Tea Creek Site Development Plans

In the above images you can see the current site layout of Tea Creek, the planned structures and features, as well as zones and areas of focus for future development. 

Support More Cold Storage for Crops and Food

Currently the lack of cold storage is a serious bottleneck at Tea Creek. The amount of food we can grow, or accept, or prepare is very limited by our current small cold storage and lack of any root cellars. Our current cold storage is a renovated, very small chicken coop!

With root cellars - we are hoping for at least 3 - we could plant more crops, harvest more, and distribute more food to the community.

The cost for a new root cellar ranges greatly based on size and construction type.

We envision large root cellars that we could put 'lifts' of veggies and food into with pallet forks. As an example, our potato storage is currently a maximum of 4,000lb total, a volume that was gifted into the community in only 1 day in 2022! We can grow over 40,000lb in our current fields, but with storage so limited, we limit our growing as well. Currently we store 4,000lb, grow 10-15,000lb, and donate the balance immediately without storing it. 

With cold storage we could:

• Grow and store more potatoes, keeping them for up to a full year, and distributing them as needed
• Grow and store far more veggies such as carrots, cabbage, turnips, beets, beans, corn, and more
• Grow more greens such as lettuce, which with proper storage can keep up to two months before being distributed! This means we could grow outdoors up to end of October, and store fresh lettuce until end of January!

Local Accommodation Options for Out-of-Region Trainees and Guests

• Support the accommodation costs for out-of-region Trainees to attend Tea Creek's training.
• Directly support the development of our existing accommodation property to add RVs (in the short term) and guest cabins (in the longer term). The site is 3 acres. We can add 'camp' style accommodations such as trailers or RVs in the short-term. 
• Support a local Indigenous entrepreneur to create their own B&B, and we could refer guests to them.
• Support an Indigenous Carpentry cohort to build a Cabin(s) or Tiny Home(s) over 12 weeks, including all costs. This would also include sponsoring trainees as ITA BC Carpentry apprentices.
• Support the larger vision for accommodations, affordable housing, and incubators for Indigenous farmers and entrepreneurs! Click here to view the design brief.

Support Small to Large Scale Tractor Farming

To accelerate toward food security and sovereignty, we need to use tractors to scale up production and keep food affordable. One of the least expensive sources of calories are potatoes, which are easily grown on a larger scale with machinery. In 2021 we grew 10,000lb of potatoes on 3/4 of an acre with trainees and tractor farming. 100% of all food grown at Tea Creek is gifted back into our communities.

Some Ideas:

• Support the purchase of more tractors for Indigenous Food Sovereignty at Tea Creek and other First Nations
• Fund the purchase of additional tractor attachments such as bedders, planters, transplanters, weeders, harvesters, and soil managers.
• Fund materials and supplies such as fuel, mulch, irrigation, compost, and seed.

Transportation Vehicles for Food and Inputs

Some Ideas:

• Loan or donation of transport van for cargo
• Support to purchase a new transport van
• Support to purchase an insulated and cooled trailer that could be towed

Support Electric Vehicles for Sustainability

Currently, all Tea Creek vehicles and machinery are fossil-fuel driven. We would love to add electric and hybrid equipment and vehicles to our fleet. Electric in particular increases sovereignty by reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Fuel availability and prices have been greatly disrupted. We would like to demonstrate electric and alternative options.

Opportunities for Electric:

• Tractors
• Participant Transport
• Food distribution

Help us build our Longhouse Food Hub!

Images for inspiration only

Tea Creek already has over 1,200 Indigenous guests per year, hosts community visits weekly in the busy season, and distributes tonnes of food per year into Indigenous families and communities. We are lacking facilities for our food hub. The Hereditary Chief of the territory we live on requested that we build a longhouse at Tea Creek. Since then we've been presenting the concept of a central Longhouse Food Hub at Tea Creek.

Provisionally, the Longhouse Food Hub would feature:

• Commercial Kitchen(s)
• Food processing facilities
• Cold storage, root cellar, and freezer
• Multi-purpose space for food distribution, education, and cultural food and medicine activities
• Composting facility nearby
• Elders parking
• Located centrally near fresh food and medicines

The cost to create the Longhouse Food Hub centre would cost $1,500,00 - $2,500,000 depending on scope and scale. 

Using wood waste to build soil, compost, and heat structures

In land clearing, trees and brush are usually put into slash piles and burned, releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Instead, we chip as much as possible and use the chips as weed-suppressing mulch, and also as important soil and compost builders. Our wood chipper runs for much of the growing season, and trainees learn how to safely operate the chipper and use the chips for soil building and different food production such as bedding. We also process trees by hand for heating fuel, as most of our structures in the north are wood heated in the winter and shoulder seasons - and we can go through a lot of fuel heating structures during training.

Some Ideas

• Support the purchase of another wood chipper, to be lent out to communities for their own foodland development
• Support a firewood processor, to process slash piles
• Fund the creation of an on-site small scale compost facility (structure with at least 6 bays), which would ideally also feature heat capture
• Support a local Indigenous entrepreneur with startup costs for a firewood/ wood chipping business

Transport Equipment to Communities for Foodland Development

Indigenous communities in our region have very limited capacity to re-develop farm and food-producing lands (including food forests, etc). Currently, we have 1 "car hauler" trailer but need larger trailers and diesel towing trucks to effectively move machinery around community to community with the required attachments. Last year we used our own trainees, and deployed them to one community to rototill farm and garden spaces. We currently have four communities signed up who need equipment provided to get going.

Some Ideas:

• Support for fuel, insurance, and maintenance is appreicated.
• We could use two triple-axle equipment-moving trailers, and at least 1 more diesel truck.
• One of our Indigenous instructors has his class 1 license and can operate heavy trailers. We could run a training program to help others get their commercial licenses. 
• Fund an Indigenous entrepreneur to start up a regional transport business, who we could then hire to move equipment.
• This activity could be self-sustaining once the equipment is in place.

Help Reclaim Farmland

In our valley, over 600 acres were once in active food production, and all of it has become overgrown. 

The most efficient way to reclaim foodland is through forestry mulching. The mulcher, if large enough, and chip entire trees and mix the chip into the soil up to 2". When left to rest, the mulched brush and trees compost and we can then start re-establishing food production on this land.

Other crucial tools include brush mowers, plows, roto-tillers, and rock-pickers to prepare fields

Some Ideas

• A forestry mulching unit could be loaned or donated to Tea Creek
• A brush mowing deck for a skid steer costs about $20,000
• A mulching head for a a skid steer costs about $45,000
• A rock-picker costs $35,000
• Plows and Roto-tillers cost $1,000 - $7,000
• A new top-of-the line compact track loader with mulching head costs around $250,000