On Fireweed

Last week I was working in my garden.  The patch of Canada violets was lush and green, covered with white violets.  Young fireweed stalks were coming up in a clump along the path from the gate.  They are spreading, as are the ostrich ferns, making the land their own.  I picked a tender young stalk, stripped off the leaves and peeled the cortex off to eat the soft green inner stem. Taste of spring.  Taste of locale.  Very local.  From my 10 by 40m urban yard.  Made me think back to Verly Nelson teaching me to eat fireweed on a walk nearly 40 years ago to the Kitamaat reserve on the delta of the Kitimat River in northwestern British Columbia. I found that properly peeled young fireweed stalk reminds me of raw kohlrabi, or broccoli stems.  The very young tender tops can also be cooked and eaten as a potherb; we used to combine them with tender dandelion leaves, nodding onion and, if we were lucky, morel mushroons when I lived on the Skeena near Cedarvale.

  Fireweed (Chamaerion angustifolium) has many uses.  Its magenta blossoms brighten large expanses of cut over land and burnt forest and is a great source of nectar for bees. It is circumpolar; in the British Isles it goes by the moniker "willow herb" and in Ireland, Blooming Sally.  Fireweed honey is delicious, white and a touch acidic. I used to melt honey on the wood stove to put on whole wheat sourdough pancakes a long time ago when I lived in little off-grid cabins in the Kootenays in southeastern BC. Before my daughter Rose was born. Before I moved to Gitxsan Territory in northwest BC.  Fireweed is the territorial flower of the Yukon, and one of the four Clans of the Gitxsan, the Gisga'ast.   Its image is rendered in crests and artwork.  The Gil haast, the single fireweed, is described in the migrations of  chronicled by the late Walter Wright, from Kitselas in the slender volume called Men of Medeek (Wil Robinson, 1966, Sentinel Press, Kitimat BC) The Gitxsan used to take the marrow of somewhat older fireweed stalks and use it as a binder in their table sized fruit leathers, aka berry cakes, most typically made from black huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum) known in Gitxsanimx as Sim M'aay, the "real" berry.  Other fruits also could be made into berry cakes, including red elder berry.  The small seedy red berries of bunch berry (Cornus canadensis)  sgan gapgoyp were an alternate source of thickening.  The late Olive Ryan, Gwans, told wonderful stories of berry camp in the subalpine on the mountain known as Steykooden, behind Gitsegukla.  People picked for a couple of weeks, and then the berries were boiled in large bentwood boxes covered with woven cedarbark mats. Rocks were heated in a fire and then dropped in to the box of berries until the liquid began to boil.  When the fruit was cooked, it was ladled onto cedar splint berry racks (skeexsin) covered by skunk cabbage leaves ["like Indian wax paper"] or layered thimble berry leaves to prevent leakage. (see Johnson 1997 Plants, Land and People, Gitksan Ethnobotany, PhD Dissertation, University of Alberta) for more detail of Olive's story and Gathering what the Great Nature Provided, People of Ksan, 1980, for more about cooking berries and making berry cakes).

The fireweed can also provide cordage suitable for fish nets and other uses.  Mrs. Harriet Hudson, Tsimshian from Kitselas, told Indigenous ethnographer William Beynon about the discovery of the use of nettle fibre to make fish nets in 1948 (narrative number 29 in Tsimshian Narratives volume 1, edited by Cove and MacDonald, published by the Canadian Museum of Civilization  in the 1987).  Incidentally, when describing how to process the nettle fibre, she mentioned that fireweed stalks could also provide a suitable string.  Harlan Smith's Gitxsan consultants from Gitwangak in the 1920's also mentioned how to make this string (Ethnobotany of the Gitksan Indians of British Columbia, edited by Compton, Rigsby and Tarpent, Canadian Museum of Civilization 1997).  Both nettle (Urtica dioica) and fireweed fibres are bast fibres, like the flax fibre (from Linum usitatissimum) that is used to make linen. Similarly, the mature stalks must be retted, that is, they must decompose just enough that it is possible to separate the fibres from both the papery cortex and the woody vascular cylinder.  To little, the fibres break with the brittle vascular tissue.  Too much, the fibres break because they are rotted.  I have tried this myself, and finger twined quite reasonable two ply cord of a pleasing reddish brown tone.
I find it comforting to have fireweed appear in my urban yard in central Alberta. A reminder of wilder and more northern places I've lived and travelled.

