When we think of libraries, we often see them as caretakers of knowledge which resides on pages, shelves, and in databases exclusively. However, for the members of the University of Alberta Library’s Indigenous Initiatives Team (IIT), knowledge dissemination and conservation have taken the form of a Medicine Garden located outside of Cameron Library.
Emerging from ideas of community engagement, with reconciliation and Indigenization efforts at its center 1, the Medicine Garden had its second annual planting, watering, and weeding day in late May of this current year. Made possible by the full support, commitment, and incredibly helpful hands of the Indigenous Initiatives Team and our fantastic summer waterers from both libraries and museums, the garden has been teaching us the importance of patience, communication, and dedication. As a team, we have endeavoured to care for last year’s plants, while furthering our relationship with the land and the native species of amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton by welcoming native and medicinal seeds back to the area. Led on our planting day by the insight and teachings of Kokum Bonny Spencer, IIT and the lovely folks from the UofA’s library and museum worked in tandem to plant raspberries, plantain, sage, wild roses, fireweed, tobacco, and corn, to name a few.
While the garden is in its current summer state, we on the Indigenous Initiatives Team hope that folks who pass by the garden space will take a moment to pause, admire, and engage respectfully with the vegetables, flowers, fruit bushes, and shrubs. It is an area that welcomes students, staff, and community members, inviting them to consider how they might learn more from our green relatives and become better listeners to different living beings on our campus. Through this sharing, we hope that other folks on campus take inspiration and work to build their relationships with the land, continuing a cycle of knowledge movement and land reconciliation.
Our garden continues to teach us the importance of sharing resources and knowledge, communicating with others, and the need for unbridled teamwork. Even as the summer crop comes to an end with us harvesting and donating it to the Campus Food Bank, we look to next year for continued collaborations with other groups and folks on campus.
Through the library’s and the Indigenous Initiatives Team’s communal beliefs of teaching and learning, inclusion, research, and importantly, Indigenization and reconciliation1 a new year of gardening seeks to expand our garden community further. With our shared responsibility to do better and be better, next year’s gardening season could not come quickly enough.
Thank you to Abigail Deck, Indigenous Library Intern for submitting this article!
Abigail Deck is a Master of Library and Information Studies student and currently working as the Indigenous Library Intern with the University of Alberta Library and Indigenous Initiatives Team. She is a proud member of the Otipemisiwak Metis Government of Alberta. Abigail works alongside other members of the Indigenous Initiatives Team to explore knowledge systems beyond the library walls and support student oriented learning opportunities.
1 University of Alberta Library. (2024). Mission, Vision + Priorities. Retrieved March 30, 2024, from https://www.library.ualberta.ca/about/vision
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