School District 57 will be working with the Prince George Aboriginal Business and Community Development Association to bring traditional Indigenous smokehouses to more schools in the district.
On Tuesday, the district board of education voted in favour of working with the association on the proposed project. Prince George Secondary School already has a traditional smokehouse, which was built over two years by wood shop students at the school.
District director of Aboriginal education Pamela Spooner said the smokehouses will provide students a variety of learning opportunities in areas ranging from food preparation to history to sciences. Students in the secondary school shop programs may have an opportunity to help build the smokehouses.
“We have many land-based programs at our schools,” Spooner said. “Everything that happens at the smokehouse isn’t about the food.”
The partnership is “a wonderful opportunity” for students, board chairperson Sharel Warrington said.
“This is amazing. I am 100 per cent in support,” trustee Rachael Weber said. “These kind of things, when they are built, kids who don’t normally communicate open up.”
