I cross Prior and ride slowly down Hawks Street, bordered by the empty park on one side and a long hedge of blackberry on the other. The freezing wind blows my hair across my eyes as I finally arrive at my destination: a gap in the hedge to my right with a narrow dirt pathway through it. I hop off my bicycle, leave the noisy roar of the road behind me, slide through the hedge, and suddenly I am in a garden. The oasis is Strathcona Community Garden, started over fifteen years ago by a small group of dedicated seed-planters and activists on rehabilitated industrial wasteland, now comprised of several acres of good soil and carefully-maintained plots.

Beyond cold frames, trellises and aerating compost bins, there is a flurry of activity and I set out towards it. As I approach the worksite I pass scattered knapsacks, saws, green and red-checked Mackintosh jackets. Through the rain, the sound of a circular saw grows louder and bodies in bright sun-yellow rain gear move across a background of wetness and mud. Susan, one of the coordinators looks up and waves. “Hi, we're just doing some digging,” she calls. My gaze travels to the pit that has appeared over the past four weeks and, in it, five women inspecting something I can't identify. "I want to do some interviews," I half-yell. "I have treats." several muddy faces turn to look curiously, and several smile. I'm in.

The Young Women Creating Change (YWCC) carpentry project has been going on in the Garden for almost a year now, sponsored by the Environmental Youth Alliance (EYA) via grants from Youth Services Canada (a federal government initiative) and the Canadian Women's Foundation. YWCC, as the name suggests, is a group of young women, aged eighteen to twenty-five. For this project, they are simultaneously learning about many facets of carpentry and construction (including form work, framing and roofing) and actually working as the site construction crew themselves. The building, now in its second phase, is an “eco-pavilion” in Strathcona Garden, an “environmentally sound” structure that gardeners will use as a place to meet, exchange information, gather resources, store their gear and wash their produce.

There are nine participants on the project plus two coordinators and one skilled carpenter, all women. They come from a wide variety of economic, political, ethnic, and sexual backgrounds; diversity, and not level of experience, was a criterion of the hiring process. Some have previous carpentry experience but several do not. "The women started doing the carpentry thing for different reasons," Rachel, one of the coordinators, tell me. "Some wanted to get on job sites. It's really hard to get a job without the training. So there was that. There was, 'I want these skills so I can do work for non-profits.' or 'I want to work with women.' Whereas maybe the first woman interviewed said, 'Working with women? Sure, whatever ... I just want a paid spot on a carpentry training program.

Many of the participants on YWCC live in the area, and heard about the program through outreach to organizations in the neighborhood such as Trade works, the Vancouver Lesbian Connection, and the Native Employment Centre. Young Women Creating Change is one of only three all-women's carpentry training programs in Canada, the other two being an apprenticeship program with a long waiting list on Saltspring Island and a collective that does work for non-profits in Toronto.

Joy, a participant, walks me along a wood-planked boardwalk that was the group's first big on-site project. It meanders along the largely unused southern edge of the Garden, between blackberry bushes and beside a shallow swampy pond. All the women of YWCC undertake individual projects one day of their work weeks; the boardwalk is Joy's personal interest. The projects lead up to workshops for the other women in the group, or to presentations and events in the community. The plan for the wheelchair-accessible boardwalk is that it will eventually pass right through the blackberry bushes and be used by gardeners and local people for berry-picking.

After the boardwalk tour, Joy and I settle on the bench she has just helped to build and munch almond cookies from The New Town Bakery on Pender Street. She lights up a cigarette and leans conspiratorially towards me. “Don't tell anyone you saw me doing this,” she says, half kidding. “I’m supposed to be quitting.” We laugh and lean back, thankful for a sudden flash of sun. “But, Actually, I'm trying not to smoke around Brenna. She's pregnant and it's really hard for her not to want a smoke.” I nod and promise not to tell.