am, and therefore place is,” whereas projects like the Indigenous Medicine Garden can help shift perspectives to “Land is, therefore we are,” which has ecological, political, and cultural impacts.
