The Garden Of Eden? Ian? Indian?

If you're anything like me, then you lie awake at night wondering where your next meal would come from if your morning toast was toast. I don't actually fret over food, but what would happen if your local Tingley's was vapourized? And all other grocery stores? Collectively, most of us would starve, right?

This past summer I read a lot of Farley Mowat books, many of which chronicled the plight of early explorers to what is now Canada's Arctic regions. Oh, how the Europeans suffered from maladies such as scurvy. Starvation was a killer too, sometimes for the Eskimo as well. It got me thinking about food. The people of the Arctic managed just fine on their diet of caribou except in years of lack of caribou, but the Europeans couldn't adapt to their surroundings without their bangers and mash. They croaked like Arctic frogs.

The success of the Eskimos (Inuit) at living in such a seemingly inhospitable place was matched by the Indians (First Nations). Note: some might argue that surviving in Manitoba was oddly more inhospitable than Baffin Island. I won't argue that point. The Eskimos and Indians managed just fine living off the land, but could we if we had to right now? What did the First Nations people eat?

Waiter, I'll have the pemmican, medium rare, with a side-order of fiddleheads.

I happened to be walking along Bloor Street in Toronto last week when I stumbled upon something other than a texter or an empty Tim Horton's cup. Immediately in front of a UofT building that houses the OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education), I spotted a series of over-sized concrete container gardens. The one that was of the most interest had a sign that said 'Aboriginal Education Garden'. This, for me, is a big deal because it marked perhaps the only time that I learned something about the natural world while being physically stationed at ground level in the concrete jungle we call Toronto. Note: city living feels like a false reality to me. I'm still running with wolves in my mind, though in reality I'm swimming with sharks and tramping with texters.

The sign for the Aboriginal Education Garden gave a web link: www.oise.utoronto.ca/ese. Let's see what we can learn....

You didn't think I'd spoon feed you my findings, did you?  Find your own food, you lazy louts. You might be nourished, or feel encouraged, by what you find! I was.