Another spring (I guess) in the era of chaotic climate

my Edmonton yard, April 23

Another spring.  I guess.  In the era of chaotic climate.  My last blog post was April 16 of last year, with a comment two weeks later on the McMurray fire.  I talked about dandelions, and wild blue violets, then about my concerns for a dry summer. This year....I'm looking at a sodden blanket of very wet spring snow.  For the third time in April, a couple of warm days and the snow finally off....followed by grey, drizzle, rain and sleet and finally a new blanket of wet snow covering everything.  In February the weather was lovely- +12 or so, the snow melting fast, sunny.  Then March brought a return to snow/thaw cycles.  Oscillations of temperature and precipitation.  The manitoba maples are poised to open their flowers...but keep getting snowed on.  The aspens tassled already several weeks ago, and the hazel flowers, tiny crimson fringed stars, were already opening.  Now LONG grey and white days.  It is nearly May Day, but no green is to be seen around the fresh blanket of white. The past few years have seemed to feature rapid temperature oscillations throughout the entire year.  Literally, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute.  Core-less winters and summers both.  What seems evident in lived experience is the utter lack of predictability.  This winter, and last, cross-country skiing was poor, sporadically available.  New snow followed by a melt and thaw, then cold temperatures with no snow.  You can't ski on ice.  In February it literally felt like spring this winter and last.  February, traditionally the heart of winter in this northern prairie climate.  This year we had snow on Thanksgiving (early October in Canada) but then barely had snow for Christmas.
The lack of predictability, of melts and hard freezes, has ramifications.  In the North, caribou (and reindeer) have trouble feeding when a midwinter followed by a hard freeze created a layer of ice they can't paw through to find lichens.  River ice, crucial for winter transport in the Canadian north, freezes late and has to be artificially thickened to enable motorized transportation across rivers, as crossing the Dempster Highway at Tsiigehtchic.  Warmer climate can cause heavier snowfalls in some places as well, as warmer air holds more moisture than cold.  Plants can flower too soon, fooled by anomalously warm weather, and then young fruit can freeze in later cold.  Chronic stress can cause trees and shrubs to be more susceptible to fungi and to insect attack.  Pathogenic fungi, and insect pests may increase their range, no longer being killed off by prolonged winter cold snaps.  This is the mountain pine beetle story, pushing widespread change in forest composition across British Columbia and elsewhere in the mountain west. 
It's never as simple as "climatic warming". We experience shifts in weather, and in frequency of different weather events.  On a recent trip to the US, I noted that weather reports featured maps showing occurance of "extreme weather".  This was new for me....but not really surprising, as the "atmospheric rivers" are bringing massive amounts of rain, and flooding, to definitively end California's multi-year severe drought. Rainfall and flooding have reached records in some areas not surpassed in the period of recordkeeping
But climate warming, the aggregate of all of the intensified fluctuations, does drive larger changes, melting of permafrost, increasing aridity, changes in range distributions of everything from algae to trees, and of animals species as well. Pacific salmon are appearing in the Arctic, running up the Mackenzie system at the same time as sockeye numbers are diminishing in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.  Probably small rises in mid Ocean temperatures, and in the temperature of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean are responsible.
Yesterday was Earth Day. Blessings to our planet and may it continue to sustain (and tolerate ??) us.  Yesterday thousands of scientists and concerned citizens marched for the defense of science, which has been under attack by the climate-denying regime in Washington.  I never imagined I would read of thousands and thousands of scientists and supporters marching [having to march] to underscore the value of science to humanity, to bring the necessity of good science to the public....in part because key segments of the US do not want the inconvenience of having to make significant changes to limit the impacts of our species, and [try to] retain the state of the planet in a pattern that can sustain our own well-being. They would prefer to deny that human action, that business-as-usual, could be causing serious, and likely irreversible, changes to global climate. 
The short-sightedness of the President's pro-coal efforts, at the point when coal use is already declining world-wide, is a small piece of evidence of the self-defeating and unwise courses of action prompted by short-term economic perspectives in reaction to the challenges of actually dealing with ameliorating climate change.  I have deep sympathy for the dislocation of traditional ways of life and can understand the frustration of those from coal mining regions. But a more pro-active response through economic diversification would be a better response than to promote a short lived extension of coal economy, with the inevitable impacts of these last paroxysms of mining on these already much altered landscapes.
We are in uncharted waters.  Our numbers, and our impacts on our home planet are unprecedented.  People argue that our influence on Earth processes is so great that we are actually in a new geologic epoch, the Anthroposcene. (My ex-husband, in a moment of disparagement some twenty two years agocalled it the Obscene some twenty years ago). Climate change and other forms environmental change proceed at global scales. The chemistry of both oceans and atmosphere are changing in response to our activities. We also live in an age of unprecedented communication and interconnection.  People form virtual communities of continental, or even global reach. New modes of communication offer hope as well as threat as we can find those of like mind all over the world, and can promote our diverse messages far beyond the reach of our individual communities.  Chillingly, they can also create echo chambers so we hear only the voices of those with whom we agree, thus polarizing our very senses of reality.  Alt facts are lies.... but depending on where you stand, which is the "alt"? Does truth even exist in a "post-truth century"?  I would argue yes it does. Events like the Oroville Dam flood in California a few weeks ago did happen, even while their causes might be argued.  The March for Science speaks to the necessity of knowing as much as we can, in a dispassionate way, to try to make good decisions for our collective future.

