In the Gardens of Hope Kanehsatake, rows of diverse plants grow calmly under the sun. Watermelon skins shine through thick foliage, like balloons puffed into different sizes, near a long bush of pumpkin that peeks through large leaves, polka dotted along the soil. Burgundy, burnt orange, and bright yellow flowers sway in the breeze, alongside the long thin stems of onions nearby.
Throughout the dozens of garden bed rows are various workers harvesting, de-weeding, and some – in the shade of the gazebo – take a break.
For Karyn Wahsontiiostha Murray, founder and owner of the garden, the teeming energy of many working and visiting it is what has made this year special.
Murray has always prided herself in making the garden a space for vulnerable people. She hopes her own journey of beating her drug addiction through her Christian faith and work in nature will help inspire and lead others to freedom.
“The relational tie of what this land did to heal me, is going to be able to do the same thing for somebody else,” said Murray. “Maybe not everybody else, but it’s going to be able to help somebody else just the way it helped me.”
The garden provides produce at no cost to Kanehsata’kehró:non and donates produce to the Kanesatake Health Center food bank. And the food from the garden is worked on by both locals and non-locals, from organizations that help provide social support to different Christian organizations.
Café Parenthèse, a community organization that helps people facing poverty or social exclusion, brings workers twice a week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
“These are marginalized folks from the region. Oftentimes, they live in tents in the summer and ask for different help in the winter,” said Murray.
Soon, Travail alternatif payé à la journée (TAPAJ), an organization that helps connect homeless or people with addiction with work, is bringing workers to the garden, including many who are Indigenous and living in Montreal.
“There are some people who just want to go and take a nap in the field before they work and that’s okay too because it’s a place where they feel safe. I had a young man tell me in his tent, he’s always worried somebody’s going to steal his shoes off his feet, so he comes here and just takes a nap,” said Murray. “We want to provide an environment where people feel like they can rest and grow, just like the land.”
At the garden on August 12, Christian Direction, an organization that works to improve the social and spiritual transformation of neighbourhoods, brought six summer students to the garden from their youth program in Peter McGill, a neighbourhood in Montreal.
Their Innovation Youth program gives youth from 14-20 years old, especially those who may face more challenges entering the job market, an opportunity to gain work experience in gardens and in a low-cost community produce market.
“It’s always a very grounding time for them,” said Katya Jutras, environmental educator of the program.
The team was harvesting pink, purple, and green beans from the plot of land Murray has lent them, where they grow the three sisters.
“It’s very healing,” said one of the students in the program, John Troumanis. “I really enjoy gardening here. It really calms me down.”
For the community, the garden will start offering dried herbs this year, said Murray. The Breakfast Club of Canada donated a greenhouse and commercial herb dryer where the ugly vegetables will be dried and powdered to make spices for the community, along with different herbs in the garden.
Wesley Tehaneratetani’es Murray-Nelson, Murray’s son who has worked at the garden for the past five years, said it is a great project for community members to connect with their land and traditions. Two local youth are employed through the Kanesatake Employment and Training Service Center (KETSC) summer internship program.
“For me working on the land, it’s really nice because that’s what my people did, and it’s nice to see what we can do for our community,” said Murray-Nelson.
“I love nature, so it’s wonderful. And I get a nice tan every year working here.”
hadassah@easterndoor.com
Hadassah Alencar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
By Hadassah Alencar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Aug 14, 2026 at 11:32
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