The Tl'etinqox International Cultural Garden Centre is a welcome refuge for locals and visitors.
Trevor Mack, from Tl'etinqox First Nation and his wife Alejandra Valeria Cazorla Chávez are the garden's managers.
A filmmaker, Trevor has committed most of his adult life to promoting and exploring his Tshilqot'in heritage.
Alejandra is originally from Oaxaca in the south of Mexico where her grandmothers were farmers.
They said they see the garden as an opportunity for cultural exchange between Indigenous peoples from North and South America.
The two of them have been working on establishing the garden with help from Horacio Duran, also from Mexico, and Cody Elkins, a youth from Tl'etinqox.
Horacio is married to Lorriane Duran, a teacher in the school at Tl'etinqox, which is her home community.
Located on the south side of Highway 20 at Tl'etinqox First Nation, an hour's drive west of Williams Lake, the garden is watered from a nearby creek that flows from the Chilcotin River.
Trevor credits community member Dale Hance for initially starting a garden at the location in 2019.
Numerous dump truck loads of manure, sourced from local horse owners and ranchers, were brought in to enhance the soil, Trevor said.
With help from two other workers from Tl'etinqox, as well as volunteers, many vegetables were planted in 2024.
Crops include such things as 13 different varieties of corn, sweet corn, maize from Mexico and Peru, beans from Peru and squash, pumpkins, lettuce, radish, turnips, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, spinach, purple cabbage and strawberries.
They are not sure how the Peruvian corn will do as it is used to growing at 9,000 feet above sea level, they explained.
Once things began to be ready to harvest in August, they started bringing some of the food once a week to the Tl'etinqox health centre for distribution.
A separate large garden is dedicated entirely potatoes.
They planted 1,400 potatoes and 10 different varieties.
A potato harvest festival was planned for the end of September.
Along the edge of the garden they planted 70 juniper trees for shade, medicine and ceremonial purposes such as smudging.
"Before we touch anything we ask permission from the land," Alejandra said.
For example, while there is a drip line bringing water to the site, in the beginning they used buckets of water from the river.
They held a ceremony before they poured the first bucket of water and a child from the community carried the bucket to the site.
In the ceremony they acknowledged the four corners of the garden, smudging and offering tobacco.
"We gave out corn and potato seeds to everyone who came to the ceremony and they planted them," Trevor said.
Some of the plants began as seeds in their home and Alejandra said she sang to them everyday.
Other plants came from Horsefly Nursery.
In June and July a large greenhouse, 84 foot by 32 foot, was built at the site by a company from Vancouver.
Once the greenhouse is operational, they hope to nurse plants and seedlings there as well as grow natural local fauna and flora for habitat restoration.
Additionally, an in-ground gazebo and mini pit house are being constructed at the entrance of a medicine garden.
One of the biggest challenges so far was the cold and windy weather in June.
"I think it's been a learning experience to read the signs of the weather and keeping the faith that everything is going to be OK," Trevor said.
Alejandra said the state in Mexico where she grew up has more Indigenous people than some other states.
Her parents are doctors and one of her farming grandmothers was an expert in growing sesame seeds.
With experience living in Bolivia, along the Amazon River, in Ireland, the United Kingdom and France, Alejandra has been learning different ways people live self-sufficiently.
"I suffered not having water for the first time in my life when I was in Bolivia," she recalled. "It's a country that does not have enough fruit in some regions because they cannot afford to water the soil."
For a time she returned to Mexico and lived in the jungle where she hosted more than 200 volunteers from all over the world.
In the jungle, they had nine hectares with waterfalls and were teaching young people how to live a basic life without conveniences such as toilets, soap and how to do laundry without chemicals.
"We were teaching them how to live simply without generating garbage because in Mexico and other South American countries we have a big problem with garbage," she said.
The couple met at a meditation centre in Mexico. Alejandra was living there for one year and Trevor was there as a guest.
Together they travelled through South and Central America before venturing to Canada, ready to pour their energy into a project that is focused on Indigenous cultures.
Aside from the youth, elders are enjoying the garden too, they said.
"We've had impromptu visits from elders who tell us it's so peaceful and there is no place like this in the community," Trevor said.
Horacio spent many hours building a rock wall, gathering stones from a few hundred feet away from the garden.
As he worked he saw deer, bears and lots of birds.
"Sometimes the birds are singing for 20 minutes straight," he said.
The Tl'etinqox garden is not only a garden but a cultural space where they are trying to create awareness of how important it is that young people from Indigenous communities know how to value the resources in their own communities.
"Why can't we bring our people together to grow food as part of our cultural revitalization," Trevor said. "And bring together youth for cultural exchanges."