wild roses

I walk with wild roses through the green
while the crystal globes of the dandelions shed their seeds on the wind
the birds dance in the air above the lapping stream
and the rustle of the poplar leaves is threaded with birdsong

The wild roses are blooming in the ravine, sweet heady scent.  After the rain, the ground is soft and dark, and the green burgeoning.  Most things have recovered now from early heat and drought, though it looks like there will be no hazelnuts this year.  The creek flooded from the heavy rains in the past two weeks and the lower trail is sticky with thick mud and logs drifted across the path.

I always think of my mother at this time of year.  The wild roses bloom around her birthday, June 6.  Things are a bit early this year....I saw three yellow warblers, like impossibly bright moving flowers, dart among the green leaves as I walked, a blast of complex interwoven trajectories, like celtic knotwork in motion– then gone from sight.

Seasons. Connections. Memories.

Raining

Raining.  The whole day cool and grey, welcome blessed rain soaking the parched ground.  After the heat and dry, cool and wet.  Made channa curry tonight....made me think back to days long ago, living in a little bush cabin, cooking our dried garbanzos with spices and our home-canned tomatoes, gathering 'wild ginger' root (Asarum caudatum) to use in place of the store-bought ginger we didn't have.  Washed down with home-made green tomato chutney.  Nice to be home, quiet, in the house.  A moment's solitude.  Tonight I used store-bought ginger from my local natural food store, and a garam masala that I bought rather than mixed myself.  And I made a wonderful eggplant curry with little Indian eggplants I bought down in "Little India" in Millwoods, the Indo-Canadian community at the southeast corner of Edmonton.  I was trying to replicate something I've recently had at an Indian restaurant buffet....first time I've seen these little egg-shaped eggplants for sale....so I had to try some.  I had to interpolate between my friend Sigrid Shepard's recipe, one I found on the web, and my memory of the dish I'd eaten; none of the recipes did quite what I wanted.  However I worked it out, the result was delicious, and will serve for tomorrow's lunch as well.
Glad as I am the rains have come, this unnaturally early year still speaks strongly to global climate change.  Apparently this year is on the way to being the warmest on record.  I've read that in fact this is the 11th month in a row that is a record warm year planet wide.  No surprise that the boreal forest around Fort McMurray has burned- more than 450,000hectares to date.  Yesterday, before it began to rain, the wind shifted and the smoke was so thick it was as nearly as bad as I experienced 10 m from a major forest fire near Tsiigehtchic in August of 1999.  And that fire was 12 km from where I was.  This- hundreds.  Air quality went from three to 7 to 10 (top of the scale) in a few hours here in Edmonton.  Then the forcast rain began to fall.  We've had no rain of consequence til now in more than a month.  The soil surface yesterday was dry as powder walking in the ravine.  Dust bowl days come again.
Tipping points.  My ex used to call the current time period the Ob-scene (coming after the Holocene, completely recent, the time after the ice left in the Pleistocene).  It is now fashionable to call this the Anthropocene.  I dragged my feet a bit on the new term....but the more I think about accelerating species extinctions, ocean acidification, being poised to loose the whole suite of Arctic fauna, an entire ecosystem, with the probable complete loss of permanent sea ice.....much more than the iconic Polar bear....3/4 of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia suffering substantial coral bleaching.....and I think, hmm.  Yes this kind of faunal overturn, changes in ocean chemistry, temperature shifts....yes they do seem to rival big dramatic changes in Earth History, in the paleaontological record.
