One key takeaway to solving the food crisis in the landlocked North SA国际影视传媒� help the communities help themselves.
That's the message Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely is coming back with after a week-long tour of the Sahtu, which relies on barges and winter roads for its supply chain. He toured the region with representatives of Nutrition North, Food Banks Canada and Sysco Canada.
"We heard a number of things," he said. "The high cost of groceries, a lack of frequency on re-supply and the demand for more traditional food and the lack of storage capacity or building capacity. "I would say, overwhelmingly, not many people knew about the program in depth and how it can apply to the communities."
McNeely said the message was pretty consistent from community to community. Instead of burning tons of fuel and money to bring food donations to this remote corner of Canada, why not provide the communities with the means to sustain themselves like they used to?
One relic the people of the Sahtu McNeely indicated people would like to see resurrected are the community freezers. Dug deep below the permafrost, these historically allowed hunters and harvesters a place to preserve food for long-term use.
Being able to put the food available in the region to better, more long-term use would dramatically reduce people's reliance on the outside world, bringing cost of living down, he said.
"Arranging a supply chain that would fit the local demand," he said. "Years ago, most communities had a community freezer. We heard quite a bit that we need those back so the public could store their traditional food.
"We haven't gotten to the point how much it's going to cost to set up a freezer or a supply store."
McNeely said both Nutrition North and Food Banks Canada were very receptive of the idea, offering to provide subsidies for fuel and ammunition for hunters in the region.
Having community freezers would also resolve a second issue facing food banks in the Sahtu: a complete lack of space.
McNeely said of the communities he visited, only two had anything resembling a food bank and they were more like pantries.
"One community was using the the RC (Regnum Christi) Mission basement as a food bank storage facility," he said. "Three of the communities had no facilities, and two of the communities had some form of a food bank."
He said he's now working out the logistics on how to make the plan happen.
McNeely also expressed thanks to Buffalo Airways for subsidizing airfare to the region to help facilitate the tour.
