Yukon MP Brendan Hanley was on hand Monday at the Yukon First Nation Education Directorate’s (YFNED’s) kitchen to help announce a funding boost for northern food security programs.

This funding includes $845,000 to complete the detailed architectural design for a First Nations-oriented kitchen and game-processing facility in Whitehorse.

“Food security, as we all know, is an issue important to many people in the Yukon and across the North,” Hanley said. “And even more so in these hard economic times.”

Hanley had just returned to Whitehorse this past weekend from Ottawa after the close of the parliamentary session. MPs have begun a six-week break.

Funding is through the Northern Food Innovation Challenge, which seeks to address food security issues at the local level by supporting community-developed projects.

“The objective was to support innovative community-led projects for local and Indigenous food production,” Hanley said.

These projects are based in all three territories. Hanley was making the announcement on behalf of Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal, who is also responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, and which created this program in 2021.

There are four projects in total, one in the Yukon, one in the Northwest Territories and two in Nunavut.

This round of funding is for the projects to go from phase one to phase two.

That means participants can either scale up their ideas or proceed from conceptual design to detailed architectural plans for those initiatives involving the construction of new facilities.

The facility in Whitehorse is being designed by the YFNED as a learning space, as well as a community hub for traditional food.

“We are working with the design team of engineers, architects and kitchen specialists to envision a better way of not just feeding all of our Indigenous kids, but creating a space that can be used to educate, gather and come together with local food,” said Melanie Bennett, YFNED’s executive director.

She also talked a bit about why education and food security go together.

“Without food, kids can’t learn,” Bennett said. “They can’t learn on an empty stomach.”

The space is being designed to have areas for refrigeration and freezing of game meats, dry storage areas, meat processing areas, meal preparation areas, and equipment for the cleaning of reusable packaging, along with an instructional kitchen and learning space.

Outdoor areas in the designs will have gardens and places for traditional “on the land” practices.

Land has not yet been purchased for the project, though Bennett said they hoped to get that figured out soon enough to break ground in 2025.

The design for the space is meant to be replicable for other northern communities, and Bennett said it would be a “green” certified building.

The other three projects also have a focus on meat processing and traditional ways of preparing food.

In the N.W.T., the Fort Simpson Métis Development Corp. is getting $705,500 for site preparation to build a bison processing facility.

The Ilisaqsivik Society in Clyde River, Nunavut is being provided $1 million to have hunters provide traditional country food and educate youth on hunting and harvesting skills.

Finally, the Qajuqturvik Community food Centre in Iqaluit, Nunavut is getting $400,000 for a country food program that provides retail space and processing facilities for hunters to make an income.