And I've read that this year is already 1.5 °C above the long term mean of the 20th century....Paris sets us to try to limit change to that level over the next 65 years.....a strong El Niño, yes.  But something beyond.  Anthropogenic, yes.  So the Anthropocene is here. And we are all complicit, caught in a way of life that requires gulping energy to subsidize everything about our current globally connected urbanized lives.  Whether we drive a hybrid or put solar panels on our roof, or poo-poo the whole thing and use our wealth to maintain our current comforts,  we are all complicit.  And having caught this iconic tiger by the toe....how then do we, can we, let go?  Where do we fit all of our other values against this one BIG problem?  Future discounting is so characteristic of our species, and so tempting....putting off the problem for the grandchildren to cope with, or at least until tomorrow, or next year, or....
I live in what passes for a heritage house in Edmonton, 95 years old, made of beautiful clear timber from BC's lower mainland.  I honour my house, and the lives of the trees it took to make it.  I honour its history.  But where then do I fit energy efficiency?  Because of the cold weather today, I have the (gas powered) heat on, in late May....the walls are insulated with sawdust; there are some voids at the top of the walls, as the sawdust has settled with time.  Should I be ripping up my walls to insulate more heavily?  I work at home, so the commute doesn't consume energy (I walk across the hall), but I do travel for work, conferences, research....and put 5 to 10,000 km per year on vehicles for that purpose, and several lengthy air flights.  I also do not ride my bike for errands all through the winter, but use my car....so we are all complicit.
As the day slowly darkens into night, I wonder what will happen with the Alberta economy in the wake of both an oil price down-turn and the destruction of infrastructure and homes in the vicinity of Fort McMurray?  Sobering choices.  At least the rain may the fires and check their explosive growth.  For now. And there were several other large fires in Northern Alberta, and elsewhere, this unnaturally early spring which have sparked (so to speak) more evacuations. 

Spring Tonic

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Spring tonic

Working in the garden…it’s early, really early this year.  Pruning last year’s raspberry canes.  Digging the quack grass that snuck into the berry patch when we replaced the fence last fall….and I notice that I’ve uprooted some prime dandelions….so I toss them aside while I remove the quack grass and creeping campanula from the turned earth.  After a while I think….oh, I’d better take care of the dandelions before they dry out.  And I dig some more to round out the batch.  I rinse the dirt off once outside, and scrub the roots twice inside the house, removing all of the tops that have not wilted yet.  I cut the root into small relatively uniform chunks and set them outside to dry for dandelion “coffee”.  (Some of the depsides, flavour compounds in roasted chicory root, and I presume dandelion root as well, are the same as the compounds that flavour roasted coffee.  Naturally caffeine free.)

