NORTHERN ALBERTA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NAIT culinary garden grows tobacco for on-campus Indigenous offerings

When Camille Louis became manager of NAIT's Nîsôhkamâtotân Centre in spring 2024, she found something unexpected in a drawer of the desk she'd inherited. It was a dried piece of plant.

"They were tobacco seeds," says Louis. "I recognized them because they come in pods."

They weren't out of place. The Nîsôhkamâtotân Centre is where Indigenous and non-Indigenous students can gather to network, study and share their post-secondary learning experiences. Culture and tradition are encouraged.

"Tobacco is considered the first plant gifted from the Creator to the people," says Louis. "It's a sacred plant to Indigenous people." It's used for ceremony, prayer and offering, she adds.

And, in this case, it led to an idea. Louis knew that NAIT instructors were then planting the polytechnic's on-campus culinary garden. "It just came to me," she recalls. "NAIT has garden beds, we have seeds."

So Louis reached out, eager to see what a partnership might yield for Indigenous students, and for the polytechnic's efforts to continue to make them feel comfortable, acknowledged and welcome.

Power of a partnership

Dave Whitaker (Cooking '83) has grown many things, but never tobacco. 

As the lead for NAIT's culinary garden project, he oversees annual plantings of everything from tomatoes to herbs to edible flowers. Each year, the Main Campus courtyard it occupies grows lush with greenery, fruit and vegetables that help students learn how and what they can grow for the kitchens they hope to join or start.

"They were so tiny!" says Whitaker of the seeds spilling from the pods Louis brought him. After hitting the internet to learn more about germination and growing, he sprouted the sand-sized kernels in an incubator used for growing microgreens in the campus cooking labs. "A couple took and they've just been growing great guns."

By September, Whitaker and his gardening team (this year including Sarah Campbell, Erin Howe - Culinary Arts '05, Kelsey Johnson and Luisa Rizzi - '03) had produced two plants, each nearly a metre tall and resplendent with broad, lime-green leaves, sticky to the touch.

"Any partnership that we can do [with other departments] is a good thing," says Whitaker. Not only do they build ties across the polytechnic, but they lead to learning experiences. For one thing, growing the plants helped Whitaker show students the range of produce that can come from an Alberta summer.

For another, it opened his eyes to what some of those plants may mean to people. Before planting it, Whitaker wasn't aware of the cultural significance of tobacco. He wasn't just learning to sprout an unfamiliar seed, he says. In partnering with the Nîsôhkamâtotân Centre, he realizes that he and his team were cultivating a "connection with people."

Roots of representation 

The centre keeps small pouches of pure tobacco on hand. In addition to its use in pipe ceremonies, Louis explains, it can serve as a gesture of respect. As part of its support for students, the Nîsôhkamâtotân Centre provides access to Elders and cultural advisers. Upon visiting one, tobacco is offered in exchange for insight or guidance.

The point of growing tobacco at NAIT is not to meet that demand. In fact, it's not even possible - at least not this year. When Whitaker carries on with his learning and manages to cure the campus "crop," it will dry down to nearly nothing. That's fine by Louis. For her, it's the source of the tobacco that matters.

"For Indigenous students, representation is so important," says Louis. "And representation goes beyond seeing other Indigenous students, or Indigenous people in places of leadership. I think representation is also shown in physical spaces."

A garden may be one such space. "It's important for Indigenous students to see that NAIT values them and that not everything Indigenous is an add on - It can be just embedded within NAIT."

Or rooted. Next year, Louis and Whitaker's team will work together to start growing a little earlier, and likely sow more plants, building on what they've learned this year.

"It's not about quantity," says Louis. "It's just about seeing what we can do with a few seeds."

This story was originally featured in techlifetoday, click here to read the full article.