The days are getting shorter and full of rain. Many Southeast Alaskans are dreading the impending seasonal shift. In Hoonah however, one 12-old boy is pretty excited. Standing over his garden, Ted Elliot pops another snap pea into his mouth.
“The most exciting thing is the end of fall when you get to harvest all your stuff and have a good green meal,” Ted said.
Tucked into the center of town behind the Fishermen’s Daughter, a local restaurant shaped like a boat, sits a grid of raised garden beds called the Hoonah Healing Community Garden. These beds are free for community members to use. Exploding out of the bed that Ted has cared for over the past two years stands impressive snap pea bushes laden with pods. This season, Ted has been bringing fresh produce home to feed his family. His mother, Elleana Elliot, is beaming about it.
“I made jojos the other day from his potatoes! I invited his grandpa down and fed the whole house. We have a family dinner gathering every Sunday and different houses come down and its tradition. Ted has been bringing fresh greens to those Sunday dinners,” Elleana said with excitement.
Located on Chichagof Island, Hoonah is an isolated Tlingit community that is home to roughly 750 year round residents. Like all Southeast Alaskan communities, the great majority of store-bought food travels at a snail’s pace from the lower 48 by barge. Serving quality, fresh produce for family dinner is both challenging and expensive. Residents who aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty, however, see this challenge as an opportunity to learn how to grow more locally.
“At first it wasn’t like this, the way we ate. It was more store bought carrots, more store bought potatoes, store bought snap peas which my mom don’t like that much,” Ted explained. “With gardening, we save a little bit of money and it’s tastier.”
And Ted’s green thumb isn’t just caring for one single raised bed.
“This is Moby,” Ted said as he marched into a small, bright, wooden structure beside the community garden. “Moby is a great and wonderful greenhouse on wheels.”
Moby the Mobile Greenhouse is a project by the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition and the Sustainable Southeast Partnership to kickstart greenhouse growing in rural Alaska. The structure was designed by students at the University of Alaska Southeast and built using local lumber by Juneau-Douglas High students. Moby comes equipped with raised beds and classroom curriculum.
When Moby first came to town in April, Hoonah teacher Melissa Thaalesen used the greenhouse as a tool to teach nutrition and healthy eating. Moby also provided starts for 12 community members looking to jumpstart garden growing. With the help of those seedlings, growers in the Healing Garden celebrated the lushest and most successful growing year since the community beds were raised in 2012. When school ended, Hoonah moved Moby to the Community Garden where volunteers, like Ted and his mother Elleana, began caring for it.
“It’s been a good food provider for us,” Ted said as he showed off chard, kale, peas, green beans, tomatoes and more. “It’s solar powered too! Not many greenhouses are solar powered which really saves on electricity and what not.”
A solar panel installed on the roof powers a fan that helps circulate air and regulate the temperature.
Below the solar panel and the growing space is another unique characteristic of Moby: wheels. Moby is made to move. Like many residents of Hoonah and Southeast, Moby gets a ticket on the Alaska Marine Highway System and can travel to different rural communities. Last year, Moby spent the growing season in Kake. This year, Moby paid Hoonah a visit. Next spring, Moby will begin its journey to a third community.
“I’m going to be sad when Moby moves to a new community but I’m excited that someone will go through the same experience I got to go through,” Ted said.
Where will Moby go? Applications will open in late October and any Southeast Alaskan community can apply. Teachers, individual schools, school districts and community organizations are eligible.
Ted’s advice for the next cohort of gardeners who get to fill Moby with greens:
“Be nice to Moby and Moby will be nice to you. If you weed its gardens it will give you whatever you planted. And if you don’t, you don’t get what you really want or maybe you get half as big as what you were thinking.”
Despite its transitory lifestyle, the impacts Moby leaves behind appear lasting in Hoonah. “It’s almost like Moby helped me,” Ted said. “My garden last year wasn’t that good. It helped me learn that daily weeding would lead to success.”
Community wide, Moby has helped seed momentum for a more permanent greenhouse project. Hoonah Indian Association and the City of Hoonah teamed up to initiate a feasibility study analyzing the economic viability of a district biomass heatloop. This proposed heatloop would connect and heat five downtown buildings with renewable energy. Community volunteers are itching to tether a greenhouse structure into that loop.
For now, as long as there are greens to gather in Moby or his raised bed, Ted will keep sharing.
“He will come home with a handful of snap peas every day and we put them in salads. He comes home all muddy and it’s nice to see him getting dirty again,” Elleana said.
Ted is currently deliberating how he will plant his garden next year. He’s considering focusing on carrots and potatoes. Of course, he plans to keep space for his famous snap peas.
“When he comes home, he tells me all about his snap peas and he has pride in his eyes. He’s learning, you know? He is getting involved and it’s pretty cool. We are very impressed and proud of him,” Elleana said.
For more information about Moby the Mobile Greenhouse or to apply to have Moby visit your community visit: www.sustainablesoutheast.net.
• Bethany Goodrich is a freelance storyteller and the Communications Director for the Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP). SSP is a diverse group of partners dedicated to the cultural, ecological and economic prosperity of Alaska’s rural communities. Visit www.SustainableSoutheast.net or www.bethany-goodrich.com for more.
Ted walks in the Hoonah Healing Community Garden. (Photo by Bethany Goodrich)