Then I turn my attention to the tops, selecting relatively undamaged crowns, pulling off older damaged leaves.  And then I think of my spring tonic on the Skeena years ago….so I check the herb bed to see if the chives are up….and they are! So I pull a handful of new chive tops in lieu of the nodding onion I used to add to my stir-fry.  I chop a half jalapeño and some ginger root (definitely not locally sourced) and heat oil in my wok (a mixture of grape seed and sesame), toss in the greens and accompaniment, and stir-fry til they are bright green and wilted.  I add slices of hard-boiled egg (those are local, from the Farmer’s market), stir a bit longer, and eat my spring tonic.  Thank you dandelions and chives.  Spring blessing.

 

As I harvest, process, and eat, I think about multi-species ethnography, research through practice, and "attending." I am reading the dissertation of a young colleague who is writing about the stories of plants and people.  I’ve also been listening to other colleagues at the recent ethnobiology conference in Tucson talking about multi-species ethnography.  So.  Definitely “located knowledge” as the dandelions are from my urban back yard.  Definitely I have been attending to the dandelions, and the ground where they grow, for the 15 plus years I have lived on this 10 by 40 metre plot of urban landscape.  The raspberries are leafing out.  Already.  At least three weeks before “normal”, whatever that is in this time of progressive and stochastic change.  The chives agree that spring is here.  The maples have opened their flowers and the honeysuckles and cotoneaster are also opening their leaves.  The ground in the raspberry patch is graced by clumps of glorious blooming purple violets. 

They are spreading rapidly, apparently undamaged by the fencing activities of the fall.  In fact, they began to bloom two weeks ago, at the beginning of April.  First blossoms of spring.  All of this in Edmonton, at latitude 53 North, in the Canadian prairies….

We read last night that this is the 11^th warmest month on record in a row, itself a record series. And this is global temperatures, not an Alberta anomaly.  Climate change really is here, and all bets are off.

Enjoying spring.  And crossing my fingers for the summer to come.

Conjunctions: Historical Ecology, Climate Change and Hatred

Gitwangak, 1899 PN 12106, RBC Museum

I've just returned from a lovely and visionary gathering of young scholars and others interested in understanding how past human ecological relationships and practices may inform the present and help evaluate future options.  The group is called "Niche" (a play on words obviously for adaptive or ecological niches) an acronym for "New International Community for Historical Ecology" and the meeting at Simon Fraser University was its second.  My talk centred on three themes in my on-going research on Gitxsan and Witsuwit'en ethnoecology: possible anthropogenic distributions of two food plants, Pacific crabapple and riceroot lily;

Pacific crabapple in Miinskinisht; tree about 150 years old

the historic role of fire in black huckleberry patch maintenance, and potential contemporary management through mechanical brushing or small scale controlled burning, and finally, the challenges and dilemmas of maintaining populations of pacific salmon species, given global and localized environmental changes.

