Northern Roots Gardens are home of Transform Your Yard into a Food Garden Mentorship program.
Northwest Territories
1. Describe your project, your place, and its inhabitants (including animals):
We live and work on Chief Drygeese Territory, treaty 8, the traditional land of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. Northern Roots has a respectful relationship with the land and its people.
Our gardens provide organic vegetables for customers, for self-sufficiency and for making value added products (sauerkrauts, jams, jellies, pickled beets) . The gardens are also home to garden mentorship programs. Each growing season from May to October visitors from schools, universities and the public come to learn more about how to grow vegetables.
The garden mentorships and agricultural consulting keep us busy year around. We work with Indigenous communities’ local food skills through our Agriculture Training and Mentorship programs. School gardening (including indoor gardening in winter in schools) also run year around.
In 2026 my grandson wants to do more flower farming. I am sure he would love your help making bouquets for selling in his road side stand!
We currently do not have any farm animals but may build a chicken coop in 2026!
In 2025 we built a new garden and had the project filmed. Here is a 35 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goOEOXgt9BU
We were previously WWOOF host from 2012 to 2015 and it was a really good experience.
2. List the activities that WWOOFers will participate in and what you want to teach them:
During the long sunny days of spring and summer the vegetables will grow with great speed and intensity here at latitude 62.
As a WWOOFER you’ll be learning about our unique climate and the details of growing the most amazing vegetables on the planet. You’ll be working alongside me to enhance soil health, seeding, plant in spring and caring for food plants. We will go foraging on the land at certain times during the summer. You will also be assisting with workshops and garden events at schools, youth programs and adult programs. We may also go to an Indigenous community in the Tlicho Region to host workshops and harvest with them in September.
During the 2026 summer we will be hosting garden tours all around the City of Yellowknife as well as an Open House at our new garden. I am also working on hosting a whole week of youth garden learning, and plan to host a local food feast in early August. If you like special events, this will be a lot of fun!
During the long winter we do lots of preserving, making and selling value added products, planning, writing, meeting with community leaders, program development, organizing supplies for trucking across the winter road and indoor garden programs.
I’d like to include you in all projects, where you’ll lean a lot about this amazing land and Dene culture. Plus learn about how to grow vegetables of course!
3. How will you feed and house WWOOFers? Please describe your accommodations and plan for meals:
I am very committed to self-sufficiency so there will be lots of nutritious vegetables and berries in the gardens. There will be home grown and home made meals. Together we will make a plan for taking turns and sharing daily chores.
You’ll have a room in a townhouse in a nice area close to downtown Yellowknife. It is a large house in two stories with a good kitchen that is fully equipped for making delicious food! I live in this house alone with my grandson spending time on weekends. There will be plenty of time and opportunity for privacy and also to connect with the locals, who are very friendly and helpful. It is very easy to make new friends in Yellowknife!
In summers we also enjoy camping at Reid Lake Campground 60KM east of Yellowknife. There we swim, have fires, go paddle boarding and play lots with the kids in the family.
I have an extra bicycle available that you can ride around town.
4. What could a WWOOFer's day look like at your site (time slot for participation in activities, expectations...)?
You will work 25 hours/week with two days off. We can sort out a schedule that works for both of us. There are many parts to my business so there is lots of room for you to learn and to find out what tasks you might be good at and might prefer. If you come with certain skills that are useful to the gardens or to garden skills teachings we can roll that into the work days. There are many projects on the go so each day is different and interesting! May is a very busy month with spring arriving, June there is lots to get done too. In July it's slightly more quiet and a great time for camping!
5. Play the guide! Talk about your own hobbies (music, cooking, etc.) and those possible around (hiking, swimming, etc.): I like card games, hanging out with friends over good food, camping and dancing! I’m quite social and love being around good people. I spend a lot of time with my 7 year old grandson. He's really fun and loves gardening too. Watch him here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouMILjU3T_0
There are lots of fun activities to do in Yellowknife, with year around outdoor adventures such as dog sledding, ice fishing , skidooing and the Snow Kings Festival in the winter. Festivals and other outdoor fun in the summers, and always really friendly people! We have amazing skies with northern lights from August to April!
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Learning opportunities
Vegetable farming
Wild foraging
Flower farming
Aromatic or medicinal plants, teas
Seed saving or production
Vegetable or fruit preservation
Food justice / sovereignty
Methods or systems
Biological pest control
Holistic management
Regenerative agriculture
Mentoring opportunities
Woman-operated
Host type
Self-sufficiency property
Former WWOOFer
0.2
Hectares
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0.5
Acres
Lone
Member since 2013
Languages spoken:
Danish, English
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Response rate: 100%
Northwest Territories
There’s a domestic airport in Yellowknife
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