Prince George Secondary School unveils new smokehouse

After two years in the making, the new student-made smokehouse was unveiled at Prince George Secondary School.

It will be used in coordination with the Experiential-Project-Based Indigenous Community Program (EPIC), which is being piloted this year.

Aleah Johnson teaches a grade 8 EPIC class, which is designed to teach students about Indigenous culture from all over Northern BC.

“Having a tool like this is so valuable because not only do we have something disposable at our hands, we don’t have to pay for bussing, it takes away a lot of those barriers when it comes to doing projects like this. So having the resources on-site to smoke fish, to can fish, to process it is really important,” Johnson stated.

Johnson says having tools such as the smokehouse on site will make teaching cultural practices much easier.

“We are involving Indigenous culture within the school for those who may not have access to it from home,” added PGSS Principal, Chris Molcak.

Meanwhile, SD57 Board Chair Sharel Warrington says the smokehouse will serve as a way for all PGSS students to experience and understand Indigenous culture.

As part of the program, students will learn how to cut and gut fish, moose, and other meats to prepare them to be smoked.

“They’re going to be learning from different cultures, they’re going to be learning from different people that cut their fish differently and smoke their fish differently and can their fish differently so that’s the beauty is that within this process there’s so many different aspects and so many different ways of doing them,” she added.

While the EPIC program has only been running for two weeks, Johnson has big plans for the students, many of which focus on getting kids outdoors.

“We’re actually going to be doing some land-based shelter building,” she said, “they’ll be learning some bushcraft skills of like how can you split wood with a knife if you don’t have a hatchet, learning some of these skills while we’re out and really trying to get these kids out as much as possible.”

Johnson adds the EPIC  program isn’t just for Indigenous students, and notes many non-Indigenous students often fish and will be able to use this tool outside of school as well.