pair of sockeye salmon on spawning ground, Hanna Creek, Nass drainage

While we were there learning about the diverse and interesting research on human/environmental pasts, presents and possible futures from established and younger scholars, we got news of the terrible events of November 13 in Paris, where sectarian inspired real terrorism burst on French society, killing more than a hundred and twenty innocent citizens engaged in listening to music, eating Cambodian food with friends or family, or attending a high level soccer match between France and Germany.  As I returned home a third piece of the chance assemblage of times, places and topics hit me: Paris, site of this horrific hate event, is also the site of the next global climate talks in a mere two weeks. The juxtaposition of these events provoked deep thought: how can humans attains some level of accommodation with the planet to avoid the most catastrophic effects of our choices and actions when inter-group conflict (aka war) keeps shifting priorities and causing societies to engage in terrible acts of social and environmental violence, devastating human and ecological communities alike?  Talking at the conference earlier with my colleague Eugene Anderson (Gene, or "krazykioti" to those who know him), he commented that we have to solve hatred, or we cannot meaningfully and effectively address problems of humans and the environment, perhaps better phrased as mending the relationships between people and the rest of the ecological family to which we belong.  This topic is taken up in Gene's 2014 book Caning for Place, Ecology, Ideology and Emotion in Traditional Landscape Management (Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek California).  In a sense, the interrelationships between social and environmental sustainability, and human actions posed by armed conflict and its effects is a special case of "if we do not hang together, we shall all hang separately".  If societies and social actors cannot moderate their actions to avoid catastrophic conflict, with all the short and long term consequences this entails, it bodes poorly for the planet-wide collective action needed to avert serious consequences of anthropogenic climate change on all life.  Anthropogenic climate change is a reality; what is at question is can we moderate its severity through our focussed attention across the globe, in the face of many forces pushing in the opposite direction.  As long as war and armed conflict are the elephant in the room, accords reached in peace time may have little power to direct the actual course of events.  I hope world leaders will have the courage to meet in Paris despite the risks posed by extremists, and I hope they will find the resolve to move forward in strong and meaningful ways to mitigate climate change through concerted international action.
Meanwhile, as private citizens, we must do what we can to mitigate our consumption of energy and material, to live more simply and equitably, and to be tolerant of difference, rather than provoke and nourish conflict and resentment through demonizing people of good will who have made different choices than those our society or own ethnic or religions groups have made. We need to recognize the commonalities of our human lives.  We must seek to understand and to come together in a good way to nurture our planet and humankind both.
The following website was shared on  Facebook today in the wake of the events in Paris.  I think it is extremely important to remember that the vast majority of people do not wish harm to others, and simply wish to live their lives as we strive to heal violence and work toward peace:
http://mashable.com/2014/09/22/notinmyname-muslims-anti-isis-social-media-campaign/?utm_campaign=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it#mLifH32fGiqX

Dwelling, Snow and Memory

I've been reading some of Tim Ingold's new book....so thinking about dwelling- and living- life as process, as medium.  Walking on my snowshoes along the back trail in the ravine, I pause for some frozen highbush cranberries.

Their refreshing tang is sharp on the tongue.  Experiencing snow, red jewels of colour, aspen and wild cherry trunks.  Being.  Moving.  Traversing the line of the trail, also a line of memory.  (But of course one must not forget that lines have width, extent, as well as length.  This line was widened by my snowshoes, which require a wider trail width than the feet of walkers, or the fat tire of snow bikes).  Looking down at my snowshoes, made of maple, laced with babiche of deer and of cowhide, decked with red and black pompoms.  Percy made these.  Percy had been making snowshoes since he was 14.  He's gone now, on the trail to wherever we go when we leave this place.  Percy made these for me 37 years ago, when my daughter was a tiny infant still riding in a snugglie pack.  I enjoy the pattern their prints make on the new fallen snow, enjoy the freedom to pick my path as depth of snow is not relevant to constraining my motion.  I'm wearing my canvas boots, Tli Cho work, made for my late mother in law Jean when she was community health nurse in what was then called Rae Lakes.  She gave them to me when I went north for winter fieldwork 15 years ago.  Enjoying the comfort of the deep red wool duffel liners made by my Gwich'in friend Agnes, hand stitched with herringbone stitch in variegated tones of blue and purple.  She found it a bit of a challenge to fit Gwich'in cut duffel liners into Tli Cho canvas boots....but they work wonderfully, keeping feet and legs warm.  Like wearing slippers or walking on a cloud.  They are perfect for the snowshoes, fit the bindings effortlessly, allow one to step into the shoes, and as easily step out, sparing the hands from fumbling with frozen buckles or laces. Dwelling.  Sharing life with the trees and birds and animals of the ravine.  Walking among the trees.  A good way to walk into the new year.