Hay River’s Jackie Milne was in Ottawa over the weekend.
The award is called the Meritorious Service Medal. As the President of the Northern Farm Training Institute, Milne’s being recognized for leading the charge in changing a community that is facing challenges.
However, this isn’t her first award:
HAY RIVER’S JACKIE MILNE RECEIVES MERITORIOUS SERVICE MEDAL
The NFTI teaches people how to utilize the Northern environment to harvest the land. It’s viewed as a college, but Milne says that it’s not your typical college.
“We’re not really what you’d expect from a college; the campuses, stuff like that. We provide food and board and we teach people how to farm.”
When asked about the future of northern farming, Milne says that the NWT has the potential to sustain itself through a crisis.
“We are very fortunate that we even have as much wild harvest available to us that we do. In North America, and here are some statistics, we only have less than 2% of the population in food production. That is a vulnerability. Still, that’s only 4, 500 people… That’s not a lot, we can [farm in the North].”
Congratulations on the award, Jackie.
We will have a featured story in the coming weeks on Jackie Milne and what she has done with the NFTI to help bring the NWT to create sustainable, affordable and renewable food resources.
