Hoyt brings 'Haa Taayí' to Wrangell garden

For Alaska Natives, food is essential – and traditional foods are of extreme importance to the indigenous people of the Last Frontier as they choose to live their history and culture in the modern age.

In Wrangell, the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium leads the way with its traditional foods program, under the direction of Ken Hoyt.

Hoyt moved to Alaska in 2012 to take over the program and has, in the past year, introduced a variety of projects to the Natives and non-Natives of Wrangell, including a smokehouse at the Community Garden, and a set of raised beds and a greenhouse for gardening.

Hoyt’s newest program, “Haa Taayí” or “our garden,” aims to bring the Tlingit gardening heritage back into mainstream acceptance.

“This is about revitalizing Tlingit gardening traditions,” Hoyt said. “The pre-contact Tlingit people had tobacco, potatoes, and other cultivated indigenous plants. We’re planting potatoes here now, and later they will be moved to private residence gardens or greenhouses.”

There is no real difference, Hoyt added, between gardening techniques used by Alaska Natives and Europeans who colonized North America, though with one slight conceptual difference.

“We were discussing this earlier, that we’re using a value system which incorporates new techniques and tools,” Hoyt said. “We’re also combining both societies by using new tools on old land, here in Wrangell.”

The soil used by the SEARHC foods team combines older, previously used dirt, with new organic material, compost and steer manure. According to Hoyt there are gardens in Wrangell, Old Town, as well as local residences.

“We’re growing spuds down at Old Town and we’re also working with the teenage Head Start program so they will have something to harvest,” Hoyt added.

Old Town is one of the original Tlingit settlements on Wrangell Island, approximately one hour south of downtown by boat.

Hoyt and his team dedicated the smokehouse in August and said the structure, which was built by Lee Romane, required more than just a little planning to make it happen.

“It took a lot to get to this point and there was a lot of teamwork involved,” Hoyt said. “It was tricky because this is Wrangell, and we are landless. I’ve been up to Klukwan and Kake where smokehouses are everywhere and people just put them up wherever they want. We had to put planning into where this one would go.”

Wrangell will be host to a multi-tribal gathering of traditional food experts next week as members of Alaska Native and Lower 48 tribes will meet at the Nolan Center. The event begins on Monday, June 17. For more information call Hoyt at 874-2712.