From food security to savoury delights, Inuvik Community Greenhouse has 25 years of experience and is always sprouting new ideas.

Aside from providing green thumbs with a warm space to cultivate their gardens, the longstanding facility has expanded operations to include a cafe and ongoing workshops on both creative and culinary arts.

"They had started this renovation last year with the idea we could have a space where we could serve coffees and teas," said executive director Alissa Sallans. "From there, that grew into this idea of serving locally-grown produce five metres from where it was grown.

"The whole idea is this is a place to grow. We also really want to encourage it as a place to gather as well."

Serving as a hub for both local residents and tourists, the cafe is stocked with Inuvialuit playing cards, puzzles from Eighty One Images and board games galore. Funding for the project was provided by Food Banks Canada and the GNWT's Community Tourism Infrastructure Contribution Program. Soup, salad and a sandwich of the day are available on weekends.

Adding to the 25-year celebration, Sallans noted the greenhouse set a record for the highest number of households registering plots this summer, with an even 100 digging in. This is on top of six plots cared for by East Three School students, six plots used by various community organizations and 46 market plots.

Other initiatives the greenhouse has been working on include Elders in Motion and hosting an Arctic Market on Wednesdays.

A popular activity through the summer has been ethnic cooking classes, taking advantage of Inuvik's diversity. Throughout the summer, members of different communities within Inuvik have come out to demonstrate how to cook a traditional meal. What began with an Ethiopian and Sudanese cuisine workshop has bloomed into a mosaic of the town's diversity, with workshops on El Salvadorian cuisine, Nigerian cooking, Nepalese recipes and Filipino foods.

This is in addition of more locally-rooted knowledge being taught at the greenhouse, including dry-fish curing, languages, bead work and more general homesteading knowledge, such as canning and pickling workshops. Lessons on making your own herb butter and therapeutic salves have also been offered during the summer.

Demonstrating the multi-use nature of the greenhouse, the building has also served as a gathering place for celebrations, including a wedding earlier this summer and an open mic harvest celebration on Aug. 30.

"We want this to be a place that feels open to everyone," said Sallans. "We have a menu to start with and as our chef comes up with new ideas, we will rotate those through."

Sallans said the cafe will remain open into early September and reopen next spring, as soon as it's warm enough to do so.