Vandals struck at the community garden in Carcross covering a greenhouse full of vegetables with contents of a fire extinguisher, but leaving the community vowing to continue on despite the setback.

The project, run by the Carcross Tagish First Nation, is designed to teach people about the importance of food security and encourage residents to grow produce and their own food in a northern climate.

A course by Yukon College is also being run out of the greenhouse.

Over the Canada Day long weekend staff went in the 20x60 foot building chalked full of vegetables and discovered a fire extinguisher had been set off, covering the tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, herbs, and other vegetables in a fine white powder.

"Sunday morning she came in and the place had been sprayed,” said Roberta Auston, transitional employment manager with the Carcross/Tagish First Nation.

"At first I don't think they realized what had happened. There was this fine dust all over the plants.”

Staff found the pull tab required to start a fire extinguisher on the ground. The extinguisher itself was found in the creek just below the greenhouse.

The Carcross RCMP are investigating.

Auston said samples of the fire extinguisher's contents have been sent to a chemist with the Department of Energy Mines and Resources' agriculture branch to determine if any of the vegetables are edible.

EMR spokesperson Jesse Devost said officials have determined the extinguisher did not damage the plants or soil.

"The material inside a fire extinguisher is the same as many common fertilizers,” he said Tuesday.

Devost said the only real concern could be inhaling the powder. That problem is solved by dampening the produce.

Even with the official okay, none of the produce from inside the greenhouse will be sold, Auston said before the official results came back.

"They might be given away to people who know the circumstances and have been apprised of what happened, if the department says it's okay.”

Laird Herbert, the instructor with the Yukon College program run out of the greenhouse, said the produce was about ready to be harvested before the vandalism.

"The first cucumbers had just come up,” he said last week. "So we were just beginning the planning for the next step.”

Only the vegetables inside the greenhouse were targeted. The patch of root vegetables growing outside the greenhouse were untouched.

"I think it's just a very general kind of animosity,” Auston said of what happened. "I think people have a way of taking their anger out on the victim, or something that are not going to argue back or fight back.”

The community is not discouraged. Both Auston and Herbert say the project will be moving forward.

In the weeks since the incident a second greenhouse has been refurbished and the same people who put their work into the first bumper crop have begun planting again at that new spot.

"We finished covering it already, and there are garden boxes that are in it already. One row is filled with soil and the second one will be ready by the end of today,” Auston said in an interview Monday. "So during this upcoming week there can be planting.”

Local businesses have donated some vegetables to help the group start again. Students began growing other starter seedlings the same weekend the damage happened.

Auston said there have been talks about how to increase security around the greenhouses and gardens but didn't want to go into any specific details.

The greenhouse project in Carcross was last active three to five years ago. It was revived this year and the buildings were refurbished.

"The idea is to have the vegetables and the gardens available to the community so that we can market and then the community has access to fresh vegetables that we don't have now,” Auston said.

A lot of people in Carcross rely on Whitehorse shopping trips to get their fruits and vegetables, she said.

"It's something you might take for granted. But once you live in a small community and have a very low income, it would be very convenient to have this available. Especially for young families.”

While the new greenhouse produce grows, staff will begin selling the "beautiful” vegetables that grew in the fields outside the greenhouse, away from the damage, Auston said.

They will be at the Tagish Community Market this week.